As we come up on the one-year mark of the second Trump administration, it’s painful to reflect on all that’s been lost on climate and clean energy progress for our nation and the grave consequences for people and the economy. As families across the nation struggle to pay their rising energy bills, the Trump administration’s efforts to gut clean energy projects and boost volatile, risky, and polluting fossil fuels are a threat to health and pocketbooks. And with the world on the brink of breaching 1.5°C of global warming, this administration’s actions to increase US heat-trapping emissions will have profound implications for years to come.

Fair warning, this blogpost covers some pretty grim ground. But stick with me, please. Documenting the harms and injustices perpetuated by this administration now, as they occur, ensures we bear witness and that the hard work that made prior progress possible is not erased. Let’s make sure we don’t forget the important details as we fight to build a better, brighter future beyond this dark time. A healthier, safer, and more equitable future is ours to create, as UCS President Gretchen Goldman says.

Annus horribilis for people in the United States

From Day One, it was clear that this deeply anti-science administration was intent on blatantly furthering a fossil fuel agenda—people’s health and welfare be damned. President Trump has assembled around him an extremely unqualified, obsequious cabinet and set of advisors, most of whom have no dedication to the public interest and are instead devoted to doing his every bidding.

This increasingly authoritarian regime has operated with impunity to tear up climate and clean energy policies, lie about the scientific realities of climate change and the facts on renewable energy, and ram through measures to boost fossil fuels and the profits of polluters. They have attacked the federal scientific enterprise built up over decades through taxpayer investments, fired or forced out agency experts, and cut funding for critical science. And a compliant Congress has enabled this destructive agenda, including by rubberstamping some of the President’s illegal actions and by failing to exercise its constitutional powers to check his tyrannical power grabs. The passage of the OBBBA, with its multiple provisions directly aimed at undermining clean energy—including wind, solar, batteries, grid infrastructure, and energy efficiency—at the President’s behest was a particularly egregious example of this.

The Sabin Center’s Climate Backtracker shows that, as of January 14, 2026, the Trump administration has taken nearly 300 actions to scale back or halt climate and clean energy progress. UCS’s six-month report on the Trump administration summarized many of the attacks on science and democracy as of July 2025. Many of these actions were previewed in the Project 2025 manifesto, but the magnitude of the harms, and the speed and intensity of the attacks, are shocking, and the impacts have been mounting.

Early destructive actions were taken by DOGE, spearheaded by Elon Musk, taking a hatchet to federal agencies tasked with protecting the public interest and advancing science and innovation. Subsequently, Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought, an architect of Project 2025, has taken a personal and vicious role in many of these attacks (see here and here, for example).

And unfortunately, the full weight of the impacts on people and our economy are only going to become clearer this year, as words and cuts are translated into lived realities for communities across the country. At the same time, many of the administration’s unlawful actions are being challenged in court, and it has lost many of these cases, putting some brakes on some of its worst excesses.

Before diving further into details, it’s important to note two key themes: The Trump administration’s destructive actions are a direct threat to our health, our economic well-being, and to our nation’s ability to build a thriving, fair, innovative economy. These actions demonstrate an utterly corrupt government hell-bent on prioritizing the interests of polluters and billionaires over the needs of ordinary people.

While far from exhaustive, here are some of the major assaults on climate and clean energy from the Trump administration that we’ve seen in the last year:

1. Attacking agencies and organizations engaged in life-saving climate science research, data collection and monitoring

This has included threats to dismantle NOAA and NSF-NCAR; disbanding the author team for the sixth National Climate Assessment; taking down the US Global Change Research Program’s website, which includes all previous National Climate Assessments; and halting US federal scientists’ engagement with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). NOAA, the nation’s foremost climate science agency, has faced reckless firing of staff, budget cuts, and slashed resources for climate research, satellite programs, data, and modeling.

Under Department of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s watch, the agency’s weather forecasting and climate monitoring capabilities are being undermined and many National Weather Service offices have been dangerously understaffed—undercutting critical resources that communities, first responders, farmers, mariners, businesses, and local decisionmakers rely on to protect lives, infrastructure, and economic activity. It’s crucial that the forthcoming Congressional appropriations process rejects the Trump administration’s budget proposals and restores healthy funding levels for federal science agencies.

2. Clawing back renewable energy funding and attacking clean energy projects

The administration has illegally frozen and clawed back billions in funding for climate and cutting-edge clean energy investments, including Department of Energy (DOE) grants and the Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. These actions have been challenged in court, and just this week a court has ruled that the Trump administration’s cancellation of some grants based on which states grantees are in violates the law.

DOE Secretary Chris Wright has repeatedly attacked clean energy, rolled back energy efficiency standards, overseen mass staff cuts at the agency, and renamed the world-renowned National Renewable Energy Laboratory to strike “renewable energy” from its name.

In addition to the major harms to clean energy inflicted by the OBBBA, the administration has also repeatedly and arbitrarily intervened in the leasing and permitting of a huge range of renewable energy projects, including pausing offshore wind, onshore wind, and solar projects. Wind and solar developers have just sued the Department of the Interior and the Army Corps of Engineers for “pursuing a concerted and illegal strategy to choke the ability of private developers’ ability to build new and much-needed energy generation projects.” Numerous attacks have been lobbed at offshore wind projects—including projects that were nearly completed—most recently by citing bogus “national security” considerations. The administration just suffered a major setback in a case brought by Revolution Wind, a project of Ørsted, a Danish offshore wind developer. These attacks on renewable energy have been accompanied by a raft of disinformation spouted by the President and his administration, contrary to the facts about the tremendous economic and health benefits of renewable energy, including solar and wind.

3. Gutting pollution standards and boosting fossil fuels

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Lee Zeldin has launched an all-out assault on regulations, guidance, and scientific research aimed at protecting public health and the environment. This has included weakening, rescinding, or delaying EPA regulations to limit heat-trapping pollution from power plants, vehicles and the oil and gas industry, as well as giving exemptions to polluters causing toxic air pollution from coal-fired power plants and other industrial sources.

The agency is also in the final stages of a process to overturn the science-based Endangerment Finding, a bedrock legal determination establishing the health-harming impacts of heat-trapping emissions. And in a major departure from precedent and long-standing best practice, EPA is also moving away from quantifying the public health impacts— including lives lost or saved—associated with agency rulemakings, debuting this egregious practice in a just-released rule for NOx pollution standards for new gas turbines. This alarming action is a complete capitulation to polluter interests and upends the agency’s mission to protect public health and the environment.

They’ve also taken unprecedented steps to cut the public out of the process of weighing in by eliminating the customary notice-and-comment period for regulations they arbitrarily designate ‘unlawful,’ and a sweeping executive order essentially allows agencies to wipe off whatever regulations they want to—as well as enforcement of those regulations in the time between.

The administration has also launched multiple direct attempts to boost coal, oil, and gas use under the guise of a spurious “national energy emergency.” DOE Secretary Chris Wright and Department of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum—both with deep fossil fuel industry ties—have aggressively embraced the president’s fossil fuel agenda. Burgum’s actions have included expanding oil and gas leases on public lands, rescinding requirements for environmental impact statements, and fast-tracking permits for fossil fuel energy, all while repeatedly interfering to stop deployment of renewables. The administration’s latest shocking move in this vein is its imperial and illegal grab for Venezuelan oil.

4. Attacking FEMA’s disaster response capabilities and investments in climate resilience

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has overseen the firing and forcing out of more than 20 percent of FEMA’s staff already, with further steep cuts to FEMA’s “Cadre of On-Call Response/Recovery Employees” (CORE) expected imminently. At various points last year, Secretary Noem and President Trump went as far as calling for FEMA’s abolition! The agency has faced unending turmoil and dysfunction, with a series of unqualified acting chiefs quitting or being fired only to be replaced by yet another poor choice. This chaos led to major gaps in responding to disasters like the Texas flash flood last year. As the GAO points out, staffing shortages at FEMA have serious consequences for the agency’s ability to do its job to help communities hit by disasters.

The Trump administration also illegally cancelled FEMA’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program grants for states, which a coalition of twenty states took the administration to court over, and recently won their lawsuit. The Trump administration has taken actions that will leave communities less prepared and more at risk from worsening climate impacts, including rescinding the science-informed federal flood risk management standard, disbanding expert advisory councils, and politicizing and delaying disaster aid for states. My colleague Shana Udvardy has been carefully tracking the attacks on FEMA, including the recent last-minute cancellation of a recent FEMA Review Council meeting where they were supposed to release a report with recommendations, which has been under threat of interference from Secretary Noem.

5. Taking down or altering climate-related websites and datasets

This includes taking down the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) website and all the previous National Climate Assessments; taking down climate.gov, a free public portal for essential information on climate science and impacts (some of the information is now being curated at climate.us); removing climate science information from the EPA website; proposing to discontinue the GHG Reporting Program and datasets (like NOAA’s billion-dollar weather and climate-related disasters dataset, and its snow and ice data products); and failing to release the EPA’s Annual GHG Inventory for the United States (which the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) successfully retrieved via a FOIA filing).

6. Lying about the facts on climate science

The most egregious example of this is the sham DOE “climate” report, which weaponized disinformation and uncertainty to downplay the risks of climate change and was invoked by EPA as part of its motivation for proposing to overturn the Endangerment Finding. This mirrors a classic strategy of employing disinformation and deception long practiced by the fossil fuel industry, now dangerously being adopted by the US government.

The Environmental Defense Fund and UCS have filed a lawsuit against the administration citing its violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) in the secret, illegal preparation of this report by five handpicked climate contrarians forming the Climate Working Group (CWG). The court has held that the CWG was an advisory committee subject to FACA and had ordered the administration to release all records related to its work. Other examples of this strategy include zeroing out the social cost of carbon (widely used as a measure of the monetary costs of climate damages caused by an additional ton of carbon emissions), directly ignoring the steep and mounting costs of climate change driven by fossil fuel emissions.

7. Withdrawing from international climate agreements and organizations

The most notable examples include withdrawing the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Paris Agreement. The administration also single-handedly prevented the adoption of a major global agreement on reducing emissions from shipping, negotiated in the International Maritime Organization (IMO). Over 100 nations were on the verge of signing, but using bullying tactics—including direct threats to other nations—the administration succeeded in blocking and delaying this agreement.

Together, these actions underscore that this authoritarian, anti-science administration is determined to sacrifice people’s well-being and destabilize global cooperation. But forward-looking US states and the rest of the world recognize that devastating and costly climate impacts are mounting rapidly, and collective global action remains the only viable path to secure a livable future for our children and grandchildren. Withdrawal from global climate agreements and venues will only serve to further isolate the United States and diminish its standing in the world following a spate of deplorable actions that have already sent our nation’s credibility plummeting, jeopardized ties with some of our closest historical allies, and made the world far more unsafe.

As important as these individual attacks are, it’s crucial to also see the administration’s destructive strategy: They are trying to bury the evidence on climate change to advance a pro-fossil fuel agenda that delivers huge profits for a select few while the rest of us suffer the health and economic costs. And we can’t let them because the stakes are too high, for people today and for future generations. The stakes are especially dire for communities that have long been marginalized and discriminated against, those that bear the brunt of health-harming pollution and climate impacts and lack access to affordable clean energy and climate-resilient homes, here in the United States and around the world.

Looking back and fighting for a brighter future

Why look back on such a painful year? Because it’s a way to acknowledge and honor the people who were directly and harshly affected by the actions of this administration, including federal government scientists and frontline communities. Because remembering our shared history is how we build solidarity for the inevitable fights ahead. Because adversity teaches lessons. Because I believe the seeds of the destruction of this administration’s ill-conceived policies lie in their cruel overreach. Because we can take courage and inspiration from all the ways people across the nation showed up for our democracy, for science, for their communities.

This year has also brought extraordinary efforts to expose and fight back against the worst excesses of this unhinged administration. UCS has fought alongside many others by taking the Trump administration to court; advocating with members of Congress to stand up to the administration; filing technical comments with agencies; shining a light on the latest climate science and facts about clean energy; galvanizing the scientific community to get organized, join sign-on letters and call their elected representatives; uplifting the work of environmental justice experts; securing wins in states; joining nationwide demonstrations; and using our voice loudly in every venue we can to speak truth to power.

And as we face down another tough year under the anti-science, authoritarian Trump administration, we’re fired up to keep up the fight for science and for our democracy. We hope you’ll join us—because despite it all, that future is ours to build.

By Ralph Nader January 16, 2026 As Trump’s dictatorial grip over America worsens, his violations of our Constitution, federal laws, and international treaties become more brazen. Only the organized people can stop this assault on our democracy by firing him, through impeachment, the power accorded to Congress by our Founders. This is one of the…

Since Renee Good’s death, clashes between ICE and the residents of Minneapolis have escalated. On Wednesday night, an ICE agent shot and wounded someone who, ICE claimed, was fleeing arrest. (Sure, just like Good supposedly was trying to run them over when she turned her car away from them and said, moments before an agent fired three bullets into her chest and head, “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you.”)

I’ve always loved Minneapolis. Its people have midwestern common sense. They also have a deep sense of fairness and justice.

On Wednesday, Trump threatened that if Minneapolis and the state of Minnesota didn’t stop the protesters, whom he referred to as “insurrectionists,” he would “institute the INSURRECTION ACT… and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State.”

Let’s be clear. The problem is not the protesters. It’s the armed thugs who are shooting and murdering them. (Trump seems capable of seeing a similar dynamic playing out in Iran and vows to protect the protesters there, but not in America.)

A friend who knows a lot more than I do about America’s armed forces recently wrote:

There are four kinds of people who join the armed forces: those from a traditional military family, true patriots who want to serve their country, those with no other prospects who need a job, and psychotics who just want to kill people.

The armed services do a pretty decent job of screening out the fourth group, but that group is now the prime recruitment pool for ICE. Racists, haters, gun nuts, and cage fighting fans who want to shoot anyone the least bit different from them. They are becoming America’s Gestapo. That is no exaggeration. We’re slipping into Nazi Germany.

He’s exactly right.

ICE is reportedly investing $100 million in what it calls “wartime recruitment” of 10,000 new agents, in addition to the 20,000 already employed.

It has lowered its recruitment standards to meet the deportation targets set by Stephen Miller (Trump’s deputy chief of staff for promoting bigotry and nativism), thereby increasing the numbers of untrained and dangerous agents on the streets.

ICE’s recruitment is aimed at gun and military enthusiasts and people who listen to right-wing radio, have gone to Ultimate Fighting Championship fights or shopped for guns and tactical gear, live near military bases, and attend NASCAR races.

It’s seeking recruits who are willing to perform their “sacred duty” and “defend the homeland” by repelling “foreign invaders.”

If I had my way, ICE would be abolished and Border Patrol agents sent back to the border. But this isn’t going to happen under Trump and his Republican lapdogs in Congress. Too many Democrats are almost as spineless when it comes to abolishing ICE.

But Congress can still take action to rein in ICE. At the very least, it must disarm ICE.

The Trump regime is allowing ICE officers to use lethal force in self-defense. But we’ve seen how readily ICE and Border Patrol agents claim self-defense when they’re shooting our compatriots.

How do we disarm ICE?

Congress is now considering the appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security, whose funding runs out at the end of January.

Please demand—call your members of Congress and tell them in no uncertain terms—that the DHS spending bill prohibit ICE and Border Patrol agents from carrying guns and that it unambiguously declare that agents do not have absolute immunity under the law if they harm civilians.

Do this as soon as you can.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee (and an old friend), said Tuesday that she’s seeking to put limits on ICE in the DHS spending bill. “I am looking for policy riders in the Homeland Security bill to [be] able to rein in ICE.” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Wednesday that Democrats will oppose the bill unless Republicans agree to new rules governing ICE officers. “ICE cannot conduct itself as if it’s above the law.”

There is no reason for ICE agents to be armed. If they are shot at—and there’s no record of this ever actually happening — they could readily summon state or local police to protect their safety.

ICE was designed to be mainly an investigative agency, not a militarized arm of the presidency. ICE agents are not adequately trained to use deadly force.

In addition, ICE agents prowling our streets in unmarked cars, wearing masks, clad in body armor and carrying long guns, are a clear provocation to violence—both by them and by otherwise law-abiding residents of our towns and cities who feel they must stop their brutality.

Trump, Vance, and Miller want to provoke violent confrontations so they can justify even more oppression — including invoking the Insurrection Act, which would allow Trump to call in the regular military. “I’d be allowed to do that,” Trump said in October, referring to the act, “and the courts wouldn’t get involved, nobody would get involved, and I could send the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, I can send anybody I wanted.”

Please: tell your members of Congress not to vote for the DHS spending bill unless it stipulates that ICE be disarmed.

Also tell them that the bill must restrict ICE and Border Patrol’s ability to conduct dragnet arrest operations and target people based on their race, language or accent. And the bill must clarify that ICE agents are liable under civil and criminal law if they harm civilians.

The Trump regime is telling agents they have “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution or civil lawsuits if they kill or maim or otherwise hurt civilians. “That guy is protected by absolute immunity,” JD Vance said of the ICE agent who killed Renee Good. “He was doing his job.”

DHS went so far as to post a clip of Stephen Miller saying, “You have immunity to perform your duties, and no one — no city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator or domestic insurrectionist—can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties.”

Rubbish. There’s no such absolute immunity under the law. Regardless of what the FBI concludes, I hope and expect the state of Minnesota will open a criminal investigation of the agent who murdered Renee Good and, on the basis of the evidence uncovered, prosecute him for murder under state law.

It would be useful for Congress to make it crystal clear in the DHS spending bill now under consideration that ICE agents do not enjoy absolute legal immunity.

Please call your representative and senators today and tell them not to vote for the DHS spending bill unless it (1) disarms ICE agents, (2) prevents them from targeting people based on their race, language, or accent, and (3) stipulates that agents who harm civilians are liable under criminal and civil laws.

To reach your representative or senator, call the US Congressional Switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Tell them the state and city where you live. They will connect you to any member’s office.

With the killing of Renee Good, an unarmed mother of three, the American people have reached a breaking point. As protests surged beyond Minnesota to all 50 states, a critical window has opened in Washington. Congress has until the end of January to decide whether to fund a massive expansion of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Democratic senators alone can just say no.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told ICE to leave, but instead the Trump regime doubled down, adding to the thousands of federal agents already sent to the twin cities. Federal agents smashed car windows to grab people observing their activities, broke down doors, and created fear and chaos around schools. President Donald Trump warned of more to come, posting to Minnesota on Truth Social on January 13, “THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING.”

While the streets of Minneapolis fill with grieving and defiant residents, Congress is preparing to pour billions more into the very agencies responsible for the chaos.

There are only a few people with the power to stop the brutalizing of our communities being carried out by ICE. Congress has the power of the purse, and Congress can stop this. We taxpayers fund ICE, the Border Patrol, and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem’s salary (and her two jets). Without congressional action by the end of January, funding for ICE will lapse.

There is support among some in Congress for reining in ICE. Others will have to join these courageous leaders if we are to rein in the federal brutality.

In the Senate, where 60 votes are required to move a funding bill forward, just 41 senators can block any bill that expands the ICE budget. Senate Democrats, including two Independents who caucus with Democrats, number 47. Senate Democrats alone can halt funding for ICE.

So far, the Democratic leadership has not stepped up. Only enormous pressure from their constituents will force them to show any backbone.

There is support among some in Congress for reining in ICE. Others will have to join these courageous leaders if we are to rein in the federal brutality.

“It’s hard to imagine how Democrats are going to vote for a DHS bill that funds this level of illegality and violence without constraints,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told Axios last week.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said on X he would not support any funding for Trump’s ICE operations without safeguards.

Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus have been speaking out.

“Our caucus members will oppose all funding for immigration enforcement in any appropriation bills until meaningful reforms are enacted to end militarized policing practices,” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) told a press conference at the US Capitol. According to a report in the Guardian, Omar, who is the caucus’s deputy chair, went on to say, “We cannot and we should not continue to fund agencies that operate with impunity, that escalate violence, and that undermine the very freedoms this country claims to uphold.”

“They’ve gone rogue under Donald Trump; they should be disbanded,” Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) said, according to The Hill. “You’re still going to have immigration enforcement, but ICE shouldn’t have any part of it.”

The Price of Retribution: Following the Money

The massive funding that is supercharging ICE is coming from taxpayers. Trump’s signature legislation, the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” earmarks $170 billion over four years for immigration enforcement. The ICE budget alone would nearly triple compared to its 2024 budget, reaching $28.7 billion per year. The bill included $30 billion over four years to hire 10,000 additional ICE officers, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

This massive influx of cash would also triple the budget for immigrant detention, eventually becoming 62% larger than the funding for the entire federal prison system. Detention of undocumented immigrants has grown to the highest level in US history, according to the Migration Policy Institute, with more than 8 in 10 held in private detention centers. Contrary to the Trump regime’s promise to go after the “worst of the worst,” 71% of ICE detainees have no criminal conviction.

This year’s appropriation for ICE has yet to be approved. And Congress can just say no.

With Kristi Noem and others in the Trump regime calling protesters “domestic terrorists,” these growing detention facilities could be used to hold any who express disagreement with the Trump agenda.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is also using its massive war chest to pressure state and local law enforcement to enter into 287(g) partnerships with ICE, in which they receive generous federal funding for collaborating with federal agents.

This federal “campaign of terror” relies entirely on congressional approval, says Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) of Chicago. “We need to cut and claw back ICE’s funding as natural consequences for DHS’ disregard for the rule of law and violations of our rights,” the Guardian quoted her as saying.

This year’s appropriation for ICE has yet to be approved. And Congress can just say no.

A Popular Uprising

The people affected by the bloated ICE budget are our friends and neighbors. They are hospital and home-health workers. They harvest the crops and process meat, and many own small businesses. They are mothers and fathers and neighbors who contribute to the fabric of our communities. They pay taxes and contribute to social security, although they are not eligible to receive social security benefits. Many of those targeted are in the US legally, including refugees, those applying for citizenship, and even US citizens.

Public support for the ICE roundups has plummeted since President Trump took office. More Americans now believe ICE is making the country less safe (47%) than more safe (34%), according to an Economist/YouGov poll taken after the shooting of Renee Good. A plurality of Americans (46%) support the abolition of ICE, a figure that jumps to 80% among Democrats or those who lean Democratic. Indivisible has made the ICE funding fight a major priority.

The Trump regime wants us to believe we are powerless to stop this massive buildup of armed, masked federal forces in our cities and towns. They’re wrong.

People are making their opinions known through extraordinary acts of courage:

Ordinary people are showing up, as Renee Good did, to literally blow the whistle on ICE outside workplaces, in neighborhoods, and at detention centers. Around the country, people are supporting parents trying to get their kids to school—and those whose loved ones have been detained. Rapid response teams have formed, with members filming detentions, challenging federal agents to show warrants, and staging late-night parties outside hotels housing ICE agents.

People power is having an impact. Spotify recently stopped accepting ICE recruitment ads following a widespread consumer boycott, and Avelo Airlines ended its contract for deportation flights.

The Trump regime wants us to believe we are powerless to stop this massive buildup of armed, masked federal forces in our cities and towns. They’re wrong. Our tax dollars are the fuel for this machine. The American people are stepping up, risking injury and arrest to defend their rights and their neighbors. Now we will see if elected lawmakers have as much courage as the people they represent. It’s time for Congress to use the budgeting powers vested in them by the founders, and turn off the spigot.

Shock and awe. The phrase is apt in describing what Israel has done in the occupied West Bank almost immediately following the events of October 7, 2023, and the start of the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

In her book The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein defines “shock and awe” not merely as a military tactic, but as a political and economic strategy that exploits moments of collective trauma—whether caused by war, natural disaster, or economic collapse—to impose radical policies that would otherwise be resisted. According to Klein, societies in a state of shock are rendered disoriented and vulnerable, allowing those in power to push through sweeping transformations while opposition is fragmented or overwhelmed.

Though the policy is often discussed in the context of US foreign policy—from Iraq to Haiti—Israel has employed shock-and-awe tactics with greater frequency, consistency, and refinement. Unlike the US, which has applied the doctrine episodically across distant theaters, Israel has used it continuously against a captive population living under its direct military control.

Indeed, the Israeli version of shock and awe has long been a default policy for suppressing Palestinians. It has been applied across decades in the occupied Palestinian territory and extended to neighboring Arab countries whenever it suited Israeli strategic objectives.

What is underway, therefore, is a race against time. Israel is working to consolidate what it hopes will become an irreversible new reality on the ground.

In Lebanon, this approach became known as the Dahiya Doctrine, named after the Dahiya neighborhood in Beirut that was systematically destroyed by Israel during its 2006 war on Lebanon. The doctrine advocates the use of disproportionate force against civilian areas, the deliberate targeting of infrastructure, and the transformation of entire neighborhoods into rubble in order to deter resistance through collective punishment.

Gaza has been the epicenter of Israel’s application of this tactic. In the years preceding the genocide, Israeli officials increasingly framed their assaults on Gaza as limited, “managed” wars designed to periodically weaken Palestinian resistance.

These operations were rationalized through the concept of “mowing the lawn,” a phrase used by Israeli military strategists to describe the periodic use of overwhelming violence to “reestablish deterrence.” The logic was that Gaza could not be politically resolved, only indefinitely managed through recurrent destruction.

What unfolded in the West Bank shortly after the start of the Gaza genocide followed a strikingly similar pattern.

Beginning in October 2023, Israel launched an unprecedented campaign of violence across the West Bank. This included large-scale military raids in cities and refugee camps, the routine use of airstrikes—previously rare in the West Bank—the widespread deployment of armored vehicles, and a surge in settler violence carried out with the backing or direct participation of the Israeli army.

The death toll rose sharply, with hundreds of Palestinians killed in a matter of months, including children. Entire refugee camps, such as Jenin, Nur Shams, and Tulkarm, were subjected to systematic destruction: Roads were torn up, homes demolished, water and electricity networks destroyed, and medical access severely restricted. Israeli forces repeatedly laid siege to communities, preventing the movement of ambulances, journalists, and humanitarian workers.

At the same time, Israel accelerated the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian communities, particularly in Area C. Dozens of Bedouin and rural villages were forcibly emptied through a combination of military orders, settler attacks, home demolitions, and the denial of access to land and water. Families were driven out through sustained terror designed to make daily life impossible.

Yet the most violent period of Israeli aggression in the West Bank since the Second Intifada (2000-2005) has been largely overlooked, in part because of the sheer scale and horror of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The annihilation of Gaza has rendered the violence in the West Bank seemingly secondary in the global imagination, despite the fact that its long-term consequences may prove just as devastating.

At the same time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist coalition succeeded in presenting themselves to the world as reckless, unrestrained, and ideologically driven—willing and able to expand the cycle of destruction far beyond Gaza, into the West Bank and across Israel’s borders into neighboring Arab countries. This performance of extremism functioned as a political strategy.

The consequences are now unmistakable. Large areas of the West Bank lie in ruins. Entire communities have been shattered, their social and physical fabric deliberately dismantled. According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, more than 12,000 Palestinian children remain displaced, increasingly suggesting a displacement that may become permanent rather than temporary.

History, however, offers a critical lesson. The Palestinian struggle against Israeli settler colonialism has repeatedly demonstrated that Palestinians do not remain passive indefinitely. Despite the paralysis and fragmentation of their political leadership, Palestinian society has consistently regenerated its capacity for resistance.

Israel understands this reality as well. It knows that shock is not infinite, that fear eventually gives way to defiance, and that once the immediate trauma begins to fade, Palestinians will reorganize and push back against imposed conditions of domination.

What is underway, therefore, is a race against time. Israel is working to consolidate what it hopes will become an irreversible new reality on the ground—one that enables formal annexation, normalizes permanent military rule, and completes the ethnic cleansing of large segments of the Palestinian population.

For this reason, a deeper and more sustained understanding of current events in the West Bank is essential. Without confronting this reality directly, Israeli plans will proceed largely unchallenged. To expose, resist, and ultimately defeat these designs is not only a matter of political analysis but a moral imperative inseparable from supporting the Palestinian people in restoring their dignity and achieving their long-denied freedom.

On Tuesday ofthis week, The Economist and YouGov released a poll finding, for the first time, that more Americans want to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) than don’t.

According to the poll, 46 percent of people support getting rid of ICE, compared to 43 percent who oppose its abolition. This represents a major shift in public opinion—this same polling outfit found only 27 percent support for abolishing ICE as recently as July. Today’s survey also found that most Americans believe ICE is making them less, not more safe, by a margin of 47 percent to 34 percent.

In perfect form, this morning the centrist advocacy group Third Way released a memo warning Democrats not to call for dismantling ICE, arguing that “politically, it is lethal.” Their evidence includes a focus group they conducted in October, which…is dumb. ICE’s execution of Renee Nicole Good has broken through—69 percent of Americans report having seen video of the shooting. This has clearly impacted public opinion in a way that makes information from months ago significantly irrelevant.

We cannot let the Third Ways of the world—the centrist establishment muckety mucks whose version of the Democratic Party already lost to Trump, twice—win this debate. It’s simply too important.

There are lots of reasons to dismantle ICE. There’s a functional argument: We do not need ICE to enforce immigration laws; the U.S. handled this just fine for 227 years prior to the creation of this specific agency. There’s a fiscal argument: ICE is now larger than every other federal law enforcement agency combined. It’s larger than the militaries of all but 15 countries in the world! It’s annual budget, $37.5 billion, could pay for the health insurance of every needy child in the country!

But the core reason for abolishing ICE is that it poses a structural threat to American democracy. This is an unaccountable agency, by design. ICE is not subject to the rules governing local or state police departments; there are no laws barring ICE agents from wearing masks, driving in unmarked cars, and operating in plainclothes. ICE was designed after 9/11 to support the FBI’s domestic terrorism efforts, with almost nothing in the way of transparency or guardrails. So what happens when domestic terrorism gets defined as expressing “opposition to law and immigration enforcement; extreme views in favor of mass migration and open borders; adherence to radical gender ideology, anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, or anti-Christianity,” and “hostility towards traditional views on family, religion, and morality,” as Trump’s NSPM-7 directive and Attorney General Pam Bondi’s recent memo to the FBI do?

Well, what happens is everything that we are seeing from ICE today—a federal agency operating quite explicitly as Trump’s personal militia. Mussolini had his Blackshirts, Hitler had his SS, and Trump has ICE—an army of ideologically motivated MAGA loyalist chuds whose new members owe their employment not to the state (being largely unqualified for positions in legitimate law enforcement agencies) but rather to Trump’s personal patronage.

The existence of this profoundly unaccountable, overtly fascist military apparatus poses a structural danger to our democracy. Structural dangers like this can’t be reformed—they need to be dismantled. “We shouldn’t have a Gestapo in this country” isn’t a radical position. It’s actually the only non-radical position you can take on the question. That’s long been true morally. And today’s polling shows it’s true politically, as well. In every way, abolishing ICE is now the moderate position.

So email your Democratic elected officials, call their offices, speak up at their town halls. Tell our Democratic representatives and senators that they need to use every tool at their disposal—including, in the near term, the Congressional appropriations process—to stand up to this rogue militia. And help our Democratic leaders understand—if we are so lucky, come 2028, to get a second chance at resetting our democracy—that getting rid of Trump’s SS is nonnegotiable.

LIVE 9:00 am Eastern time, Streaming Anytime:

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Scott Stantis of The Chicago Tribune fills in for John today.

Today we discuss:

•  As Trump mulls invoking the Insurrection Act against Minnesota, the first poll after ICE gunned down Renee Good—with four shots—shows most Americans disapprove of the agency and its violent tactics. Also: ICE shoots another man and gasses a family of six trying to escape the chaos in Minneapolis, where ICE is targeting daycare centers.

•  France, Germany, Sweden and Norway rush troops to Greenland as a shown of force against the United States. Even lickspittle Republicans are pushing back against an invasion.

• María Corina Machado, Venezuela’s extreme-right politician and neoliberal darling, gave her Nobel Peace Prize to The Donald.

• Even as Israel continues to kill Palestinians in Gaza, Israel and the US announce phase two of their ceasefire: the Board of Peace.

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There is no part of the federal government that Americans depend on more than the Social Security Administration. It is the agency that is charged with administering the earned benefits of millions. Unfortunately, after one year into President Donald Trump’s second term, SSA is in disarray. The Washington Post recently took an in-depth look at the SSA and reported among other things that:

Long-strained customer services at Social Security have become worse by many key measures since President Donald Trump began his second term, agency data and interviews show, as thousands of employees were fired or quit, and hasty policy changes and reassignments left inexperienced staff to handle the aftermath.

Exaggerated claims of fraud, for example, have led to new roadblocks for elderly beneficiaries, disabled people, and legal immigrants, who are now required to complete some transactions in person or online rather than by phone. Even so, the number of calls to the agency for the year hit 93 million as of late September—a six-year high, data shows.

SSA officials are likely to respond to the Washington Post story by pointing out that a recent SSA inspector general argued that SSA has made major improvements. Fox News reported that:

The inspector general’s report concluded that SSA’s telephone performance improved during fiscal year 2025 largely because of operational changes, including the rollout of a new cloud-based telecommunications platform, expanded automation, and staffing realignments. The platform, implemented in August 2024, allowed SSA to increase call capacity, expand self-service options, and monitor performance in real time, according to the report.

There is one catch with the inspector general’s report, and, to paraphrase Joseph Heller, it is one heck of a catch. This summer SSA changed “the type of data it reports publicly, removing information like callback wait times.” SSA Commissioner Frank Bisignano told members of Congress over the summer that SSA changed the metrics because reporting the wait times might discourage people from calling the agency. Yes, you read that correctly. So, rather than fixing the problem SSA decided to not share the data. This might be a solution to a public relations problem, but it is not going to help beneficiaries in the slightest.

There is no doubt about the fact that 2025 was a tumultuous time for SSA. The year began with Elon Musk, the then head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme; and, in an address to Congress in January President Trump said that there were “shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud” in Social Security and that people up to 160 years old were receiving Social Security benefits. None of these accusations, of course, proved to be true. While Trump and Musk’s spurious claims have faded away, the damage they have done to SSA lingers on.

If Republicans on Capitol Hill are not interested in exercising their duty to provide oversight, Democrats must step up to the plate.

The current congressional leadership has shown zero interest in exercising any oversight responsibility on any issue foreign or domestic. Congress’ lack of interest or will to scrutinize the Trump administration led Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner to ask, “Is congressional oversight dead? Where does this end? If none of my Republican colleagues raises an issue, does this mean we are ceding all oversight?”

While they are not in the majority, Democrats on Capitol Hill are not powerless. They can still hold hearings of their own. These hearings would not be part of the legislative process. They would however give Democrats the platform they need to speak up for the American people. There is good news here for those who care about Social Security. The ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security is Rep. John Larson of Connecticut who has fought for years to protect Social Security. Larson is the perfect person to shine a light on the current state of affairs at SSA.

If Republicans on Capitol Hill are not interested in exercising their duty to provide oversight, Democrats must step up to the plate. Seventy-five million Social Security beneficiaries are counting on them to protect their earned benefits.

Is the illegal US invasion of Venezuela, and kidnapping of its president, a “war for oil”?

To some extent, this is a reductionist debate. There are often multiple motivations for war, and there clearly are several here. Some in the administration are stuck in Cold War ideology and will use any pretext to undermine and even overthrow governments they perceive as left-leaning, as seen from President Donald Trump’s threats against Colombia, Cuba, and Mexico.

Beyond those governments, the latest Trump National Security Strategy proclaims a desire to “reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere.”

Still, it’s hard to ignore the role of oil. Venezuela likely has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, and Trump has repeatedly declared his intention to seize Venezuela’s oil, partly for the benefit of the United States and US oil companies.

We may eventually see US oil companies grab some of the largest oil reserves in the world, with huge direct public subsidies in the form of investment reimbursements, and indirect subsidies in the form of the US military acting as their free private security force.

There are reasonable doubts about whether US oil companies would be willing to invest in Venezuela. The poor state of the country’s oil infrastructure would necessitate major investments to upgrade it. It’s estimated to cost $110 billion to restore production to mid-2010s levels, and there’s a high likelihood of political instability in the country over the next few years.

Reportedly, many US oil companies are reluctant to invest in Venezuela despite pressure from the US government. Either way, the web of business interests that benefit, directly or indirectly, from the oil and gas industry still stand to come out ahead—and in some ways are already benefiting—from Trump’s aggression.

Stock prices for US refiners (such as Chevron and Valero Energy) and oilfield services companies (such as Halliburton) have soared in response to the US attack, with an immediate spike on the first trading day after the attack. While prices have decreased since, they remain at their highest levels in recent weeks.

Oil companies can benefit directly, even if they don’t invest in Venezuela. Crude oil prices have been on a downward trajectory over the last year due to oversupply.

This is one of the reasons the industry is skeptical about entering Venezuela—and, indeed, their short-term objectives appear to be at odds with those of the Trump administration, which claims to want more production and lower pump prices.

There’s always the possibility that Trump could use US control of Venezuela to reduce its oil production.

After all, the administration has always been friendly to the interests of the fossil fuel industry, whose leaders were among Trump’s major backers. If the US clamps down on oil production in Venezuela, that would at least somewhat alleviate the downward pressure on oil prices, benefiting the industry.

The Trump regime has openly stated its intent to “run” Venezuela, with “boots on the ground” if needed. This gives them the power to enforce further cuts in Venezuelan oil production, if they choose to do so.

Finally, we shouldn’t discount the possibility that the administration will offer enough sweeteners to make investment in Venezuela lucrative for the industry. The administration has already signaled that it may be willing to reimburse oil companies for their investment and escalate US military intervention to provide security for the US oil and gas industry. That essentially kicks the cost of production to US taxpayers.

This may not be enough to persuade the industry to invest in Venezuela. If it is, we may eventually see US oil companies grab some of the largest oil reserves in the world, with huge direct public subsidies in the form of investment reimbursements, and indirect subsidies in the form of the US military acting as their free private security force.

Setting aside the limiting debate about whether this is a “war for oil,” it’s clear that fossil fuel capitalism is already profiting from the attack on Venezuela—and may profit more in the future. If climate change isn’t reason enough to break the political power of this industry, its role in incentivizing war and conflict is another.

When widespread protests erupted in Iran over soaring inflation and high living costs, the Trump Administration openly supported the demonstrators and even pledged to launch military strikes against Iran if its security forces used violence against them. In the United States, however, when similar protests occurred — such as those following the killing of a woman by ICE in Minneapolis — the official response was strikingly different.

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Three images taken from videos of the slaying of Renee Nicole Good make it clear that she was not trying to run down an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent when he shot her three times and killed her.

Videos taken by different people from various angles (see CNN, ABC, and the New York Times) show what happened, including one in slow motion.

We see ICE agents apparently attempting to force Good out of her vehicle, Good backing up, then Good trying escape by turning the wheels to the right and driving forward. And we see ICE agent Jonathan Ross firing a first shot at Good from near the front of the car, then firing two more shots from alongside the car.

Common sense tells us that ICE shooter Ross never considered himself in danger of being run over, since he deliberately stepped in front of the car.

What you see is not a man being run down. What you see is not self-defense. It is an execution.

Consider two screen captures from seconds 9 and 10 of the video.

In the first, Ross appears to be in front of the vehicle and he is drawing his gun.

The vehicle had been moving backward just one second earlier, so the vehicle’s forward movement was still slow. If Ross thought the car might hit him, he had only to step to his right (our left) to get out of the car’s path. Instead he draws his gun, aims, and fires.

In the second photo we see the puff of vapor that accompanies the first shot. We also see that both of Ross’ feet are to the left of the car. Ross is not in the path of the car when he takes his first shot. He is not saving himself from being run down.

Shots two and three are even more obviously not in “self-defense.” As shown in the slow motion video and the screen shot below, the car has moved forward and the ICE agent is alongside the vehicle when he stretches out his arm and shoots Renee Good in the head. He fires at point-blank range, through the driver’s side window.

What you see is not a man being run down. What you see is not self-defense. It is an execution.

Neither President Donald Trump nor Homeland Security head Kristi Noem have acknowledged that agent Jonathan Ross should not have taken out his gun and killed a law-abiding citizen who only sought to escape from aggressive ICE agents. Neither even said a terrible mistake had been made. They endorsed and excused the killing, and claimed she was a “domestic terrorist.”

The execution of Renee Nicole Good was part of a practice of unnecessary and excessive force which Trump and Noem approve of and support. ICE agents have fired their guns at people in cars at least 10 times, and, short of murder, ICE agents routinely attack and brutalize those they seize. Violence against observers and reporters represent efforts to conceal such lawless ICE conduct.

The contention that an ICE shooting victim tried to run them over has become the ICE equivalent of the German Nazi claim that slain opponents were shot while attempting to escape.

No evidence supports any terrorism claim, but Noem asserted that Good had been “stalking” ICE. President Trump pointed to a further “wrong”: “At a very minimum,” said Trump, “that woman was very, very disrespectful to law enforcement.”

Citizens of a democracy are entitled to observe ICE agents, to deter them from lawless activity, and citizens of a democracy are not required to be respectful of law enforcement.

If the Department of Homeland Security can with impunity kill citizens for exercising those rights, America will not long remain a free nation.

Just a week after Donald Trump first took office as president, he signed Executive Order 13769—his first travel ban. It halted refugee admissions and suspended entry into the US for citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. All of these countries have a Muslim majority. Because of that, and also because Trump had previously said that he intends to ban Muslims from the US, critics referred to the order as a “Muslim ban.”

The backlash was immediate and broad, coming from Republicans and Democrats alike, as well as US diplomats, business leaders, universities, faith groups, and international organizations such as the United Nations and Amnesty International. Protests erupted in airports and cities across the US. A friend and I—both of us immigrants to the US ourselves—spontaneously drove to the international airport in Houston to express our outrage, along with hundreds of other protesters. I remember I felt hopeful. Surely, even people who didn’t come out to the airport would recoil once they learned what the order was actually doing to real human beings—for example, to the 78-year-old Iranian grandmother, certainly not a threat to national security, who came to the US with a valid visa to visit her children, as she did every year. She was detained for 27 hours at LAX, denied access to lawyers, and fell ill before finally being allowed to enter the country.

Today, nine years later and one year into the second Trump presidency, I’m less hopeful. On the first day of 2026, a proclamation signed by Trump took effect, expanding an earlier travel restriction to 39 countries. Citizens of these countries, as well as holders of travel documents issued by the Palestinian Authority, are generally barred from obtaining visitor, student, exchange, or immigrant visas. Turkmenistan is a partial exception: Its citizens may obtain nonimmigrant visas such as tourist, student, or exchange visas, but immigrant visas remain suspended. The other countries subject to the ban are Afghanistan, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Gabon, the Gambia, Haiti, Iran, Laos, Libya, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Myanmar, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Togo, Tonga, Venezuela, Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Together, they make up about 20% of the world’s countries.

Despite affecting far more people than the 2017 ban, this one passed almost without notice: no airport protests, no sustained outrage, and little public awareness that it had happened at all. This is partly because it has become impossible to keep up with the incessant noise coming from the White House, which Trump’s former chief political strategist Steve Bannon has explained is strategic: “The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.” As the noise about the Nobel Peace Prize, the “War on Christmas,” shower pressure, and wind turbines causing cancer absorbs public attention, Trump advances a steady program of norm breaking and lawlessness. The ongoing extrajudicial killings of people on boats in the Pacific and the Caribbean, the illegal abduction of Nicolás Maduro, the threats against Greenland, the masked federal agents terrorizing communities across the US, the separation of families and disappearances of people to inhumane prisons at home and abroad, and the cuts in foreign aid that have already cost countless lives are just some examples. In normal times, none of these would be partisan issues. But these are not normal times.

Entire populations are labeled as dangerous or undesirable, reinforcing discrimination and social exclusion both inside and outside the US.

As understandable and human it is that many of us are worn down by a sustained state of outrage, we must pay attention and cannot allow exhaustion to harden into indifference. Silence is complicity, and complicity is not an option.

On a human level, the January 1 travel ban means this: Students who earned admission to US universities and secured funding after years of studying and planning are now barred from enrolling, losing scholarships and life-changing educational opportunities. Students who already started academic programs in the US and traveled home to renew their visas cannot return to finish their degrees. Parents with lawful status in the US are unable to have their children abroad come and join them, leaving families indefinitely separated. Children are prevented from traveling to the US to sit with a dying parent, attend a funeral, or provide end-of-life care. Married couples, fiancés, and partners are forced into separation. Patients who rely on specialized or lifesaving treatment available only in the US are prevented from entering. Professionals and academics are unable to attend conferences. Entrepreneurs and businesspeople are blocked from attending critical meetings or negotiating deals. Entire populations are labeled as dangerous or undesirable, reinforcing discrimination and social exclusion both inside and outside the US.

This is not an exhaustive list, but merely a snapshot of the devastating and entirely predictable consequences of Trump’s new travel ban. Like its predecessors, it is not a security measure. It is a choice to inflict harm on ordinary people, and this choice is deliberately cruel. As I’m writing this, the Trump administration has announced a further escalation: the suspension of immigrant visas for 75 countries, a move that primarily affects families by closing the door on reunification. If we meet such policy choices with silence, authoritarianism has already won.

LIVE 9:00 am Eastern time, Streaming Anytime:

Political cartoonist Ted Rall and CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.

Today we discuss:

•  Trump caves in, reversing $2 billion in cuts to mental health and addiction programs after one day, after bipartisan pushback.

•  75% of Americans don’t want the US to take control of Greenland.

• Josh Hawley (R-MO) wimps out, and joins Todd Young (R-IN) in voting against a War Powers Resolution requiring Congressional approval for Trump’s war against Venezuela that they initially supported.

• Elon Musk’s Grok AI will no longer let users virtually “undress” people.

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On January 7, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis—a city long enriched by immigrants and now under assault from thousands of ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents.

Good, a 37-year-old poet and mother of three, was driving alongside her wife, Becca. They were observing an ICE raid in their community. “We stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns,” said Becca.

Sadly, at least three other people have been killed by ICE officers in the last five months, according to The Marshall Project.

Among them was Silverio Villegas González, a 38-year-old father and cook originally from Mexico, who was fatally shot during a traffic stop in a Chicago suburb. Keith Porter Jr., a 43-year-old father of two—and, like Good, a US citizen—was shot and killed by an off-duty ICE agent on New Year’s Eve in Los Angeles.

Across the country, more communities are responding to our nation’s descent into lawlessness by uniting around our shared humanity and demanding justice.

While the families of all these victims await justice, the violence continues. ICE agents have shot at least nine people in their vehicles since September. The Department of Homeland Security has routinely invoked “self-defense” to justify these shootings, despite video and witnesses repeatedly contradicting their accounts.

From Los Angeles to Washington DC, Chicago, Memphis, New Orleans, Portland, Charlotte, and now Minneapolis, violence has followed wherever President Donald Trump has dispatched immigration agents in the name of “public safety.”

On the same day Good was murdered, ICE conducted a raid at a nearby Minneapolis high school, reportedly tackling a teacher and harassing students. The next day, ICE agents in Robbinsdale, Minnesota forcibly detained a US citizen and Red Lake Nation descendant for no apparent reason. Stories of new outrages emerge almost daily.

And last fall, federal agents descended from Black Hawk helicopters in a midnight raid of an apartment building in Chicago, detaining all its residents, including children. (That’s in addition to killing Villegas González—and shooting another person five times.)

This escalating violence is an outgrowth of ICE’s appalling treatment of immigrants. Across the country, people have been rounded up, thrown in deadly prisons, and ripped from their families—a trend that has sharply escalated under Trump.

Thousands of masked agents in unmarked cars—equipped with military-grade weapons and the latest surveillance technology—treat cities like war zones while executing raids at workplaces, places of worship, and schools.

Citizens and noncitizens alike have been racially profiled and kidnapped at courthouses and off the streets without warrants or probable cause. Trump has also used ICE to attack free speech, abducting and jailing students like Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi, and Rümeysa Öztürk who spoke out against the Gaza genocide.

In addition to the shootings, 32 people died in ICE custody last year alone—and as of this writing, four more people have died in custody so far this January.

Abysmal conditions in ICE prisons, including medical neglect, have resulted in these tragic and avoidable deaths, leaving families shattered and still searching for answers. Nearly 69,000 people are currently being held in ICE prisons, the vast majority of them without a criminal record. According to ProPublica, ICE also detained over 170 US citizens last year.

ICE has repeatedly denied members of Congress entry to its detention facilities, interfering with Congress’ constitutional oversight authority. Still, Congress enables ICE’s abuses through billions in funding increases. ICE’s $14 billion annual budget for detentions alone, note Lindsay Koshgarian and Sarah Lazare, is more than the total military spending of 124 countries.

Across the country, more communities are responding to our nation’s descent into lawlessness by uniting around our shared humanity and demanding justice. A recent poll shows, for the first time, net positive support—including among self-described moderates—for abolishing ICE.

These Americans understand that no one is safe as long as ICE still exists, operates with impunity, and terrorizes communities. How many more deaths will it take for Congress to hold this agency accountable?

On January 3, 2026, the United States did not merely bomb a sovereign country and capture its president. It displayed, in the most unambiguous terms, a total defiance of the post-war international order that it helped create. When US special forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife and National Assembly Deputy Cilia Flores from Caracas and transported them to a Brooklyn jail, they did not simply violate Venezuelan sovereignty. They declared that sovereignty itself, for any nation that refuses subordination to US imperialism, holds no weight.

As Nicolás Maduro Guerra, the president’s son, stated before Venezuela’s National Assembly: “If we normalize the kidnapping of a head of state, no country is safe. Today it’s Venezuela. Tomorrow, it could be any nation that refuses to submit.”

The response to this act, regardless of one’s political orientation or views on the Maduro government, will determine whether the concepts of international law, multilateralism, and the self-determination of peoples retain any meaning in the 21st century. This is not a question for the left alone. It is a question for every nation, every government, and every citizen who believes that the world should not be governed by the principle that might makes right.

The Logic of Hyper-Imperialism Unveiled

What distinguishes the current phase of US foreign policy from earlier periods of intervention is its brazenness. When the CIA orchestrated the overthrow of Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz in 1954, Washington maintained the pretense of responding to communist subversion. When American forces invaded Panama in 1989 to capture Manuel Noriega, the justification was framed within a discourse of law enforcement. The history of US intervention in Latin America spans over 40 successful regime changes in slightly less than a century, according to Harvard scholar John Coatsworth.

Every government that has sought to develop independently, that has attempted to control its own natural resources, that has resisted subordination to Washington, must recognize that what has happened in Venezuela could happen to them.

But President Donald Trump’s announcement that the United States would “run” Venezuela represents something qualitatively different. Here there is no pretense. When asked about the operation, Trump invoked the Monroe Doctrine and said that these are called “Donroe Doctrine,” signaling that the Western Hemisphere remains a zone of US dominion—an assertion clearly made in the National Security Strategy launched in November 2025. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s subsequent clarification that the US would merely extract policy changes and oil access did nothing to soften the nakedness of the imperial project.

This represents what we at the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research have identified as “hyper-imperialism,” a dangerous and decadent stage of imperialism. Facing the erosion of its economic and political dominance and the rise of alternative centers of power (mainly in Asia) US imperialism increasingly relies on its uncontested military strength. The Chatham House analysis is unequivocal: This constitutes a significant violation of Venezuelan sovereignty and the United Nations Charter. There was no Security Council mandate, nor any claims to self-defense.

The post-1945 international order established the formal principle that states possess sovereign equality and that force against another state’s territorial integrity is prohibited. Article 2(4) of the UN Charter was designed precisely to prevent the powerful from treating the world as their domain, which the US has now blatantly ignored.

The Test for Global South Solidarity

The kidnapping of President Maduro poses an existential question to the discourse of “multipolarity.” While the seeds of a multipolar world order may exist (China’s economic rise, the increasing political assertiveness of Global South countries, BRICS and its expansion, the increasing trade in local currencies) they have proven to be extremely limited in the face of the US unilateral use of force. This is an uncomfortable truth.

The initial responses from governments suggest the difficulty of moving from rhetorical condemnation to material constraint. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva correctly identified the stakes when he condemned the capture as crossing “an unacceptable line” and warned that “attacking countries, in flagrant violation of international law, is the first step toward a world of violence, chaos, and instability.” Colombian President Gustavo Petro rejected “the aggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela and of Latin America.” Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum declared that “the Americas do not belong to any doctrine or any power.” China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi condemned US military intervention and called for the release of President Maduro, saying, “We don’t believe that any country can act as the world’s police.”

The groundswell of opposition confronts a structural problem: The institutions designed to prevent such actions are incapable of constraining the permanent members of the Security Council. The United States can veto any resolution condemning its behavior. The emergency Security Council meeting convened at the request of Venezuela and Colombia produced denunciations but no enforcement mechanism.

Every government that has sought to develop independently, that has attempted to control its own natural resources, that has resisted subordination to Washington, must recognize that what has happened in Venezuela could happen to them. Trump’s threats against Cuba and Colombia underscore this point.

Sovereignty, Resources, and the Right to Self-Determination

The pattern is well established with the successive overthrowing of heads of states when they tried to implement land reform like Árbenz in Guatemala, nationalize national resources under Salvador Allende in Chile and Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran. The thread continues to the present situation in Venezuela.

While the real limits of “multipolarity” in this stage of US hyper-imperialism have been laid bare, we must continue building our collective capacity to resist.

Venezuela possesses the world’s largest proven oil reserves, estimated at 303 billion barrels. Trump made no effort to disguise the centrality of oil, announcing that American companies would rebuild Venezuela’s oil industry and the US would be “selling oil, probably in much larger doses.” The maritime blockade preceding the military operation served the explicit purpose of strangling the country economically.

Yet the entire trajectory of the US Venezuela policy since 2001, from funding opposition groups to the 2002 coup attempt, to Operation Gideon in 2020, to the “maximum pressure” sanctions, has been designed to prevent Venezuela from making free choices. The assault accelerated after Venezuela enacted its 2001 Hydrocarbons Law asserting sovereign control over oil resources.

Conclusion

The kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro and National Assembly deputy Cilia Flores should compel a fundamental reassessment of the state of the international order. The formal institutions and legal frameworks that were supposed to prevent great power aggression have failed to constrain Washington’s imperialist aggressions. This places an enormous responsibility on the governments and peoples of the Global South. The debates around multipolarity, BRICS, South-South cooperation, and de-dollarization are rendered academic if they do not translate into the practical capacity to impose costs on actions like the invasion of Venezuela. Ultimately, the imperialist aggression against Venezuela has repercussions for governments and peoples around the world, regardless of their ideological orientation or views on the Maduro government. While the real limits of “multipolarity” in this stage of US hyper-imperialism have been laid bare, we must continue building our collective capacity to resist. The defense of Venezuelan people’s sovereignty, after all, is a defense of the sovereignty of all our nations.

President Donald Trump’s statement that United States should go into Venezuela and “take back" the oil reflects historical ignorance, and a deeply entrenched extractive mindset—a mindset that has treated Latin America as a resource colony for over a century.

His claim that Venezuela “stole” US oil refers to Hugo Chávez’s decision in the early 2000s to nationalize foreign-owned oil assets, including those held by American companies. To understand that decision, we must look at the conditions that provoked it. For decades, foreign firms and domestic elites extracted enormous profits while ordinary Venezuelans languished in poverty. By the late 1990s, nearly half the population lived below the poverty line despite massive oil revenues, and income inequality was extreme.

Chávez rejected the 1990s Apertura Petrolera model, which opened the oil sector to foreign investment on highly favorable terms, allowing multinational corporations to capture disproportionate gains while the state received relatively little. The 2001 hydrocarbons law reversed this: Royalties were increased to 30%, joint ventures required majority state ownership, and PDVSA reclaimed control over production. Oil revenue was redirected to misiones—social programs that reduced poverty from 50-30%. Venezuela’s resource nationalism disrupted entrenched profit expectations, and that disruption angered the powers accustomed to extractive entitlement.

And this is not new. History shows that the United States has long responded aggressively when resource-rich countries assert control over their own wealth. A striking example is Iran in the early 1950s. Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who became premier in 1951, moved to nationalize the Iranian oil industry, previously controlled by the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. This bold assertion of sovereignty enraged foreign powers, leading Britain and, eventually, the US, to orchestrate a coup in 1953. Known as Operation Ajax (CIA) and Operation Boot (MI6), the intervention involved bribing politicians and military officials, disinformation campaigns in the media, and street riots to destabilize the government. Mosaddegh was overthrown, and the Shah reinstated, ensuring continued foreign access to Iranian oil.

Trump’s promise to “take the oil” is an insult to the sovereignty of Venezuela and the dignity of its people, effectively saying that national wealth is only legitimate when it aligns with US corporate interests.

Chávez’s Venezuela follows the same pattern. By denying US companies unfettered profits from national resources, he provoked the wrath of powers accustomed to resource imperialism. The outrage was not about governance or efficiency, it was about lost profits and disrupted expectations. When Trump threatens to “take the oil,” he is articulating a familiar imperial logic: Countries that assert control over their resources, rather than surrender them to foreign extraction, are to be punished. Venezuela is merely the latest chapter in a long story of sovereign nations being denied the right to decide how their wealth is used.

This is not to claim that Chávez’s policies were without flaws. Large-scale expropriations discouraged investment, PDVSA became politicized, technical expertise left the country, and overreliance on oil left the economy vulnerable. Production fell from around 3.5 million barrels per day in 1998 to roughly 2.5 million by 2013. But these economic and institutional shortcomings do not legitimize foreign seizure. Venezuela’s resources belong to its people, not to external actors asserting entitlement through power.

Trump’s rhetoric also ignores the environmental reality of Venezuela’s oil. The country’s reserves are among the heaviest and most carbon intensive in the world. Extraction requires enormous energy inputs, produces high methane emissions, and relies heavily on gas flaring. Venezuela has suffered repeated oil spills, chronic gas leaks, and widespread infrastructure decay. Increasing production under these conditions would intensify ecological damage in an already fragile system.

Trump’s promise to “take the oil” is an insult to the sovereignty of Venezuela and the dignity of its people, effectively saying that national wealth is only legitimate when it aligns with US corporate interests. Resource nationalism is a legitimate exercise of sovereignty, but the reaction to it frames it as illegitimate and criminal.

The lesson from Venezuela is not that resource nationalism should be abandoned. It is that sovereignty and markets must be balanced, executed carefully and democratically. Ignoring either leads to failure. Venezuela needs recovery, investment, and reform but that process must be led by Venezuelans, not dictated by foreign powers claiming historical rights to expropriate. Going in to extract oil under US control would deepen environmental damage, compound social injustice, and revive a colonial logic the world has spent decades trying to leave behind.

“Renee sparkled. She literally sparkled. I mean, she didn’t wear glitter but I swear she had sparkles coming out of her pores. All the time. You might think it was just my love talking but her family said the same thing. Renee was made of sunshine.”

The words are those of Renee Good’s wife Becca. They cut to our heart—our humanity. She was shot in the face by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, who then muttered: “Fuckin’ bitch.” The murder of this 37-year-old mom as she tried to drive around the ICE guys who stopped her is national news, of course. Almost everyone has seen at least one of the many videos of the incident and, you might say, the national dialogue about virtually anything else has been put on hold.

At least it seems that way. Is ICE keeping us safe from vicious, radical terrorists, along, of course, with those horrific immigrant invaders, or is it obliterating humanity’s sunshine?

President Donald Trump hasn’t simply handed us a new enemy of the moment, something most US presidents have loved to do, certainly in my lifetime: Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan... uh, Gaza. Trump has declared that our main enemy is here at home, the ones fleeing chaos and poverty in their home countries and crossing our borders—you know, the rapists, murderers, drug dealers, insane-asylum escapees, etc. (Trump explains it all clearly on X.) But the enemy is also you, if you question his racism and belligerence in any way. If you are outraged by the killing of Renee Good and so many others, not to mention the kidnapping of hard-working Americans and their deportation to concentration camps, well, maybe you’ll be next.

Whether or not Trump is “being Hitler” is beside the point. He’s feeding not just hatred to his supporters—contempt for the radical left—but he’s also feeding them a chance for actual victory over the left: the chance to create the world they want.

Trump is at war with half—maybe two-thirds—of the country. He’s invading the cities—including Minneapolis, where Renee Good lived—that voted against him, that dared to declare themselves sanctuary cities. Where is this all going? Unsurprisingly, a lot of people see a parallel with Hitler and the Nazi era. They call ICE Trump’s Gestapo.

Of course, there’s plenty of disagreement and criticism about this. Come on, this ain’t the Third Reich! And I agree, to an extent. I see little value in comparing Trump to Hitler simply to intensify the insult you’re throwing back at him. But in a larger sense, God help us! What is going on here?

The US has waged hellish and unnecessary wars before, but what’s going on now under Trump is different. What I sense here is looming social change: the undoing of any semblance of democracy. Trump is seizing hold of the hatred and political rancor that exists in this country and is attempting to use it to his advantage. He’s feeding it to his supporters, empowering them with it. He has no interest whatsoever in uniting the country, finding common ground between sides, or embracing complex values as he governs. He just wants to eliminate the bad guys, the anti-Trumpers. All of us have a dark side, and Trump has been successfully summoning the darkness of his supporters. Go get ’em, boys! And wear your masks.

Whether or not Trump is “being Hitler” is beside the point. He’s feeding not just hatred to his supporters—contempt for the radical left—but he’s also feeding them a chance for actual victory over the left: the chance to create the world they want. This would be a world without political correctness, a world with the freedom to be racist and misogynist and, what the hell, tear down the Statue of Liberty. He and his believers believe they are creating white America.

How do we push back against this? How do we stop it before it gets politically entrenched and starts pulling in the American center? I can’t think of a harder question to answer. So let me quote some more words from Becca Good about Renee:

Renee leaves behind three extraordinary children; the youngest is just six years old and already lost his father. I am now left to raise our son and to continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world for him. That the people who did this had fear and anger in their hearts, and we need to show them a better way.

We thank you for the privacy you are granting our family as we grieve. We thank you for ensuring that Renee’s legacy is one of kindness and love. We honor her memory by living her values: rejecting hate and choosing compassion, turning away from fear and pursuing peace, refusing division and knowing we must come together to build a world where we all come home safe to the people we love.

Marianne Williamson, who quoted these words in an email post, contrasted them with JD Vance’s comment that Renee Good’s real tragedy was that she had been “radicalized by left-wing ideology.” “If that was ‘left-wing ideology,’ Mr. Vice President,” she wrote, “I’ll take it.”

Every life is precious. Never let knowing this be stolen from you. When it comes to reclaiming the country, that’s the starting place, even—especially—when you’re face-to-face with an armed guy wearing a mask.

Iran’s Islamic regime is under incredible pressure as the protests that begun in late December over the collapse of the currency have morphed into a mass popular uprising that has spread across the entire country and shows no sign of slowing despite a brutal crackdown that has resulted so far in the killing of thousands of protesters.

Make no mistake about it. Iran’s current leadership is murdering its own citizens in order to remain in power and thus block the growing support for secularism, freedom, and democracy. It’s as simple as that. This is a regime that has been facing unprecedented hostility by the United States and some of its closest allies since coming to power in 1979 but has been far more interested in exporting the Islamic revolution than looking after the well-being of its own citizens. It is a reactionary regime that has suppressed the fundamental rights of women, banned independent trade unions, and engaged in a systematic crackdown of communists and other leftists, all the while catering to powerful national capitalist interests.

Iranians have a long history of rebellion against authoritarianism and repression. Under the Shah, Iran had one of the world’s most brutal and repressive regimes, strongly supported by the United States. Indeed, while the Shah sought to modernize the country and even gave women the right to vote, and the Family Protection Law of 1968 granted women certain rights in divorce and custody, he and his generals ran the country with an iron first. Tens of thousands of Iranians were killed during the Shah’s reign, and Iran’s dreaded secret police, SAVAK, employed torture and execution to stifle political opposition.

Yet, Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1979 revolution, aided by Marxists, intellectuals, various secular groups, and the middle class, did not represent a transition from monarchy to democracy. Instead, it replaced a brutal, pro-Western monarchy with a theocratic regime that rolled back much of the social progress that had occurred up to that point. Repression came back, this time with an Islamic face, though the regime enjoyed at first considerable support among merchants, students, clerics, and the poor. Khomeini’s regime massacred and exiled all communists and embarked on a campaign of purification of policies. Women’s rights were drastically curtailed, and this included the removal of professional women from the public sector as well as the adoption of various means and methods aimed at discouraging women in general from entering the labor force.

The US is an imperialist power with a long history of undermining democracy throughout the world. The Iranian people will not accept US interference into their own political affairs.

Iranian women took to the streets by the thousands just a few weeks after the revolution to oppose Khomeini’s decree mandating the hijab. This decree was followed by a ban on alcohol, the separation of men and women in schools and beaches, and the criminalization of music. Iran was converted in no time from a Westernized society with a brutal political regime to an Islamic state sustained by an equally brutal political regime. Under the new social order, religion and state mixed as thoroughly as they did in Saudi Arabia. The only difference is that the two countries followed different branches of Islam--Iran’s political system is based on Shiism, while Saudi Arabia’s rests on Wahhabism.

More recently, in 2022, the death of the 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman Jina Mahsa Amini while under morality police custody sparked the nationwide “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests, which people from all walks of life joined to call for an end to the four-decade rule of Iran by the religious fanatics. The Iranian authorities responded by detaining thousands of people while killing more than 560 protesters. It was reported that the average age of those arrested was 15.

The key reasons behind the current anti-government protests are economic hardships and political grievances. Iran’s economy has been under severe strains for a long time due to the international sanctions but also because of mismanagement, corruption, and a host of deep structural problems (chronic inflation, widespread poverty, and high youth unemployment, among others) which the regime has failed to address.

Protests broke out on December 28 after the Iranian currency, the rial, crumbled against the US dollar, leading to soaring food prices and to an even higher inflation rate, which had already risen to nearly 50%. It all started with demonstrations by shopkeepers in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, but they quickly spread to numerous cities across the country, reflecting deep and widespread discontent among the general citizenry with the current regime. This means that the protests, which have been very large in size and joined by people from across Iranian society, are not simply driven by economic worries. They are political protests against a corrupt and oppressive regime.

According to some sources, more than 2,500 people have been killed by the Iranian authorities since the protests begun, but there are unverified reports, suggesting that the number of protesters killed could be at least 12,000 and possibly as high as 20,000. Leading Iranian officials have labeled protesters as “enemies of God,” a charge that is punishable by death under the laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran. They also insist that the protests are foreign driven.

Israel and the United States would like nothing more than to see regime change in Tehran and turn Iran into a US-Israeli vassal state. But the claim that the Iranian people are protesting against a dictatorship by being a pawn in the hands of foreign powers deserves nothing but scorn. Nonetheless, it speaks volumes of how alienated the regime’s rulers must feel from the nation’s citizenry. I suspect that deep down they are cognizant of the fact that their regime lacks political legitimacy in the eyes of the vast majority of the Iranian people.

The people of Iran have not forgotten the involvement of the CIA in the 1953 coup that ousted the democratically elected Prime Minister Muhammad Mossadegh. Their desire to get rid of Iran’s current regime is not an invitation for foreign interference. Indeed, who is to say that perhaps none of the courageous protesters would be paying with their lives for Iran to be free from an oppressive theocracy if the 1953 coup hadn’t happened?

It’s virtually impossible to predict what lies ahead for Iran and its people. But if President Donald Trump decides to take military action against Iran’s current regime, nothing good will come out of it. The US is an imperialist power with a long history of undermining democracy throughout the world. The Iranian people will not accept US interference into their own political affairs. In fact, such action may cause many Iranians to unite, at least temporarily, behind the regime. In sum, only the Iranian people themselves should be able decide their nation’s future.

The lack of market reaction to the news that Trump ordered his Justice Department to investigate criminal charges against Fed Chair Jerome Powell surprises many people. After all, everyone knows that the claims about cost overruns being the basis for the investigation is nonsense. Trump wants to threaten Powell with criminal charges because he ignored Trump’s demand that he lower interest rates.

This ordinarily would be seen as a very big deal. Ever since Nixon, presidents have been reluctant to be seen as pressuring the Fed. In fact, their concern on this issue often seemed absurd to my view. President Biden didn’t want his Council of Economic Advisors to even comment on interest rate policy, as though giving a view based on the economic data would be undue pressure.

But there is a big difference between presenting an economic argument and threatening to imprison a Fed chair who disagrees. And we now see which side Trump comes down on.

But apparently, the markets are just fine with this new threat. The major stock indexes all rose on Monday, although bond prices fell slightly, pushing long-term rates higher. The dollar also fell modestly.

The non-reaction of the stock markets might seem surprising. After all, the independent Fed is considered a sacred feature of US prosperity. There is no shortage of economists who will insist that a Fed that is subordinate to the whims of a president is quick route to double-digit or even triple digit inflation. (I’m more agnostic on this one, but the markets generally don’t listen to me.)

Anyhow, Trump is now not just looking to fire an insubordinate Fed chair, he’s looking to throw him in prison. And the markets just yawned.

This reaction should cause us to start asking how the markets might react if Trump just cancels or outright steals the 2026 elections in order to keep his lackeys in control of Congress. Under any other modern president, the fear of a cancelled or stolen election would be silly. While they might have used dubious tactics leading up to an election, we could be comfortable that the votes would be counted, and the outcome would be binding. (Florida in 2000 is a major exception.) No one ever suggested that an election would be cancelled.

But Trump has made it clear that he considers both cancellation and ordering that some votes not be counted as serious options in his recent New York Times interview. No one can be safe in assuming that we will have a normal democratic election this year.

Given this reality, we might want to speculate on how the markets would react in the event that Trump does decide to end American democracy. We now know that most of the big money boys couldn’t care less about democracy. Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Tim Cook have been happy to cozy up to Trump in Mar-a-Lago, even as he violates one democratic norm after another. Elon Musk has made it clear that he has contempt for democracy, insofar as it means allowing non-white people to vote.

This gang would obviously have no moral issues with a cancelled or stolen election. But what about the economics?

Trump has already made it clear that he will favor businesses whose leaders praise him and punish those who criticize him. His most recent effort in this direction was saying that he intended to ban ExxonMobil from access to Venezuelan oil because its CEO said what every oil analyst has said since Trump became president of that country: it will be difficult for companies to profitably invest there.

The economies of countries where the leader can reward or punish companies on a whim tend to not do very well. The courts have provided a limited check on Trump’s whims as has even this pathetic Congress. However, if Trump is deciding who serves in Congress, the checks will be gone. We will have full-rule by our demented 79-year-old president.

Perhaps markets will be fine with that. With enough rear-end licking some companies may still do fine, but it would seem on the straight economics most people with money would probably prefer to invest in a serious country. Let’s hope we don’t have to find out.

Trump has decided that the government should not give money to defense contractors who then reroute our tax dollars via stock buybacks to stockholders and executives.

A stock buyback, for those unfamiliar, is when a corporation repurchases its own shares, thus boosting the share’s price, a legalized form of stock manipulation. CEOs, who are paid mostly in stock incentives, and large investors directly benefit from stock buybacks, and unlike with dividends, don’t have to pay taxes until they sell their shares.

In the weapons industry, this isn’t news. Studies show that defense contractors spent three times more on dividends and stock buybacks than on capital investments needed to fulfill their contracts over the last decade. In Europe, it was the other way around with defense companies spending twice as much on capital investments compared to dividends. (They don’t do stock buybacks.)

The New York Times cited a Department of Defense study during the Biden administration that “found that top US defense contractors spent more on returning cash to shareholders in the form of dividends and stock buybacks between 2010 and 2019 compared to the previous decades, while spending on research and new or upgraded factories had declined.”

You’ve got to wonder why the Biden administration didn’t try to stop this scam. Maybe it feared looking anti-military. Or maybe it thought such an action would be too upsetting to their Wall Street donors who feast on stock buybacks?

Now we have Trump doing what the Democrats should have done long ago, announcing he will stop buybacks and cap executive salaries at profligate defense contractors:

• His Executive Order directs the Secretary of War to take steps to ensure that future contracts prohibit stock buybacks and corporate distributions during periods of underperformance, non-compliance, insufficient prioritization or investment, or insufficient production speed.
• The Secretary shall further take steps to ensure that future contracts permit the Secretary to, upon determining that a contractor is experiencing such issues, cap executive base salaries at current levels (with inflation adjustments permitted) while scrutinizing executive incentives to ensure they are directly, fairly, and tightly tied to prioritizing the needs of the warfighter.

How about Preventing Mass Layoffs?

If the Democrats wanted to show more concern for working people they would jump all over this executive order and push legislation to expand it to include a prohibition of compulsory layoffs at all defense contractors. If a contractor wants to change staffing levels, they should offer voluntary financial buyout packages. No one should be forced to leave.

This is an easy case to make. Why should taxpayers give money to corporations that then lay off taxpayers so that they can shovel more and more of our tax dollars to the wealthy? If the problem is that these defense contractors fail to deliver products on time they need more workers, not fewer.

Instead of wallowing in the Epstein files, the Democrats should declare again and again that mass layoffs are the weapon of choice to enrich executives and Wall Street. Fight for the damn jobs!

In April, the Labor Institute, in cooperation with the Center for Working Class Politics, produced a YouGov survey of 3,000 voters in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In the survey, we asked voters to evaluate a state ballot initiative we invented that read:

“Corporations with more than 500 employees that receive taxpayer-funded federal contracts are prohibited from conducting involuntary layoffs of American workers. All layoffs during the life of a taxpayer-funded contract must be voluntary, based on employer financial incentives. No one shall be forced to leave.”

Overall, 42 percent supported the proposal, while 26 percent opposed it and 32 percent were not sure. The no-layoff proposal was brand new, unheard of by anyone before the survey was administered, yet it tied for fifth in popularity among 25 economic proposals. Furthermore, we reported that:

“Respondents from key demographic groups that Democrats have struggled to reach in recent electoral cycles showed robust support for the policy, which was tied for fifth among respondents without a four-year college degree and those whose family income was less than $50,000 per year, and tied for sixth among respondents who reported a declining standard of living and those who live in rural areas and small towns.”

This no-layoffs policy would be a big winner for the Democrats leading up to the mid-terms. But it would not be a winner for the financial backers of the party who cherish their stock buybacks.

So here we are again. Trump outflanking the Democrats on a populist economic proposal, like cancelling NAFTA, one that the Democrats failed to address while in power. In this case, the Democrats could push Trump even further by tying job stability to federal defense contracts, something that working people would greatly value but would be upsetting to Wall Street.

The Democrats could push Trump, but will they dare to take that leap? One would hope so, but don’t hold your breath.

The failure to rigorously defend working people over the last forty years against needless mass layoffs may be why so many voters right now are willing to consider a new political party, independent of the two billionaire parties.

Much more on that to come.