SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
fascism
Vote to Feel Something Other Than Dread About Our Future
There are so many races, and so many heroes. If you can help today, then help.
Nov 03, 2026
I had my Vote! shirt on today because Third Act is running through the tape. Our Party Line senior-to-senior outreach moves into final get-out-the-vote mode today; we’ve already passed half a million phone and text contacts, and we are going to keep going till the bitter end, making sure that the folks we’ve IDed actually cast their votes.
It’s important—and it’s also an advanced form of self-soothing, because I find election day hard to deal with. So much rides on the outcome today, more than realistically should. We’ll find out whether or not the fightback against our slide into fascism-with-American-characteristics has begun in earnest; it’ll obviously take more than one election but at this point we have to win them all. Beginning tonight.
I think the reason it feels so fateful is that we’re counting whether there are more open-hearted people voting, or scared-hateful-cramped people. More people who can analyze their own self-interest and also see beyond it, or more people trapped in some ugly algorithmic spiral. I wish it weren’t so starkly good and evil—but after the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good (and Joan Guerrero and Victor Diaz and…) it feels pretty inescapably binary. And so we do all we can.
Here, for instance, is a good reminder from Ning Mosberger-Tang to go all the way down the ballot!
This election season, millions of voters have the chance to advance affordability and climate progress by electing pro-clean energy commissioners to their states’ Public Service Commissions or PSCs (also known as Public Utility Commissions or PUCs)—a line at or near the bottom of their ballots. PSCs have enormous power over their states’ energy systems. They authorize the building of new energy infrastructure, set policies for rooftop solar and how its owners are paid, and oversee long-term planning that determines whether state clean energy goals are met. They are also responsible for ensuring utilities charge fair and reasonable prices for electricity.
The donor collaborative that I founded, 1.5°Climate, made strategic fundraising for important PSC races around the country a top priority this year. One of those crucial races is in Georgia. 1.5°Climate’s decision to highlight the Georgia PSC elections was the result of a rigorous analysis that considered the potential climate impact of a positive outcome and pro-clean energy candidates’ chances of winning. Ahead of the special election last year that put clean energy advocate Peter Hubbard in an open seat on the PSC,1.5°Climate raised more than $800,000 from donors around the country for local nonprofit ally Georgia League of Conservation Voters (GCV) to elevate clean energy and affordability issues in the race. After his victory, Hubbard told the Macon Telegraph, “I will work tirelessly to lower utility costs, to bring more clean, reliable energy resources to this state, and to refocus the Commission’s work on the public interest.”
Georgia PSC commissioners are up for election again next week, with five candidates running to fill two open seats. 1.5°Climate is once again bringing its combination of nationwide fundraising and local alliances to the Georgia PSC election, a huge opportunity for climate progress at the state level. Local organizing by Third Act and GCV, with fundraising support from 1.5°Climate–which has already raised an additional $500,000 for GCV this year—are helping to put a pro-clean energy majority on the PSC within reach for the first time in the state’s history.
There are currently nine states with PSC commissioners on the ballot. If you live in one of those states, casting your vote for pro-clean energy candidates might be the most effective step you can take toward climate action this year. In other states, like Nebraska, voters have an opportunity to make a similar impact by voting in pro-clean energy members of local electric utility boards. These boards are the direct decision-makers on crucial questions about local energy infrastructure and electricity rates. So if you still haven’t voted, look to the bottom of your ballot and make sure you fill in the bubble for pro-climate action and pro-affordability leaders of electric utilities or their regulators. It’s our best chance at progressing toward a more secure future for ourselves and future generations this election season.
Here’s another example: Clara Pratt for Arizona Corporation Commission, which is what they call the PUC in that sunniest of all states. Ayana Johnson (and I) interviewed her earlier this fall. But there are so many races, and so many heroes: Justin Pearson, fighting a valiant fight against the mother of all racist gerrymanders in Tennessee, with the data center backlash helping fuel his campaign; Will Lawrence taking his Green New Deal experience to run for Congress in Michigan. On and on.
Thanks to Brad Johnson and Jordan Haedtler, we have a list of the most important state and local climate initiatives on the ballot today. And despite all the efforts at “climate-hushing,” election day actually features pretty prominently in a few high-profile gubernatorial races, as Marcus Baram explains:
Climate surfaces more openly in Alaska’s overlooked governor’s race, where Democrat Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins has pressed the state to address climate change and said it relies too heavily on natural gas—rare talk from an Alaska politician. Republicans Dave Bronson, Treg Taylor, and Bernadette Wilson are also on the ballot. Nathaniel Stinnett, founder of the Environmental Voter Project, called Kreiss-Tomkins “probably the favorite” but said the race is “extraordinarily close.” In the group’s polling, 21% of likely Alaska voters identified climate as a top-three priority, second only to Maine. “I don’t wanna pretend like this is a climate election,” Stinnett said. “But certainly thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of Alaskans are going to vote with climate change top of mind.”
In Nevada, the main climate focus is water. Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo sued the Trump administration over cuts to the state’s allotment of water from the Colorado River, and Arizona has since joined the suit. Nevada Conservation Voters gave Lombardo a C+ grade, crediting his support of clean energy while faulting his backing of fossil fuel projects. Because Democrats already control both chambers of the legislature, a win by his challenger, Attorney General Aaron Ford, would give the party a trifecta. Stinnett noted that Ford has talked up the clean energy transition in a state that “is kind of like the Saudi Arabia of solar energy, or it can be.”
If you can help today, then help. We’ve been waiting two years to feel something other than dread about our future; today’s the chance. Back to the phones.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Today Is About National Unity: for Democracy Over Fascism, and a Fair Economy
Today, we must stand shoulder to shoulder, in unity, to defeat the oligarchs and fascists and preserve all that is great about America!
Nov 03, 2026
On November 8, 1932, Franklin Roosevelt won an unprecedented landslide victory over President Herbert Hoover; and Democrats won massive majorities in both houses of congress.
Two days earlier, on November 6, 1932, the Nazi Party failed to win a majority of seats in the German parliamentary elections, performing more poorly than the previous election in June, which also resulted in a hung parliament. In both elections, the left, center-left, and center parties, all of which opposed the Nazis, won enough seats to form a government, but they refused to enter into a coalition. New elections were called for March 1933. The Reichstag burned down on February 27. We all know what followed
Today—November 3, 2026—we cannot, we must not, make the same mistake the German people made in 1932 when the opposition divided and the Nazis ascended. We must act again as Americans did on election day 1932 when our love for democracy and its institutions generated a landslide! That result produced the most popular administration in American history, one that unapologetically served the interests of working people and proceeded to marginalize reactionary politics in America and crush fascism around the world.
If anyone believes these kleptocrats have any interest in supporting a broadly middle class society, like the one developed in post-WWII America, they are either willfully naïve, stone cold stupid, or on the take.
Yes, it’s true that between progressives and moderate Democrats, independents and ethical conservatives, we have our differences and they are not insignificant—but we are bonded by our support for our constitutional democratic republic.
Today, we must stand shoulder to shoulder, in unity, to defeat the oligarchs and fascists and preserve all that is great about America!
I am loathe to compare anything to Hitler and the Nazis, but the historical proximity of those two elections 96 years ago reveals, in stark relief, the importance of Americans reaffirming our commitment to democracy—and how much better the country and the world will be afterwards.
Indeed, it is not only the maintenance of popular sovereignty, in the land that launched the age of democracy, that is on the line. Also at stake is any possibility of our country returning to an economic social contract that serves the vast majority of the population. According to all polling, the return of an economy that prioritizes the interest of average middle class households is the deepest wish of the American people—and has been since the collapse of the housing market, and the great recession that followed, in 2008.
As bad as American wealth inequality was by 2024, we’ve never seen anything like the past two years. While most Americans struggle to get by, not only have unimaginable fortunes been accrued by the country’s billionaires, but a notable subset of this tiny fraction of the population have become part of President Donald Trump’s inner circle—and are shamelessly wielding political power in their own interests.
If anyone believes these kleptocrats have any interest in supporting a broadly middle class society, like the one developed in post-WWII America, they are either willfully naïve, stone cold stupid, or on the take.
Tuesday is likely our last opportunity to check their power; and begin, through democratic means, to build an economy for all the people.
Fortunately, the signs are promising. Early voting has shattered previous records. Just one more day of non-stop GOTV efforts, followed by 60 days of legal vigilance (until the new Congress is seated)—then we begin to make things right!
* * * * *
One final thought, on a theme I will return to after the elections.
For all non-progressives reading this (and for progressives, please share this with your non-progressive friends), understand that the contemporary progressive movement is not anything radically exotic or unfamiliar on the American landscape.
As mentioned above, progressives were behind the most popular administration in our history, we also designed the economic policies in the era of America’s greatest prosperity, and we ran the country during our greatest military triumph (WWII).
Just like then, we simply want a free and just America that works for all people. As during the “golden era” of post-war America, we want to live in a prosperous society with unlimited possibilities—with the one caveat that, going forward, those opportunities must be extended equally to all people.
Because these are our convictions, we support a set of policies with a proven track record to deliver these society-wide outcomes. They worked previously in America and are still succeeding around the world—and, with only a few tweaks and updates, we are superconfident they will work their magic again in 21st century America.
So, don’t be swayed by anyone who tries to make us sound scary or irresponsible. Give us a listen, and you’ll quickly realize that we are just like you. We want the same things, and we look forward to working together to achieve our shared goals.
The first step is winning big today! Onward!
Keep ReadingShow Less
MAGA and the Myth of Inevitability
While destruction and great loss has occurred in President Donald Trump’s second presidential administration, it does not mean that it is inevitable that it will continue to occur in perpetuity. The midterms give social movements a chance to fight back.
Oct 27, 2026
“Nothing is inevitable but everything is possible.” My friend and comrade once said that in reference to the vibrant movement moment of the Black Lives Matter uprisings after the heinous Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd.
These words have been a mantra for me since I read them. Like many of you, I’m terrified of the state of the world and my country's role in its suffering. When I consume the news, take a tally of the rights our people have lost, and hold the memory of those who are no longer here, I am at times resigned to believe that “it’s over” and that “nothing matters.” When the onslaught is constant, giving up becomes alluring.
Hope is a necessary and useful tool for our social movements in the struggle against authoritarianism. My attempt here is to share my perspective on possibility and the role it plays in tumultuous times like these.
Winning this election means stopping authoritarian consolidation within our government, which clears the way for defeating the MAGA movement for a second time in the 2028 presidential election.
Authoritarianism always tries to abolish memory—capitalist, patriarchal, white supremacist, evangelical Christian, fascist imperialists want us to be trapped in their now. As if their now is inevitable. Authoritarianism wants us to believe that only one thing is happening.
While destruction and great loss has occurred in President Donald Trump’s second presidential administration, it does not mean that it is inevitable that it will continue to occur in perpetuity. Since the colonists first came to this land, horror has followed. And so have miraculous acts of resistance, political gains, and life-altering wins. That’s because human beings chose resistance and strategy in the face of oppression. Abolitionist movements of the past engaged in highly sophisticated, multi-century, strategic political struggle to free enslaved Black people from bondage (movements composed of enslaved people and abolitionists like Fredrick Douglas). In hindsight, people over and over again made the conscious choice to engage in the long arc of protracted struggle.
Nothing; not a moment, administration, movement, law, nor empire lasts forever, nor is any of it inevitable. Or more relevant to the point I’m trying to make, nothing is one thing constantly and always. Change will occur. History is never one note. There are variations over time and in those variations are the inspirations for interventions where dominant ideas are changed. These changes, or fluctuations and fissures, are opportunities of possibility to exploit to use against our enemy.
Capitalist, patriarchal, white supremacist, evangelical Christian, fascist imperialists want us afraid and isolated. We are facing a multi-pronged attack. MAGA and billionaire oligarchs are launching attacks in a variety of ways. Using electoral intimidation and rigging, tech over-dependence and surveillance, and right-wing takeovers of media through monopolization, to name a few. Billions of dollars are being spent to keep us apart and to internalize a false narrative: “It’s over,” “Nothing matters."
This false narrative of the inevitable has begun to make its way into some contemporary American movies. Movies like Don’t Look Up, A House of Dynamite, and Bugonia. All were released within a few years of one another, the latter two came out the same year (2025). Each of these movies come to similar fatalistic conclusions: Doom is inevitable.
This is not true, but it does serve a strategic purpose. This fatalistic view is both a real felt experience of perceived reality and a constructed reality, created by fascists and tech oligarchs. David Ellison’s purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery into Skydance Media to form the far-right Skydance Corporation is Trump’s fascist administration controlling the narrative (literally by having the reins to CNN, TikTok, HBO, and movie studios like Warner Bros.) to attempt to further sow disillusionment toward sociopolitical change, hopelessness, and a belief that MAGA is invulnerable.
I am not arguing a promise. “Change” and "possibility” are neutral. Neither is inherently good for our social movements or means sure defeat for the opposition. Change and possibility do not mean that things will get better tomorrow or that things will only get worse forever. Octavia Butler teaches us through her writing that the only lasting truth is change. This onslaught will end, the impact we’re being hit with by this administration will stop. Though the consequences of those blows will linger. As a result of this administration's actions, suffering will continue, people will continue to die. Whether that lasts a few years or many decades, at least in part, is dependent upon what our social movements do when an opportunity presents itself to strike our own blow(s). I see these midterm elections as one of those opportunities. Elections are strategic interventions. Winning this election means stopping authoritarian consolidation within our government, which clears the way for defeating the MAGA movement for a second time in the 2028 presidential election.
A far-right authoritarian political movement (MAGA) is controlling the government. In other words, the United States has a fascist federal government. Democrats and Working Families Party candidates winning a majority in the House and Senate will shorten the reach of this fascist administration. That matters. Like it mattered for Black people not to be considered three-fifths of a human in the Constitution, like it mattered when Roe v. Wade was won, and how having political power matters to ensure a sitting congressperson’s house isn’t raided. The MAGA movement is positioning itself toward one-party, minority rule that can't be challenged through democratic channels (that is fascism). Disenfranchising voters serves authoritarianism. Losing the midterm elections serves the strategy of our enemy.
Our social movements are tasked with quelling the further consolidation of power of this authoritarian regime.
Y’all, our social movements need to win majorities in the US House and Senate to slow the rise of fascist law. Races like Angie Nixon in Florida, Melat Kiros in Colorado, Will Lawrence in Michigan, and Justin Pearson in Tennessee are so important for building a line of defense to save our lives.
Fascism is here. The position we find ourselves in isn’t one that sets us up for immediate liberation. The fight of the rest of this decade is to defang authoritarianism.
There is a difference between forever and experiencing the current reality. History tells us that forever does not exist in the political sphere. We are swimming in the waters of this decade's dialectics, wading in the multiple truths of our given moment in time. Contradictions can be generative if strategy leads the decisions of our social movements when opportunities present themselves.
Some things are inevitable. If my phone slips out of my hand it will fall. Gravity ensures that. Fascism is a powerful force, but it is not gravity.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Brazil's Lula Wins 'Historic Victory' Against Right-Wing Trump Ally Flávio Bolsonaro
"This shows that Trumpismo is waning, and it is our responsibility now to make sure that we kill the beast," Pennsylvania Democratic House nominee Chris Rabb said.
Oct 25, 2026
In a historic comeback, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva triumphed in Sunday's run-off election over right-wing challenger Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of former Brazilian President and convicted coup-plotter Jair Bolsonaro.
Lula's victory comes despite the best efforts of US President Donald Trump and his Big Tech backers, as Trump's administration openly intervened on behalf of Bolsonaro and Meta boosted pro-Bolsonaro over pro-Lula content on its social media platforms.
"Lula won, Brazil won, democracy won, the Americas won," said Pennsylvania Democratic House nominee Chris Rabb from Lula's campaign headquarters in Sao Paulo, Brazil, after the results were announced around 9:15 pm Brasilia time. "They declared victory for Lula da Silva for his fourth term against a raging fascist, rubber-stamped for Donald Trump."
"These elections have represented a historic victory for the majority of the Brazilian people, who mobilized to defend democracy against the threat of fascism."
Rabb noted that Lula's victory marked an important turning point for the left in Latin America, as far-right parties had won every other national election in the region since the start of Trump's second term. "This is the first victory for democracy in this hemisphere since Trump took office," Rabb said.
With 99.99% of the votes counted, Lula won by 51.79% to Bolsonario's 48.21%, making him the first Brazilian candidate since the restoration of democracy in 1985 to win a second-round election after coming in second in the initial round.
“I would like to thank the Brazilian people for the generosity they have shown me for a long time,” Lula said in his victory speech in São Paulo late Sunday. “And, in this second round, I want to thank the generosity of the Brazilian youth, who took to the streets to defend democracy.”
After finishing two percentage points behind Bolsonaro in the October 4 poll, Lula re-energized his campaign by finally shortening the Brazilian workweek from six to five days, as his supporters launched demonstrations against the far-right.
"These elections have represented a historic victory for the majority of the Brazilian people, who mobilized to defend democracy against the threat of fascism," Francesca Emanuele, senior international policy associate with the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), told Common Dreams from Sao Paulo, Brazil, where she was monitoring the elections. "It was the Brazilian people themselves (students, working-class, and middle-class Brazilians) who took to the streets and mobilized tirelessly from the very first day after the first round of voting to overturn the first-round results and secure Lula’s victory."
Reginaldo Lopes, a federal deputy for Lula's Workers' Party, told The Guardian: “I feel incredible… This is Brazil telling the world that the extreme right is fascist, that the extreme right is against Black people, is against the poor, against the state, against gay people... We are going to reorganize the democratic forces [in this country.]"
Sunday's victory did not come easily, as the Lula campaign complained of bus shortages in the key cities of Salvador and Sao Paulo, requesting that the Brazilian Supreme Court extend the voting by two hours. The court granted the request, so polls closed at 7 pm Brasilia time instead of 5 pm.
"Lula’s win is the first good news for the planet in a while!"
"Lula has won despite the unfair practices his campaign has faced from Meta, interference from the Trump administration, and severe disruptions to public transportation on election day in major cities (where up to 50% of bus fleets were reportedly out of service)," Emanuele told Common Dreams. "These disruptions disproportionately affected working-class voters, who rely heavily on public transportation and have historically been a key part of Lula’s electoral base."
She continued: "Despite all these obstacles, Lula’s campaign managed to turn around a first-round result that, just a few weeks ago, had seemed extremely difficult to reverse. This is a major victory for the majority of the Brazilian people."
Several advocates and lawmakers hailed the election results as a rebuke to the far-right and the Trump administration in particular.
"During his campaign, President Lula characterized 2026’s elections as a choice between 'sovereignty or submission.' Brazil has clearly chosen sovereignty," the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), who sent a delegation to observe both rounds of Brazil's elections, wrote in a statement.
Progressive Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) posted on social media: "People all across the world are fighting back against extremism. With Lula in Brazil, they just won. Authoritarian leaders always attack democracy because they stand no chance against the will of their people. Trump must respect the results and not undermine Brazil’s elections."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said: "Congratulations to Lula on his extraordinary reelection victory in the Brazilian presidential election. Lula has stood up for Brazilian workers & democracy—and will continue to do so in the next four years."
"Lula's hard-fought victory is an indictment on the right-wing wave sweeping through Latin America," Joseph Bouchard, a journalist and researcher who focuses on Latin America, told Common Dreams. "Except for [ Salvadorian President Nayib] Bukele, the right across the region is still incredibly unpopular, and rightly seen as corrupt, autocratic, and uncommitted to fixing systemic issues. Lula shows there is still a fight for democracy worth having, while the region is plunged into its darkest, most regressive period since the Cold War. The entire region is populated by vassal states for US interests, who have declared states of exception to curtail rights, freedoms, and basic principles of social democracy, in the name of a failed and anti-human war on drugs."
Lula's victory also has planetary consequences, as he brought deforestation in the Amazon rainforest back down to record lows after it accelerated during the tenure of Jair Bolsonaro, who attacked environmental protections and Indigenous rights.
"Lula’s win is the first good news for the planet in a while!" wrote 350.org and Third Act co-founder Bill McKibben. "I bet it shaves a tenth of a degree off how hot our Earth eventually gets, which will save millions of lives. Thank you Brazil!"
Lula still faces a fight ahead, as Bolsonaro announced it was "impossible to concede the election result" due to the extension of polling hours, even though his team had also sought an extension in parts of southeastern Brazil because of unfavorable weather.
Bouchard pointed out that "Lula will fight an uphill battle with a far-right Congress, inept Supreme Court, and constant outside pressure.."
"Trump's silence on the result is worrisome, with Flavio not conceding and demanding an annulment," he told Common Dreams. "Sadly, much of the corporate press has legitimated these claims, despite the right's concerted efforts at destroying democracy. No matter how much the authoritarians try to tip the scales, the people can still prevail, if the left is willing to fight. This might prove to be a confidence boost to the demoralized and overpowered left all over the region, and may hopefully set the region back toward progress, hard fought after decades of dictatorship and neoliberal transitions."
US-based Lula allies urged others in the US to defend Brazil's democracy from Trump administration interference and to take their own stand against the far-right in the upcoming midterm elections.
The DSA wrote:
However, the fight continues—the thin margin of this victory indicates that continued struggle and mobilization will be crucial. As global capitalism fails to solve worsening problems of its own making, the capitalists turn to right-wing authoritarianism. Brazil’s left-wing coalition will face a right-wing Congress at home, a hostile Trump administration in the US, and hostile capitalists both [at] home and abroad in the years ahead. We of the DSA stand in solidarity with our comrades in the PT [Lula's Partido dos Trabalhadores], PSOL [Brazil's left-wing Socialism and Liberty Party], and Brazilian social movements in this fight for democratic self-determination.
This solidarity means recognizing our country’s role in the threat to Brazilian democracy. These elections were marred by interference from the US, whether by Trump’s politically motivated tariffs, or by manipulation of social media by US-based tech companies like Meta. They aimed to subvert Brazil’s democracy to favor its far-right allies grouped in the "Shield of the Americas," and to get their hands on crucial natural resources, such as lithium, cobalt, and rare earth minerals as well as petroleum and iron ore, which Brazil possesses in abundance and which Lula has sworn to protect as national patrimony. The DSA categorically denounces these meddlesome, imperialist efforts. We fight for a working-class foreign policy—one which centers peace, multilateralism, and respects national self-determination, free from US interference.
Rabb concluded his message with a call to action, and a celebration: "This is a big deal for us in the United States. This shows that Trumpismo is waning, and it is our responsibility now to make sure that we kill the beast. That beast is injustice, it's oligarchy, it's neoliberalism. All of these things. Now it's our turn, folks. November 3 is right around the corner, but right now I'm going to party with these Brazilians."
Update: This piece has been updated with commentary from Joseph Bouchard.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Democrats Must Win on Immigration to Defeat MAGA
Once you understand that the immigration lie is the core of MAGA’s support, the answer becomes clear: We need Democrats to adopt a new rhetorical and policy framework on immigration.
Oct 22, 2026
MAGA is an insidious political “movement” that is the inevitable conclusion of the project started with the infamous Powell Memorandum in 1972. Formally titled “Attack on American Free Enterprise System,” the Powell Memo is a call to arms for the oligarchy in the US to push for a set of policies that benefit the wealthy while waging a narrative battle designed to get the working class to support these policies to their own detriment. The Powell Memo is not hypothetical: it is the blueprint that the modern conservative movement has followed, and the result some 50 years later is MAGA.
The central narrative of MAGA is essentially this: Some other group of people is preventing you (typically white, Christian, straight, cisgender men) from having the basic things in life that you deserve. This outside group of oppressors can be whoever the Dear Leader Donald Trump says it is, although it can never be the wealthy elites and Republican lawmakers who are actually leading the oppression of the working class of the country, because the purpose of the narrative is to distract working and poor people away from the true source of their problems by keeping them fixated on a fictional boogeyman.
No group has been more frequently smeared and shoehorned into this narrative role by MAGA than immigrants. Donald Trump has famously said that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the US; that Mexico is sending drugs, crime, and rapists into the US; and spread so many vile lies about Haitian immigrants (who were in the US legally through Temporary Protected Status) that Justice Elena Kagan insightfully pointed out that the conservative majority in Mullin v. Doe (the case that paved the way for the administration to end TPS for Haitians and other groups) couldn’t even stomach putting Trump’s racist statements into their opinion when she wrote, “The evidence they have offered includes statements by the President so repellent and racially infected that the majority declines to put them in print.”
If the MAGA immigration narrative is not defeated, the soil will be fertile for a new right-wing fascist to come to power.
Immigration is therefore the core of the MAGA mythology. MAGA primarily exists under the narrative bargain of protecting white Americans from (Black and brown) immigrants, and in exchange, the base gives Trump power and condones his authoritarianism. It’s important to remember that even though some people are happy to support fascism no matter what, fascism does not get broad support unless people think that they have to support it because it is necessary to prevent some worse or existential harm from happening to them. If the choice is voting for a dictator or allowing the country to be destroyed by whatever the outside threat is, more people will choose the former than they would have otherwise, which can be enough to tip the scales and usher in a fascist regime.
Immigration served as one of the main selling points for Trump in 2024. The allure of this “You need me to protect you from marauding immigrants.” narrative was so powerful, that it even managed to sway members of the Latino community, who have subsequently turned away from him. When the rhetoric of good guys stopping bad guys to make the country better turns into your friends, family, and neighbors being menaced by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) while living under an even worse economic reality where nothing is affordable, the fascism bargain suddenly doesn’t seem so appealing. To be clear, I am not blaming the Latino community for the rise of Trump, as Trump is a creature of the overwhelmingly white male constituency that supports him. I merely point to Trump’s support with Latinos as evidence of the appeal that fascism can have for people and how people will vote against their own interest if they feel like they have to.
Despite the fact that immigration is the rhetorical center of MAGA, the Democrats have consistently failed to come up with a narrative and set of policies to counter it. In her presidential debate with Trump, former Vice President Kamala Harris infamously touted her “tough on border enforcement” credentials, effectively ceding the ground to Trump and adopting his framework that immigrants are dangerous and that immigration is a bad thing. In The Art of War, Sun-Tzu wrote, “Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.” He also wrote, “Sow the seeds of success in fertile ground.” If you are playing by the enemy’s rules and trying to win under their terms, you are destined to lose, which is exactly what happened. If you are telling the public that immigrants are dangerous, then how can you be surprised when the candidate with the most hard-line approach on immigration gets the most support? It is truly political malpractice that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) spent untold millions of dollars on corporate consultants, but they still could not figure out this basic concept.
Even though Trump is now a historically unpopular president, the Democrats continue to largely coast on the issue of immigration. Instead of offering their own narrative framework and policy agenda, they are content to sit back and decry Trump’s immigration policies. This strategy fits perfectly into the DNC’s preferred tactic of having it both ways. They can label Trump’s policies as extreme (which they are), but when they get pressed on immigration issues, they can tack back to the center and try to say that they are actually the real immigration enforcers. It didn’t work for Kamala Harris in 2024, and even though Trump’s time will inevitably come to an end, if the MAGA immigration narrative is not defeated, the soil will be fertile for a new right-wing fascist to come to power.
The Democrats’ strategy of saying no and doing nothing is like trying to chop down a tree by picking off the leaves. As Bruce Lee wrote in the Tao of Jeet Kune Do: “We shall find the truth when we examine the problem. The problem is never apart from the answer. The problem is the answer—understanding the problem dissolves the problem.” The only way to get rid of the poisonous MAGA tree is to chop down its trunk and uproot it. Once you understand that the immigration lie is the core of MAGA’s support, the answer becomes clear: We need Democrats to adopt a new rhetorical and policy framework on immigration. The guiding principles for the pro-immigration rhetorical framework should be:
- Immigration is a good thing, not a bad thing. The benefits of immigration for our country are substantial, and reducing immigration is counterproductive and harmful to the interests of Americans.
- Immigrants (both documented and undocumented) commit crime at a lower rate than native born US citizens, and immigrants do not suppress the wages of American workers. Instead, crime and low wages are caused by right-wing policies such as unlimited guns on the streets, the war on drugs, austerity in the social safety net, failure to raise the minimum wage, union prevention and busting laws, failure to tax wealth, etc.
- Our immigration policy should be to increase the avenues of legal immigration instead of criminalizing and shutting down pathways for immigration. In fact, illegal immigration is largely caused by right-wing policies that: A) make it hard for people to come to the US and stay legally; and B) create disruption and chaos in Latin America and the Caribbean, which leads to people fleeing desperate situations and needing a place to seek refuge.
- Militarized immigration enforcement inevitably boomerangs back on US citizens and will become a tool used to strip people of their rights and oppress them.
Supporting progressive immigration policies is important, and I will outline a few progressive immigration reforms below, but I think getting the rhetorical framework right first is important for two reasons. First, the “immigrants are dangerous” lie has been pummeled into the minds of Americans for decades, and it absolutely needs to be countered. If people think immigrants are an existential threat, they will continue to be primed to support right-wing policies, even though those policies will make their lives worse. We have been subconsciously duped for generations into thinking that immigrants are dangerous and that taking them into the US is an act of charity. If we continue to think of immigration as a form of charity that requires sacrifice, we will always have right-wing politicians pushing regressive policies under the justification that Democrats are selling out the American population to foreigners, when the reality is that immigration is good for Americans. Immigration is therefore not an act of charity, but it is in our own best interest, and right-wing immigration policies are therefore harmful to America.
Second, immigration law is complex, and the problems with our immigration system are numerous. There is no easy, single policy fix for our immigration system in the same way that Medicare For All would be a single policy that would have a huge, positive impact on healthcare in America. Even though there is inherent complexity to the immigration system, Democrats need to push for progressive immigration policies such as:
- Abolish ICE and end militarized immigration enforcement. ICE and other immigration enforcement agencies in the Department of Homeland Security have become the personal brown shirt army of Donald Trump, as seen most recently in their raid of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minn.) home and attempt to denaturalize her.
- Create a humane and fully legal system for people to claim asylum at the border, instead of the quasi-legal kangaroo court system we have now.
- Codify Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals into law through an act of Congress and give Dreamers a way to become Lawful Permanent Residents (green card holders).
- Create more visa categories and programs to allow people to come and stay legally more easily.
- Radically reform and properly fund US Citizenship and Immigration Services in order to make it a properly functioning agency and reduce processing times, which have become even worse under Trump, resulting in family separation, suffering, and depressed economic activity.
- Create more pathways for people who have status issues to rectify their status without having to leave or go through detention and removal proceedings (Immigration Court).
- End the outdated country quota system for green cards and greatly expand the number of green cards that can be issued each year.
- Strip the president of his authority to suspend visa issuance, entry, and TPS arbitrarily.
- Create a legal pathway for the largely Indian and Chinese H-1B workforce to get green cards without having to wait for decades in H-1B status where they can be exploited by employers and often have to watch their kids “age out” and become ineligible to stay permanently.
Congress has immense power under the Constitution to set immigration laws into place. We need Democratic candidates for Congress to adopt a pro-immigration, progressive narrative, or else we will continue to have MAGA and right-wing candidates win elections and implement regressive, oppressive, and counterproductive immigration policies, that ultimately harm both the American and foreign-born population.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Democracy, Amazon, Human Dignity: What Hangs in the Balance for Brazil’s Life-or-Death Election
The choice on October 25 should not be about Lula’s limited social democratic tendencies. It is about protecting the Brazilian democratic project from a complete fascistic takeover.
Oct 14, 2026
On October 4, Brazilians handed the far-right their best result in decades. Sen. Flávio Bolsonaro, eldest son and political heir of convicted coup plotter and former neofascist President Jair Bolsonaro, finished first with 47.03% of valid votes to left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s 45.16%, according to Brazil’s electoral court. The two meet in a runoff on October 25.
With a gap of about 2.2 million votes, more than 33.4 million registered Brazilians stayed home, the highest first-round abstention rate since 1998. Polling suggests the ideological blocs are holding firm, showing a dead heat or a narrow Bolsonaro edge. That is despite a cascade of scandals for Flávio, and despite an estimated 1 million people marching for democracy on São Paulo’s Avenida Paulista on October 11.
So the outcome may rest on those who sat out round one. Their choice will decide whether Latin America’s largest democracy, and the forest that regulates the planet’s climate, fall to an oligarchic, US-aligned far-right. Here is what hangs in the balance.
A Flávio Bolsonaro presidency would restore a movement that tried to overturn an election by force, now armed with a congressional majority, a revenge agenda, and the backing of the world's most powerful government and military.
Under Jair Bolsonaro, Amazon clearing rose about 60%, with more than 45,000 square kilometers destroyed from 2019 to 2022, according to official data. Under Lula, deforestation fell roughly 45%, to its lowest level in over a decade.
Flávio wants to resume his father’s project, which environmental groups call “ecocide.” He said in August he does not believe climate change is real, and his 76-page government plan never mentions it, Folha de S.Paulo found. Instead, it pledges to slash Ibama, Funai, and ICMBio, the agencies that enforce environmental law, protect Indigenous peoples, and manage national parks. It promises “agile” licensing that Folha reports would approve development (including fracking) permits automatically when agencies miss deadlines.
“There is concern that activities now considered illegal could simply be legalized,” warned Taciana Stec of the climate institute Talanoa. As Breno Rodrigues de Messias Leite of the Federal University of Amazonas put it, “He will have to respond to his electoral base, which is precisely rural producers.” That base of agribusiness, ranchers, miners, and land-grabbers could essentially destroy the Amazon.
Flávio is running as his father’s proxy. Jair Bolsonaro is serving a 27-year sentence, handed down by the Supreme Court in September 2025, for leading a plot to overturn the 2022 election that included plans to assassinate Lula, Vice President Geraldo Alckmin, and Justice Alexandre de Moraes. It culminated on January 8, 2023, when Bolsonaro supporters ransacked Congress, the presidential palace, and the Supreme Court, the darkest day for Brazilian democracy since the dictatorship.
Flávio announced his candidacy after his father anointed him from prison, and said his first priority would be to release him. His brother Eduardo spent 2025 in Washington lobbying the Trump administration to punish Brazil with tariffs and sanctions over the prosecution. The sanctions have already had a disastrous impact on Brazil’s economy and sovereignty, and are hybrid warfare to meddle in the election in favor of Bolsonaro.
Now Flávio promises to go further. On October 6, he vowed to use Congress’ new right-wing majority to “change the Constitution” and "redemocratize” Brazil, reports The Rio Times. Coming from open fascists, it’s hard to believe their definition of “democracy.” “There is no way to accept the Supreme Federal Court the way it is,” he said. His plan would curb the powers of the court that convicted his father. His ironically named Liberal Party won 121 House seats and the largest Senate bloc, and his allies are closing in on the 308 votes needed to amend the Constitution.
One of the Bolsonarista camp’s positions has been the impeachment of Supreme Court judges and a purge of federal bureaucracy. In Bolsonarista vocabulary, "redemocratization" means dismantling the institutions that held anti-democratic destruction accountable. Lula’s efforts to crack down on foreign meddling by oligarchs, the US, Israel, and others would also be stopped, meaning Brazil’s democracy would essentially be held hostage by capitalist and foreign interests.
Flávio poses as an anti-establishment outsider. Yet Federal Police are investigating him for possible “money laundering, currency evasion, corruption” over the financing of Dark Horse, a hagiographic biopic of his father. Daniel Vorcaro, owner of the collapsed Banco Master and the center of one of Brazil’s largest financial scandals, allegedly sent R$61 million toward the film at Flávio’s request. The Intercept Brasil published voice notes of Flávio asking him for money.
A crypto platform handed out tokens to users sharing pro-Flávio content, which election lawyers called an illegal donation. Days before the first round, Meta blocked Lula’s campaign from running ads, citing unspecified violations. And the Bolsonaros sit at the center of a transnational far-right network. It runs through President Donald Trump, who hosted Flávio at the White House in May; Steve Bannon; Elon Musk, who waged war on Brazil’s Supreme Court in 2024; and now-convicted Israel- and Trump-linked, Argentine disinformation operative Fernando Cerimedo, who spread a toxic sludge of baseless fraud claims on various platforms and his own media networks after Jair’s 2022 defeat.
The Bolsonaros’ economic program serves that same oligarchic, far-right capitalist class. Flávio’s economic coordinator, Daniella Marques, calls Javier Milei’s Argentina a “great example” and has promised a R$200 billion “tesouraço,” or giant scissors, to public programs. Milei’s chainsaw drove Argentine poverty above 50% in his first months and has wiped tens of thousands of companies off the formal economy. Most of the public workforce has also been gutted. Flávio promises tax cuts, privatization, and an end to what he calls “dependence” on welfare, a threat to programs like Bolsa Família that tens of millions of poor Brazilians rely on.
Flávio would also surrender the sovereignty Brazil has built, including Pix—a free public payment system so successful that Washington targeted it in a 2025 trade probe—and diversified trade with China, the BRICS, and Europe. Lula's Brazil has also been a significant force in recognizing a Palestinian state, and in reforming the United Nations Security Council to balance the scales in favor of the Global South. Brazil has been a leader in multilateral finance and post-American economic sovereignty. Bolsonaro would gut all of it.
On October 7, a fire tore through a lab building at the Federal University of Pernambuco, a day after students there protested Flávio’s candidacy. Hours earlier, students had received messages threatening to “blow up the department” in Flávio's name. Bolsonarismo has instilled a climate of fear and terror, as these kinds of attacks are now commonplace by the far-right in Brazil. Bolsonaro has borrowed the “God, Homeland, Family” slogan linked to fascist movements.
With the far-right sweeping institutions across the hemisphere, Lula may be the last shield against a full-blown reactionary counterrevolution.
Jair Bolsonaro’s government slashed university budgets, and his movement smears them as factories of communism and enemies of the “homeland.” Flávio’s plan would tie research funding to business metrics like “productive impact.” Scholarships, he said in September, must be “for developing technology, innovation, artificial intelligence,” not fields that “add nothing.” Social sciences and humanities funding would likely be slashed, while there is a fast-tracking of AI and military expansion.
This is the family that made science denial a governing principle. Jair called Covid-19 a “little flu” and sabotaged vaccine purchases while more than 700,000 Brazilians died. A Senate inquiry recommended he be charged with crimes against humanity.
The Bolsonaros’ home base is Rio de Janeiro, where far-right militias of current and former police control whole neighborhoods, running extortion, land-grabbing, gambling, and drug and arms trafficking.
These militias are also in an all-out war against the left, with ties to the Bolsonaros. As a state legislator, Flávio honored Adriano da Nóbrega, an ex-police captain later identified as the leader of the militia hit squad known as the Crime Office, and employed Nóbrega’s mother and ex-wife. Ronnie Lessa, the ex-officer who confessed to murdering socialist councilwoman Marielle Franco in 2018, lived in Jair Bolsonaro’s gated condominium. This is the fascistic, militaristic, sheltered, nihilistic world the Bolsonaros live in.
Flávio also wants Salvadorian President Nayib Bukele’s model on security. After meeting El Salvador’s security minister in August, he promised 500,000 new prison spaces. “Brazil has few people in prison,” he said, in a country with more than 850,000 behind bars. He backs lowering the age of criminal responsibility to 14 and a national facial-recognition database, Brookings reports. He and his brother lobbied Washington to designate Brazilian gangs as terrorist organizations, which invites a US invasion. When Pete Hegseth posted video of a US missile obliterating a boat (a war crime), Flávio replied that “there are boats like this here in Rio de Janeiro.” He has pledged to join Trump’s “Shield of the Americas,” which has been used to bully left-wing governments and weaponize “narcoterrorism” to go after guerrillas and opponents, while shielding allies. Bolsonaro has also hinted at declaring a “state of exception” on crime, a euphemism for martial law. Most right-wing states in Latin America are now under a state of exception. The term, taking its origin in Nazi theorist Carl Schmitt, has been used in many Latin American autocracies to ban opposition, protests, and justify extrajudicial torture and murder.
Bolsonaro also has a horrific record on gender and LGBT+ rights. His father told a congresswoman she didn't even “deserve” to be raped, and told Playboy he would rather a son “die in an accident” than be gay. Liberal Party star Nikolas Ferreira donned a wig in Congress to mock trans women, and this year led a campaign to keep trans congresswoman Erika Hilton from chairing the Women’s Rights Commission. This, in the country that leads the world in killings of trans people.
This war on women and LGBT+ Brazilians is inseparable from the movement’s alliance with the evangelical far-right. Flávio sealed a partnership with megachurch pastor Silas Malafaia in May, betting that moral panic over “gender ideology” and “trans bathrooms” (echoing Trumpism) will deliver one of the country’s largest voting blocs. Alongside them was PL leader Sóstenes Cavalcante, sponsor of a 2024 bill to punish abortion after 22 weeks as homicide, even for rape survivors. A Bolsonaro government would pursue that agenda aggressively, even more as they would control Congress and the Supreme Court.
Under Lula, Brazil backed South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, defended the International Criminal Court, and refused to choose sides in Washington’s new cold war. Flávio would reverse it all. He has pledged that Brazil will be a “brother of Israel,” move its embassy to Jerusalem, and join Milei and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's Isaac Accords. In June, he offered Secretary of State Marco Rubio his transition team at the “disposal” of the US government. Bolsonaro launched his presidential campaign alongside Netanyahu.
Regionally, the right now governs Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, Paraguay, Ecuador, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, and the Dominican Republic. Venezuela is a de facto US vassal state, and the Trump administration has signaled Cuba and Nicaragua are next.
If Brazil falls, Mexico would be the last major Latin American economy outside Washington’s thumb. An emboldened Trump administration, which has already threatened military action against Mexican cartels, would turn up the pressure on Claudia Sheinbaum, and may even look to topple her government.
This runoff is a referendum on democracy, human dignity, and ecological survival. A Flávio Bolsonaro presidency would restore a movement that tried to overturn an election by force, now armed with a congressional majority, a revenge agenda, and the backing of the world's most powerful government and military.
Lula is not above criticism. His government has backed oil drilling near the mouth of the Amazon and made its peace with agribusiness. But the choice on October 25 should not be about Lula’s limited social democratic tendencies. It is about protecting the Brazilian democratic project from a complete fascistic takeover.
Brazil, Latin America’s largest democracy, has survived colonial plunder, slavery, a 21-year dictatorship, neoliberal devastation, and multiple coup attempts. With the far-right sweeping institutions across the hemisphere, Lula may be the last shield against a full-blown reactionary counterrevolution. The 33 million Brazilians who stayed home on October 4 will need to show up, otherwise the world will get a whole lot darker.
Keep ReadingShow Less
It Has a Name: Fascism
Fascism must be recognized and called by name. Meaning in the headlines. Regarding it simply as a weakening of democracy, as so many are quick to concede, is a recipe for doing nothing.
Oct 12, 2026
This is an attempt to answer the question, "What’s going on in the world," in the broadest possible terms. To do so, two sides, or two viewpoints, must be clearly and fundamentally separated. This will necessarily eliminate our national political parochialism of Democrat-Republican, woke-antiwoke, even liberal-illiberal.
The premise here is that the answer to the posed question lies in finding a form of opposition that underlies the others, namely, progress-regress. We identify it politically as radical-reactionary, revolution-counterrevolution, leftwing-rightwing.
The rightwing worldview holds that things are the way they are because at all times society has tested itself and found alternatives to be lacking. The present arrangement—the current state of society—is regarded as the natural order of things. Change is therefore to be resisted.
By the time the European fascisms of the previous century were fully recognized, it was already to late.
The leftwing worldview holds that societies, however formed, are, in each state, imperfect. Therefore, the present arrangement merely reflects the biases that formed it—one part of society gaining at the expense of another—an injustice that must be changed.
We look around the world and see a lot of looking back, not much looking forward. This tells us the rightwing worldview is presently dominating. We see it throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Germany is a particular cause for concern because of the recent regional successes of the far-right AfD, built upon remnants of National Socialism, or Nazism.
At the limits is ultra-right Israel. It commits a genocide and says it was only a response. The other side started it. Started what? Nobody starts a genocide except its perpetrator. From a leftist’s perspective, October 7 was a prison break, and, yes, prison breaks can involve atrocities. A question to consider: Are prison breaks illegal? They are if the prison was legal, but the Palestine prison has been illegal since 1967. Take away the United States, and Israel’s high officials would be in front of the dock.
How did we get to living under fascism? And how did it happen so fast? For example and perspective, let’s go back a few years and note a time when great change failed to come, even when it was dangled before the large majorities that had been clamoring for it.
Before he was a presidential candidate, Barack Obama was a strong critic of our public healthcare system. He favored single-payer universal healthcare. Shortly after being elected, President Obama met with leaders from the insurance-hospital-pharmaceutical complex that makes up our healthcare industry. What was missing? No single-payer representatives were present.
A moment aside about that term, “single-payer”: It is an industry term of obfuscation, confusing Americans about how the system works. How many people really know what it means? Contrast it with the simpler term, “universal,” or the even simpler and more direct, “national.” National healthcare. We have it for older people. It’s called Medicare.
By now, though, President Obama had tempered the “change you can believe in.” His new idea was that if we were starting from scratch, single-payer would be the way to go, but since we are not starting from scratch, the change would be too “disruptive.”
Logical thinkers, scratch your heads. Every change is disruptive. That’s the point! To disrupt the old. Medicare started from scratch, and national healthcare could as well, if the will was there.
Back to our fascist life, and here’s where you have to give credit to President Donald Trump. The rightward drift of our country began decades ago, and not just under Ronald Reagan. John Mitchell, appointed Richard Nixon’s attorney general in 1969, at the time infamously said, “This country is going to go so far to the right you won’t recognize it.” Yeah, that’s right. Both parties have become business parties. Wall Street clearly won the class war.
Trump came into the present rightward drift and accelerated it to a full fascism. He did it just like that, and he didn’t start from scratch. He caught it in the middle. Tell people that you are returning the nation to its rightful place, and pretty soon masked federal police are shooting people in the streets. Blasting speedboats on the high seas out of existence because we can. Placing people in detention-concentration camps under horrible and humiliating conditions, with or without proof of criminality. The federal government was not drowned in a bathtub. It survived to mask itself, clothed in riot gear.
And, just recently, Trump threatened to “annihilate” Iran at the United Nations General Assembly, flaunting in the forum of its creation his own criminality for the “supreme international crime” enshrined in the UN Charter, Chapter VII: Action with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression.
Billions of words have been written about Trump’s character deficiencies. Okay, we get it by now. Only it’s not about what he is. It’s what he’s doing, and what his heel-clicking order takers do for him. Trump is a political malignancy. In this case, it’s not cancer. It’s fascism, as far right as you can go. Like any malignancy, you remove it, and this removal can’t come too soon. Can you remove the fascism without removing Trump? You can, because he’s only a figurehead.
But first fascism must be recognized and called by name. Meaning in the headlines. Regarding it simply as a weakening of democracy, as so many are quick to concede, is a recipe for doing nothing. Waiting for the next election.
Some recent editorials from respected media have gone a little further, describing the situation as “alarming,” which fails to alarm on two counts. They don’t specifically state that we’re living under a fascism, and they don’t attempt to rally people for a remedy. Because it’s getting late.
By the time the European fascisms of the previous century were fully recognized, it was already to late. National pride is fascism’s selling point. Presently, we have entirely too many buyers.
Keep ReadingShow Less
The AI-Fascism-Climate Disaster Pendulum Is Lowering, But We Can Stop It
The human, beneath the lowering pendulum, is not trapped; they can get up and develop national legislation and international treaties to stop the pendulum’s movement and, eventually, remove it entirely.
Sep 29, 2026
There are many ways in which the swinging pendulum could lower onto the neck of the human.
The human could come to represent something wholly different than themself in relying on advanced artificial intelligence. More drastically, the human could become subservient to AI at some point in the future. And, in the worst-case scenario, the human could be physically wiped out by AI-launched nuclear weapons. AI is already embedded in command-and-control systems surrounding American nuclear weapons. If given greater allowance in the future, it would be unlikely to have the same reservations about using them that humans do.
Then, there is danger with the human themself, as we see with End of Times-bent leaders, such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump. They could continue to further escalate wars and international criminal behavior to the point that would push the world into a wider conflict in which nuclear weapons may be used. Even if these destructive weapons were not used in a future global conflict, conventional weapons have the ability to decimate cities as we’ve seen with Dresden, London, and Gaza.
The human underneath the pendulum has agency, although it can be hard to remember this in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds.
Lastly, there is climate change. While unlikely to cause the pendulum to drop on the human’s neck in one fell swoop, continuous massive fires, heat, flooding, and violent storms will cause further mass migration and xenophobic backlash. The countries where climate migrants go to—wealthy Western ones—will have their own weather-related disasters and will be depleted of relief funds. With no relief from “natural” devastation, the human is unlikely to see any use for government and likely to live in increasingly gated communities with tribalistic mindsets.
Already there are 450,000 projected heat-related deaths mostly in the Global South over the next half year from climate change and Super El Niño. This seems to have hardly caused most Westerners to bat an eyelash, as they have already heightened their walls against migration either by letting people drown in the Mediterranean or by voting for someone who promised mass deportations. The fascists we’ve elected or who are growing in power, like AfD in Germany, reflect the current lack of empathy for the Global South other, and we’re only seeing the beginning of human-caused climate change’s wrath.
But the human, beneath the lowering pendulum, is not trapped. There are no ropes around their torso or arms tying them down. The human can get up and develop national legislation and international treaties to stop the pendulum’s movement and, eventually, remove it entirely. The US, on a national level, nearly did this under former President Joe Biden. The Democrats were one vote away from passing Build Back Better, which would have created tens of thousands of green jobs and throttled the fossil fuel industry. Former Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) was the single holdout. Biden needed to arm-twist him to get him onboard, as we know the GOP would’ve done if they were in his shoes. Europe passed the General Data Protection Regulation in 2018 that makes it more difficult for Big Tech to collect individuals’ data without their consent. In 1987, nations came together and adopted the Montreal Protocol to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals. Every country in the world has joined since, and the ozone layer is on track to recover. It is a proven template for future global climate action.
Thus, the pendulum need not fall on the human’s neck. The blind advance of AI to the detriment of workers, the environment, and what it means to be human can be stopped. The fascist wave has crested, but it can fall like in Hungary and potentially in the US after the November elections. The extent of future climate change disasters can be mitigated when the people take the power back.
The human underneath the pendulum has agency, although it can be hard to remember this in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds.
The time to retake control of the human condition is now.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Western Capitalist Societies Have Rolled Out the Red Carpet for Fascism
Sadly, it seems that humanity never learns lessons from its dark past.
Sep 28, 2026
How do we explain the rise and normalization of fascism in Germany and the United States? How important are the upcoming midterm elections? And what may happen if the Democrats sweep the midterm elections? Can the Democratic Party offer a vision for the future beyond a return to the pre-Trump status quo? Political scientist, political economist, author, and journalist C. J. Polychroniou shares provocative thoughts on these questions in an interview with French-Greek independent journalist and writer Alexandra Boutri.
Alexandra Boutri: In a recent essay on German state elections, you hinted that Germany, once considered the economic engine of Europe, is now in the midst of a systemic crisis. What’s going on there? How did fascism become normalized again in Germany?
C. J. Polychroniou: Let me start by briefly addressing the point you made about Germany’s status as the powerhouse of Europe because economics is a big part of the story behind the meteoric rise of the fascist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Germany’s second so-called Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle), which kicked off in the early years of the new millennium, was aided by the creation of a currency regime that was “made in Germany.” The euro not only created stability for the German economy due to lack of exchange fluctuations but allowed it to gain huge competitiveness against other members of the eurozone. German competitiveness increased overnight by nearly 20 percent, while competitiveness in other European countries declined. Germany’s euro partners absorbed over 40 percent of its exports. In the process, huge imbalances emerged within the eurozone as Germany built an enormous trade surplus while individual countries within the EU, particularly the southern European nations, run huge deficits and saw their debt levels explode.
The situation in the US is even more dramatic because the fascists are already in power...
It’s important to remember that not only was Germany running a budget deficit prior to the implementation of the euro regime but was derided as the sick man of Europe because of its consistently sluggish economy. Nonetheless, it wasn’t just the new currency regime that greatly contributed to Germany’s economic recovery and subsequent emergence as Europe’s powerhouse. The Social Democratic government of Gerhard Schröder (1998-2005) implemented a series of major labor and welfare reforms inspired by the philosophy of austerity and fiscal conservatism in order to intensify Germany’s export-oriented growth model after reunification.
In sum, the so-called German economic miracle depended on the promotion of neoliberal policies (wage suppression and putting an end to the social market economy) and reliance on an export-led growth model. The primary beneficiaries of this “economic miracle” were German industrialists and financiers. Net real wages in Germany remained stagnant, poverty increased, and domestic investment collapsed.
Enter the AfD. It was founded in 2013 by some conservative German academics, journalists, and politicians who were concerned with the direction of their country’s economy. They were against the euro and opposed the bailout of European indebted countries such as Greece. Many years earlier, four renegade professors (Wilhelm Hankel, Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider, Joachim Starbatty, and Wilhelm Nolling) had actually launched a legal challenge in Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court against the adoption of the euro. I spoke to professor Joachim Starbatty at the start of the euro debt crisis. His position was clear and straightforward. Rightly or wrongly, he felt that a monetary union could survive only if economic competitiveness among all member states moved in the same direction and if the different governments implemented sustainable fiscal policies.
The AfD started out as a eurosceptic party but began campaigning on an anti-immigration platform soon after its founding, mainly in reaction to then Chancellor Merkel’s decision to open Germany’s borders and welcome more than 1 million refugees and asylum seekers. Its leaders realized that there were a lot of disgruntled voters out there who felt that the establishment parties are incapable of addressing the country’s many interlocking crises and that scapegoating can be used to bring people together from different socioeconomic groups by creating a common enemy.
The AfD capitalizes on economic and cultural anxieties, just like Hitler did in the 1930s. As a new report by legal experts has found, the AfD is a very extreme political party, “working systematically to undermine Germany’s free democratic order.” And what should be of particular concern is that the success this party is enjoying so far is indeed comparable to the rise of the Nazis. True enough, the AfD is particularly strong in the former east Germany which still lags behind west Germany, but it has already emerged as the most popular party in the country. Hence, to continue speaking of a surge on the part of fascism in Germany is an understatement.
Now, Germany’s export-oriented growth model seems to have run its course. It’s facing mounting pressure from China’s own export power. Growth has been stagnant for the past several years. The slight increase in domestic gross product that the German economy experienced in the second quarter of 2026 cannot conceal the fact that German trade deficit with China continues to grow. To turn things around, shockingly enough, Chancellor Merz, who is the most unpopular chancellor in the country’s postwar history, has called on Germans to work longer hours, citing Greece, a country whose labor market is characterized by low wages while employers can enforce 13-hour work days, a model. As far as the small wage increases that have taken place over the last few years are concerned, they are “simply too low” to keep pace with rising costs.
The question about how fascism became normalized again is not difficult to answer. It became normalized again in Germany and throughout Europe in the same way that Trump normalized racism and fascist tendencies in the United States, namely by integrating extremist rhetoric and policies into mainstream political culture. Harsh, inhumane immigration policies have become laws while the line between security and surveillance is gone in today’s so-called democratic societies. Laws are now used not for the purpose of defending democracy and freedom of speech but in order to suppress dissent. Genocide has unfolded before our eyes, but opposition to it can result in penalties, institutional punishment, and arrests. Even universities, allegedly a bedrock for democracy, are violating “basic free speech, association, and assembly rights.”
Western capitalist polities have rolled out the red carpet for fascism. Indeed, it would seem that humanity never learns lessons from its dark past. The far right has gone from antisemitism (it supports Israel but remains antisemitic) to Islamophobia and there is a significant rise in xenophobia not just throughout Europe but all across the world. Meanwhile, the president of the most powerful nation in history threatens another country (Iran) with total annihilation. The West has entered again the age of monsters.
Alexandra Boutri: With the 2026 midterm elections in the US fast approaching, and which may be the most consequential in the history of the country, isn’t it the case that the United States is also experiencing massive systemic failures?
C. J. Polychroniou: No question about it. While there are striking differences between Germany and the United States on many levels, both countries face enormous economic challenges and real threats from domestic political forces with extreme, anti-democratic beliefs. On that note, I would say that the situation in the US is even more dramatic because the fascists are already in power, you have a mentally militarized society, and the system of checks and balances simply isn’t working. Formally, AfD’s leaders reject political violence to attain the party’s goals, while Trump has repeatedly stoked violence. But here I should add that the MAGA crowd is even more extremist than AfD’s supporters. In the meantime, wealth inequality in the United States has reached an all-time high, and the tech giants are building a dystopia.
Alexandra Boutri: What’s your own sense about the upcoming midterms? How important are they, and what will they mean?
C. J. Polychroniou: As far as midterm elections go, I think you are absolutely right when you stated earlier that they may be the most consequential in the history of the country. The president’s party usually loses House seats in midterm elections, so there is a good chance that the Democrats will control the chamber come November. There are several key races that will determine who controls the Senate, but the Democrats are clear favorites. However, it may all come down to independent voters. Also, I hope that Hispanics will turn their backs on the GOP. One of the things that Democrats and progressives in general in the US have failed to realize is how socially conservative the new immigrants that have come to the United States are. Unlike the huge waves of European immigrants that arrived in the United States between the late 1890s and 1950s and led to support for the Democratic Party because they carried with them progressive and even radical ideas about politics and society, the new immigrants that have been coming to the US since the 1980s (over 80% are from Latin America and Asia) are overwhelmingly conservative and religious.
But there is a deeper concern here about the midterm elections, which is that Trump will interfere by trying to deny people their voting rights, having federal officials seize ballots, and even declaring results void with false allegations of voter fraud. It is also conceivable that he may demand from Republicans that they refuse to swear in newly elected Democrats in the House of Representatives.
Alexandra Boutri: As far as I can see, the problem is that the leadership of the Democratic Party lacks courage and has no vision for the future. For the establishment Democrats, the perfect outcome would be a return to the pre-Trump status quo. Am I wrong in thinking that way?
C. J. Polychroniou: No, you are not wrong. The current leadership of the Democratic Party is simply hopeless. As was the previous one, and the one before that, and so on. And the left-wing of the party can only do so much. The Democrats need bold, courageous, visionary leadership that is willing to embrace a truly progressive socioeconomic agenda and reject militarism. What is quite disconcerting about a party that claims to fight on behalf of American workers is how shallow and inconsistent its policy agenda is when it comes to meaningful change.
The current leadership of the Democratic Party is simply hopeless.
The ruling Labour Party under the leadership of Andy Burnham has promised a “new direction” for Britain by adopting bold reforms on key areas that affect the well-being of its citizens. They range from changes to economic policy, improving public services, transferring power from Westminster to communities, and combating the threats of global warming. I don’t know if Burnham will be able to deliver and restore Labour’s fortunes, but the early signs are quite encouraging. The Democrats should move in a similar direction if Trumpism is to be defeated.
On that note, it is uplifting to see that the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst has launched Game Changers: Economic Policies for a Working America. The project is initiated and directed by PERI’s co-director Gerald Epstein and represents a bold intellectual undertaking for putting an end to the madness of free market fundamentalism by creating an alternative economic setting with “rules that first and foremost protect the well-being of American workers.”
Alexandra Boutri: You said above that this is the time of monsters. So, what is to be done?
C. J. Polychroniou: I said this is the age of monsters. “Now is the time of monsters” is a quote widely attributed to Italian Marxist intellectual Antonio Gramsci. The problem is that Gramsci never used those words in Prison Notebooks. What he actually wrote was “In this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.” Moreover, and this is even less known, the statement had nothing to do with the rise of fascism but, rather, with developments inside the Italian Communist Party!
What is to be done in an age of monsters? I will paraphrase Albert Camus and say that “in a world of conflict, in a world of victims and executioners,” it is the moral duty of thinking and decent people everywhere, irrespective of their political preferences and ideological affiliations, race, ethnicity, and national origin, “not to be on the side of the executioners.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
What Do We Do About Trump? Remove Him!
No Kings is an historical descriptive designed to engage our intellect, but it asks nothing. It demands nothing. It, like media editorials, sounds an alarm but an alarm is endless without a call. What’s missing is a bold call for removal.
Sep 26, 2026
We’re nearly two years into President Donald Trump’s second term in office—his first where his fascist dreams took flight—and I’m not the only one to notice. Millions of people in groups as large as city blocks, and as tiny as a corner in a village without a traffic light, have gathered to protest under the banner, No Kings.
Its success was in bringing together disparate groups of people. At some I had the impression that out of thousands of people, no two had a similar political orientation. That’s the good part. It’s also a weakness.
At the same time, and now with increasing regularity, respected media (from The New York Times down to those that take their lead from it) editorialize in stark terms against the administration. Editorials read like a list of grievances, not unlike the Declaration of Independence. But unlike the Declaration, they lack a political message.
Fascism is not a throwaway word. Trump told people he was returning the nation to its “rightful place,” and pretty soon hastily organized federal police ganged up on people and shot them in the streets.
No Kings is an historical descriptive designed to engage our intellect, but it asks nothing. It demands nothing. It, like media editorials, sounds an alarm but an alarm is endless without a call. What’s missing is a bold call for removal. Remove him!
By what mechanism? Do I mean by impeachment? No, I do not. Do I mean by the 25th Amendment? No, I do not. Do I mean by the Democratic Party? No, I do not.
It is not up to those that call for removal to state or provide a mechanism. The call signifies itself. If the causes are alarming enough—and I suggest we are presently living under a fascist regime—there is nothing left to be done but what was once done.
The Declaration of Independence keenly notes that people “are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” Before enumerating the greatness of the causes for separation, the Declaration expresses a sentiment that Washington’s gatekeepers would have us forget: that it is the right and the duty of the people to throw off such government as is reducing them to despotism.
The gulf must be acknowledged between what the leaders of a country in 1776 declared and did, and what, not the leaders, but the followers of a country in 2026 are prepared and able to do. The situations cannot be compared, but they can be instructive.
The Declaration is a radical document. It did not wait for the government of the mother country to have a change of heart, as we wait for the midterm elections. Suffering what we must.
What is our cause for alarm? And should it mark the time for a call for removal? Even if it only articulates what we want?
Fascism is not a throwaway word. Trump told people he was returning the nation to its “rightful place,” and pretty soon hastily organized federal police ganged up on people and shot them in the streets. They’re coming for people. They may not have come yet for you and me.
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy