Dear Elon,

On behalf of the Diversified Organization of Grant Enablers, (the original DOGE), thank you for ordering the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation to flag proposals that contain certain oppressive “woke” words you don’t like. We’re not wild about them either.

Forbes leaked the list of the 197 terms, rendered here in bold italics. (And kudos, dear sir, for not banning George Carlin’s seven dirty words!)

BTW, the biased media is inflating the number of forbidden words, trying to make you look bad. For example, it counts as individual terms diverse, diverse backgrounds, diverse communities, diverse community, diverse group, diverse groups, diversified, diversify, diversifying, and diversity. Fake news, is it not?

But we have a suggestion. Rather than ban them, giving the liberals something easy to roast you with, why not put them to work in an anti-woke context? That’s what our professional team of DOGE grant writers has done in a model culturally appropriate proposal. You will love it, even though it uses just about all the barred terms. (Sorry, we failed to squeeze in people + uterus.)

We don’t want to brag, but this can’t-miss proposal will shake up the lunatic left. You will want to immediately fund it, even while chain-sawing so many others into sawdust. And when you spread the word on X, your popularity with anti-woke key groups is going to skyrocket! Even Steve Bannon will snuggle up to you.

Thanks for purifying our thoughts and bringing your antiracist Afrikaner sensibility to our great nation.

Proposal For Reparations for the Descendants of Slave Owners (DSO)

Britain abolished slavery in 1833 and provided former slave owners 20 million British pounds (the equivalent today of $22.1 billion US dollars) as compensation. Racial justice demands a similar response from the U.S. federal government for the descendants of U.S. slave owners.

In South Africa today, oppressed white farmers face land confiscation without compensation from its BIPOC government. Slave owners in the U.S. were victims of a similar injustice after the Civil War, punished for their identity. Without reparations, which have been too long denied, their descendants are victimized again generation after generation.

To promote a truly inclusive society based on equity, equality, and diversity for all, we must recognize and celebrate our cultural differences. While we are a nation of immigrants, we also are a nation of slaveowners!

For too long implicit bias and hate speech have been used against those, due to no fault of their own, who were born into slave-owning families. These key populations, labeled DSO here, should be considered at risk minorities. They helped create our national identity and contributed significantly to our cultural heritage. Racism in America would have little meaning without them.

Our proposal is a multicultural exploration of race and ethnicity among the slave-owning class, and their extended contact with indigenous communities and the Hispanic minority along the Gulf of Mexico. These marginalized non-white groups, including males and females, also owned slaves and suffered losses due to emancipation.

We must put aside our stereotypes about the plantation class. This underappreciated and undervalued population is difficult to analyze due to our own unconscious bias against all aspects of slavery. The DSO have lost their voice and its once fearsome power, since some ancestors of slaveowners are burdened by a crippling sense of guilt and so are underrepresented in modern political discourse.

To advocate for reparations for DSO members is not to whitewash their faults. Slave-owners promoted systemic racism, segregation, and white privilege— even for white non-slave-owners— but we should acknowledge their genuine sense of belonging formed though the intersectionality of sociocultural and socioeconomic factors in plantation society.

Even though white women were systematically placed on a pedestal, they were never excluded from institutional slave-owning power. They adored their narrow gender identity. These women of high status were never marginalized by aggressive feminists. They were totally at ease with being biologically female and with the gender they were assigned at birth.

Also, we can find no transgender and transexual members of slave-owning society and the DSO. Women did not run domestic plantation life in order to overcome disparities or spew meaningless pronouns in polite society. This wholesome tradition has been carried on by the DSO and provides another reason for just compensation.

A key, but seldom discussed factor, is the gender-based violence suffered at the hands of marauding Yankee soldiers. The DSO may deserve additional compensation for the trauma suffered as well as any resulting mental disabilities of their forebearers.

Meanwhile, slave-owning men were real men, biologically males with no wanton legacy of men having sex with men (MSM). And please forgive us for a personal judgement: These god-fearing slaveowners left their descendants with not the faintest expressions of non-binary awareness, thank goodness.

Because of the uncompensated destruction of the slave-holding structures, we regret to report that more than a few white plantation women became commercial sex workers in order to survive the marauding armies. The anguish and mental health problems facing white plantation prostitutes should be considered when awarding reparations. While it is too late to do something for them, our unconscious bias about sex should not distract us from a path of justice for their descendants.

Another important thread connects the slave owners to the climate crisis they and their descendants experienced. Monocrops repeatedly planted to raise cash in trade depleted the soil on Southern farms, creating pollution in their drinking water and a more generally degraded environmental quality. Westward expansion of slavery took more and more land from Native American tribes. Without climate science to inform them, effective solutions were missed and succeeding generations paid the price. We compensate farmers today for crop failures and tariff losses, why not do the same for the DSO including tribal DSO?

We hope that grant reviewers will look beyond their built-in anti-slaveowner confirmation bias, as well as their preconceived notions about race and ethnicity. It’s time to hone our cultural sensitivity and embrace a true cultural diversity, one that includes both descendants of slaves and slave owners. Our all-inclusive survey will make plain the biases we hold against this DSO class.

Since the Civil War, polarization has led to oppression and vilification of our great but marginalized plantation heritage. This injustice can only be rectified by fair and equitable compensation for the undervalued and underserved, whose relatives had their Black human capital stripped from them.

Our project asks only that we adjust our orientation and increase the diversity of those considered the victims of slavery. We must foster inclusiveness, devising just and equitable compensation programs for all descendants of slavery, including the DSO.

Social justice requires that we overcome our own prejudices and promote diversity of thought. By doing so, we all should recognize that slave-owning descendants too should be considered among our most vulnerable populations, entitled to equal opportunities when reparations are considered.

Now is the time to rectify the historical inequity faced by the DSO.

Now is the time to enhance the diversity of reparations recipients and the way they are viewed.

Now is the time to fund our bold proposal which strives, like no other, to bring community equity to all our people.

Cc: Rober Kennedy Jr., J.D. Vance, and the descendants of Robert E. Lee

On the corner of West 25th Street and Broadway, a sea of blood-stained hands gather silently amid the noises of Midtown Manhattan. As tourists and locals rush across the intersection, some attempt to decipher the demonstration. A sign in Serbian Cyrillic reads, "Love for students, the ocean divides us, the fight connects us." After 15 minutes, the crowd breaks their silence, embracing one another through a shared goal, to show support for the students of Serbia.

This demonstration is part of a larger student-led resistance sweeping Serbia over the past three months. After the deadly collapse of a canopy at a newly renovated railway station that claimed the lives of 16 people in Novi Sad, the country's second-largest city, public outrage has sparked a monumental fight against corruption. Protesters first took to the streets to demand accountability from government officials for the negligence and dishonesty that resulted in the tragedy. They staged silent protests starting at 11:52 am, the time the canopy collapsed, standing silently for 15 minutes, one minute for every life lost. After students of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts were assaulted during a peaceful protest on November 22 by pro-government thugs who may have been directed or even paid by government officials, anger over the collapse gave way to broader outrage.

The attack on the students, the lack of accountability from the corrupt populist government, and the deceit behind the construction of the railway station have led to a larger demand to restore justice and accountability. A bloody handprint, which has grown to be the symbol for the student movement, represents the culpability that the Serbian government has in the canopy collapse and for years of an oppressive and controlling regime. The protests are writing history, leading to the resignation of more than a dozen government officials and growing to become the largest student-run movement Serbia has seen since the 1990s and possibly the largest in Europe since 1968.

For most Serbians, a movement of this magnitude seemed unimaginable, especially from a generation with high emigration rates, yet the students have made the impossible a reality.

The Serbian Progressive Party or Srpska Napredna Stranka has been the ruling political party since 2012 when Aleksandar Vučić took office. In the years since, his government has been accused of having ties to organized crime, bribing voters, and abusing its political power to threaten opposition. His populist government, and the oligarchy it perpetuates, have threatened and dismantled civilian rights and freedoms within the country.

The renovation of the train station, which began in 2021, was the product of a larger project led by Serbia, China, and Hungary to develop a fast rail pathway between Belgrade and Budapest. Vučić's boasting about the station's upgrade and the project during his 2022 election campaign only increased suspicions following the collapse when he claimed that the canopy had not been renovated during the reconstruction. Documentation that later emerged proved this to be false and showed that at minimum some work was done on the canopy. The glorified reconstruction of the station and its ultimately deadly faulty construction is seen as an emblem of Vučić's neglect of public safety, infrastructure, and well-being to strengthen political and monetary relationships.

Rather than be intimidated by the assault on the November 22 protest, the Faculty of the Dramatic Arts students blockaded university buildings three days later, inspiring universities across the country to do the same. As protests intensified, so did the message unifying the students and protesters: Serbian citizens deserve better than a government that puts its political and financial interests above its people.

The demands set forth by the students are simple yet effective: First, they demand the release of all documents relating to the reconstruction of the Novi Sad railway station and full transparency on how such an avoidable tragedy could occur. Second, they demand accountability for those who have attacked peaceful protesters, going so far as to ram cars into crowds and injuring several people. Third, they demand that the criminal charges of those arrested during the protests be dropped. Lastly, they demand a 20% increase in the budget for higher education.

Students are demanding that the government abide by the same laws it imposes on its citizens. After students were injured by drivers who deliberately rammed cars into their peaceful protests, Vučić reacted by saying that the drivers were simply "trying to go about their way," a statement that made clear that his interests don't lie in the safety of his citizens but rather the preservation of his control. The students have developed an impressive tactic in response, shutting Vučić out and appealing directly to the judicial system, the Ministry of Education, and the Ministry of Construction.

On December 15 during a television interview, Prime Minister Milos Vučević made the abominable statement, "You can't bring down a country because of 15 people who died, nor 155, nor 1,555." This comment provided a comical victory for protesters after Vučević resigned on January 25, making him one of several officials to do so alongside the mayor of Novi Sad, Milan Đurić, and the Minister of Construction, Goran Vesić. On December 30th, Serbia's Public Prosecutor indicted 13 individuals regarding the collapse of the canopy. Vučević's resignation followed a general strike on January 24 that captured the country and increased pressure on the government. As the sun rose over Belgrade on January 25, protesters celebrated the 24-hour blockade of the city's largest road junction, Autokomanda, and the new chapter that the resignation of the prime minister brings to their movement.

Most recently the students have blocked off bridges in Novi Sad that serve as the main roadways between the city and Belgrade. In January their movement was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. But perhaps their biggest success has been in restoring hope across borders, professions, and generations.

Their resistance has spread beyond the protests and blockades. It's seen in communities set up by students in universities with kitchens, tents, and donation points. It's seen as high school students join them in the streets. It's seen in the songs they sing, the food they cook for one another, and the games they play as they block off one of the country's largest highway intersections. It's seen through the car horns, cheering crowds, and people running out of their homes with food and drinks for students marching 80 kilometers to join the Danube bridge blockade. It's seen when the Bar Association of Serbia goes on strike. It's seen as bikers, agricultural workers, and taxi drivers show up to support and protect students from the opposing violence. It's seen as peaceful demonstrations of support are spreading across borders and oceans to over 150 cities including New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. It's seen as students marched over 100 kilometers in the cold to join a massive blockade and protest in the city of Kragujevac, tearfully cheered on by bystanders.

Despite their success, domestic and international media coverage has been essentially nonexistent since the protests began. It wasn't until the historic protest held on March 15 where hundreds of thousands gathered in Belgrade's city center to protest the Vučić regime, that the Western media started covering the students' feat.

The suppression of protests and blockades by Serbian media is a deliberate effort to silence the students' voices and demands. With Vučić's foreign policy juggling act among major international powers, the resistance in Serbia has been mistakenly painted as anti-Putin by Western media outlets. Despite Vučić's delicate balance between the West and the East, the ideological conflicts are not the driving force for the students; rather, their activism is rooted in the pursuit of justice and accountability from their government.

For most Serbians, a movement of this magnitude seemed unimaginable, especially from a generation with high emigration rates, yet the students have made the impossible a reality. Amid profound shifts in power and governments across the world, they are embodying the hope and power that lies within grassroots movements and activism. "Turn off the TV. Tune In" is a slogan that has been used by student blockade accounts in response to the government regulation and censoring of the media. It stands as a powerful call to action for Serbian citizens and a message that can resonate with activists and changemakers globally.

When looking at the crowds of students holding the symbolic blood-stained hand over their hands, we should be reminded of the blood washing over the hands of governments internationally. At a recent solidarity demonstration in New York, a sign reading "Jedan Svet, Jedna Borba / One World, One Fight" showcased the hope that lies within global solidarity. The tenacity, resilience, and perseverance of the students in Serbia have ignited a wave of hope, serving as a reminder that true power resides in the hands of the people.

On Tuesday, in the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on global threats with the five heads of intelligence agencies of the U.S. government, Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton accused on national TV a group I have worked with for over 20 years, CODEPINK: Women for Peace, of being funded by the Communist Party of China.

During the hearing CODEPINK activist Tighe Barry stood up following the presentation of the Director of National Security Tulsi Gabbard’s lengthy statement about global threats to U.S. national security and yelled, “Stop Funding Israel,” since neither Intelligence Committee Chair Cotton nor Vice Chair Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) had mentioned Israel in their opening statement, nor had Gabbard mentioned the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza in her statement either.

As Capitol police were taking Barry out of the hearing room, in the horrific style of the McCarthy hearings in the 1950s, Cotton maliciously said that Barry was a “CODEPINK lunatic that was funded by the Communist Party of China.” Cotton then said if anyone had something to say to do so.

CODEPINK members have been challenging in the U.S. Congress the war policies of five presidential administrations, beginning in 2001 with the Bush wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, long before Sen. Cotton was elected as a U.S. Senator in 2014.

Refusing to buckle or be intimidated by Cotton’s lies about the funding of CODEPINK, I stood up and yelled, “I’m a retired Army colonel and former diplomat. I work with CODEPINK, and it is not funded by Communist China.” I too was hauled out of the hearing room by Capitol police and arrested.

After I was taken out of the hearing room, Cotton libelously continued his McCarthyite lie: “The fact that Communist China funds CODEPINK, which interrupts a hearing about Israel, illustrates Director Gabbard’s point that China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are working together in greater concert than they ever had before.”

Sen. Cotton does not appreciate the responsibility he has in his one-month-old elevation to the chair of the Senate’s Intelligence Committee.

Sen. Cotton does not seem to care that his untruthful statements in a U.S. congressional hearing aired around the world can have immediate and dangerous consequences for those he lies about, their friends, and family. In today’s polarized political environment, we know that the words of senior leaders can rile supporters into frenzies as we saw on January 6, 2021, with President Donald Trump’s loyal supporters injuring many Capitol police and destroying parts of the nation’s Capitol building in their attempt to stop the presidential election proceedings.

CODEPINK members have been challenging in the U.S. Congress the war policies of five presidential administrations, beginning in 2001 with the Bush wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, long before Sen. Cotton was elected as a U.S. Senator in 2014. We have been in the U.S. Senate offices and halls twice as long as he has. We have nonviolently protested the war policies of former Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Trump, Joe Biden, and now Trump again.

After getting out of the Capitol Hill police station, a CODEPINK delegation went to Sen. Cotton’s office in the Russell Senate Office building and made a complaint to his office staff.

We are also submitting a complaint to the Senate Ethics Committee over the untrue and libelous statements Sen. Cotton made in the hearing.

The abduction and deportation of international students who joined protests against U.S. complicity in the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza and ethnic cleansing of the West Bank, the scathing treatment of visitors who have wanted to enter our country, and now the McCarthyite intimidating tactics used by Sen. Cotton in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing of telling lies about individuals and organizations that challenge the policies of the U.S. government, particularly its complicity in the Israeli genocide of Gaza, must be called out and pushed back against.

And we must push back against U.S. senators who actually receive funding from front groups for other countries. Sen. Cotton has received $1,197,989 from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to advocate for the genocidal policies of the State of Israel.

The stunning jury verdict in North Dakota of a $667 million judgement against Greenpeace is a direct attack on the climate movement, Indigenous peoples, and the First Amendment. This case is so deeply flawed—at core the trial was about crushing dissent—that I believe there is a good chance it will be reversed on appeal and ultimately backfire against the Energy Transfer pipeline company.

I was part of an independent trial monitoring team of nine attorneys and four prominent human rights advocates that sat through every minute of the three-week trial, held in a nondescript courthouse in rural North Dakota. Energy Transfer sued Greenpeace for alleged damages it claimed derived from the historic Indigenous-led Standing Rock protests in 2016 against the Dakota Access pipeline. Our presence in court was essential given that the company was able to shroud the trial in secrecy. There was no court reporter, and there still is no public transcript or recording of the proceedings.

What we observed was shocking. Greenpeace lost the trial not because it did something wrong, but because it was denied a fair trial.

If the theory of the case stands, pretty much anyone in the United States can face ruin for exercising their constitutional right to speak on an issue of public importance—even adherents of conservative causes.

The legendary human rights attorney Marty Garbus, a member of our team who has practiced law for more than six decades and who represented Nelson Mandela and Vaclav Havel, said it was the most unfair trial he had ever witnessed. This is precisely why many of us on the monitoring team believe there is a good chance Greenpeace will not pay the first dollar of the judgement and might actually recoup significant damages from EnergyTransfer in a separate case in Europe. That case, currently being heard in Dutch courts, would entitle Greenpeace to compensation based on a finding that the North Dakota case is an illegitimate attempt to squelch free speech.

This case against Greenpeace is widely regarded by legal observers and First Amendment scholars as a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) harassment lawsuit. SLAPPs are designed not to resolve legitimate legal claims but to use courts to intimidate, silence, and even bankrupt an adversary. SLAPP suits by their very nature violate the U.S. Constitution because they trespass on the First Amendment right to speech. Allowing these cases to proceed almost always saddles the target with backbreaking legal expenses that can silence even the most resilient leaders and organizations.

This clearly was Energy Transfer’s plan for Greenpeace, but the case was never just about Greenpeace. It was about using Greenpeace as a proxy to attack the Standing Rock Sioux’s autonomy, leadership, and sovereignty as well as the broader climate justice movement, which is trying mightily to transition our country to a clean energy economy. The protests and the climate movement’s goals are a direct threat to Energy Transfer’s business model.

That might explain why Kelcy Warren, the founder and CEO of Energy Transfer, said the main purpose of the lawsuit against Greenpeace was to “send a message” rather than to collect money. A major Trump supporter and the mastermind of the lawsuit, Warren once gave an interview in which he said activists “should be removed from the gene pool.” After he made a major contribution to Donald Trump’s inaugural committee in 2017, the Trump administration quickly approved a key easement for the North Dakota pipeline that had been denied by former President Barack Obama.

The case against Greenpeace in North Dakota had all the telltale signs of an illegitimate SLAPP—so much so that it was originally thrown out of federal court in 2019. In that case, Energy Transfer openly claimed Greenpeace had engaged in a racketeering conspiracy and “terrorism,” by speaking out against the pipeline and by doing training at the site in nonviolent direct action. The company quickly refiled the case days later in the more friendly confines of state court. Literally every single judge in the judicial district where it was filed recused themselves because of conflicts of interest.

Here are some of the more fundamental problems we observed that clearly violated the fair trial rights of Greenpeace:

• The jury—the most sacred due process protection available to a defendant—was patently biased in favor of the company. Seven of the 11 people seated had ties to the fossil fuel industry. Some had admitted they could not be fair, but the judge seated them anyway. There was no Native American or person of color on the jury even though issues of Indigenous rights were central to the trial.
• Morton County, where the trial was held and where many of the protests took place, voted 75% for Donald Trump in the last election and has extensive ties to the fossil fuel industry. In a pre-trial survey, 97% of residents in the county said they could not be fair to Greenpeace. Yet the judge refused repeated requests by Greenpeace to move the case.
• Energy Transfer ran a major television and online advertising campaign in the county lauding itself in the weeks leading up to the trial. The company also sent a fake newspaper (called the Central North Dakota News) with pro-industry propaganda to households in the county. The court refused to allow Greenpeace to take discovery to determine how this unethical campaign to taint the jury pool happened.
• Adding to the absurdity, Greenpeace was blamed for the entire protest movement even though it played only a minimal role. The protests were led by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe on whose ancestral land the Dakota Access pipeline was being built. In fact, only 6 of the 100,000 people who came to the protests were from Greenpeace—yet Energy Transfer was able to convince the jury to hold the organization responsible for every dollar of supposed damages that occurred over seven months of protests.
• Secrecy pervaded the proceedings. The court repeatedly refused to open a livestream to the public or to create and release transcripts. A request by media organizations (including The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times) to access the livestream was denied. Thousands of key documents were sealed and thus hidden from public scrutiny.
• The judge, James Gion, made evidentiary decisions that systematically gutted Greenpeace’s ability to mount a defense. For example, a major expert report showed that the pipeline had leaked roughly 1 million gallons of drilling fluids into drinking water sources used by millions of people. Greenpeace lawyers needed the document to debunk the argument that the pipeline was safe, but the judge refused to let them use it.
• The 35-page verdict form was confusing, and the results seemed to prove the jury was in fact confused. It appears the exorbitant damages number was calculated by pulling numbers out of thin air—including millions for public relations expenses, private security costs which were being paid anyway, and refinancing costs due to various banks withdrawing from the project once they learned about the protests. (Lobbying banks is also constitutionally protected advocacy.)

The inability of Judge Gion to manage the case such that Greenpeace’s fair trial rights were respected was evident. It was almost excruciating to watch. It felt more like a choreographed show than an adversarial proceeding. Greenpeace was consistently—and in our opinion, falsely—portrayed by Energy Transfer lawyer Trey Cox as a criminal enterprise that exploited Indigenous peoples for its own gain. He used words like “mafia” and “coded language” to describe the group’s operations. (Cox works for the same law firm Chevron used to orchestrate my 993-day detention after I helped Amazon communities win the $10 billion Ecuador pollution case.)

The verdict represents more than a financial blow against Greenpeace. It has huge and very troubling implications for free speech across the nation. The result threatens the rights of religious groups and political organizations. It implicates the rights of churches and charities. If the theory of the case stands, pretty much anyone in the United States can face ruin for exercising their constitutional right to speak on an issue of public importance—even adherents of conservative causes. It’s really a corporate playbook that started with Chevron’s legal attacks on me and the Amazon communities in 2009, and continues with the assault on Greenpeace. It’s being carried out by the same law firm (Gibson Dunn & Crutcher) that markets the playbook to its corporate clients.

This case also highlights the Trump administration’s broader attack on progressive activism. From proposed legislation that would allow the Treasury Department to unilaterally revoke the nonprofit status of organizations deemed "terrorism-supporting" to the FBI’s reported plans to criminally prosecute climate groups, the goal is clear: suppress dissent. Greenpeace is in the crosshairs because its brand is global and its success in fighting polluters over the last several decades is outstanding.

This is why it is critical for Greenpeace and its allies to lean into the verdict and issue a call to action to the entire environmental movement and broader civil society organizations. Greenpeace is without question the world’s largest environmental activist group with chapters in 25 countries. It gave birth to the non-Indigenous part of the modern environmental movement in the early 1970s and captured the imagination of the world by engaging in spectacular and creative actions to save whales in the North Pacific and to stop nuclear testing. Greenpeace needs to be protected in this critical moment.

There is more than a glimmer of hope. A hearing is scheduled for July in Amsterdam on the Greenpeace lawsuit against Energy Transfer. If Greenpeace prevails on appeal in North Dakota and wins in Europe, it might be Energy Transfer paying substantial sums to Greenpeace rather than the other way around. This judgement is not nearly as dismal as many in the media are making it appear.

There are realistic scenarios where Greenpeace emerges from this experience strongerthan ever. The key is to keep grinding and calling out this abuse loudly and publicly. The world will respond.

This piece was also published on Steven Donziger’s Substack.

The legal profession is under attack in ways never imagined before. In recent weeks, U.S. President Donald Trump has targeted three large law firms with executive orders designed to cripple their practices in retaliation for representing Democratic candidates and causes.

On Friday, the assault moved to a new level with the issuance of a memorandum threatening all lawyers with unspecified sanctions and penalties who challenge the president or his administration.

What matters now is how the legal profession responds.

Why would a client choose lawyers to represent them who won’t stand up for themselves?

The orders pose existential threats to the firms. Two of the orders bar the firms’ lawyers from entering federal buildings and require the firms’ clients to report their connection with the law firm in any bid for government contracts.

Faced with the risk that their corporate clients would leave, one of the law firms, Perkins Coie, decided to fight, and another, Paul Weiss, decided last Thursday to cut a deal with the White House. In exchange for lifting the executive order, Paul Weiss promised to provide $40 million of free legal services to support President Trump’s political initiatives and agenda.

The decision made by Paul Weiss was a grievous mistake.

In the short term, it is hard to understand how cutting a deal with this President solves the problem Paul Weiss faces. It is as likely that clients will bolt the firm in disgust over the firm’s decision to capitulate in the face of a threat as it was with the executive order in place. Why would a client choose lawyers to represent them who won’t stand up for themselves?

This sentiment may well gain traction in the coming weeks, given that the firm that decided to fight, Perkins Coie, so far appears successful in its efforts to hold the executive order unlawful in court.

It is also difficult to see how Paul Weiss can ensure the benefit of any bargain it thinks it got. A deal with Trump is not worth the paper it is written on. The White House is already recasting the deal to promote its interests. It claims that Brad Karp, the managing partner of Paul Weiss, promised to end diversity initiatives at the firm and agreed that a former partner at the firm, Mark Pomerantz, who left the firm years ago and later joined the prosecution team in a case brought against President Trump, had engaged in “wrongdoing.” None of that appears in the copy of the agreement circulated by Mr. Karp to his firm.

And nothing in the agreement prevents President Trump from reinstating the executive order if Paul Weiss fails to do what he wants. It is no different from what the Trump Justice Department has attempted to do with New York City Mayor Eric Adams. There, Justice Department lawyers have asked a federal judge to drop bribery charges against the mayor, but without giving up the right to reassert the charges in the future. Like a mafia boss, it gives the president unfettered power to force a supplicant to do his bidding.

But the more important point that has been lost in the discussion over what Paul Weiss has done is the long-term damage it will do to the independence of the legal profession.

Before Paul Weiss cut its deal, President Trump made clear he was coming after the entire profession, not just three firms. Ten days ago, the newly installed chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced the agency was investigating 20 of the country’s most prominent firms for alleged discriminatory practices related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

The EEOC investigation is a fishing expedition. None of the investigatory letters sent to the law firms identifies any practice that violates federal anti-discrimination law. As seven former EEOC officials point out in a recent open letter, the EEOC has far exceeded its own authority in making the inquiry. The purpose is to intimidate and create fear. It sends the message to all firms, and their collective clients, to end efforts to diversify their workforce or the government will come for you.

Paul Weiss’ decision to capitulate adds fuel to the fire. Having put a gun to the head of one of the country’s biggest firms and walked away with $40 million in free legal services makes it more likely President Trump will target more law firms with executive orders and investigations. He did just that on Friday night with the issuance of the new memorandum.

The threat to the rule of law posed by this attack is far bigger than any one legal issue. It is a brazen assault on the right of lawyers to represent their clients to the best of their ability within the bounds of the law and the ethics of the profession.

The executive orders directed at Perkins Coie and Paul Weiss are designed to deter them from representing clients or causes President Trump opposes. The EEOC investigation warns firms not to interpret the law in ways the Trump government disapproves of. The memorandum is an effort to keep lawyers from challenging the legality of Trump’s actions in court. It is all part of the Trump playbook designed to intimidate and co-opt the best lawyers and law firms who might oppose him, and get them instead to support his initiatives.

We all lose if lawyers fear to represent clients or give their best advice based on political affiliation or interests. An independent judiciary depends on strong and independent lawyers who are free to advocate for and protect the rights of their clients, no matter what political party they belong to. No cases can be decided, and no law can be made, without lawyers to bring cases before judges and argue the merits of a client’s position.

Democracy and the rule of law, in turn, depend on an independent judiciary as a check on tyranny. But it begins with the lawyers. Without a free and unfettered bar, the engine of the judiciary can’t operate.

Chief Justice Roberts has spoken up for the independence of the judiciary with his rebuke of those calling to impeach a federal judge who ruled against the president. It is high time for all law firms to follow suit and stand up in defense of their profession.

The news has reported that Donald Verrilli, the former solicitor general, is preparing an amicus brief, or “friend of the court” brief, in support of Perkins Coie, but that law firms are undecided whether to file it. The handwringing needs to end. Every law firm that cares about its First Amendment freedoms, and the right to practice law as it has been done in this country since its founding, must now come together in support of Perkins Coie with a single voice.

There is no alternative. Benjamin Franklin is credited with observing that “we must all hang together or, most assuredly, we will hang separately.” The attack on law firms will not stop until the entire legal profession, especially Big Law, stands up and uses the skills of advocacy and persuasion that is its craft to explain how and why the political intimidation being used by the Trump administration threatens its independence, and that of the judiciary, upon which our democracy relies.

There is a fleeting moment, just before waking, when silence blankets the world. A moment where you are still held in sleep, shielded from the harshness of reality. But then, the silence is ripped away. The ground shakes beneath you. The sky erupts in light and fire. Walls tremble. Screams cut through the night. And suddenly, you are awake—not to the promise of a new day, but to devastation and fear.

This is Gaza’s reality—a war that never ends, a war that offers no respite, no mercy. On March 18, Israel resumed bombing Gaza, confirming that the so-called cease-fire, which began on January 19, was never more than a hollow promise. The bombings never really stopped. Gaza’s borders remained sealed. Humanitarian aid was blocked. Hunger deepened. Hospitals were pushed to the brink. Families were left to sleep in the ruins of their homes, or in overcrowded shelters without enough food or water. Even during Ramadan, the holiest month, Israel tightened its grip, ensuring that 2.1 million people were left without the essentials needed to survive.

This time, the war is taking an even darker turn. We had already been living without the basic necessities to survive… no housing, little food, fuel, or water. With the resumption of airstrikes and further degradation to what little infrastructure remains, the conditions of our existence are almost beyond description, though I will still try. Civilians are once again being killed indiscriminately. Journalists, children, and aid workers—those trying to document the truth and help the wounded, and those most vulnerable—are being targeted. At least 25 journalists have been killed since the latest round of attacks began. Some were killed while reporting from the ground, others targeted inside their homes. Khaled Abu Saif, a young journalist known for his fearless coverage of Gaza’s suffering, was killed when an Israeli airstrike hit the building where he lived. His camera was found next to his body, shattered by the same blast that killed him.

We were told the war had ended. We were told there was a cease-fire. But the bombs never stopped. The loss never ended. Now, we no longer ask when the war will end—we only ask how much more we can survive.

Children, as usual in Israel’s wars on us, have not been spared. On the first night of the resumed bombings, more than 130 children were killed. Some died in their sleep, buried beneath the rubble of their homes. Others were hit while playing outside. The youngest victims are too numerous to count. Families are digging through the ruins with their bare hands, trying to recover the bodies of their sons and daughters. They are not even given the dignity of a proper burial—the graveyards are full, and there is nowhere left to lay the dead to rest.

Aid workers are targets. Ambulances marked with the Red Crescent symbol are being bombed. Shelters clearly designated as humanitarian spaces are again targeted by Israeli missiles. Medical staff have been slaughtered while trying to reach the wounded. In one tragic case, three paramedics were killed when their ambulance was struck as they responded to an emergency call.

And now I must try to describe the horror that those of us still living must endure. There is no clean place left in Gaza. The streets are choked with the stench of rotting garbage and decaying bodies. Mountains of waste rise between collapsed buildings and broken roads. Flies swarm over the debris. Dogs sniff through the rubble and gnaw on human limbs and flesh. The air is thick with the sour smell of decay and smoke. Gaza, already suffocating under siege and war, is now drowning under its own waste.

Once again, tens of thousands of families have been forced to flee their homes in northern Gaza, seeking refuge in the already overcrowded central and southern areas. But there are no proper shelters left. Every school, mosque, and hospital that once offered refuge has been bombed or turned into a makeshift camp for the displaced. With nowhere else to go, many families have ended up on the edges of waste dumps—setting up tents or makeshift shelters among piles of garbage.

Children play barefoot in fields of trash. Families sleep next to rotting food, broken plastic, and the carcasses of dead animals. With the borders closed and humanitarian aid blocked, Gaza’s waste management system has collapsed. Garbage trucks no longer operate because there is no fuel. The sanitation system has completely broken down. Medical waste from overwhelmed hospitals and human waste from destroyed sewage systems now flow through the streets. Disease is spreading quickly—cases of cholera, dysentery, and skin infections are increasing daily.

“I wake up every day to the smell of rot,” says Abu Mohammed, a father of five who fled from Beit Hanoun to central Gaza. “We left our home because of the bombs, but now we are living among trash. My children are getting sick. There’s no clean water to wash them. We barely have food to eat. And the smell… it never goes away.”

In the few hospitals still functioning, doctors are warning of a major health crisis. Children are arriving with respiratory infections from breathing the polluted air. Cases of poisoning from contaminated food and water are on the rise. Infections from untreated wounds—often caused by the debris of collapsed buildings—are becoming more dangerous because antibiotics and medical supplies have run out.

“We are living like animals,” says Um Ayman, a mother of four sheltering near a waste dump in central Gaza. “I have to cover my children’s noses with pieces of cloth so they don’t breathe the poisoned air. We sleep surrounded by flies. My youngest child has a rash all over his body. There are no doctors left to treat him.”

If we were the “animals” that Israel says we are, would our suffering be any less? Even animals have their limits. We reached ours a long time ago, and still we keep going.

The humanitarian disaster is deepening, and the accumulation of waste is making an already desperate situation even worse. The people of Gaza cannot escape the bombs, but now they cannot even escape the rot beneath their feet. Clean water is running out. Food is scarce. Medical aid is blocked. And as the waste piles grow higher, so does the threat of disease and death.

There is no safety in Gaza. No one is spared. Journalists trying to tell the truth, children caught in the crossfire, and aid workers struggling to save lives—all are targets.

We were told the war had ended. We were told there was a cease-fire. But the bombs never stopped. The loss never ended. Now, we no longer ask when the war will end—we only ask how much more we can survive.

The world is watching Gaza slip further into devastation. The targeting of those who speak, those who heal, and those who are too young to understand why this is happening—this is not collateral damage. It is a deliberate effort to silence the truth and crush the human spirit. The world cannot remain silent any longer.

I say this: What is happening to us is beyond words and beyond the most wild and outrageous of imaginations. Those who support this genocide, those who look away, and those who remain silent for the sake of their comfortable lives will be judged and must be held accountable. Someday. I pray for that day, that day when the world finally sees us, that day when the world rises up to finally stop Israel and stop the mass murder of me and my people.

The U.S. Constitution is very specific about the powers of Congress and very vague about the powers of the president and the judiciary. While the authors of the nation’s founding documents were explicit that power had to be divided between three coequal branches, the legislative, executive, and judicial, they did not anticipate the authoritarianism of President Donald Trump, the cowardice of congressional representatives beholden to a populist demagogue for endorsements and campaign funds, nor the reactionary ideology of a right-wing Supreme Court. It is not fair to blame the founders for events 250 into the future, with the United States in the midst of a major constitutional crisis.

In 1787, Benjamin Franklin placed the responsibility for upholding the Constitution on future generations when he warned that the new government is “A republic, if you can keep it.” Abraham Lincoln recognized the difficulty of maintaining a country based on this one’s founding principles in his Gettysburg Address over 150 years ago when he told the assembled, “We are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”

The Constitution assigns the president an undefined executive power with some very specific tasks. The president represents the country in talks with other countries and can negotiate treaties, but the treaties must be approved by the Senate; the president can veto or sign bills approved by both houses of Congress, and then they are responsible for enforcing the laws; and the president acts as Commander-in-Chief of the military during a war, nominates judges and ambassadors pending Senate approval, and grants pardons.

The Trump claim for a unitary executive and virtually unlimited executive power undermines everything they were trying to create.

There is no mention in the Constitution of political parties or of Cabinet members. Departments and Cabinet positions were created by Congress later to make the government run more smoothly. Executive orders are not mentioned in the Constitution either, and they do not carry the power of law, but every president since George Washington has issued executive orders as instructions to heads of the different federal departments about how to carry out their duties. The Constitution does not give the president the authority to issue executive orders that overturn or ignore laws passed by Congress or decisions made by the Supreme Court.

Since George Washington’s presidency, different presidents have interpreted their powers and responsibilities as chief executive in different ways. President Trump embraces the modern unitary executive theory, which claims that the president has sole authority over the executive branch of the government. According to this theory presidential power can only be restrained if a president is impeached by the House of Representatives and convicted by the Senate, something that it so difficult that it has never happened in United States history.

Without restraints, Trump argues he can summarily fire without cause any employee of the executive branch including Cabinet members approved by the Senate, he can decide not to spend money allocated by Congress, and he can ignore laws he does not agree with even though they were passed by Congress and signed by a previous president. The right-wing majority on the Supreme Court seems inclined to support Trump’s view of executive power. In 2020, during Trump’s first presidency, the Supreme Court narrowly ruled 5-4 that “the entire ‘executive power’ belongs to the president alone,” although it never actually explained what executive power means.

Three of the nation’s founders, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton, addressed the allocation of power in the new government and explained why power had to be divided. Thomas Jefferson was not at the Constitutional Convention, but he did address the separation of powers in his 1784 Notes on the State of Virginia, with ideas that helped shape the Constitution. While Jefferson was more concerned with the legislative branch assuming too much power, he was very clear that “all the powers of government, legislative, executive, and judiciary, result to the legislative body,” but “concentrating these in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government... An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.” Jefferson warned, “The time to guard against corruption and tyranny, is before they shall have gotten hold on us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered.”

James Madison, who was the secretary at the Constitutional Convention, explained how separation of powers should work in essays he wrote during the debate in New York State over ratification of the Constitution. In Federalist Papers 47-50, he explained the importance of separating powers and how the principle was applied in the Constitution. He also addressed concerns about how the system would work. An underlying principle of the new government was that “ambition must be made to counteract ambition,” balancing power among the branches of government to protect individual rights and prevent tyranny. Madison famously wrote in Federalist Paper 51, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

Alexander Hamilton, an active participant in the Constitutional Convention, wrote in favor of a strong executive and is used to justify the unitary executive theory; however, Hamilton was not discussing unlimited executive authority but was disputing the idea of a presidential council. Hamilton explained the specific powers assigned to the president and did not anticipate claims that a president would be virtually unchallengeable. According to Hamilton, “The only remaining powers of the executive are comprehended in giving information to Congress of the State of the Union; in recommending to their consideration such measures as he shall judge expedient”; and “faithfully executing the laws.” He was very careful to distinguish between the president as an elected executive subject to impeachment and the power of a hereditary monarch.

I think the Founders imagined the president as an administrator, not a policymaker, and definitely not an imperial unitary executive. Their bigger fear was that congressional majorities would attempt to usurp the executive’s responsibility to administer laws in order to benefit special interest groups. For the same reason they wanted an independent judiciary to prevent the politically motivated administration of justice. The Trump claim for a unitary executive and virtually unlimited executive power undermines everything they were trying to create.

On March 19, 2025, five members of Demilitarize Western Massachusetts were arrested for occupying the public lobby of the L3Harris plant in Northampton, Massachusetts, and serving a “people’s warrant” against CEO Chris Kubasik for perpetrating, and profiting from, the genocide in Gaza. As they read a statement noting that L3Harris weapons shipments violate the U.S. Leahy Law and related laws, they threw fake money splotched with red paint on the floor of the L3 lobby.

Their--and our--demand is simple: L3Harris, convert to peace work or shut down!

Like all weapons manufacturers, L3Harris profits from militarism, genocide, and occupation. Incongruously nestled in the luscious green ecology of the Connecticut River Valley, the L3Harris Northampton plant makes submarine periscopes and optical targeting sights for naval vessels. The plant is merely one node in L3Harris’ global weapons empire reaping $19.4 billion in profits in 2023 alone, making it the world’s 12th largest weapons manufacturer.

By allowing L3Harris to operate in our communities, we are all complicit in genocide, occupation, and militarism.

For decades, L3Harris has supplied weapons systems and components used by the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF, commonly known as the IDF) in Palestine. For example, L3 Combat Propulsion Systems, L3Harris’ former subsidiary, manufactured the engine of the Merkava IV, used by the IOF in its 2006 invasion of Lebanon and the 2012, 2014, and 2021 assaults on Gaza. L3Harris also manufactures components for multiple weapons systems used by the IOF in Gaza, including Boeing’s JDAM (guided bomb) kits, Lockheed Martin’s F-35 warplane, Northrop Grumman’s Sa’ar 5 warships, and ThyssenKrupp’s Sa’ar 6 warships. L3Harris’ webs of violence extend worldwide. In addition to supplying surveillance technology used at the Qalandia, Bethlehem, and Sha’ar Efraim checkpoints in the occupied West Bank, L3Harris manufactures surveillance equipment used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security against immigrants in occupied Turtle Island.

The Demilitarize Western Massachusetts action on March 19, 2025 came 17 months into the Zionist entity’s genocidal assault on Gaza, 75 years after the mass dispossession of Palestinians known as the Nakba, and after nearly a century of the settler-colonial occupation of Palestine. The action came two days after the Zionist entity’s resumption of airstrikes on March 17, which killed over 400 Gazans in a single night, two weeks after the Zionist entity cut off all humanitarian aid to Gaza, and during the largest forced displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank since 1967.

The occupation’s relentless pursuit of annihilation, trauma and maiming, ecocide and scholasticide is unquantifiable. The numbers we recite to tally this genocide--186,000 direct and indirect deaths, 110,000 injured, 1.9 million displaced, 217 journalists and over 1,000 doctors murdered, 85% of schools bombed, healthcare infrastructure obliterated, and over 85,000 tons of bombs dropped—fail to adequately describe the existential and ongoing horrors of occupation and settler-colonial violence in Gaza. As Palestinian poet and organizer Mohammed El-Kurd writes, “Not a corner of our geography is spared, not a generation.”

Yet, occupation and violence have been immensely profitable for L3Harris, revealing capitalism’s grotesque and parasitic capacity to reap value from death and destruction. Like other weapons manufacturers, L3Harris has been the target of an ongoing global campaign for demilitarization and an end to war profiteering. In the past year and a half, Demilitarize Western Mass blockaded the entrance to L3 in October, 2023 and again in June, 2024, demanding that L3 stop arming the genocide. In Brighton, England, Stop L3Harris successfully organized to prevent the weapons manufacturer from expanding; The struggle to permanently shutter the factory is ongoing. Over the past two years, L3Harris factories across Canada have been repeatedly blockaded. These and similar actions follow the 2023 call from Workers in Palestine to “intervene and disrupt the flow of arms that sustain genocide.”

For more than a decade, members of Demilitarize Western Mass have held weekly vigils and street protests and blockades of the Northampton plant’s entrances, imploring L3Harris to convert to life-affirming, rather than life-destroying, work.

By allowing L3Harris to operate in our communities, we are all complicit in genocide, occupation, and militarism. From our position in the imperial core, with war profiteers as our neighbors, it is our duty to do everything in our power to end the genocide and occupation. We hope that this direct action at L3Harris inspires others. As the Secretariat of Student Frameworks in Gaza urged in their March 21 statement, “This must not be a moment of resignation—it must be one of escalation!”

It has been 160 years since the last shots were fired in the deadliest war in U.S. history, in which up to 750,000 Americans died in a rebellion by Southern states to preserve slavery. Devotees of the Confederacy have never surrendered the Lost Cause mythology, and it’s increasingly apparent Donald Trump and his administration are among them.

The Confederacy went to war to defend the antebellum economic, social, and cultural system, an autocratic fiefdom of slave states run by an oligarchal plantation class enriched by a virulent racialized foundation. “Into the hands of the slaveholders the political power of the South was concentrated by their social prestige, (and) property ownership” that created their wealth through chattel slavery and the lie of Black inferiority, wrote W.E.B. DuBois in his 1935 opus Black Reconstruction in America.

The world that marries white supremacy with authoritarian rule that inspires those who wave Confederate flags and venerate Confederate monuments is replicated in Trump’s aspirations. It filtered through Trump’s first term, most notoriously in his embrace of Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville, Virginia to oppose removal of a Robert E. Lee statue as “some very fine people.” But it is fully unleashed in Trump 2.0.

Just as dictatorial rule in the antebellum South and the post-Reconstruction decades of Jim Crow segregation was established and reinforced by structural racism, Trump also employs white supremacy to pursue unchecked power, this time under a guise to root out diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.

The revisionist portrayal of the Civil War slipped out from the Pentagon under Trump loyalist Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Arlington National Cemetery, the Washington Post reported, “scrubbed information about prominent Black, Hispanic and female service members and topics such as the Civil War from its website,” part of a “broader effort across the Defense Department to remove all references to (DEI) from its online presence.” DEI “is dead at the Defense Department. Discriminatory Equity Ideology is a form of Woke cultural Marxism that has no place in our military,” intoned a Pentagon spokesperson.

Biographies of prominent Black, Latino, and women service members were suddenly erased, from Sgt. William Carney, the first Black American to earn a Medal of Honor during the Civil War, to prominent heroes of later wars. Though public outrage forced restoring recognition of the service of Jackie Robinson, World War II Tuskegee Airmen, a decorated Japanese American unit while Americans of Japanese descent were interned, and the famous Navajo Code Talkers, most of the erasure remains.

Along with other purges, Hegseth fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, veteran Black Army leader Gen. Charles “CQ” Brown and replaced him with a less qualified white man after Brown recorded a four-minute video about conversations with his son following the police murder of George Floyd. That act exposed the fabrication of “merit” behind the anti-DEI crusade while also reimposing a portrait of white men as the presumptive standard of qualification.

“The full throttled attack on Black leadership, dismantling of civil rights protections, imposition of unjust anti-DEI regulations, and unprecedented historical erasure across the Department of Defense is a clear sign of a new Jim Crow being propagated by our Commander in Chief,” said Richard Brookshire, co-CEO of the Black Veterans Project.

The DEI crusade

Within hours of his inauguration, Trump signed executive orders and directives to eradicate “all DEI related offices and positions; equity action plans, actions, initiatives or programs; equity-related grants or contracts; and DEI performance requirements for employees, contractors, or grantees.”

Next Trump overturned President Johnson’s 1965 executive order banning discrimination by federal contractors and subcontractors. "These provisions that required federal contractors to adhere to and comply with federal civil rights laws and to maintain integrated rather than segregated workplaces,” noted constitutional law professor Melissa Murray, “were all part of the federal government's efforts to facilitate the settlement that led to integration in the 1950s and 1960s.”

A systematic purge of employees in federal agencies led by Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) followed. Not coincidentally, it had a disproportionate impact on Black federal workers, as well as women and LGBTQ employees. Trump also, without evidence, blamed DEI hires for the disastrous National Airport plane crash.

Concurrently, Trump targeted legally mandated equal employment opportunity and civil rights offices that empower federal workers to file complaints and enforce antidiscrimination laws, through multiple federal agencies. Cuts also harm public health, including programs to reduce racial and gender disparities in maternal and infant health, cancer, and chronic disease.

A number of private employers have followed suit, including Amazon, Meta, Google, Walmart, Target, Goldman Sachs, Pepsi and McDonalds, ending programs intended to expand diversity within their own workforces. “Five years ago, (many) were posting about Black Lives Matter,” says Theodore Johnson, a senior adviser at the New America think tank. Now these companies are “following government cues,” getting rid of race-conscious policies as they scramble to comply with the administration’s directions.

Education has been a major assault with mandates that K-12 schools as well as colleges and universities end DEI programs, alleging they are “anti-American, subversive, harmful, and false ideologies,” note professors Philip Klinkner and Rogers Smith. The goal of redefining education also seeks to indoctrinate a new generation of young people in conservative ideology. Private colleges were not immune, especially as Trump slashed Biden-era initiatives and federal funds to support Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), tribal colleges, and Hispanic institutions, while forcing others, like Columbia University, to silence and criminalize dissent.

Trump has made DEI the cudgel for efforts to erase post-Civil War Reconstruction and subsequent New Deal and Civil Rights movement reforms, while seeking to reimpose Jim Crow era segregation and one-party rule. All while evading legal statues, court orders, and shaking down media and law firms deemed disloyal, punctuating the agenda of a monarchial coup in progress.

Trump’s executive order bidding to overturn the 14th Amendment right of birthright citizenship symbolizes this push. It represents a full-throated attack on what radio host Clay Cane calls “a “bedrock principle of American democracy. To dismantle it is to open the door to the erosion of all rights gained through the blood, sweat, and tears of those who came before us.”

In his seminal work The Second Founding on the Reconstruction amendments and laws, historian Eric Foner argues they “not only put abolition, equal rights, and black male suffrage into the Constitution, but in its provisions for national enforcement made the federal government for the first time what [abolitionist Sen. Charles] Sumner called ‘the custodian of freedom’.”

A key phrase of the birthright citizenship clause, Foner emphasizes, says no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws… for the first time (it) elevates equality to a constitutional right.” The Equal Protection Clause became the vehicle “for radically expanding the rights” for all “persons” not just citizens.

Aided by the 15th Amendment’s right to vote for Black men, the reforms “inspired an outburst of political organization” with “direct action to confront long standing discrimination” and created new state constitutions creating “the region’s first state-funded systems of free public education,” and other democratic reforms that produced “a fundamental shift of power in the South and a radical departure in American government.”

Overall, the second founding, observes Foner, “forged a new constitutional relationship between individual Americans and the national state and were crucial in creating the world’s first biracial democracy.”

That’s what is at stake today. Public protests have forced some setbacks for the Trump coup. It will be up to all of us to escalate those efforts with the same focus of street actions, mass protests, and a united front that led to prior eras of expanded rights in order to protect a genuine democracy.

Significant attention and concern have been generated by U.S. President Donald Trump’s early Executive Orders and actions. There has been extensive coverage of the president’s: empowering of Elon Musk’s orders to gut the federal workforce; shuttering USAID; plans to deport massive numbers of migrants and refugees, including those seeking asylum; on-again, off-again imposition of tariffs; flaunting the will of Congress by withholding appropriated funding; banning “diversity, equity, and inclusion” programs; restrictions on treatment of transgender young people; and defying court-ordered injunctions by claiming that the powers of the presidency can’t be restrained by the judiciary.

Buried in the flurry of President Trump’s Executive Orders is one that has been largely ignored, despite being potentially the most far-reaching of these presidential acts. Titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” this diktat lays bare Trump’s intention to roll back the gains that have been made over the last half century by historians working to present a more accurate portrait of American and world history. Trump calls these efforts “anti-American, subversive, harmful, and false,” and demands instead that schools devote themselves to “patriotic education” that will “instill a patriotic admiration for our incredible Nation”—in other words, to teach the kind of history we learned three generations ago.

As late as the early 1960s when American schools taught “World History,” it was Eurocentric. It started with Stone Age man (in Europe), then passed onto the Greek and Roman Empires, the Holy Roman Empire, the “Dark Ages,” the emergence of the nation states of Europe, the discovery of the New World, the birth pangs that accompanied the first centuries of the United States (i.e., “fighting Indians” and a civil war over “states’ rights”), the Industrial Revolution, the two World Wars that sandwiched the Great Depression, and the challenges posed by the Soviet Union and the Cold War.

The celebrated American author Sinclair Lewis once predicted that “fascism would come to America wrapped in a flag, carrying a cross.” With these cautionary words in mind, attention must be paid to President Trump’s Executive Order.

In this narrative, the U.S. was depicted as the fulfillment of history, the conveyor of the values of freedom and democracy, and, as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was fond of saying, “the indispensable nation.”

There was no mention of African history or Islamic civilization. There were just four paragraphs devoted to China, which we were told was “opened up to the West” by Marco Polo. And the only mention of Arabs was in a short section on the ways nomadic peoples were forced to adapt to living under harsh conditions, including a few paragraphs each on the Arab bedouin of the desert and the Laplanders of the frozen tundra of Northern Europe.

American history was distorted and romanticized. Slavery was given short shrift as was the genocide and land theft committed against the Indigenous peoples of North America. This is what we were taught.

Things changed in the 1960s as a result of the cultural revolution in America that was prompted by the civil rights and then anti-Vietnam War movements. In their wake, there was the blossoming of other social and political movements, including women’s liberation and concern for the environment. The expanding consciousness inspired by this period of challenge and change led to a reexamination of American history and our place in the world. And with this came a focus on Black history, Native American history, women’s history, and an expansion of the writing and teaching of world history to include the perspectives and stories of peoples who had previously been ignored. This was not an effort to create multiple separate histories, but to ensure that future generations would benefit from learning a more complete and integrated human history.

Of course, there was pushback by conservatives who wanted to restore the mythologies of the past. It will be recalled that President Trump fired his opening salvo in this war on history during his first term when he denounced The New York Times’ stunning “1619 Project.” That massive undertaking put in focus the role of the conquering European settlers in America as they committed crimes of genocide against the Indigenous peoples they encountered and then introduced the massive and enormously destructive enterprise of slavery in the New World and its enduring legacy. Trump countered this effort with his “1776 Project” that sought to do nothing more than to restate the myth of America, shorn of its dark underside.

Trump’s new Executive Order is the latest iteration of this war on history. After decrying the “radical, anti-Americanism” that he claims teaches that the United States is “fundamentally racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory,” he calls for “an accurate, honest, unifying, and ennobling characterization of America’s founding” and “a celebration of America’s greatness and history.”

Trump goes further by calling for “Reestablishing the President’s Advisory 1776 Commission and Promoting Patriotic Education” that will be charged with sponsoring programs to encourage patriotic learning and glorification of America’s battles and war heroes. The order further requires that all educational institutions receiving federal funds must hold specific patriotic educational programs, and that “relevant agencies of government” shall monitor compliance with this requirement. In other words, do what we demand or lose your funding.

None of this is benign. One of the hallmarks of fascist authoritarian rule is the indoctrination of the public to believe in the “glorification of the nation.” The celebrated American author Sinclair Lewis once predicted that “fascism would come to America wrapped in a flag, carrying a cross.” With these cautionary words in mind, attention must be paid to President Trump’s Executive Order. It is a worrisome step down this dangerous path.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest defiance of the courts—this time refusing to follow an appellate judge’s order to halt migrant deportations—has triggered another round of liberal outrage. Critics are calling it an authoritarian move, a blatant assault on the rule of law, and a warning sign that American democracy is on its last legs.

But if this is the end of democracy, it’s been ending for a long time. And not just at Trump’s hands.

The central truth we keep missing—especially on the left—is that Trump is not an aberration. He’s a grotesque continuation. The playbook he uses was written by both parties over decades of eroding democratic norms, consolidating executive power, and circumventing meaningful checks on authority. Trump didn’t invent the impulse to rule by fiat; he just brings it out into the open.

If we want to stop the next Trump, or the next expansion of executive lawlessness, we can’t keep pretending he came out of nowhere.

Consider the legal justification Trump has floated for ignoring the courts: The United States is “at war.” Therefore, he claims, wartime powers apply—even domestically, even over immigration courts. To many, this sounds like a dystopian twist. But it’s eerily familiar. Because the same logic has been used, repeatedly, by both Republican and Democratic administrations since 9/11.

After the attacks on the Twin Towers, Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which gave the executive branch sweeping powers to pursue terrorism around the world. That one document has served as the legal scaffolding for 20-plus years of undeclared wars and covert operations in Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, and elsewhere.

No further congressional approval was needed. The public never had a say. The war powers clause of the Constitution became symbolic—if not obsolete.

Former President Barack Obama inherited that framework and expanded it. His administration developed the now-infamous drone kill list, justified targeted assassinations (including of U.S. citizens), and defended the government’s right to indefinitely detain terrorism suspects without trial. Obama didn’t officially suspend habeas corpus, but in practice, he upheld a system that made the writ meaningless for hundreds of detainees held at Bagram and Guantánamo. The position of his Department of Justice was clear: The executive has the authority to detain and kill, beyond judicial oversight, because we are at war.

This is the true bipartisan legacy that paved the way for Trump. The removal of checks and balances didn’t happen overnight. It was built incrementally, piece by piece, under the banner of national security—with the cooperation and silence of the same liberal establishment that now acts scandalized by Trump’s every defiance.

It’s worth asking: Why wasn’t there more pearl clutching when the executive branch was unilaterally deciding who lived or died abroad, without congressional debate or judicial process? Why didn’t more alarm bells ring when Democrats joined Republicans in handing over war-making powers and then refused to take them back? Why was it acceptable to rule by emergency decree when the emergency was foreign—but suddenly unacceptable when the same logic is turned inward?

Trump is now openly talking about “eradicating” the Houthis in Yemen—an aggressive military escalation that directly contradicts the MAGA-era promise of no new foreign wars. So much for populist anti-interventionism. In lockstep with Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israel, Trump appears eager to resume the forever war posture. And once again, no one’s talking about congressional approval.

This is the cycle we’re caught in. Trump exposes the tools others helped create. He strips them of their moral veneer, revealing the ugly core. And rather than confront the system itself, liberals point at Trump as a singular villain—as if everything was working just fine before he came along.

The truth is harder to face: If we want to stop the next Trump, or the next expansion of executive lawlessness, we can’t keep pretending he came out of nowhere. We need to reckon with the fact that our democracy has been undermined from within—by both parties, for years. We need to challenge not just the man, but the machine.

And that’s something the Democratic Party, in its current corporate and security-state-aligned form, seems unwilling—or unable—to do. It would require renouncing its own legacy, from the Clinton-era crime bill to Obama-era surveillance and drone wars. It would require fundamentally rethinking how power is distributed in this country, and how easily it can be abused.

Until that happens, we shouldn’t be surprised when the next Trump defies the next court order. We shouldn’t act shocked when the language of war is used to suspend due process. We shouldn’t cling to the fantasy that our institutions will save us, when those institutions have been hollowed out by decades of bipartisan compromise.

Trump didn’t break democracy. He just took the mask off.

The oligarchs are laughing. The corporatists are laughing.

They are laughing at working people as the big con continues. They are laughing at the corporate Democratic Party whose genetic code lacks the heart to challenge the autocracy now unfolding. “Good billionaires vs. bad billionaires.” Really?

The political left spectrum is largely catatonic. Progressives lament the ineffectiveness of their wing of the Democratic Party. “Outsider” leftists are skeptical of both political parties, but too small in numbers yet to pose a threat to corporate Democrats.

The time of milquetoasts is over. It is time to recognize what must be done.

Liberals on the left spectrum are flummoxed; some stalwarts attribute their recent political debacle to the inability of the Democratic Party to distribute a cogent message of their accomplishments.

It was not the message that flopped. Rather economic numbers proved that our economic model continued to squash the interests of working people. They then sent a clear message that they were not buying the corporate Democratic dose of doldrums. They voted for President Donald Trump.

Economic Classes

Working people are comprised of the middle-working class and working class. The middle-working class identifies itself as “middle class.” The term is designed to divide working people.

Economic class has nothing to do with salaries or wages; it is about economic power. “Middle class” interests are closer to the working class than the dominant economic class.

Michael Zweig pointed this out in an insightful book in 2000 and revised in 2012. He identified the working class at 63% and the middle class at 35%. The combination presents a significant percentage of Americans who live and work largely by the undemocratic capriciousness of the 2%.

Real Economic Numbers

The income disparity in our country is at record levels as reported by the Congressional Budget Office. The income gap between the rich and everyone else is stunning. Income disparities are now so pronounced that America’s richest 1% of households averaged 139 times as much income as the bottom 20% in 2021.

The wealth disparity is just as shameful. Statista reported that in the first quarter of 2024, almost two-thirds of the total wealth in the United States was owned by the top 10%; the lowest 50% only owned 2.5% of the total wealth.

Make no mistake, If Americans do not take seriously the activities of the dominant economic class, it will be too late for working people.

The Ludwig Institute for Shared Prosperity (LISEP) reported an actual unemployment rate. LISEP tracks the percentage of the U.S. labor force that does not have a full-time job, wants one, has no job, or does not earn a living wage, conservatively pegged at $25,000 annually before taxes.

Their actual unemployment rate for this January was 23.3%.

Shadow Government Statistics (SGS) reported another actual unemployment rate. A significant demographic was mysteriously defined out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in 1994. Those discouraged workers who searched for work for more than one year simply vanished from the BLS unemployed numbers.

SGS reported that the actual unemployment rate for this January was 26.8%.

Inflation

The government’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a measure of the cost of maintaining a constant standard of living and measuring the cost of out-of-pocket expenses. However, since the 1980s the BLS has been altering its methodologies to decrease the actual inflation rate provided to the public.

The BLS ignores food and energy prices in “core” inflation numbers as if food and energy are not basic necessities for living.

The BLS transitioned from their historic fixed-weight basket of goods and services to a quasi-substitution-based basket of goods.

It also changed from arithmetic weighting to geometric weighting and to owners’ equivalent rent (OER) numbers.

Another BLS method to decrease the real inflation rate was a transition to hedonic measures, which actually attempts to measure how much enjoyment a person receives from changing from one product to another.

These changes reflected the BLS intentional artificial deflation of accurate CPI numbers from the American public.

SGS reported that the actual inflation rate for this January was 10.81%.

Big Picture Not So Good

Naturally, working people are seeking relief from this economic suffocation; according to the Council on Foreign Relations we have the largest disparity in wealth and income than any other developed country.

Good paying manufacturing jobs with other benefits left the country in dramatic numbers in the 1960s and 70s. How did this happen?

We can begin with an abysmal fact:

The economic empire of the U.S. is presently over, done, finished.

Our demise began when corporations moved to countries with low wages, regulations were minimal or nonexistent, and unions were absent. This was paradise for the corporate owner class.

This trend is continuing, and those good paying jobs are gone with no reason to return despite the bluster and gibberish emanating from the Trump administration.

The Economic Policy Institute reported that the U.S. lost 5 million manufacturing jobs in the last 25 years. To place our country in an advantageous position again will require transformation to a different economic model with smart negotiations and intelligent diplomacy with other countries.

A troubling result of the massive exodus of manufacturing jobs is the U.S. declining Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Consider in 2024, the GDP of the U.S. grew 2.8%; the GDP of China grew 5%. India, another member of the BRICS economic bloc, grew 5.6%.

Economic Tree

It is not that complicated here.

Our economic model is characterized by an economic tree for working people. At the root of the tree is the primary issue of wages and salaries.

Moving up the tree are branches that comprise secondary issues. They are viable employment opportunities; effective, affordable healthcare; comprehensive educational opportunities; comfortable, secure housing opportunities; wholesome nutrition; safe, reliable transportation; environmentally clean water, air, and land.

Will progressive organizations coalesce into a national movement for economic and political democracy and seize the Democratic Party?

The third branch are cultural issues: They are reasonable gun control, effective immigration reform, women’s healthcare rights, and LGBTQ rights. These issues are important to their demographics; however, they have been manipulated into wedge issues that distract working people from the real source of their discontent—that is the political power that maintains the privilege and power of the dominant economic class.

Working people must accept cultural issues without necessarily agreeing with them. The prevailing issue that demands consensus is the economic exploitation and deprivation of our economic model for working people of all demographics.

Emphasizing cultural issues with so called “woke” identity politics over economic class politics has resulted in the grotesque policies of Mr. Trump and the Republican Party cult.

It is these tertiary issues that Mr. Trump used to provoke and frighten MAGA working people. It distracted them into ignoring their economic class malaise.

An effective political party must work to transform primary issues into an inclusive party. Until then, cultural issues will be little but distractions for marginalized groups without actual progress for their causes; Democrats will continue to bay in the wind and lose elections while an autocratic political model is established. Project 2025 is that model and a blueprint financed by the corporate and oligarch class.

A Smart Direction

The shelf life is over for assorted corporate Democrats and corporate union leaders. Their vapid strategies and tactics unwittingly encouraged working people to support Mr. Trump. Consider that Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) defeated Mr. Trump in polls in 2016 and 2020. Yet the Democratic Party corporate sycophants denied Sen. Sanders the nomination.

The time of milquetoasts is over. It is time to recognize what must be done.

The arc of our progressive history includes the abolitionists, labor rights, women’s suffrage, civil rights, anti-war activities, and environmental movements. All had a common theme: They were mass movements that began as large groups of people who knew they could do better.

This may be what it requires to shake us free from the dehumanizing, exploitative crimes and corruption of neofascism that Mr. Trump and his MAGA cabal have been implementing. As contradictions sharpen and immiseration increases, the choices are stark.

Make no mistake, If Americans do not take seriously the activities of the dominant economic class, it will be too late for working people. The flurry of political attacks on our Constitution are not some frivolous actions that will be remedied in two or four years. The Trump cabal is playing the long game. Even the legal foundation of American democracy, Marbury v. Madison, is in jeopardy.

The judicial branch may strike down some of the more absurd legal and constitutional excesses of Mr. Trump’s supporters. However, his cult leaders of Project 2025 are preparing for a permanent autocratic model to replace our democratic republic. It will have the veneer of democracy, but will be an autocracy in form.

Remedies

Each day, the administration plows ahead with truculent policies chipping away at the lives of working people. Will the time arrive for working people to create a national database of progressive organizations as an informational foundation for an authentic progressive movement? Will it facilitate petitions, mass demonstrations, civil disobedience, and general strikes?

Will progressive organizations coalesce into a national movement for economic and political democracy and seize the Democratic Party? Third-party options, while advancing democracy, are chimerical at this time. ICE is the new Gestapo, and waiting for a new political party to emerge is delusional.

Will our spiritual and secular organizations lead a movement or remain docile?

Pope Paul VI wrote Populorism Progressio in 1967. He stated that the restructuring of society was a welcome possibility. Though he admonished against violent means, he acknowledged a form of violence was an option:

Everyone knows, however, that revolutionary uprisings—except where there is manifest, longstanding tyranny which would do great damage to fundamental personal rights and dangerous harm to the common good of the country—engender new injustices, introduce new inequities, and bring new disasters. The evil situation that exists, and it surely is evil, may not be dealt with in such a way that an even worse situation results.

The question must be asked about a time table for ameliorating the poverty, deprivation, and suffering that will surely follow the scabrous policies of Mr. Trump. Each day is a new attack on our political and social norms; neofascist laws appear like a new head regenerated on a hydra. The courts may strike one down and another one is hatched immediately by the Trump cult.

This is addressed in a quote from Mexican poet Homero Aridjis in 1991: “There are centuries in which nothing happens and years in which centuries pass.”

We will certainly find out soon enough. We must ask ourselves are we Americans willing to take the risk; as Victor Hugo stated in an essay in 1845: “You have enemies, Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

hy is Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, hyperventilating about Social Security? Why is he inventing unhinged tales about “fraudulent” hordes of Social Security grifters? Why is his “DOGE” chopping away staffers at the already understaffed Social Security Administration?

Let’s start with the political reality that most Americans see Social Security as absolutely essential to their future financial security. These average Americans, Musk and his like-minded super wealthy fear, are eventually going to start demanding that America’s rich pay a far bigger share of the revenue Social Security so desperately needs.

What are these rich paying now into Social Security? Peanuts.

Social Security’s basic math: Employees currently pay 6.2 percent of the money they make into the Social Security system. Their employers match that 6.2 percent. Self-employed Americans, for their part, pay 12.4 percent.

You mess with Social Security, as the conventional political wisdom goes, you’re going to feel a shock. The task today for Social Security’s defenders: to make that shock for Trump and Musk as sharp as possible.

But this funding set-up comes with two incredibly consequential catches that royally benefit our nation’s highest earners.

The first: Only paycheck income faces a Social Security tax levy. Most Americans get the vast bulk of their income from their paychecks. Rich people don’t. Our richest get most of their income from the investments they make with their wealth. This investment income — everything from the profits the rich make selling assets to the stock dividends they collect — faces no Social Security tax.

The second catch: Top corporate executives and other Americans with hefty paychecks only pay Social Security tax on a fraction of their pay. In 2025, all paycheck income over $176,100 will face not a penny of Social Security tax.

The savings our most affluent reap from both these two loopholes can run staggeringly high. Here in 2025, the economist Teresa Ghilarducci points out, at least 229 corporate and banking honchos making above $50 million per year will have essentially “paid all their Social Security taxes for the entire year” before the end of the year’s first morning!

How long can Social Security’s financing continue to go on like this? Not long. Up until recent years, we’ve had many more Americans contributing into Social Security than collecting from it. Today, with seniors making up an ever larger share of our nation’s population, the old ratios are breaking down.

In 2021, as the Social Security Board of Trustees reported last May, the Social Security system’s total annual costs started running higher than the program’s annual income. Come 2035, the trustees would go on to warn, America’s seniors will be collecting only 83 percent of the benefits due them unless Congress acts to set Social Security on a much more sustainable course

The simple solution to this demographic and fiscal challenge? We could move to once and for all end the special Social Security privileges that America’s most affluent continue to enjoy.

Elon Musk and his fellow deep pockets oppose, naturally, this simple solution. Their alternative? Squeeze the Social Security Administration. Cut the agency’s staff. Shut down Social Security offices and limit the services that aging and disabled Social Security recipients can easily access.

Create, in other words, a public Social Security system that no longer works. And, in the meantime, let billionaire-bankrolled politicians push schemes that position privatizing Social Security as the only way to “fix” what ails it.

This gameplan has already begun unfolding.

In late February, DOGE-inspired cutbacks eliminated 7,000 jobs from Social Security’s already depleted ranks. Other cuts are canceling the leases of some 800 Social Security field offices. Last week, the under-the-Musk-gun agency announced new policies that will force elderly and disabled people who’ve been able to verify their ID by phone to visit the distant field offices that remain open.

“The combination of fewer workers, fewer offices, and a massive increase in the demand for in-person services could sabotage the Social Security system,” reflects Max Richtman, the president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

“One has to ask,” adda Richtman, “why the world’s richest man — who has received in the tens of billions of dollars in federal contracts — is targeting the agency that helps so many Americans keep their heads above water financially.”

Right-wing lawmakers in Congress, meanwhile, are backing moves to increase the age seniors have to reach to access, without penalties, Social Security retirement benefits. Other right-wingers are laying the groundwork for privatizing Social Security outright.

Can right-wingers succeed with this brazen assault on the financial security of America’s working people? Maybe. President Trump is giving Musk and his gang all the political cover they need, claiming, on the one hand, that nothing about Social Security is going to change while — at the same time — letting Team Musk continue its attack on both Social Security’s image and infrastructure.

But Social Security does still remain — at least for now — the “third rail” of American politics. You mess with Social Security, as the conventional political wisdom goes, you’re going to feel a shock. The task today for Social Security’s defenders: to make that shock for Trump and Musk as sharp as possible.

Equally as crucial: ending the “free pass” on Social Security funding that America’s most affluent have long been enjoying. The dollars that this free pass is costing Social Security have been soaring just as spectacularly as America’s income and wealth has been concentrating.

In 2023, the most recent year with full stats available, some 6 percent of U.S. income earners took home incomes higher than that year’s Social Security tax cap. That 6 percent, economist Teresa Ghilarducci noted earlier this year, would have contributed over $388 billion more into Social Security’s coffers if that tax cap had not been in place.

Those rich who pocketed over $50 million in 2023 paychecks, Ghilarducci also notes, would have paid $3.6 billion in Social Security tax without that tax cap in existence, a payout into Social Security that would have been greater than the total Social Security tax that Americans making under $57,000 — 77 percent of working Americans overall — actually paid that year.

How can we bring some semblance of fairness into how we fund Social Security? We have choices.

Public policy experts at the Brookings Institution last month advanced an approach to overhauling Social Security “intended to appeal to Republicans and Democrats alike.” Their proposal would stabilize Social Security’s finances by increasing the cap on earnings subject to Social Security tax. The new cap would subject 90 percent of all paycheck earnings to that tax and shut down the loophole that lets some business owners now totally escape the Social Security payroll levy.

The Brookings reform would also increase the retirement age for high earners and “strengthen child benefits and protections for Americans with disabilities and the survivors of workers who die.”

Other reformers like Rep. John Larson, a long-time congressional champion of Social Security from Connecticut, are emphasizing the importance of expanding both Social Security’s benefits and tax base. The pending “Social Security Expansion Act” — introduced in the Senate by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren — speaks to both those goals.

If enacted, notes the bill’s co-sponsor Rep. Val Hoyle from Oregon, this legislation “would expand Social Security benefits by $2,400 a year and ensure Social Security is fully funded for the next 75 years by applying the Social Security payroll tax on all income above $250,000.”

What’s going to happen next in the congressional Social Security debate? Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill appear likely to become ever more nervous. Elon Musk’s maniacal — and ongoing — attacks on Social Security already have these Republicans exceptionally ill at ease.

“Going after the United States Institute of Peace is one thing, going after Social Security is something entirely different,” notes Rutgers University political scientist Ross Baker. “The ironies of a person of such immense wealth targeting a program that provides a modest benefit to ordinary people has the worst possible aura about it.”

But Musk’s hundreds of billions have the power to buff up any aura. Stopping his assault on Social Security is going to take a national groundswell every bit as sweeping as the 1930s grassroots ferment that created Social Security in the first place.

America’s military budget is more than just numbers on a page—it’s a reflection of the priorities that shape our society. Right now, that nearly trillion dollar budget is bloated, inefficient, and far removed from the needs of everyday Americans. We’ve identified six simple yet effective ways to cut at least $100 billion from the Pentagon’s budget—without sacrificing even the most hawkish of war hawk’s sense of national security. Ready to take the scissors to that excess spending? Here’s how we can do it.

1. Halt the F-35 Program (Save $12B+ per year)

The F-35 is the poster child for military mismanagement. It’s a fighter jet that was supposed to revolutionize our military—except it’s plagued by cost overruns, delays, and underperformance. Despite a projected lifetime cost of over $2 trillion, this aircraft only meets mission requirements about 30% of the time. If we ended or paused the F-35 program now, we'd free up $12 billion annually. The military-industrial complex can afford a few less fancy jets that destroy land and lives, especially when they don’t even do their job right.

The possibilities are endless when we take a more practical approach to national security spending. What could we do with the $100 billion we save?

2. Reassess Long-Range Missile Defense (Save $9.3B+ per year)

For over half a century, we’ve sunk an eye-watering $400 billion into long-range missile defense systems that have never delivered. The cold, hard truth is these systems are ineffective against real-world threats. In fact, no missile defense technology has ever proven capable of neutralizing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) attack. Cutting back on these programs would save us $9.3 billion per year—money that could be better spent on diplomacy initiatives that actually work.

3. Cut the Sentinel ICBM Program (Save $3.7B+ per year)

ICBMs were once the crown jewels of our nuclear deterrence strategy, but they’re outdated in today’s geopolitical climate. With more reliable and flexible platforms like submarines, bombers, and emerging hypersonic technologies, maintaining an expensive, high-risk ICBM arsenal makes little sense. Ending the Sentinel ICBM program would save taxpayers $3.7 billion annually, and even more in the long run, with total savings over its lifespan estimated at $310 billion. It’s time to face facts: we don’t need to keep pouring money into a strategy that no longer aligns with modern defense needs. Especially when the best nuclear deterrence system is ending nuclear weapons programs to begin with.

4. Cease Procurement of Aircraft Carriers (Save $2.3B+ per year)

Aircraft carriers are relics of a bygone era, costing billions to build and maintain, while becoming increasingly vulnerable to modern missile technology. These floating cities are no longer the symbols of naval power they once were. By halting new aircraft carrier procurements, we can save $2.3 billion a year—money that could be better allocated to ways that actually keep us safe in the 21st century like housing, healthcare or climate justice.

5. Cut Redundant Contracts by 15% (Save $26B per year)

The Pentagon’s bureaucracy is a cash cow for contractors—more than 500,000 private sector workers are paid to do redundant and often wasteful work. Many contracts overlap or go toward projects that are, frankly, unnecessary. Cutting back just 15% on these contracts would save $26 billion annually. That's a massive chunk of change that could be reallocated to more efficient and effective defense projects. Want a starting point? Look no further than SpaceX’s lucrative contracts—it’s time we hold these companies accountable. Maybe DOGE knows a guy there?

6. Prioritize Diplomacy (Save $50B+ per year)

The best way to avoid unnecessary military spending is to prevent conflicts from happening in the first place. By focusing on diplomatic solutions instead of military interventions, we can scale back expensive overseas bases, reduce troop deployments, and use reserves and National Guard units more effectively. This shift could save up to $50 billion a year—and possibly as much as $100 billion in the long term. It’s about time we put our resources into creating peaceful solutions rather than preparing for endless wars.

What Could We Do with the $100 Billion in Savings?

The possibilities are endless when we take a more practical approach to national security spending. What could we do with the $100 billion we save? Here’s a snapshot of just some of the incredible investments we could make in American society:

• 787,255 Registered Nurses: Filling critical healthcare gaps nationwide.
• 10.39 million Public Housing Units: Making affordable housing a reality for families across the country.
• 2.29 million Jobs at $15/hour: Providing good jobs with benefits, boosting the economy.
• 1.03 million Elementary School Teachers: Giving our children the education they deserve.
• 579,999 Clean Energy Jobs: Building a sustainable, green future for the next generation.
• 7.81 million Head Start Slots: Giving young children a foundation for lifelong success.
• 5.88 million Military Veterans receiving VA medical care: Ensuring those who served our country receive the care they earned.

The Bottom Line?

Cutting $100 billion from the Pentagon budget isn’t just a pipe dream—it’s a tangible, achievable plan that could deliver real benefits to everyday Americans. While it’s just a starting point, this reduction would allow us to prioritize what truly matters: healthcare, education, infrastructure, and the well-being of our people. If we’re going to spend taxpayer dollars, let’s make sure they go toward initiatives that directly benefit the lives of the citizens who fund them.

Neither Lee Zeldin, nor Elon Musk, nor President Donald Trump could possibly look Brian Kelly in the eye to tell him to his face that he is lazy.

They cannot tell Kayla Butler she is crooked.

They dare not accuse Luis Antonio Flores or Colin Kramer of lollygagging on the golf course.

If Zeldin, Musk, or Trump knew a scintilla about them, they would dare not froth at the mouth with their toxic stereotypes about federal civil servants. All four work in Region 5 of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), responsible for pollution monitoring, cleanups, community engagement, and emergency hazardous waste response for Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

A decimated EPA means less scrutiny for another Flint water crisis, less eyeballs on Superfund sites, and limited ability to investigate toxic contamination after train derailments, such as the incident two years ago in East Palestine, Ohio.

The Midwest is historically so saturated with manufacturing that just those six states generated a quarter of the nation’s hazardous waste back in the 1970s, and it is still today home to a quarter of the nation’s facilities reporting to the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory Program. When I recently visited Region 5’s main office in Chicago, one enforcement officer, who did not give her name because of the sensitivity of her job, told me there are still toxic sites where “we show up [and] neither the state nor the EPA has ever been [there] to check.”

With irony, I visited the office the same week the Trump administration and Zeldin, President Trump’s new EPA administrator, announced they planned to cut 65% of the agency’s budget. Zeldin has since then dropped even more bombshells in a brazen attempt to gut the nation’s first line of defense against the poisoning of people, the polluting of the environment, and the proliferation of global warming gases.

Zeldin announced on March 12 more than 30 actions he plans to undertake to weaken or cripple air, water, wastewater, and chemical standards, including eliminating the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights and getting the EPA out of the business of curbing the carbon dioxide and methane gases fueling global warming. Despite record production that has the United States atop the world for oil, Zeldin said he was throttling down on regulations because they are “throttling the oil and gas industry.”

Last week, The New York Times reported the EPA is considering firing half to three-quarters of its scientists (770 to 1,155 out of 1,540) and closing the Office of Research and Development, the agency’s scientific research office. Zeldin justifies this in part by deriding many EPA programs as “left-wing ideological projects.” He violently brags that he is “driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion.”

Impact of Cuts at EPA Felt Deeply, Broadly

Kelly, Butler, Flores, Kramer, and many others I talked with in Region 5 said all these plans are actually a bayonet ripping out the heart and soul of their mission. They all spoke to me on the condition that they were talking as members of their union, Local 704 of the American Federation of Government Employees. Nicole Cantello, union president and an EPA attorney, said the attacks on her members are unlike anything she’s seen in her more than 30 years with the agency. As much as prior conservative administrations may have criticized the agency, there’s never been one—until now—that tried to “fire everybody.”

Flores, a chemist who analyzes air, water, and soil samples for everything from lead to PCBs, said a decimated EPA means less scrutiny for another Flint water crisis, less eyeballs on Superfund sites, and limited ability to investigate toxic contamination after train derailments, such as the incident two years ago in East Palestine, Ohio. He added, “And we have a Great Lakes research vessel that tests the water across all the lakes. It’s important for drinking water, tourism, and fishing. If we get crippled, all that goes into question.”

“People will die,” he said. “There will be additional deaths if we roll back these protections.”

Butler is a community involvement coordinator who works through Superfund legislation to inform communities about remediation efforts. She was deeply concerned that urban neighborhoods and rural communities will be denied the scientific resources to tell the full story of environmental injustice. Superfund sites, the legacy of toxic chemicals used in manufacturing, military operations, mining, and landfills, are so poisonous, they can have cumulative, compound effects on affected communities, triggering many diseases. A 2023 EPA Inspector General report said the agency needed stronger policies, guidance, and performance measures to “assess and address cumulative impacts and disproportionate health effects on overburdened communities.”

Butler is deeply concerned cumulative impact assessments will not happen with cuts to the EPA, denying urban neighborhoods and rural communities the scientific resources to fully expose the horror of environmental injustice. “It’s a clear story that they’re trying to erase.” Butler said of the new administration.

For Kelly, an on-site emergency coordinator based out of Michigan, the rollbacks and the erasing of the story of environmental harms have an obvious conclusion. “People will die,” he said. “There will be additional deaths if we roll back these protections.”

What these workers also fear is the slow death of spirit amongst themselves to be civil servants.

Start with Kelly.

I actually talked to him from Chicago by telephone because he was out in Los Angeles County, deployed to assist with the cleanup of the devastating Eaton Fire that killed 17 people and destroyed more than 9,400 structures.

Between the Eaton Fire and the Palisades Fire, which took another 12 lives and destroyed another 6,800 buildings, the EPA conducted what it said was the largest wildfire hazardous materials cleanup in the history of the agency, and likely the most voluminous lithium battery removal in world history—primarily from the electric and hybrid vehicles and home battery storage people were forced to leave behind as they fled.

During a break, Kelly talked about how nimble he and his colleagues must be. He has worked cleanups of monster storms Katrina, Sandy, and Maria, and the East Palestine trail derailment. Based normally out of Michigan, he recalled a day he was working in the Upper Peninsula on a cleanup of an old abandoned mine processing site. He received a call from a state environmental emergency official asking him to drop what he was doing because 20 minutes away a gasoline tanker truck had flipped over, spilling about 6,000 gallons of gasoline onto the roads and down through the storm sewer into local waterways.

When he arrived, Kelly asked the fire chief how he could help. He was asked to set up air monitoring. But then he noticed anxious contractors who were wondering if they were going to get paid for their work. “They’re ordering supplies, they’re putting dirt down to contain this gasoline from getting any further,” Kelly said. “But they’re like, ‘Are we going to get paid for this?’”

“I found the truck driver who was talking to their insurance company. So I get on the phone with the insurance company and say, ‘Hey. This is who I am. This is what’s happening here. You need to come to terms and conditions with these contractors right now or EPA’s going to have to start taking this cleanup over!’”

The insurance was covered. Kelly said he could not have been so assertive with the insurance company without a robust EPA behind him.

“It’s one thing to be able go out and respond to these emergencies, but you have to have attorneys on your side,” Kelly said. “You’ve got to have enforcement specialists behind you. You’ve got to have people who are experts in drinking water and air. You can’t just have one person out there on an island by themselves.”

“Cruel for the Sake of Being Cruel”

Butler wonders if whole communities will become remote islands, surrounded by rising tides of pollution. The very morning of our interview, she was informed she was one of the thousands of federal workers across the nation who had their government purchase cards frozen by Elon Musk, the world’s richest human and President Trump’s destroyer of federal agencies. In launching the freeze, Musk claimed with no evidence, “A lot of shady expenditures happening.”

Butler threw shade on that, saying the purchase system is virtually foolproof with multiple layers of vetting and proof of purchase. She uses her purchase card to buy ads and place public notices in newspapers to keep communities informed about remediation of Superfund sites.

She has also used her card to piece together equipment to fit in a van for a mobile air monitor. The monitor assists with compliance, enforcement, and giving communities a read on possible toxic emissions and dust from nearby industrial operations.

Kramer wonders how many more scientists will follow in his footsteps to see that the work keeps getting done.

“I literally bought the nuts and bolts that feed into this van that allow the scientists to measure all the chemicals, all the air pollution,” Butler said. “I remember seeing the van for the first time after I bought so many things for years. And I was like ‘Wow this is real!’”

Not only was the van real, but air monitoring in general, along with soil monitoring—particularly in places like heavily polluted Southeast Chicago—has been a critical tool of environmental justice to get rid of mountains of petcoke dust and detect neurotoxic manganese dust in the air and lead in backyards.

“Air monitoring created so much momentum for the community and community members to say, ‘This is what we need,’” Butler said.

Kramer is a chemist in quality assurance, working with project planners to devise the most accurate ways of testing for toxic materials, such as for cleanups of sites covered in PFAS—aka “forever chemicals”—from fire retardants, or at old industrial sites saturated with PCBs from churning out electrical equipment, insulation, paints, plastics, or adhesives. His job is mostly behind the scenes, but he understood the meaning of his work from one visit to a site to audit the procedures of the Illinois EPA.

The site had a small local museum dedicated to the Native tribes that first occupied the land. “The curator or director told us how the sampling work was going to bring native insects back to the area and different wildlife back to the streams,” Kramer said. “It was kind of a quick offhand conversation, but it gave me a quick snapshot of the work that’s being done.”

Kramer wonders how many more scientists will follow in his footsteps to see that the work keeps getting done. He remembered a painful day recently when a directive came down that he could not talk to contractors, even those who happen to work in the same building as he does.

“I see them every day,” Kramer said. “They come say hi to me. They know my child’s name. Being told that I couldn’t respond if they came to my desk, looked me in the face, and said, ‘Good morning,’ is just such an unnecessary wrench into our system that just feels cruel for the sake of being cruel.”

Staff Stifled, Heartbroken

The culture of fear is particularly stifling for one staffer who did not want to give her name because she is a liaison to elected officials. Before Zeldin took over, she would get an email from an elected official asking if funding for a project was still on track and “30 seconds later,” as she said, the question would be answered.

Her job “is all about relationships,” keeping officials informed about projects. Now, she said just about everything she depends on to do her job has basically come to a halt. “Everyone’s afraid to say anything, answer emails, put anything in writing without getting approval. Just mass chaos all the way to the top.”

“I feel like I made a promise to them that I would be there for what they needed,” she said. “And I feel like I’ve been forced to go back on that promise.”

Relationships are being upset left and right according to other staffers. One set of my interviews was with three EPA community health workers who feel they are betraying the communities they serve because their contact with them has fluctuated in the first months of the Trump administration. They’ve had to shift from silence to delicately dancing around any conversation that mentions environmental justice or diversity, equity, and inclusion.

They did not want to be named because they did not want to jeopardize the opportunity to still find ways to serve communities historically dumped on with toxic pollution for decades because of racism and classism.

“Literally since January 20, my entire division has been on edge,” said one of the three. “We kind of feel like we’re in the hot seat. A lot of people working on climate are afraid. If you’re working with [people with] lower to moderate income or [places] more populated by people of color, you’re afraid because you don’t want to send off any flags to the administration.”

The tiptoeing is heartbreaking to them because they see firsthand the poisoning of families from chemicals the EPA has regulated. One of the health workers has painful memories of seeing the “devastated” look on mothers’ faces when giving them the results of child lead tests that were well above the hazardous limit. “I feel like I made a promise to them that I would be there for what they needed,” she said. “And I feel like I’ve been forced to go back on that promise.”

Remembering Their Mission Boosts Morale

Despite that, and despite President Trump’s baseless ranting, which included saying during the campaign that “crooked” and “dishonest” federal workers were “destroying this country,” these EPA staffers are far from caving in. Nationally, current and former EPA staff last week published an open letter to the nation that said, “We cannot stand by and allow” the assault on environmental justice programs.

Locally in Region 5, the workers’ union has been trying to keep morale from tanking with town halls, trivia nights, lunch learning sessions, and happy hours. In a day of quiet defiance, many of the 1,000 staffers wore stickers in support of the probationary employees that said, “Don’t Fire New Hires.” Several of the people I interviewed said that if Zeldin and the Trump administration really cared about waste and inefficiency, they would not try to fire tens of thousands of probationary workers across the federal system.

One of them noted how the onboarding process, just to begin her probationary year, took five months. “It wastes all this money onboarding them and then eliminating them,” she said. “That’s totally abusing taxpayer dollars if you ask me. It’s hard enough to get people to work here. We’re powered by smart people who went to school for a long time and could make a lot of money elsewhere.” Federal staffers with advanced degrees make 29% less, on average, than counterparts in the private sector, according to a report last year from the Congressional Budget Office.

“We’re supposed to be this nonpartisan force that’s working for the American people, and attacks to that is a direct attack on the American people.”

Individually, several said they maintained their morale by remembering why they came to the EPA in the first place. Flores, whose public service was embedded into him growing up in a military family, said, “I didn’t want to make the next shampoo,” with his chemistry degrees. “I didn’t want to make a better adhesive for a box… the tangible mission of human health and environmental health is very important me.”

The enforcement officer who wanted to remain anonymous talked about a case where she worked with the state to monitor lead in a fenceline community near a toxic industry. Several children were discovered to have elevated levels of lead in their blood.

“People’ lives are in my hands,” she said. “When we realized how dire the circumstance was, we were able to really speed up our process by working with the company, working with the state, and getting a settlement done quick. And now all those fixes are in place. The lead monitoring has returned back to safe levels, and we know that there aren’t going to be any more kids impacted by this facility.”

One of the community health workers I interviewed said her mission means so much to her because at nine years old she lost her mother to breast cancer after exposure to the solvent trichloroethylene (TCE). That carcinogen is used in home, furniture, and automotive cleaning products. The Biden administration banned TCE in its final weeks, but the Trump administration has delayed implementation.

“The loss of her rippled throughout our community,” the worker said of her mother. “She was active in our church, teaching immigrants in our city how to read. The loss of her had such a large impact.” She said if the EPA were gutted, so many people like her mother would be lost too soon. “We play critical roles beyond just laws and regulations,” she said. “We do serve vital functions for communities based on where the need is the most.”

The same worker worried that if an agency as critical to community health as the EPA can be slashed to a shell of itself, there is no telling what is in store next for the nation. “I know people don’t have a lot of sympathy for bureaucrats,” she said. “But I think what is happening to us is a precursor to what happens to the rest of the country. We’re supposed to be this nonpartisan force that’s working for the American people, and attacks to that is a direct attack on the American people.”

One of her co-workers seconded her by saying, “We’re fighting for the American people and we are the American people. We all began this job for a reason. We all have our ‘why.’ And that hasn’t changed just because the administration has changed, because there’s some backlash or people coming after us. Just grounding yourself with people whose ‘why’ is the same as yours helps a lot.”

It is crucial for any American administration to recognize that, regardless of political agendas, the views of the American public regarding the situation in Palestine and Israel are undergoing a significant shift. A critical mass of opinion is rapidly forming, and this change is becoming undeniable.

Paradoxically, while Islamophobia continues to rise across the U.S., sentiments supporting Palestinians and opposing Israeli occupation are steadily increasing.

In theory, this means that the pro-Israeli media's success in linking Israel's actions against the Palestinian people to the so-called "war on terror"—a narrative that has demonized Islam and Muslims for many years—is faltering.

Palestine may not be the sole measure by which the Trump administration will be judged, nor the only factor shaping future voting patterns. Yet, it is undoubtedly a crucial test.

Americans are increasingly viewing the situation in Palestine as a human rights issue, and one that is deeply relevant to domestic politics. A recent Gallup poll underscores this shift.

The poll, released on March 6, was conducted between February 3 and 16. It found that American support for Israel is at its lowest point in 25 years, while sympathy for Palestinians has reached its highest level. Having 46% of Americans supporting Israel and 33% supporting Palestinians would have seemed inconceivable in the past, when the plight of Palestine and its people was largely overlooked by the general public.

Even more remarkable is that this shift continues to gain momentum, despite the fact that mainstream media and American politicians have been more biased than ever, promoting a dehumanizing discourse of Palestinians and unprecedented, uncritical support for Israel.

While the growing shift in favor of Palestine—particularly the genocide in Gaza, which played a role in influencing political outcomes in several states during the last presidential election—had gone largely unnoticed by the Biden administration, it's clear that the dissatisfaction with the government's position remains unchanged.

The previous administration approved significant military aid to Israel, topping $17.9 billion in the first year alone, enabling its genocidal war in Gaza, resulting in over 160,000 casualties over a span of 15 months.

Yet, this blatant disregard for Palestinian lives and rights persisted under the new administration of President Donald Trump, who appointed some of the most staunchly anti-Palestinian, pro-Israel figures to key positions in his government.

Trump did this despite making repeated, though often contradictory, promises to end the war and resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Instead, the U.S. president approved the release of a shipment of heavy MK-84 bombs and passed a nearly $3 billion arms sale to Israel.

Trump also introduced a new U.S. policy that solely focused on "taking ownership" of Gaza and displacing its population. Although this position was inconsistently articulated, Trump ultimately, on March 14, seemed to reverse it altogether. This left many wondering whether U.S. foreign policy was truly independent or simply a reflection of Israel's influence and its Washington lobby.

Unlike Biden, whose support for Israel has been consistent, Trump's stance has been confusing and contradictory. The U.S. news portal Axios reported on March 5 that talks between the U.S., led by Adam Boehler, and Hamas had taken place in Doha. In an interview with CNN four days later, Boehler made the striking statement that U.S. and Israeli foreign policies should be seen as separate. "We're the United States. We're not an agent of Israel," he said.

However, as analysts began mulling over this unprecedented language, it was soon revealed that Boehler was removed from his position, and the traditional, unwavering support for Israel quickly returned.

As U.S. policymakers continue to swing between their unwavering commitment to Israel and the "America first" rhetoric, they must keep in mind the following.

First, the American public is increasingly aware of events in Palestine, so masking Israel's violations of Palestinian rights under the guise of "Israel's right to defend itself" no longer suffices.

Second, U.S. and Israeli interests are not identical: The U.S. seeks geopolitical dominance followed by stabilization and so-called "containment," while Israel thrives on provocations, destabilization, and long-lasting conflicts.

Third, Palestine has become a domestic issue in the U.S., and the debate on Palestine and Israel is no longer one-sided. Growing support for Palestine means that more U.S. voters will base their future political decisions on how the U.S. engages with Israel and its disregard for Palestinian rights.

Fourth, crackdowns on dissent, arrests of activists, and funding cuts will only deepen the polarization around this issue, rather than fostering an open, informed, and productive debate about a matter of great importance to millions of Americans. Such actions are quickly eroding the reputation of the U.S. as a democratic state and undermining confidence in its commitment to a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

Palestine may not be the sole measure by which the Trump administration will be judged, nor the only factor shaping future voting patterns. Yet, it is undoubtedly a crucial test. If the contradictions persist, and the U.S. continues to provide unwavering military support for Israel, Palestine could become the defining issue that contributes to the unraveling of U.S. foreign policy, not only in the Middle East but around the world.

It is not too late for this trajectory to shift, or for some degree of balance to emerge. The lives of millions are at stake.

Allow me to stipulate that I do not wish to die. In fact, had anyone consulted me about the construction of the universe, I would have made my views on the subject quite clear: Mortality is a terrible idea. I’m opposed to it in general. (In wiser moments, I know that this is silly and that all life feeds on life. There is no life without the death of other beings, indeed, no planets without the death of stars.)

Nonetheless, I’m also opposed to mortality on a personal level. I get too much pleasure out of being alive to want to give it up. And I’m curious enough that I don’t want to die before I learn how it all comes out (or, for that matter, ends). I don’t want to leave the theater when the movie’s only partway over—or even after the credits have rolled. In fact, my antipathy to death is so extreme that I think it’s fair to say I’m a coward. That’s probably why, in hopes of combatting that cowardice, I’ve occasionally done silly things like running around in a war zone, trying to stop a U.S. intervention. As Aristotle once wrote, we become brave by doing brave things.

Remember That You Are Dust

I wrote this on Ash Wednesday, which is the beginning of the season of Lent. The Ash Wednesday service includes a ceremonial act meant to remind each of us of our mortality. A priest “imposes,” or places, a smudge of ash on each congregant’s forehead, saying, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” That action and those words reflect the brevity and contingency of human life, while echoing Christianity’s Jewish roots in the understanding that human life must have both a beginning and an end. Psalm 103 puts the sentiment this way:

As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
for he knows how we are formed,
he remembers that we are dust.
The life of mortals is like grass,
they flourish like a flower of the field;
the wind blows over it and it is gone,
and its place remembers it no more.

You don’t need to believe in a compassionate divinity to feel the loneliness of that windswept field, that place that remembers us no more.

I’ve been ruminating on my fear of dying lately, as I contemplate the courage of the people of Ukraine, many of whom would, as the saying goes, rather die on their feet than live on their knees. It’s an expression I first heard in Nicaragua during the Contra war of the 1980s—mejor morir de pie que vivir en rodillas—although it’s an open question who said it first. In the 20th century, it was proclaimed by both Emiliano Zapata, the Mexican revolutionary, and the Republican heroine of the Spanish civil war, Dolores Ibárruri, also known as “La Pasionaria.” I wish I could discern in my own breast that passionate preference for a dignified death over a life of suppression or slavery, yet I find that I can’t make myself feel that way. When I think about death—dignified or otherwise—my mind strays again to that empty windswept field and I am afraid.

It’s odd—and a little disgusting—that I seem to share U.S. President Donald Trump’s horror about the numbers of people dying in Russia’s war against Ukraine. I also want that war to stop. I don’t want one more person to lose his or her chance of finding out how the story ends. Yet I also understand why people choose to fight (and possibly die)—in Ukraine, in Gaza, and on the Jordan River’s West Bank.

The Death of Millions

Here’s an observation often attributed to Russian autocrat Joseph Stalin that was, in fact, probably lifted from a German essay about French humor: “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.” Whoever said (or wrote) it first, the point is that, while we can imagine a single death with its personal details of life and extinction, the human brain has trouble truly grasping large numbers of anything, including deaths.

In particular, we’re not good at understanding the numerous deaths of people who live far from us. At the end of February, The Associated Press reported that six infants had died of exposure in Gaza over the previous two weeks. One father said of his two-month-old daughter, whose body turned cold at midnight on a windswept Mediterranean plain, “Yesterday, I was playing with her. I was happy with her. She was a beautiful child, like the moon.”

The strategy of Musk and Trump is, in effect, to pile the corpses high enough that the numbers overwhelm our capacity for empathy.

We can imagine one child, beautiful like the moon. But can we imagine more than 48,000 babies, children, teenagers, adults, and old people, each with his or her own story, each killed by a military force armed and encouraged first by the Biden administration and now by that of Donald Trump? Indeed, while former President Joe Biden finally denied Israel any further shipments of 2,000-pound bombs (though not all too many other weapons), President Trump’s administration has renewed the transfer of those staggeringly destructive weapons, quite literally with a vengeance. Announcing an “emergency” grant of an extra $4 billion in military aid to Israel, Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently explained the shift:

Since taking office, the Trump administration has approved nearly $12 billion in major FMS [“Foreign Military Sales”] sales to Israel. This important decision coincides with President Trump’s repeal of a Biden-era memorandum which had imposed baseless and politicized conditions [emphasis added] on military assistance to Israel at a time when our close ally was fighting a war of survival on multiple fronts against Iran and terror proxies.

As Reuters observes, “One 2,000-pound bomb can rip through thick concrete and metal, creating a wide blast radius.” That’s not exactly a weapon designed to root out individual urban commandos. It’s a weapon designed to “cleanse” an entire city block of its inhabitants. And we know that Donald Trump has indeed imagined plans to cleanse the rest of Gaza before (of course) converting it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.” Perhaps Israel can use its new bombs to level the rest of the strip’s remaining buildings to make way for Mar-a-Gaza.

Yes, we can imagine the death of an infant, but can we imagine the permanent displacement of more than 2 million of her fellow Palestinians?

People Are Dying—and They’re Just Getting Started

If you can wrap your head around the destruction of Gaza, you’re ready for an even bigger challenge, one about which the new regime in Washington has said exactly nothing: Sudan, where civil war and famine threaten the lives of 5 million people. Back in 2019, a popular nonviolent uprising dislodged that nation’s long-time dictator President Omar al-Bashir. Sadly, after a brief period of joint civilian-military rule, the Sudanese army seized the government, only to be confronted by a powerful militia called the Rapid Response Forces. The historical origins of the conflict are complex, but the effects on the Sudanese people are simple: murder, rape, and mass starvation. And the new Trump regime has done nothing to help. In fact, as the BBC reported:

The freezing of U.S. humanitarian assistance has forced the closure of almost 80% of the emergency food kitchens set up to help people left destitute by Sudan’s civil war… Aid volunteers said the impact of President Donald Trump’s executive order halting contributions from the U.S. government’s development organization (USAID) for 90 days meant more than 1,100 communal kitchens had shut. It is estimated that nearly 2 million people struggling to survive have been affected.

Nor are Sudan and Gaza the only places where people are already dying because of Donald Trump. The New York Times has produced a lengthy list of programs frozen for now (and perhaps forever) by the shutdown of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Those include “HIV treatment programs that had served millions of people, the main malaria control programs in the worst-affected African countries, and global efforts to wipe out polio.” Even programs that count the dead have been discontinued, so we will never know the full effect of those cuts.

On March 5, a divided Supreme Court ruled 5-to-4 that USAID funds must indeed be reinstated for now. However, two things remain unclear: First, will the case be returned to the Supreme Court for further adjudication? And second, will the Trump administration abide by its decision in the meantime and release the funds that have been impounded? This seems increasingly unlikely, given Secretary of State Rubio’s March 10 announcement that 83% of those USAID contracts will be permanently cancelled.

His comments have rendered the legal situation even murkier. In any case, if, as seems all too likely, the administration continues to stonewall the courts, then we have indeed already arrived at the constitutional crisis that’s been anticipated for weeks now.

It’s not only overseas that people will die thanks to the actions of Donald Trump. While we can’t blame him for the recent measles outbreaks in Texas and eight other states, he is the guy who made Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services. And Kennedy is the guy who first downplayed the seriousness of measles; then, rather than vigorously promoting the measles vaccine, called it a matter of “personal choice”; and finally suggested that measles can be easily treated with Vitamin A. (In case you had any doubts, this is not true!) To date only two people—an unvaccinated child and an unvaccinated adult—have died, but sadly, it’s early days yet.

I know that certain of us may well be called upon, perhaps sooner than we imagine, to die for liberty here in this country.

Meanwhile, there’s a new pandemic sniffing around for potential human victims: the H5N1 strain of bird flu. It’s already led to the culling of millions of chickens (and a concomitant rise in the price of eggs). It’s also infected dairy cattle, cats, and even a few human beings, including one resident of Louisiana who died of the disease in January 2025. To date there are no confirmed cases of human-to-human transmission, but the strains circulating in other mammals suggest an ability to mutate to permit that kind of contagion.

You might think that Trump learned his lesson about underestimating a virus with the Covid-19 pandemic back in 2020. That, however, seems not to be the case. Instead, he’s endangering his own citizens and the rest of the world by pulling the U.S. out of the World Health Organization, where global cooperation to confront a potential pandemic would ordinarily take place. And Kennedy is seriously considering pulling an almost $600 million contract with the American pharmaceutical and biotechnology company Moderna to produce an mRNA vaccine against bird flu. That’s what I call—to use a phrase of the president’s—Making America Healthy Again.

Kennedy has also postponed indefinitely the February meeting of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s advisory panel on flu vaccines. This is the group that convenes regularly to make decisions about which strain of seasonal flu should be addressed by the current year’s vaccines. Deaths from flu and attendant pneumonias vary across time. During the 2022-2023 season more than 47,000 Americans died of flu or flu-related pneumonia. Estimates of last year’s deaths exceed 28,000. Without effective vaccines those numbers would have been—and perhaps in the future will be—much higher.

There are many other ways Trump’s actions have killed and will continue to kill, including through the suicides of transgender youth denied affirming healthcare; or the deaths of pregnant people denied abortion care; or those of people who come here seeking asylum from political violence at home, only to be shipped back into the arms of those who want to kill them; or even of fired and despairing federal workers who might take their own lives. The list of those at risk under Trump grows ever longer and, of course, includes the planet itself.

As Elon Musk recently told podcaster Joe Rogan, “The fundamental weakness of Western civilization is empathy.” And the strategy of Musk and Trump is, in effect, to pile the corpses high enough that the numbers overwhelm our capacity for empathy.

People will die and, as was true of the cruelty of Trump’s first term, their deaths are, in a sense, the point. They will die because he has undoubtedly realized that, no matter how long he remains president, one day he himself will die. His administration is, as he has told us, driven by a thirst for retribution. He is seeking revenge for his own mortality against everything that lives.

Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light

There is another murder I haven’t even mentioned yet, a metaphorical killing of a particularly devastating sort, one that will doubtless lead to many actual deaths before we’re done. I’m thinking, of course, of the death of our democracy. Many others, including Timothy Snyder, M. Gessen, and Anne Applebaum, have written about that process, already well underway, so there’s no reason to rehearse the details here.

Contemplating this already violent moment in our history, this genuine break with the rule of law and all that’s decent, brings me back to the meditation on death with which I began this piece. I’ve long loved poet Dylan Thomas’s villanelle on old age, “Do not go gentle into that good night.” As I climb higher into my 70s, it speaks to me ever more directly. The first three lines are particularly appropriate to these Trumpian times:

“Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

I’ve always been a partisan of the “rage, rage” faction. I’m not going gentle. Give me all the “heroic measures.” No do not resuscitate or DNR for me. And yet, paradoxically, our rage at the dying of democracy’s light will indeed drag some of us, I believe, burning and raving into that good night.

I know that certain of us may well be called upon, perhaps sooner than we imagine, to die for liberty here in this country. It’s happened before. I doubt I would (or should) kill for freedom, but I hope I would, if put to the test, be willing to die for it.

Traditionally, authoritarian regimes were defined by their capacity to control information. Critics were silenced, press outlets were shuttered, and opposition voices were imprisoned or worse. Power was exercised through fear, secrecy, and violence. But in President Donald Trump’s America, authoritarianism has evolved. It no longer hides behind walls of censorship—it thrives in plain sight.

Trump’s political style isn’t about suppressing attention. It’s about seizing it. Whether threatening to annex Greenland “one way or another,” mocking Canada as the “51st state,” or pressuring Columbia University to abandon free speech protections, the goal isn’t to avoid controversy. The aim is to create it.

In Trump’s case, the provocation is the point.

This shift reflects a deeper transformation in how power is exercised in the 21st century. In a world governed by algorithms, virality, and information overload, authoritarianism no longer seeks silence—it seeks spectacle. Trump’s provocations are not mere outbursts. They are designed and timed to dominate headlines, crowd out serious scrutiny, and keep the public in a state of reactive agitation.

These performances are not without precedent. But in Trump’s case, the provocation is the point. His administration has leaned into fascist-style imagery, with symbolic salutes, rallies drenched in nationalism, and open threats against political dissidents—both foreign and domestic. But this isn't authoritarianism for the sake of totalitarian control. It’s authoritarianism repurposed for an attention economy—where outrage drives clicks, and distraction enables deeper, quieter abuses of power.

The Distraction Machine: Authoritarianism in the Age of Virality

In previous generations, authoritarian leaders worried about hiding abuses. Trump, by contrast, seems to invite public attention to his most outrageous behavior—not in spite of its controversy, but precisely because of it.

What happens when Trump threatens journalists? When his administration cracks down on campus protests, or fans conspiracy theories about foreign states? The media—both traditional and social—explodes with takes, outrage, and analysis. These cycles create a spectacle that consumes public attention. And while Americans are arguing over whether Trump’s statements are ironic, dangerous, or “just trolling,” his administration is quietly enacting policies that concentrate wealth and corporate power behind the scenes.

This is by design. When Trump publicly praised authoritarian leaders while floating the idea of withdrawing the U.S. from NATO, or when he staged a militarized inauguration complete with nationalist salutes and fascist-style imagery, outrage predictably dominated headlines and flooded social media. While commentators debated the symbolic threats to democracy, far less attention was paid to the administration’s simultaneous efforts to expand fossil fuel drilling, dismantle environmental protections, and push through financial deregulations that directly benefit corporate donors and billionaire allies.

This is the sleight of hand that defines contemporary authoritarian populism. Performative controversies act as bait. While political opponents and the press react to each new provocation, policy moves quietly. Headlines focus on Trump’s tone, but not his taxes; on his insults, but not his infrastructure contracts; on his speeches, but not his subsidies.

As Trump escalates mass deportations, including the forced removal of immigrants to El Salvador, the moves are framed as tough-on-crime, anti-immigrant theater—crafted to energize his base and dominate the media cycle through performative spectacle. But behind the headlines, there are real victims: parents separated from children, asylum-seekers denied due process, and vulnerable people sent back to life-threatening conditions. At the same time, while public attention is consumed by immigration crackdowns, the administration is quietly advancing energy deals and deregulation efforts that benefit economic elites.

Rather than suppressing debate, Trump drowns it in noise. His style weaponizes the velocity of modern media, not to clarify public discourse, but to overwhelm it. And in that chaos, the structure of governance shifts: away from democratic accountability, and toward unregulated corporate control.

Authoritarian Theater, Corporate Power

While the world watches Trump’s political theater, his administration is quietly engineering one of the most aggressive transfers of public wealth to private interests in modern American history. The façade of populism masks a policy agenda deeply aligned with corporate elites, billionaire donors, and the industries that stand to gain from the dismantling of public regulation and oversight.

Tax policy remains one of the clearest examples. The tax law passed during Trump’s first term overwhelmingly favored the wealthy, while doing little to stimulate broad-based economic growth. Now, in his return to power, he’s doubling down. His 2025 budget proposal slashes funding for housing, food assistance, and healthcare. Meanwhile, Trump and Elon Musk gleefully proclaim they’re slashing government waste in the name of efficiency, yet remain conspicuously silent on the bloated corporate excesses of defense spending—where billions vanish into unaccountable contracts, overpriced weapons, and Pentagon boondoggles cloaked in patriotic branding.

The U.S. faces a dangerous convergence: a political class that performs populism while practicing plutocracy.

Trump’s cabinet and advisory circle are drawn from the ultra-rich—CEOs, private equity barons, and political megadonors. The revolving door between his administration and industries like oil, finance, and private prisons ensures that public policy is crafted not to serve the electorate, but to entrench elite interests. The prison industry, in particular, has seen surging stock prices and expanding contracts as Trump ramps up deportation efforts and privatizes detention infrastructure.

Energy policy tells the same story. While the administration rails against international climate accords and environmental “wokeness,” it is quietly threatening to sell off public lands and roll back environmental policies as a windfall for the fossil fuel industries. The beneficiaries are not small businesses or working Americans. They are multinational corporations and a handful of ultra-wealthy shareholders.

This isn’t an accidental byproduct of Trumpism—it is its core. Despite branding himself as anti-elite, Trump’s political machine is funded and sustained by America’s richest families and corporate lobbies. His alliance with figures like Elon Musk reflects a broader trend: the convergence of authoritarian populism with a new form of oligarchic capitalism—one where billionaires publicly attack “the establishment” in order to pursue their own profitable agenda.

As inequality deepens and democratic norms erode, the U.S. faces a dangerous convergence: a political class that performs populism while practicing plutocracy. This is the new authoritarianism—not built on repression alone, but on distraction, deregulation, and the strategic manipulation of spectacle.

Looking Beyond the Noise

Donald Trump’s political style is often dismissed as chaotic or unserious—a constant stream of tweets, outbursts, and provocations. But behind that chaos lies a deliberate structure: a feedback loop of distraction and policy, performance and power.

What looks like madness is often method. The attention-consuming controversies, the culture war posturing, the outlandish threats and statements—all function to consume public focus while his administration executes a radical, elite-centered program of capitalist plundering.

The real danger of Trumpism is not just what he says and does, but what it prevents us from seeing. As media cycles churn and social media outrage erupts, entire layers of policy are being written to serve corporate interests, privatize public goods, and redirect national wealth upward.

This isn’t just about optics or inflammatory rhetoric—it is a substantive and growing form of authoritarianism. Trump is using real tools of state power to target dissent, intimidate opposition, and punish vulnerable communities, turning repression into a political strategy. From aggressive crackdowns on student protesters to the mass deportation of immigrant families, these actions are not symbolic—they are deliberate mechanisms to consolidate control and clear the path for a hyper-capitalist plutocratic agenda. The victims are real, and the consequences are structural, not theatrical.

To resist this model of governance, we must not only confront its authoritarian aesthetics and the very real victims it creates—but expose its oligarchic foundation. It requires dismantling the capitalist plutocracy that thrives within—and actively sustains—this viral authoritarian political and media culture. That means cutting through the noise, tracking the money, and asking not just what Trump is doing, but who is benefiting too often in the shadows while the cameras roll.

In the end, Trumpism thrives not on silence but on spectacle—a new model of power built on authoritarian clickbait, where outrage fuels distraction, and distraction clears the path for profiteering.

On March 14, Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly berated South Africa’s Ambassador to the U.S. Ebrahim Rasool in a most undiplomatic tweet, writing: “South Africa's Ambassador to the United States is no longer welcome in our great country. Ebrahim Rasool is a race-baiting politician who hates America and hates @POTUS. We have nothing to discuss with him and so he is considered PERSONA NON GRATA.” On Sunday, March 23, the South African ambassador returned home to a hero’s welcome.

The United States lost a seasoned South African representative who had previously served as ambassador under President Obama, was a member of South Africa’s National Assembly, and was active (and imprisoned) during his country’s anti-apartheid struggle. And ginning up the conflict with a country that has such tremendous international standing may prove to be a bad move for President Trump.

Trump administration was incensed by remarks the ambassador had made earlier that week when speaking, via video, at a South Africa conference. He commented on the MAGA movement, saying that it is driven by white supremacy and is a response to the growing demographic diversity in the United States. The ambassador also expressed concern about the movement’s global reach, including support from Elon Musk, who was born in South Africa and has connections with extreme right movements overseas. The ambassador called his nation, South Africa, “the historical antidote to supremacism.”

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said the decision to expel Rasool was “regrettable” and that “South Africa remains committed to building a mutually beneficial relationship with the United States.”

Ambassador Rasool, who says he has no regrets, was greeted by a massive crowd as he landed in Cape Town.

Rasool’s expulsion is only the latest manifestation of U.S. displeasure with South Africa. On March 17, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce listed a litany of issues the U.S. has with South Africa, including its “unjust land appropriations law”; its growing relationship with Russia and Iran; and the fact that it accused Israel of genocide in the International Court of Justice. Bruce denounced the ambassador’s lack of decorum, which she called obscene, and painted South Africa as a country whose policies make the United States and the entire world less safe.

This is in stark contrast to the view of South Africa from the Global South, where the African nation’s foreign policy is often seen as exemplary. Since the end of apartheid in 1994, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) has embraced a non-aligned foreign policy and has tried to resist pressure from Western countries. South Africa has also continued to show appreciation for nations such as Russia, Cuba and Iran that supported its anti-apartheid struggle.

South Africa’s non-aligned stance became a bone of contention with the Biden administration after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The United States pushed the world community to condemn Russia, but South Africa, along with many African nations, refused to take sides. South Africa has long had warm relations with Russia, dating back to the days when the Soviet Union trained and supported many of the ANC freedom fighters. Instead of condemning Russia, South Africa led a group of six African nations to advocate for negotiations to end the Russia/Ukraine conflict.

But it was Israel’s war on Gaza that placed the United States and South Africa on a collision course. Far from supporting the U.S. ally, Israel, South Africa accused Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians at the International Court of Justice. The Biden administration denounced the case as “meritless, counterproductive, and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever,” but the case triggered an avalanche of global support for South Africa’s principled stand. Dr. Haidar Eid, a Palestinian academic from Gaza, reflected world opinion when he said said, “By bravely standing up for what is right and taking Israel to the ICJ, South Africa showed us that another world is possible: a world where no state is above the law, most heinous crimes like genocide and apartheid are never accepted and the peoples of the world stand together shoulder to shoulder against injustice. Thank You, South Africa.”

When President Trump regained the White House, he not only condemned South Africa for its ICJ case against Israel, but he became embroiled in a policy totally internal to the African nation. Most likely egged on by Elon Musk, Trump denounced South Africa’s Expropriation Act of 2025, which established a program to expropriate unused agricultural land that White owners refused to sell to Black purchasers. White South Africans (Afrikaners) controlled the oppressive apartheid government until it was overthrown in 1994, and Afrikaners continue to own the vast majority of the wealth (the typical Black household owns 5 per cent of the wealth held by the typical White household). But Trump called the White population “racially disfavored landowners” and shockingly, not only punished South Africa by cutting off U.S. aid, but also promoted “the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination.” While shutting U.S. doors to immigrants of color from around the world, Trump laid out the red carpet for the white Africaners. Little wonder Ambassador Rasool was moved to call the Trump administration a leader in white supremacy.

Trump’s decision to cut aid to South Africa coincides with the administration’s gutting of US AID, which has had a disastrous effect on South Africans suffering from HIV/AIDS. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was a U.S. program launched in 2003 by President Bush to provide life-saving HIV care and treatment. South Africa has one of the highest rates of HIV in the world, and the U.S. had contributed 17 percent of the nation’s $400 million HIV budget. This funding supported the anti-retroviral medication for HIV treatment of 5.5 million people annually. According to some estimates, the aid freeze could cause over half a million deaths in South Africa over the next decade.

In terms of the larger South African economy and possible fallout from U.S. cuts, the United States is South Africa’s second-largest export market (China is number one), with $14.7 billion worth of goods exported to the United States in 2024. South Africa also benefits from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a preferential trade program providing duty-free access to U.S. markets. If the Trump administration removes South Africa from AGOA eligibility, its exports will surely plummet.

To make matters worse, this week the U.S. stopped the disbursement of $2.6 billion to South Africa through the World Bank’s Climate Investment Fund, monies that are supposed to help South Africa transition from coal to cleaner energy sources.

The Trump administration’s tough stance on South Africa is certainly meant to warn other countries about the consequences of challenging the United States. But Trump’s actions may well backfire. In response to the cut-off in aid and trade, 100 Parliamentarians from around the world penned a letter calling on their own governments to support South Africa’s public health programs and to expand new avenues for international trade as a sign of “international solidarity with the South African people as they face this assault on their right to self-determination.” South Africa is also a key player in the growing alliance of BRICs, a grouping of large countries trying to counter the economic clout of the United States. The BRICs nations now represent roughly 45 percent of the world’s populations and 35 percent of global GDP.

Trump’s expulsion and threats have also had a unifying effect inside South Africa. Ambassador Rasool, who says he has no regrets, was greeted by a massive crowd as he landed in Cape Town. For the people of South Africa and worldwide who oppose white supremacy, Rasool is not a disgraced ambassador. He is a hero.

I’ve stopped counting the articles on the Democratic Party’s disarray over how and when they should confront Tyrant Trump’s criminal destruction of our country, its people’s livelihoods, security for their families, and their freedom to speak and advocate for their concerns.

Seized with internal doubts, fear, and cowardliness, most Democrats in Congress and the Party’s corporate-indentured bureaucracy can’t stop contracting out their jobs to corporate-conflicted consultants who have been and are in reality overpaid Trojan Horses.

What’s the superlative of “pathetic”? The Washington Post’s Dylan Wells gave us a definition. The Democrats in Congress are all agog about learning how to use TikTok against the more elaborate GOP’s TikTok. They invited an influencer who posted a “choose your fighter”-themed video featuring Democratic congresswomen bouncing in a fighting stance while their accomplishments and fun facts were displayed on the screen. I kid you not! At one influencers session, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries was seen taking detailed notes.

Of course, the Democratic leaders don’t listen to Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) who is the most popular politician in America and is attracting huge crowds.

Sporting its lowest-ever favorability ratings, the Party of the Donkey neither listens to seasoned civic group leaders, who know how to talk to all Americans (see winningamerica.net), nor to progressive labor unions like the American Postal Workers Union and the Association of Flight Attendants. The dominant corporate Democrats (just look at their big campaign donors) don’t even listen to Illinois Governor JB Pritzker who for many months has been aggressively taking the Grand Old Plutocrats, led by their dangerous Madman, Trumpty Dumpty, to the woodshed.

Instead, we have mealy-mouth Chuck Schumer vainly trying to recharge his dead batteries amidst the slew of avoidable election defeats in the U.S. Senate despite huge campaign cash.

Of course, the Democratic leaders don’t listen to Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) who is the most popular politician in America and is attracting huge crowds (5,000 people at an event in Tempe, Arizona last week and even larger crowds in Colorado over this weekend) in Republican Congressional districts and going after the cruel, vicious, self-enriching, anti-worker Wall Street over Main Street GOP corporatists.

Long-time political observer, Bill Curry, says “POLICY PRECEDES MESSAGE.” Otherwise, the messages are empty, forgettable excuses for the Party’s media consultants to get their 15% commission on repetitively empty TV ads. The Democrats should instead be investing in a serious ground game.

Last fall in Pennsylvania, people told us that the door-knocking by Democrats was far more frequent than in 2022. What were they knocking about? Just saying, vote Democratic? The Party lost the state to the wannabe dictator Donald and a U.S. Senate seat to boot.

By contrast, Pritzker raised alarms about Trump’s regime alluding to the rise of Nazism in Germany where Hitler was also an elected dictator.

Look, there are no secrets about the winning agendas, authentically presented and repeated with human interest stories and events. Here are six of them for starters that Kamala Harris Et al. avoided or reduced to disbelieved throw-away lines while adopting her vapid slogan about creating “an opportunity economy.”

1. Raise the frozen federal minimum wage of $7.25 to $15 an hour. That would mean 25 million workers would live better. Slogan – “Go Vote for a Raise, you’ve been long denied it.” Or “America Needs a Raise.”
2. Raise the Social Security benefits FROZEN for over 45 years and pay for that by raising the Social Security tax on higher income individuals. In 2022, two hundred House Democrats voted for such a bill by Congressman John Larson (D-CT). Sixty-five million retirees would live better.
3. Restore the child tax credit, providing about $300 a month to sixty-one million children from both liberal and conservative families. Before the Congressional Republicans blocked its extension in January 2022, this measure alone had cut child poverty by 40 percent.

Just these three long overdue very popular safety nets would help almost 150 million Americans. Lots of votes there, including giving the 7.1 million Biden 2020 voters a reason not to stay home in 2024, along with over 80 million additional eligible voters who sat out the election.

Bear in mind, that just a switch of 240,000 votes in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin would have defeated Trump and his brutishness in 2024.

4. Raise taxes on the very undertaxed super-wealthy and profitable corporations – half of the latter pay no federal income taxes. Polls show 85% of the American people support the overdue restoration from the Trump and GW Bush tax escapes for the rich and powerful.
5. Crackdown on the corporate crooks who cheat, lie, and steal the hard-earned consumer dollars and savings of all Americans, regardless of their political labels. Huge super-majorities of Americans are disgusted by the double standards of justice that stains our democracy every day in every way.
6. Empower the American workers to join trade unions (the U.S. has the biggest hurdle in union organizing in the Western world), and make it easier to be able to band together to demand and get universal, affordable health insurance, protect their children, make sure their taxes come back home to upgrade crumbling public services, and to organize civic groups to manage their elected representatives who have mostly forgotten where they came from and who is sovereign under the “We the People” Constitution.

There are more compacts with the American people to landslide the GOP. For now, the urgent mission has to be to stop the fascist dictatorship that is using police state tactics, ripping apart life-saving and life-sustaining services. Note Trump/Musk do not touch the massive “waste, fraud and inefficiency” of corporate welfare – subsidies, handouts, bailouts, giveaways, and tax escapes – corporate crime e.g., defrauding Medicare ($60 billion a year) and other federal payout programs (Medicaid, corporate contracts) and the unaudited, bloated military budget that Trump/Musk want to expand further.

Never in American history has there been such an impeachable domestic, law-violating, constitution-busting president committing criminally insane demolitions of the federal civil service staffing the ramparts of protecting the health, safety, and economic well-being of all Americans in red and blue states.

With Trump’s polls falling along with the stock market and inflation/prices starting to rise, the sycophant Congressional Republicans, violating their constitutional oaths of office, are starting to get the jitters. The packed angry crowds at their Town Meetings are just modest harbingers of what is to come soon.

Trump wants to “Impeach” and “Fire” anyone who is in a position to resist Der Fuhrer. Well, people, tell him with ever larger marches and polls that HE must be fired, which is just what our Founders provided for in the Impeachment authority exclusive to the U.S. Congress.

It’s up to you, the citizenry, as Richard Nixon discovered after the Watergate scandal. Expect the politicians only to follow you, not to lead.