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fascism
A Disgraceful Hegseth Dishonors Those Who Gave Their Lives on D-Day
It is not surprising that Hegseth cannot identify with the men who fought on D-Day.
Jun 08, 2026
If you have ever had the opportunity to visit the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, France it is something that stays with you. The rows of white gravestones silhouetted against green grass and blue sky bear silent and eloquent witness to what happened on June 6, 1944. The cemetery contains the graves of 9,389 of Americans, most of whom lost their lives in the D-Day landings and the battles in France in 1944.
From the cemetery, you can see down to Omaha Beach the bloodiest part of the D-Day battlefield. While estimates vary, 2,400 to 3,600 total American casualties (including killed, wounded, and missing) occurred on Omaha Beach on D-Day, June 6, 1944. For me, the most moving part of the Cemetery is the Walls of the Missing where inscribed 1,557 names of the soldiers and sailors who were missing in action and have never had their bodies recovered.
For decades, American politicians have been visiting the Normandy Beaches to pay tribute to all the Americans and Allies (primarily British and Canadian) who fought on June 6, 1944. Particularly well-known is the speech that President Ronald Reagan made in June of 1984:
The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. It was the deep knowledge—and pray God we have not lost it—that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt. You all knew that some things are worth dying for.
For an American politician, remarks at the Normandy beaches ought to be simple and straightforward. All you have to do is pay tribute as best you can to the extraordinary sacrifice made on June 6, 1944. As hard as it is to believe, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth failed this simple task. Rather than just pay tribute to the efforts of those who “hit the beach” on June 6, 1944, Hegseth launched into an anti-immigrant and far-right rant. As the New York Times reported:
In his remarks, Mr. Hegseth said that “freedom is not free” and especially praised the role played by American troops, but said that over the past eight or so decades, some European countries had grown “comfortable.” “Today, different European beaches are stormed by different dangerous ideologies,” he said. “Boats and men arrive. When will European capitals do something about that invasion? Or is it too late?”
I am sure it escaped Hegseth the fact that many of the Americans he heralds for their sacrifice were the sons of immigrants to the United States. To compare refugees coming to Europe fleeing war and economic oppression with Nazi tyranny defies belief.
It is not surprising that Hegseth cannot identify with the men who fought on D-Day. They were not the much hyped “war fighters” ignoring politically correct rules of engagement that Hegseth celebrates. Instead, they were ordinary men doing extraordinary things to defeat the most terrible tyranny the world has ever seen. History will remember the deeds of those who defeated Nazi tyranny, while Hegseth's far-right rhetoric will be nothing more than a footnote to a sad chapter in American history.
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Washington Won't Save Us; Our Neighbors Might
Why the midterms will be won or lost at the community level—and what that means for how we organize now.
May 22, 2026
A recent political event at a local community center left me smiling. A Latina special educator teacher running for state legislature had gathered a room full of supporters. Labor union members, religious leaders, political activists, family, and friends showed up in the late afternoon this spring to help her launch her campaign. The fundraising pitch was co-led by a very exuberant trans performer and a buttoned-up county prosecutor, filling the space with laughter and donations.
It was just one event, but it reminded me that building grassroots power goes hand in hand with building community. Both will be needed if the upcoming midterm elections are to be the pivot we need. This is the time grassroots power can stop fascism and begin the long but hopeful journey to an inclusive, fair, and sustainable world.
What Has Community Got to Do With It?
We are bombarded by news of the disastrous policies coming out of a billionaire-led administration, following the marching orders of the tech bros; the Heritage Foundation’s corporate agenda; and, according to conjecture, such foreign leaders as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It’s enough to create chronic panic.
Less often discussed are the victories of the people working together in their neighborhoods and towns to push back on Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdowns and AI data complexes, to stand up for voting rights, and to fight to get food and healthcare to those cut off from these basic needs. These grassroots groups are also providing essential backing to the elected officials who are standing up to the Trump regime’s worst abuses.
History shows that fascism can overrun a society when people are fractured and isolated. We can counter powerlessness when we act with others where we live.
These victories don’t come from national Democratic Party leaders or celebrities. They come from ordinary people who show up; work together; and build the trust, relationships, and coordination that make further action possible.
The Midterms Pivot
This grassroots power will make the difference in the upcoming midterm elections, which could in turn determine whether fascism strengthens its hold on American life.
Poll after poll is telling us that growing majorities of Americans oppose President Donald Trump’s policies, and that his disapproval rating is reaching unprecedented levels. Still, there are strong headwinds for those working for change.
Funding for progressive grassroots work is falling short, according to a recent analysis by the Movement Voters Project. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is rolling out executive orders and court cases that can discourage voting by those who might oppose him, removing citizens from the voting rolls, raising false claims about election integrity, and putting bureaucratic roadblocks in the way of casting a ballot.
And then it got worse. On April 29, 2026, the US Supreme Court ruling in the Louisiana v. Callais case struck a near-fatal blow to the Voting Rights Act. After years of struggle for equal voting rights for African Americans, this case threatens to fracture the power of Black communities, diluting their ability to elect members of Congress and state and local officials who truly represent them. According to Black Voters Matter, the ruling threatens to create an additional 19 entrenched seats for Republicans in Congress, and 191 entrenched Republican legislative seats.
But here is what the ruling also did: It relocated the battle to exactly the terrain where organized communities are strongest—the state and local level. The people with the most power to determine what happens in November are not in Washington. They are wherever you are, deciding whether to show up.
How we organize locally could make the difference.
Building power means inviting in people who have not been active until now. It means building an agenda for a better, more inclusive future, and making political gatherings a time for community building as well as for carrying out effective strategies. It means prioritizing collaboration across races and identities and issues to build power for the common good. Now is the time—during primary season, when we have the most leverage.
Here’s what that looks like:
We Need to Keep Voting Accessible, Safe, and Fair. Restore Voting Rights
Elections are run by state and local officials, not by the federal government. The work varies by region, but wherever you are, you can work with your local, county, and state officials to make district maps fair, to ensure polling stations are secure and that eligible voters have unfettered access to the polls, and that the election process is free from bias and intimidation.
The Callais decision makes this work tougher, but it also is unleashing the unstoppable energy of those who have been excluded too often and for too long.
Organize Sustained Grassroots Power. Candidates Are Not the Whole Story
Elected officials work for us. We have the right to set the agenda, and find and elect candidates who will carry out our priorities. And we have the right to hold incumbents accountable. For the vast majority of us who lack billions of dollars, building power means organizing: creating collaborations among existing groups, creating new groups when needed, affiliating with regional and national organizations when appropriate. It means building connections and power year round, not only during election season.
National groups that are effective in building grassroots power include the Movement Voters Project, which supports grassroots groups building progressive power, especially in swing states, year round, not only during election season. The Working Families Party and the Democratic Socialists of America, which played key roles in organizing and mobilizing the massive grassroots campaign that won the New York mayoral election for Zohran Mamdani. Your local Democratic Party might—or might not—be helpful.
Elect Fighters!
This is the right time, during the primaries, to challenge incumbents to take strong positions supporting voting rights and the interests of all working people in our communities, not the corporations and billionaires. Ask candidates tough questions when they are on home visits or campaigning. Research their voting records. Hold candidates forums.
If the incumbent is caving in to corporate interests or racist gerrymandering, taking money from American Israel Public Affairs Committee or Wall Street PACs, or failing to fight for poor and working class people, support strong candidates who challenge them. In the general election, we may need to support any candidate who will oppose MAGA, but in the primaries, we should press for the leadership that will best serve us.
Spread Stories of Power, Not Just Fear
Many of us live with the daily drama of Trump’s latest impulses. It’s hard to avoid. But we need to remember that there is so much more to our nation’s story. Research and share news about the progressive office holders and community organizing that is making life better for everyday people. What you share on social media makes a difference. Supply your elected officials with tangible examples of successful policies to help them see a path forward. Write an editorial or letter to the editor of your local newspaper or in your group’s newsletter about wins. Mamdani’s recent successes are great examples—offering free day care for 2-year-olds, and increasing the stock of affordable housing with funding proposed through a tax on luxury second homes.
People need to see what grassroots power looks like, and so do our elected representatives. Allowing the outrages of the MAGA Regime to occupy all of our attention makes us think and feel like victims, preparing for the next blow, rather than embodying our rights to be powerful protagonists. We forget that we can get things done and that we deserve better.
Gather With Others
History shows that fascism can overrun a society when people are fractured and isolated. We can counter powerlessness when we act with others where we live. People want to make a difference—many are just waiting for the right invitation. Create spaces that foster belonging, a topic I explore in my recent zine, “Community As Strategy.” Combine the hard work with joy-filled gatherings. Hold dance parties, picnics, or fun runs. Turn protests into parades.
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We actually do have a path forward. We can defeat fascism before the remaining institutions of American democracy are corrupted and dismembered. We can do that best by joining together locally and finally offering Americans what so many want—universal healthcare, peace, protection for our natural heritage, an economy that works for working people. We have majority support for many of these positions, and the creativity and energy to make them a reality. Together, we have the power when we organize where we live.
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Thomas Massie's Defeat to Trump-Backed Ed Gallrein Speaks Directly to America's Moral Decline
A healthy society rewards honesty, independence, transparency, and institutional courage. A diseased culture—even if we look beyond particular ideologies or partisan alignment—values something altogether different.
May 20, 2026
On Tuesday, May 19, incumbent Congressman Thomas Massie—the congressman who helped lead the charge to force the release of the Epstein Files to the American public—was defeated in the Republican primary by former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein. The race became the highest-spending House primary in American history, and many immediately interpreted the result as yet another demonstration of Donald Trump’s overwhelming political power.
White House Communications Director Steven Cheung celebrated the result bluntly: “Do not ever doubt President Trump and his political power. Fuck around, find out.”
But I think the deeper story is more complex than this, and I feel uniquely positioned to comment on this election, not only as a constituent of Northern Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District and someone who has interacted personally with Thomas Massie, but also as someone involved in ongoing anti-corruption and civic reconstruction efforts in the region.
In April 2016, when I was a college student, I attended a luncheon hosted, if I recall correctly, by the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. At the time, I was studying conflict and security in my political science program while interning on research related to the Syrian conflict. I had noticed something that was not yet being widely discussed publicly: Pentagon-backed militias and CIA-backed militias in Syria were reportedly engaging in firefights with one another—different arms of the same American security apparatus, literally shooting at each other through proxies.
I brought this up with Massie privately afterward. To my surprise, he confirmed the reality of the situation to me directly, when much of the press still barely acknowledged it. As we walked toward his car, we both shook our heads at the absurdity of it all: an empire increasingly at war with itself while the public drifted deeper into spectacle and apathy. That moment stayed with me because it was one of the few times I saw a federal politician speak candidly and honestly without rehearsed talking points.
Ten years later, Massie is now effectively gone from Congress. How does someone widely regarded as unusually principled, intellectually independent, and personally honest lose in such dramatic fashion? Especially after helping push one of the largest public accountability stories in recent American politics with the Epstein affair?
To understand how someone like Massie could lose in this environment, I think we first need to step back and examine the broader social psychology at work—not only in Northern Kentucky, but increasingly in the United States itself. Erich Fromm, drawing on psychoanalytic concepts originally developed by Freud and later expanded within social psychology, argued in The Sane Society that individuals under prolonged conditions of fear, alienation, instability, and social fragmentation can psychologically regress into more primitive modes of thought and behavior.
Mature forms of reasoning and moral responsibility begin to weaken, and people increasingly retreat into dependency, tribalism, spectacle, aggression, and irrationality as defense mechanisms. Fromm’s contribution was extending these dynamics beyond the individual and into the social sphere, arguing that entire societies can regress under conditions of deep political, economic, and spiritual dislocation, producing cultures driven less by reasoned civic life than by fear, conformity, resentment, and authoritarian impulses.
In many ways, the history of Northern Kentucky reflects precisely this kind of social adaptation to institutional decay. Newport became nationally infamous during the twentieth century as “Sin City,” a vice hub built on organized gambling, prostitution, racketeering, and institutional corruption. Criminal syndicates connected to figures like Meyer Lansky and the Cleveland Four embedded themselves deeply into the region’s political and economic life. Corruption extended into police departments, political offices, business networks, and broader civic culture. Vice became normalized because it generated money, jobs, and local economic growth. Over time, entire communities psychologically adapted themselves to corruption and decay as an ordinary feature of public life.
Despite the reform efforts of the 1960s, many of the underlying patterns never truly disappeared. Look at the headlines from just the last several years:
In 2018, former Campbell County judge Tim Nolan—a major Trump ally in Northern Kentucky who had served as Trump’s campaign chairman in Campbell County—was sentenced to twenty years in prison after pleading guilty to charges connected to a large-scale human trafficking operation involving minors. The case shocked the region nationally because it revealed how deeply institutional prestige, political influence, and criminal pathology could intertwine beneath the surface of respectable civic life.
More recently, another longtime Campbell County official was arrested after allegedly engaging in sexually explicit online conversations with someone he believed to be a fourteen-year-old girl.
The City of Florence, the district’s second-largest city, announced an FBI investigation into possible long-running revenue diversion schemes tied to municipal finances. Erlanger officials openly discussed limiting public records requests and explored mechanisms to refuse requests deemed “political.”
FOX19 previously documented extensive corruption scandals across Northern Kentucky involving embezzlement, abuse of public office, and theft of taxpayer money.
Meanwhile, federal prosecutors revealed that a Russia-linked transnational fraud network used a Northern Kentucky storefront company as part of a massive $10 billion Medicare fraud operation spanning multiple countries—the largest fraud scheme of this kind in U.S. history, under the nose of local authorities and almost entirely ignored by major press (and right-wing influences who claim to be against fraud, for instance, in Minnesota).
There does not really seem to be a coincidence here. Northern Kentucky’s history shows, with remarkable consistency, that weakened civic culture, normalized corruption, collapsing institutional trust, and chronic public nihilism become soft terrain for exploitation—whether by local patronage networks, organized crime, political demagogues, or even transnational criminal enterprises. It is no wonder that voters are tolerant of the rampant corruption today in Washington; they have already done so for generations, at various points
A healthy society rewards honesty, independence, transparency, and institutional courage. A diseased culture—one that is regressing—increasingly rewards tribal loyalty, emotional spectacle, obedience, factional identity, and the destruction of dissenters. In such an environment, integrity itself becomes politically dangerous because it disrupts the emotional equilibrium of the system.
As I see it, this victory says less about Trump’s power and more about America’s moral decline.
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