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midterm elections
How Journalists Can Cover the Midterms to Help Protect Their Legitimacy
As President Donald Trump continues to insist he won the 2020 election, reporters must keep their readers informed about the 2026 voting process and press all candidates on whether or not they will accept the voters' decision.
Apr 10, 2026
A few weeks before the 2020 presidential election, I wrote “An Open Letter to My Old Tribe,” urging “every reporter who is covering this election at any level” to focus on a crucial question—whether the public would trust the election procedure and the losing candidate would accept the result as legitimate. “It does not seem an exaggeration,” I wrote then, “to say that the future of American democracy, perhaps its very survival, depends on the answer.”
More than five years later, with less than seven months to go before the midterm elections, that question is before us again, but in far starker terms than I could have imagined in 2020. So, here’s an updated letter to the media tribe I once belonged to, with suggestions broadly similar to those I made five years ago, but with a far sharper sense of urgency, even fear.
Here’s my first suggestion: Reporters in 2026 need to pay more attention to and offer more forceful coverage of President Donald Trump’s continuing insistence that Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 was fraudulent and that year’s election illegitimate. (As recently as March 15, he tweeted this completely false allegation: “With time, it [the 2020 election] has been conclusively proven to be stolen.”)
While Trump keeps repeating that long-discredited claim, journalists should not treat his falsehoods as “old news” that no longer requires detailed coverage anymore. They should instead consider it an important and newsworthy story right now. Instead of briefly repeating a shorthand conclusion (“false” or “without evidence”) after a quote from the president, they should take a few more lines of type or minutes of air time to remind readers or listeners of the facts that show irrefutably why they should never believe his words. After all, Trump’s “rigged election” claims haven’t been validated in a single one of 64 court cases—that’s right, 64!—challenging the election results, or in any official investigation or recount.
Ask every Republican candidate on your state’s ballot to answer this question: Do you really believe that Donald Trump won the 2020 election, and lost only because of massive vote fraud?
On that point, reporters can cite an authoritative 2022 report, “Lost, Not Stolen: The Conservative Case That Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Election,” written by a panel of authors including two former Republican senators, a lawyer who served as solicitor-general under President George W. Bush, and five other prominent conservatives. After exhaustively reviewing every judicial proceeding and post-election probe in six states where election fraud was alleged, the authors concluded that “Donald Trump and his supporters had their day in court and failed to produce substantive evidence to make their case.” Their definitive verdict on the overall issue was: “There is absolutely no evidence of fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election on the magnitude necessary to shift the result in any state, let alone the nation as a whole. In fact, there was no fraud that changed the outcome in even a single precinct.”
(Journalists might also pass on this thought from David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, who, in a recent podcast, suggested that all 2020 election conspiracy theories rest on this dubious premise: “Democrats, being out of power, somehow managed a conspiracy against a sitting president, who controlled the entire government, to steal an election from him… and that four years later when those same Democrats held every lever of federal power, they forgot to do it again.”)
Reporters should also remind their audience of another important fact: Trump’s claims of fraud in the 2020 election were emphatically refuted by Mike Pence, his vice president, and Bill Barr, his attorney general, both of whom publicly broke with the president, strongly denied his allegations, and unequivocally recognized that Joe Biden had been legitimately elected.k
In that connection, here’s a related suggestion for reporters: Ask every Republican candidate on your state’s ballot to answer this question: Do you really believe that Donald Trump won the 2020 election, and lost only because of massive vote fraud? Press as hard as you can for an on-the-record, yes-or-no answer, and if you don’t get one, keep pushing. If a candidate says yes or evades the question, follow up with questions like: “What evidence do you have? How do you explain that those charges were not verified in a vote recount or in a single one of more than 60 judicial proceedings? Were judges in 64 courtrooms across six states all part of a nefarious conspiracy against Donald Trump, or do you have any other explanation?”
Report on the Process, Not Just the Arguments
Journalists in 2026 also have a much broader task: to keep their audiences informed on the details of the election process and the ongoing efforts to undermine its legitimacy. Covering those themes systematically and proactively will not be easy at a time when the headlines are bound to be filled with other explosive issues: a major war in the Middle East (and possibly beyond); the ongoing bitter controversy about the Trump administration’s chaotic immigration enforcement campaign that led to the violent deaths of two US citizens; the continuing effects of drastic staff reductions in federal agencies that have eliminated or significantly reduced government services and benefits for millions of Americans; and a long list of other divisive subjects. But the threat to public trust in the election process poses a clear and present danger to the principles, traditions, and values of the American political system, and news organizations need to adapt their campaign coverage accordingly.
So, here’s a suggestion (one I made in that earlier letter years ago) to reporters, editors, and news directors across the country:
Starting now, treat the election process in your state as a significant running news story. Make it a separate beat, alongside the traditional coverage of the reactions of candidates and voters. Touch base regularly with local and state election administrators. Learn (and then tell your readers or listeners) the details: how voters are registered, how and where the voting will be conducted, and exactly how their votes will be counted. Cultivate sources and regularly report what local officials are doing (or not doing) to ensure a credible election. Meanwhile, before any votes are cast or counted, press candidates and their minions to state exactly what they would define as evidence of miscounting or fraud, what they would consider grounds for contesting the outcomes of local or other races, and how they envisage conducting those contests—standards for which they can then be held accountable if they do end up disputing the official results.
Don’t cover such subjects only when they arise in a partisan debate where the traditional role of journalists is to report both sides (candidate A says the ballot count will be falsified or ineligible voters will be allowed to vote, candidate B or election administrator C says the voting will be legally conducted and the count will be accurate). Instead, monitor and regularly update your audience on what’s actually happening. Track problems as they appear and solutions as they are proposed, discussed, and adopted.
For example, on the controversy about voting by mail—an issue now before the Supreme Court—don’t just report the opposing arguments and leave it to readers and listeners to choose which side to believe. Give them the knowledge to decide for themselves. Don’t wait for partisans on one side or the other to bring up the subject. Take the initiative with a story detailing the rules in your state that define who can vote by mail and how to do so. When the time comes, report how many mail-in ballots have been distributed and track how many have been returned. Explain in detail how those ballots are stored and protected and when and how they will be opened and counted—facts that will let news consumers reach their own conclusion about the practice and whether it’s risky or not.
Reliable Sources
A useful resource for journalists covering such issues is the nonprofit news organization Votebeat, which focuses exclusively on covering how elections are conducted and distributes its articles at no cost to readers or local and national news outlets. Founded in 2020, Votebeat has reporters based in five states (Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin) that were centers of controversy in that year’s election. On the national level, in 2024 it operated an “Expert Desk” where journalists could ask voting-related questions and get knowledgeable answers from a panel of nearly 100 election administrators, cybersecurity experts, attorneys specializing in election law, and other professionals. It plans a similar program to assist journalists covering this year’s election. Reporters or anyone else concerned about election issues can sign up here to regularly receive its reports.
A variety of other organizations across the political spectrum can answer media queries on election procedures and management. Here are a few more groups whose work reporters should follow and contact if needed:
- Voting Rights Lab, “a campaign hub designed to supercharge the fight against voter suppression.” It operates the Election Policy Tracker, which “analyzes voting and election laws across all 50 states and the District of Columbia and provides near-real time analysis of election-related legislation pending across the country.” The tracker is designed to support “policy experts, advocates, researchers, legislators, and anyone on the front lines of the pro-democracy movement with critical information about the laws and legislation shaping our elections.”
- Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan group bringing together “conservatives, moderates, and progressives” who share a common goal: “preventing American democracy from declining into a more authoritarian form of government.”
- The Center for Election Innovation & Research, whose stated goal is “to restore trust in the American election system and promote election procedures that encourage participation and ensure election integrity and security.” (David Becker, the group’s executive director, is quoted earlier in this article.)
- Defending Democracy Together, an organization created by “lifelong conservatives and Republicans” to defend “democratic norms, values, and institutions” and oppose “abuses of power that threaten to undermine the integrity of US elections, federal agencies, and the Republican Party as a whole.” Its list of directors includes William Kristol, founder of the right-wing magazine The Weekly Standard, and Mona Charen, a staff member and speechwriter in Ronald Reagan’s White House.
- Republicans for Voting Rights, committed to defending “the accessibility, integrity, and competitiveness of American elections” and to oppose Republicans “pushing for more restrictive voting laws designed to support unfounded accusations that the [2020] election was stolen and the results were illegitimate.”
And one last suggestion for journalists covering this year’s election: Go down the ballot in your state and ask every candidate running for the Senate or House of Representatives or any significant state or local office for an unequivocal on-the-record commitment to respect the voters’ decision, whatever it might be. If any candidates waffle or decline to answer, don’t just leave it at that and go on to the next story. Instead, keep asking them (and their political allies, campaign organizers, and spokespeople) the same question and press them to explain exactly why they are dodging the issue.
I ended my 2020 letter with this closing paragraph:
Journalists alone will not win the fight to protect the legitimacy of this election, but they can make an important contribution—perhaps the most important since reporters covering the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s helped make the country confront the realities and the profound injustice of the segregation era. In the coming weeks, it will be absolutely vital for journalists everywhere, in every medium, to recognize the challenge and greatly intensify their efforts in rising to it. The stakes could not be higher.
Sadly enough, in 2026, those words ring even more pertinently than when I wrote them.
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The GOP Is Taking Our Healthcare to Fund Bombs and Tax Cuts; We’re Fighting Back
Republicans have decided that they don’t care about what the American people want, only about enabling Trump’s worst impulses. Our job is to make sure they regret that this November.
Apr 03, 2026
Last year, Republicans cut $1 trillion from Medicaid in the same bill that gave billionaires massive tax cuts. They also slashed funding for the Affordable Care Act, making healthcare unaffordable for Americans across the country.
As a result of these cuts, at least 1.5 million Americans have already lost their healthcare coverage, with an estimated 15 million set to lose coverage in the coming years. Nearly 450 hospitals, many of them in rural areas, are at risk of closing or shrinking.
Despite this devastation, Republicans are planning to make even deeper cuts to healthcare. Top Republicans, including House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), want to make even more cuts to the Affordable Care Act—to fund President Donald Trump’s catastrophic war with Iran. Trump himself is threatening cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, saying, “We’re fighting wars… It’s not possible for us to take care of daycare, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things.”
Republicans have decided that they don’t care about what the American people want, only about enabling Trump’s worst impulses. Our job is to make sure they regret that this November, when every member of the US House and one-third of the US Senate is on the ballot.
The Trump regime and their Republican minions in Congress think they can ignore the people, but when we stand together, when we raise our voices together, we cannot be ignored.
That’s why we are launching the Stop Taking Our Health Care Campaign to hold Republicans accountable. This month, members of Congress are home for recess—and we’ll make sure that they hear from their constituents.
We are holding dozens of events in targeted congressional districts across the country, demanding that Republicans Stop Taking Our Health Care. But, we need your help to host even more. Take a look and see if there is an event near you. If there isn’t one, then please sign up to host one yourself. We will help make it a success.
To kick off the Stop Taking Our Health Care Campaign, we held a live stream with guests including Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.) and Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas).
Rep. Underwood said: “Donald Trump and Republicans’ failure to address these tax credits has created a healthcare crisis for working families. When premiums go up and help disappears, families are forced to make impossible choices. Do they keep their health insurance, or do they pay their rent? Do they refill their prescriptions, or do they buy groceries?”
Every day, the Trump administration is spending at least a billion dollars of taxpayer money in Iran.The American people do not want this war. They want affordable healthcare. - @underwood.house.gov @unrigoureconomy.bsky.social
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— Social Security Works (@socialsecurityworks.org) April 2, 2026 at 12:01 PM
Rep. Casar said: “They’ve already gutted Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, kicking 15 million Americans potentially off of their healthcare. And now they want to kick off hundreds of thousands more everyday working families from their healthcare to pay for Trump’s completely unnecessary war of choice in Iran. We’ve got to put everyday Americans’ lives above more and more profits for the Trump administration and their rich friends.”
The Trump Administration already gutted Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.Now they want to kick off hundreds of thousands more working families from their healthcare to pay for Trump's completely unnecessary war in Iran. - @repcasar.bsky.social @unrigoureconomy.bsky.social
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— Social Security Works (@socialsecurityworks.org) April 2, 2026 at 12:05 PM
Theresa Luoni, a New Jersey mom and caregiver whose family relies on Medicaid, said: “Republicans in Washington have worked day and night to raise costs for families like mine and make it harder for us to make ends meet, and now they're doubling down, threatening even deeper cuts to Medicaid so they can pay for their war and continue handing out tax breaks to billionaires.”
Republicans in Washington have worked day and night to raise costs for families like mine.Now they're doubling down, threatening even deeper cuts to Medicaid, so they can pay for their war and continue handing out tax breaks to billionaires. - Theresa Luoni@unrigoureconomy.bsky.social
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— Social Security Works (@socialsecurityworks.org) April 2, 2026 at 12:19 PM
Jon “Bowzer” Bauman, senior adviser at Social Security Works, said: “Our campaign and this month of action is designed to hold these people accountable for their vote on things like the Big Ugly Bill, which failed to extend the tax credits for the Affordable Care Act and cut a trillion dollars out of Medicaid. Our message is simple: Stop taking our healthcare.”
During this month of action, we will hold Republicans accountable for the Big Ugly Bill.Rural hospitals and nursing homes are already closing because of them. - @jonbowzerbauman.bsky.social @unrigoureconomy.bsky.social
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— Social Security Works (@socialsecurityworks.org) April 2, 2026 at 12:17 PM
Unrig Our Economy Campaign Director Leor Tal said: “Republicans in Congress promised to lower costs, but instead, they cut our healthcare and made life even more expensive for working families. Now Republicans in Congress want to cut healthcare even more to pay for this unnecessary and expensive war that they've started, which is already driving up costs for working families. That's why we’re launching Stop Taking Our Health Care, a nationwide campaign fighting back against Republican efforts to rip healthcare coverage away from working families.”
Republicans in Congress promised to lower costs. Instead they cut our healthcare and made life even more expensive for working families. And now they want to cut health care even more to pay for this unnecessary and expensive war.- Leor Tal, @unrigoureconomy.bsky.social
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— Social Security Works (@socialsecurityworks.org) April 2, 2026 at 11:55 AM
The Trump regime and their Republican minions in Congress think they can ignore the people, but when we stand together, when we raise our voices together, we cannot be ignored. It’s time to demand healthcare not warfare!
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Trump Is the Most Dangerous Man in the World
There has never been a bigger sociopathic megalomaniac in Western democratic polities than Donald J. Trump.
Apr 03, 2026
Does President Donald Trump have an endgame in Iran? Are personality traits a factor in Trump’s foreign policy behavior? How different is Trump from his postwar predecessors? Will he end US democracy? Political scientist, political economist, author, and journalist C. J. Polychroniou tackles these questions in an interview with the French-Greek journalist and writer Alexandra Boutri, but does not hesitate to point out that whoever thought that some of the acts associated with mad Roman emperors (like Caligula’s war on Neptune) belong to a bygone era probably hasn’t been paying attention to how crazy and disruptive things are in the Trump era.
Alexandra Boutri: The war in Iran has entered its second month and one cannot rely on the US president for when it might end. Trump refuses to give a clear timeline, although he has boasted on numerous occasions that his war was won. In your view, what is Trump’s endgame in Iran?
C. J. Polychroniou: Let me start with the following statement: The second Trump presidency is far more dangerous than its first but no less incompetent. Whether it’s the economy and his “beautiful” tariffs or world affairs, Trump has no clue what he is doing. His decision-making style is governed by self-interest and a gut-instinct approach. And he has, given who he is, surrounded himself not only with loyalists but with subservient yes-people.
Indeed, it is most unlikely that Trump engaged in a comprehensive review of intelligence reports and military analyses before he initiated military action against Iran. My guess is that he simply became convinced by war-criminal and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the most pro-Israel officials in his administration that the strategy of taking out Iran’s leadership would paralyze the country and lead to regime change. That was a gamble, not a plan. The Iranian regime did not collapse after the decapitation strikes because it is not a one-man dictatorship like Iraq was under Saddam Hussein. The power hierarchy in Iran is very complicated. Power is actually distributed throughout several layers of the government, and there are parallel armies and intelligence services. Of course, the fact that power is not concentrated in the hands of one man does not make the Iranian regime less brutal. But it makes it less likely to collapse because of an attack on the country’s top political and military leaders.
The Trumpian nightmare has a long way to go before it is over, and it’s bound to get much worse.
Incidentally, and this needs to be strongly emphasized, the decapitation of Iran’s top leadership is criminal and illegal. Trump’s war on Iran is in violation of international (and US) law. It’s a war against the United Nations Charter. Israel and the United States don’t give a hoot about international law and human rights, but it doesn’t mean the world should allow them to think that they are being perceived as anything other than rogue states.
We live in dark, perilous times for humanity and the planet as a whole. Whoever thought that the acts of mad Roman emperors (like Caligula’s war on Neptune) belong to a bygone era probably hasn’t been paying attention to how crazy and disruptive things are in the Trump era. The current occupant of the White House is mentally unhinged. He threatens to bomb Iran “back to stone ages” and do whatever he wants with Cuba. I fear he is capable of unbelievable acts of cruelty and madness. In fact, and I said this about his second presidency long before he decided to go to war with Iran, we haven’t seen anything yet. The Trumpian nightmare has a long way to go before it is over, and it’s bound to get much worse.
Alexandra Boutri: How much worse can it get? What is it that you are really worried about Trump and his actions?
C. J. Polychroniou: Trump is a real threat to world peace. That’s already well established. He has unleashed what can be best described as lunacy imperialism. He is also dismantling US democracy at unprecedented rate and has launched an equally unprecedented assault on the environment. He is a wrecking ball, and it’s simply shocking that there is still a sizeable portion of the citizenry that thinks he is doing a great job. But what else can one expect from people who believe that explosive conflict in the Middle East will trigger Christ’s return and see Trump as the man God has chosen to defeat the satanic forces in the United States and Christianize it? No wonder why Trump behaves like a king and views himself as an emperor who can do whatever he pleases. There has never been a bigger sociopathic megalomaniac in Western democratic polities than Donald J. Trump, which is why he lacks self-awareness, lies about everything, all the time, and is so fixated with attaching his name to institutions, buildings, and symbols.
If it was entirely up to Trump, US democracy would be already dead by now.
Imperialist adventuring is standard US foreign policy. But Trump’s foreign policy agenda, I would argue, seems to be less about the advancement of US interests than about his own legacy, his own personal political immortality. The US doesn’t need Greenland for national security; it can access its resources without gaining sovereignty over land. The US doesn’t need Venezuela’s oil (there is a global oil oversupply anyway), and leaders of the industry have shown little interest in making the massive investments needed to revive its outdated infrastructure, despite the fact that Venezuela has the largest known oil reserves in the world. Annexing Canada and making it the 51st state will not make the US necessarily richer or more secure. But there is no doubt that Trump likes the idea of being the president who expanded the country’s borders. This is how he may be remembered by the future generations.
In saying all this, I do not doubt that there are “strategic” rationalizations circulated by Trump’s national security team for the revival of naked US imperialism. Or that these rationalizations are insignificant in the making of foreign policy. But, for Trump, I believe the foreign policy decisions that he ultimately reaches are based on how he thinks they may cement his own legacy. And most of these decisions are as irrational as those driving his domestic agenda. Abstract theorization about the revival of US imperialism under Trump II is fine and well, and much needed, but I think this is one outstanding case where personality becomes an important factor in decision-making and therefore adding to our understanding of both domestic and foreign policy behavior.
Alexandra Boutri: How different is Trump from his recent predecessors? Also, I can conclude from what you have already said that you don’t expect Trump to go down without a fight. But does he really want to end democracy in the United States?
C. J. Polychroniou: Trump is a very different president from all of his postwar predecessors in several critical ways. First, he has monetized the White House. Trump and his family have made huge amounts of money off of the presidency. Second, he views himself above the law and makes everything about his own ego. Third, he suppresses and ignores scientific research and findings like no other president I am aware of and simply doesn’t give a hoot about public health and the environment or the lives and the livelihoods of anyone outside his own family and his rich donors. Fourth, he is a racist, misogynist, and bigot who also hates working class people and the poor. Fifth, he is carrying out an anti-democracy project both inside the United States and across the globe, while also seeking to create “a kind of a Trump world.”
It would be naive and dangerous on the part of anyone to think that Trump will go down without a fight. His numbers are collapsing, and he is terrified of the possibility that the Democrats will flip the House and the Senate while he is still president, which is why he is trying to undermine this year’s midterm elections. If it was entirely up to Trump, US democracy would be already dead by now. But he is trying to rig the 2026 midterm elections, and my fear is that he may succeed. Also, I don’t think it is far-fetched to say that he may declare martial law to keep the Democrats from winning. I hope I am dead wrong, but I am of the view that the worst is yet to come with Trump.
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Urgent Message to Democrats: Stop Dragging Your Feet and End Trump's Iran War
Many congressional Democrats seem more interested in using Trump's war on Iran to score victories in the midterms than to use what power they do have to bring it to an end.
Apr 02, 2026
President Donald Trump’s illegal, increasingly unpopular war on Iran is sinking Republican prospects for winning the midterm elections, to the delight of Washington Democrats and liberal media. A couple of weeks before the US and Israel launched their blitzkrieg at the end of February, a Senate foreign-policy aide told Drop Site News that:
A substantial number of Senate Democrats believed Iran ultimately needed to be dealt with militarily. But those Democrats, the aide explained, also understood that going to war again in the Middle East would be a political catastrophe. That’s precisely why they wanted Trump to be the one to do it. The hope was that Iran would take a blow and so would Trump—a win-win for Democrats.
Party leaders certainly have been acting as if they’re strategizing with one eye on the midterms. In a February 20 statement, titled “The Risks of Donald Trump and His Administration Dragging Us into War with Iran,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) supported the then-impending war—as long as it was done the right way. He complained only that “the administration has yet to articulate to Congress and the American people what the objectives or strategy would be for any potential military campaign.”
For Democrats, Gas Prices Trump Dead Civilians
At that early stage, according to The Economist, almost all congressional Democrats regarded the war as potentially illegal, but “no one wanted to be seen as an apologist for the ayatollahs.” So they ended up “focusing on lawyerly questions of process and the president’s refusal to consult Congress.”
On the fifth day of the war, Politico reported on Trump’s request for what was then to be $50 billion in supplemental war funding (an ask that has since ballooned to $200 billion), noting blandly that Democrats might find it difficult to reject “legislation the administration deems necessary for replenishing key defensive munition stocks designed to keep US troops and civilians safe.” Indeed, several Democrats on the Senate Armed Services Committee were already expressing support for extra billions to fuel Trump’s war.
As the killing and destruction continued and Iran restricted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, oil soared above $100 a barrel. That gave the Democrats their most electorally potent line of attack yet.
Democrats may have concluded that, in Politico’s words, “Trump has thrust the country into a conflict, and now Congress has no choice but to help keep things on track.” If, they suggested, he would be more specific about how the new billions would fit into Pentagon planning, they’d be happy to fund more bombs, drones, and missiles. For example, Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) told the reporters, “There is going to be a need for funding, and we need some answers before we provide it.”
Here in Michigan, we gritted our teeth as our two Democratic US senators shillyshallied around the issue. Elissa Slotkin left the door wide open for voting yes on funding. She just wanted to hear the full proposal: “I always will wait till I’m presented with a factual thing, not a theoretical thing.” Our other senator, Gary Peters, also would have no problem with voting yes on this bloody, illegal war. It was an easy decision for Peters, who will be retiring from Congress at the end of this year and will pay no political price for that vote.
Speaking with Bloomberg, Peters avoided criticizing the war itself while setting up Trump and the Republicans to take the blame for its eventual failure: “They haven’t come through with what the end goal looks like, what does victory look like?... Trump’s going to have to come before the American people and tell us what’s up.” Asked about Trump’s threat to send in ground troops, he said, “Not until I hear a justification for it,” but added, “You’re not going to win a war with an entrenched regime like Iran with just an air campaign.”
As the killing and destruction continued and Iran restricted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, oil soared above $100 a barrel. That gave the Democrats their most electorally potent line of attack yet. No need to make a legal or moral case against the war on Iran, let alone question the US-Israeli ambition to dominate the entire region. No need to talk about American forces targeting Iranian elementary schools (one with a Tomahawk missile, the other with new, so-called “Precision Strike” missiles that deliver a fragmentation warhead designed to maximize human casualties) or the countless atrocities committed in Palestine by US-supported Israeli occupation forces (crimes that recently included using cigarette burns and sharp tools to torture an 18-month-old toddler while forcing his father to watch.) By November, a political strategist might well think, few voters would remember any of that stuff anyway. But $80 to fill up their SUVs? They’ll always respond to that; high gas prices are kryptonite to sitting presidents and their party.
And so it came to pass that in talking about Iran, Democrats became even more tightly focused on “test-driving narratives that could define the campaign season,” as The Hill put it. A party operative elaborated: “It’s show-and-tell time for Democrats. Show people the receipts—the family that canceled their summer trip because airfare spiked, the small business owner eating higher fuel costs.”
“Affordability”! “Pain at the pump”! That’s a winner!
“This Is Not Opposition to War. It Is the Logic of War Itself”
Liberals’ favorite media outlets emphasized the Democrats’ incentives for not pushing harder to end the carnage quickly. In a story titled “The Longer the Iran War Goes, the Worse It Could Be for Trump. Just Look at History,” NPR helpfully reminded its listeners that an unpopular war is just the thing to take down a president and his party. The piece was accompanied by a link to an earlier story on rising gas prices.
Then there was Rachel Maddow at MS.NOW, who, attempting a rhetorical gotcha, attributed Trump’s illegal devastation of an entire society to his ignorance and incompetence, rather than treat it as a predictable extension of Washington’s bipartisan Iran regime-change efforts over almost half a century. Her tongue-in-cheek advice to him suggests that she’s spent way too much time pondering strategies for subverting and overthrowing uncooperative foreign governments:
If you really did want the Iranian people themselves to rise up in some kind of popular uprising and totally change their form of government... you probably would have taken some steps to make sure they can organize and communicate. When you... proclaimed on that weird taped message early Saturday morning that the police and the security forces and the Revolutionary Guard must surrender and lay down their weapons, you might have given them some instructions or some way to do that, which you did not. You might not have gutted the crucial Farsi-language Voice of America communications platform...
Thankfully, though, there are writers at independent outlets who are stripping the war down to its putrid core. At The Intercept, Adam Johnson thoroughly documented how, through the first two weeks of Trump’s war, Democrats spent much of their effort demanding “hearings” and “investigations” rather than doing everything they could to stop the war or at least “make a clear, consistent moral case to the public” for why it’s an abomination. Why, he asked, should Democrats “indulge the idea this is an unsettled debate to be hashed out in drawn-out hearings? What more is there to learn? The war is illegal, unjust, and immoral.”
By skirting the fundamental issues, Johnson added, the Democrats had managed to avoid undermining “the logic of regime change, which remains the bipartisan consensus, or run afoul of AIPAC and other major pro-Israel Democratic donors.” And as a sweetener, he added, hearings in which they excoriate the administration and Republican Congress members for botching the war “may help placate Democratic voters who are overwhelmingly opposed to the war to the tune of 89%.”
Also in mid-March, Ramzy Baroud, editor of Palestine Chronicle, wrote that throughout the mainstream liberal media, despite their ample criticism of Trump’s war:
The moral foundation of anti-war opposition has largely disappeared, replaced instead by a narrow strategic debate over costs, risks, and political consequences... They tend to oppose military interventions only when those wars fail to serve US strategic interests, threaten corporate profits, or risk undermining Israel’s long-term security... This is not opposition to war. It is the logic of war itself.
“A Gift to Our Country”
Meanwhile in Dearborn, Michigan, a city that Priti Gulati Cox and I recently made our new home, we have elected officials and candidates at all levels—local, state, and federal—who offer stark contrast to the militarism and cynical geopolitics that permeate Washington.
More than half of Dearborn residents are either immigrants or descendants of immigrants from Arab countries, mostly Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and occupied Palestine. Back in the fourth month of the genocide in Gaza, the city’s mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, refused to meet with Joe Biden’s campaign manager, who’d come to Michigan to meet with Arab and Muslim-American leaders and garner their support in the 2024 elections (despite the lavish material support Biden and his party were providing to the Gaza genocide). After catching some heat for that snub, Mayor Hammoud declared, “I will not entertain conversations about elections while we watch a live-streamed genocide backed by our government.”
He wrote:“The lives of Palestinians are not measured in poll numbers. Their humanity demands action, not lip service. When elected officials view the atrocities in Gaza only as an electoral problem, they reduce our indescribable pain into a political calculation.”
Dearborn is represented in the US House by the heroic Rashida Tlaib, one of the scant few members who support Palestinian liberation and work hard to end the decades-long US-Israeli crusade of colonial domination in West Asia. And now, with Gary Peters’ retirement, Michigan has an opportunity to elect an anti-imperialist to the US Senate as well. Among the three candidates vying for the Democratic nomination to replace Peters is Detroit-area native Abdul El-Sayed.
It’s essential, he stresses, for US senators to stand up and put a total end to endless wars—and the way to start is by killing the $200 billion Iran war bill.
El-Sayed, a son of Egyptian immigrants, is a physician and a former director of health, human, and veterans’ services for Wayne County (i.e., the Detroit area). He roundly condemns Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, as well as its repeated bombing of Lebanon and Iran. His campaign pledges include ending aid to Israel, abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement, increasing taxes on billionaires, and enacting Medicare for All. He has told voters, “I’m one of the few major Senate candidates who isn’t afraid to call what’s happening in Gaza a genocide—and because of that, I’m one of AIPAC’S top targets to defeat.”
In a late-February campaign stop at a mosque in Genesee County, a week before the shock-and-awe kickoff of the war on Iran, El-Sayed linked the immorality of the US-Israeli wars to some of Democrats’ favorite kitchen-table issues: “We are in the month of Ramadan... None of us today, when we woke up, had to think about whether or not our home was going to be bombed... Every dollar that is spent dropping a bomb on somebody else is a dollar that is not spent providing good healthcare or good schools.”
Abbas Alawieh is a Democrat running for the state senate seat in Michigan’s District 2, which includes Dearborn. He grew up here and, like many others, he has family members in Lebanon. Israeli warplanes recently destroyed his family home in Beirut. His ailing 91-year-old grandmother thereby became one of almost a million Lebanese who were displaced by Israel’s attacks in March alone and are living under harsh conditions. And this is the third time in the past 50 years that Israel has bombed Alawieh’s family members out of that same home.
Alawieh told WDET public radio that in his campaign, he’s talking a lot about his family’s experience because “I’m running in a district where many people here have experienced the loss of their family home,” and many have had relatives killed or injured by Israeli air strikes. He added that having Dearborn and surrounding communities be home to “so many people who are being directly impacted by the war is, in a lot of ways, a gift to our country,” because they “understand, not theoretically but materially, physically, in our bodies why it is that our country must veer away from this policy of funding endless wars.” It’s essential, he stresses, for US senators to stand up and put a total end to endless wars—and the way to start is by killing the $200 billion Iran war bill.
* * *
Each weekday, a Dearborn school bus picks up and drops off neighbor kids—early elementary and preschool students, a majority of them girls—at the curb just down from our house. They run to and from the bus, laughing, with arms flying out to the side as they sway under the burden of backpacks (mostly pink ones), some of which seem half the height of the kids themselves.
After witnessing such heartwarming scenes for weeks, we woke up on February 28 to news that a US missile had struck an elementary school in Minab, Iran, killing scores of people. The number of dead has since been pegged at 175, more than 100 of them young girls. Some of the most poignant photos of the aftermath focused on students’ backpacks, scattered throughout the rubble.
Now, when the kids on our street (including one tiny neighbor who brought us goodies during Ramadan) dash along the sidewalk each morning, they still bring smiles to our faces. But they are joined in our minds’ eyes by those schoolgirls in Minab, kids none of us ever knew, kids killed by our Tomahawk missile.
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Earn Your Hope by Going to a No Kings Day Protest Near You
Once we manage to drive this guy from power there’s something left to look forward to, but only if we all show up.
Mar 27, 2026
There are lots of moments for analysis, and this isn’t one of them. My only goal this week is to make sure you bring everyone you can to Saturday’s No Kings Day protests. It’s going to be chilly in the East and hot in the West, so no one is going to be out on the street by accident; people need to want to come. So I’m going to try and provide some motivation to get you out the door, and I’m going to use every trick of emotional manipulation I can muster.
There’s anger. Since the last No Kings protest in October, the administration has invaded Venezuela and attacked Iran, it has killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and it has blown up the global economy. Here’s this week’s particular barb, at least for people who care about energy and climate: They’ve taken a billion taxpayer dollars (that’s about six bucks per taxpayer) and used it to buy back offshore wind leases from Total Energies, a French firm, in an effort to make sure that this wind is never captured for clean energy.
“Considering that the development of offshore wind projects is not in the country’s interest, we have decided to renounce offshore wind development in the United States,” said Patrick Pouyanné, the CEO of the company, which should—if Democrats ever regain power—never be allowed to work on anything in America ever again.
All this while the price of energy is going through the roof thanks to our folly in the Persian Gulf—but it’s more important to bury wind energy than to provide affordable power to Americans. And according to Monday’s Houston Chronicle, Total has been instructed to redirect the money they’re receiving to a Texas liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, one more subsidy for an industry already awash in them. And by the way, exporting more gas raises prices for the same Americans who won’t be able to heat their homes or power their cars with the cheap electricity the wind farms would have provided.
The weaker President Donald Trump is, the better our chances of survival.
Want just a touch more anger, just at the pettiness of these guys? The Trump administration, because it can, is about to remove a bike lane in DC:
The National Park Service will soon start removing a protected bike lane that runs along 15th Street NW from Constitution Avenue down to the Tidal Basin and Jefferson Memorial, eliminating a popular cycling route just as crowds are expected to increase for the annual blooming of the cherry blossoms.
The work is expected to start on Monday, according to NPS. Once it’s done, it will sever one of DC’s longest protected bike lanes, stretching virtually uninterrupted from the Tidal Basin all the way up to Columbia Heights, and additionally serving as a vital cycling connection to the 14th Street Bridge into Virginia.
There are three Capital Bikeshare stations located along the stretch of the bike lane that will be removed. On Friday morning, the first day of spring in DC, there were also dozens of Veo bikes and Lime scooters available in the area. According to DDOT [District Department of Transportation], those Bikeshare stations are among the most used in the entire system.
An evaluation by DDOT of incidents along 15th Street after the bike lane was installed found that roadway crashes along the corridor had decreased by 46%—and bicycle injury crashes dropped even more, by 91%.
How does that compare with other world capitals? On Sunday, Parisians returned to power for a third term the socialists who—under the remarkable Mayor Anne Hidalgo—have built a true bike city. Hidalgo is handing the job to Emmanuel Gregoire, who rode a bike-share cycle to his victory party.
Under his predecessor’s Plan Vélo, Paris, according to the Bicycle Network:
has gained over 1,000 new kilometres of dedicated cycling infrastructure including the now-famous ‘Corona pistes’—pop-up bike lanes created during the Covid-19 pandemic that later became permanent due to overwhelming public support.
- During 2025 peak hour travel, bike riders account for 18.9% of trips, while car usage has dropped to 6.6%.
- There are 19,000 Vélib bikes in circulation, with 40% of them electric.
- These bikes are part of the Vélib’ Métropole system, which includes 1,480 storage stations to keep the streets neater and safer.
- 60,000 public bicycle racks are currently available across greater Paris.
Oh, and as Paris has become a bike city, air pollution has dropped 55%.
So, if you’re not angry enough to march now, then perhaps I can motivate you with just a soupçon of fear.
The World Meteorological Organization released its latest State of the Global Climate report on Monday, which for the first time attempts to track the planet’s energy imbalance. As Jonathan Watts puts it:
The Earth’s energy imbalance increased by about 11 zettajoules a year between 2005 and 2025, which is equivalent to about 18 times total human energy use. Last year it was more than double that average.
At present, humans and other life forms on the surface directly suffer only a small fraction of that energy backup because 91% is absorbed by oceans, 5% by the land, 1% warms the atmosphere, and 3% melts ice at the poles and on high mountains.
As Eric Niller explains in the Times:
One worrying result is that scientists are detecting more heat deeper in the ocean, rather than just at the surface, according to Dr. Von Schuckmann.
Below 2,000 meters, oceans store and hold heat longer than at the surface layer, which releases it to the atmosphere. That means that the effects of climate change will continue for a long time, she said.
“The more we have heat kept away from communication with the atmosphere,” Dr. Karina Von Schuckmann, an author of the report, said, “the more we are moving to time scales of committed climate change of 400 to 1,000 years.”
But we’re already seeing the heat at the surface. This week offered reports of Arctic sea ice at all time lows for the date, and of the highest March temperatures ever recorded in the US—measurements so loony they’re almost beyond credulity. New record highs for March—112°F in California and Arizona—beat the old records by two degrees, and were just a degree shy of the all-time April record. As the indomitable Bob Henson and Jeff Masters write:
At least 14 states set their all-time statewide records for March heat from Thursday through Saturday, as compiled by weather records expert Maximiliano Herrera (@extremetemps on Bluesky). These include every state from the Rocky Mountains west to the Pacific coast except for Oregon and Washington, plus several others between the Rockies and the Mississippi River.
Beyond the crazy fire danger now building across the West (Nebraska last week had the biggest fire in its history, and one of the 20 biggest in American history; a new study today explicitly links shrinking snowpacks to growing fire danger), there’s another peril now fully in play: The winter saw precious little snowpack across the Rockies, and much of that melted in last week’s heatdome, which means the Colorado River is headed toward previously unknown states. As Mark Gongloff chronicles:
Lake Powell, the main reservoir near the border between the upper and lower basins, will get just 52% of its usual inflow from snowmelt this year, the Bureau of Reclamation forecast last month.
Lake Powell can’t afford an off year. It recently stood at just 24% of its capacity, 170 feet below “full pool” and just 160 feet from going “dead pool,” when water can no longer escape from the Glen Canyon Dam. That would be a catastrophe for the lower-basin states of Arizona, California, and Nevada.
More immediately, the reservoir is just 40 feet away from “minimum power pool,” below which it will be unable to move the turbines on Glen Canyon Dam’s hydropower plant, which serves seven Western states. It generates 5 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year, enough to power 500,000 homes. A West filling up with data centers desperately needs this power supply.
Do you trust the Trump administration to wisely navigate the endless complications of the West running out of water? I don’t—he flushed billions of gallons of water pointlessly out to sea after the Los Angeles fires to try and make some kind of political point about his ability to control a “giant faucet.” We’re in for trouble, and the weaker President Donald Trump is, the better our chances of survival.
But maybe anger and fear aren’t what sink your boat? What about a bit of hope that once we manage to drive this guy from power there’s something left to look forward to?
I’ll offer it in limited form. We’re at such a moment of inflection, with cheap clean energy widely available, that we could make astonishingly rapid change. At least as much as Paris, China (which is slightly larger) is an entirely different place today than it was even five years ago. And that should tickle some memories for Americans—remember, once it was our cities that were filthy, and then we passed some laws, and they got remarkably cleaner remarkably fast. Indeed, Ann Carlson has a new book out detailing just how fast it happened.
Which means that if we manage to force change, it could come quickly. The news about wind power this week is very bad, as noted above. But this is also the week when—over the sabotaging efforts of the Trump administration—construction work finished on Vineyard Wind off Massachusetts, and Revolution Wind off Rhode Island began connecting to the grid. Together they will supply the electricity for 750,000 homes—a not insignificant percentage of the 160 million homes in America. They proved during this winter’s cold stretch in the Northeast that they’re at least as reliable as gas-fired power plants. And now there’s infrastructure in place for the ongoing buildout. As Massachusetts State Sen. Michael Barrett (D-3) told WGBH this week:
Time’s passing. Trump’s gone in under three years and the winds around here have staying power. The industry will come back if we’re smart about it and set the stage.
I don’t need to tell anyone reading this that three years is a long time—too long. One of our jobs this weekend is to help shorten that stretch—with an overwhelming win in the midterms, Trump can be effectively weakened before this year is out. But we have to do the work.
And if we do—but only if we do—then I think we’re allowed our small bits of hope. A new survey this week found that there were 400,000 acres of old growth forest in my part of the world—the Adirondack Mountains of New York—that had been “hiding in plain sight.” It’s good news in many ways:
In these undisturbed systems, carbon is pumped into the Earth through root networks and the slow decomposition of leaf litter and “coarse woody debris” (fallen logs). Unlike in managed timberlands where the soil is frequently disturbed, the soil in old growth forests remains a stable, permanent reservoir.
But mostly it’s good news because these woods are majestic and noble and good companions. I’ve hiked many of the areas the research described, and marveled at the big trees, but it’s good to know just how old they are. They’re a reminder that the planet has surprises yet, and some of them are beautiful.
We earn our hope. See you Saturday.
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‘Modern-Day Royalty’: 50 Billionaire Families Have Already Pumped Over $430 Million Into Midterms
"Billionaires are on track to break their $1 billion midterm spending record," said Americans for Tax Fairness.
Mar 25, 2026
Just 50 billionaire families in the United States have already dumped more than $430 million into the 2026 midterms, with the vast majority of the money flowing to Republican candidates and right-wing organizations such as MAGA Inc.—a super PAC aligned with President Donald Trump.
The progressive advocacy group Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) released an analysis on Wednesday examining the most recent Federal Election Commission data, which underscores increasingly aggressive billionaire efforts to use their immense wealth to secure their favored political outcomes. In the 2024 federal elections, billionaires accounted for nearly 20% of all donations.
Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, tops the list of 2026 campaign spenders so far, donating roughly $71 million—including $10 million in support of a pro-Trump candidate running to succeed Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
Behind Musk is businessman Jeff Yass, a relatively low-profile billionaire who has spent millions in recent years promoting school privatization. Yass has so far spent $55 million in the 2026 midterm cycle, $16 million of which went to MAGA Inc.—the largest recipient of the billionaire's donations.
Combined, the 50 top-spending billionaire families—which ATF describes as "modern-day royalty"—have poured $433 million into the 2026 midterms to date.
"Billionaires are on track to break their $1 billion midterm spending record," ATF noted on social media, referring to the 2022 midterms. "The spending is projected to grow exponentially as November approaches."
ATF published its analysis days ahead of the latest round of nationwide "No Kings" protests against the Trump administration this coming Saturday, March 28.
“The American people reject kings, political or financial,” David Kass, executive director of ATF, said in a statement on Wednesday. “Whether it’s an out-of-control chief executive in the White House or a billionaire wielding his huge fortune to influence elections, anti-democratic behavior is anathema to the American public."
"As we approach the 250th anniversary of our independence from the British monarchy," Kass added, "it’s more important than ever that we reform our campaign-finance and tax laws so that no billionaire can purchase a crown.”
ATF found that nearly 80% of top billionaire families' 2026 midterm spending—$344.3 million of the $433 million total—has gone to Republicans and GOP organizations, with the pro-Trump MAGA Inc. super PAC receiving $89 million, far more than any other group.
Four of the top five recipients of midterm cash from the nation's richest billionaire are pro-Republican PACs.
"Republicans and conservatives receive the lion’s share of billionaire financial support because it is the nation’s right-wing that works to ensure the wealthiest families get to keep and expand their fortunes, such as through the GOP tax-and-spending law enacted last year," ATF noted.
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Steve Bannon Calls ICE at Airports a Good ‘Test Run’ for Deployment to 2026 Midterm Polls
The comments marked the second time in just two months that Bannon has floated having ICE illegally monitor US elections.
Mar 24, 2026
Right-wing podcaster and former Trump White House political strategist Steve Bannon on Monday said that President Donald Trump's deployment of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to airports was a preview of what could be expected later this year at polling places across the country.
During a Monday episode of his "War Room" podcast, Bannon said that the Trump administration "can use what's happening with these ICE [agents] at the airports, we can use this as a test run, as a test case, to really perfect ICE's involvement in the 2026 midterm elections."
BANNON (Epstein’s PR Guy): “We can use ICE helping out at airports as a test run to really perfect ICE’s involvement in the 2026 midterms.”
P.S. — Non-citizens don’t vote and they know it pic.twitter.com/hPFaI9Ue9z
— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) March 24, 2026
Bannon's guest, MAGA influencer Mike Davis, agreed that ICE should be sent to polling places during this year's midterms to ensure no undocumented immigrants are casting ballots.
"If you're an American citizen, you should be happy ICE is there," Davis said. "So you don't have illegal aliens canceling out your vote."
There is no evidence that undocumented immigrants vote in any significant numbers in US elections.
As The New York Times reported in January, the Department of Homeland Security during Trump's second term has been conducting a wide-ranging review of voter registration data and so far has found almost no evidence of non-citizens voting in past elections.
"Out of 49.5 million voter registrations that have been checked, the department referred around 10,000 cases to Homeland Security Investigations for further investigation of noncitizenship, or roughly .02% of the names processed," reported the Times, which added that the administration didn't specify how many of the potential "illegal" voters had actually cast ballots in elections.
Even so, Bannon and other Trump allies have been floating sending ICE agents to serve as election monitors, even though they have no legal jurisdiction to do so.
In February, Bannon predicted that "we’re gonna have ICE surround the polls come November," which many critics warned was a signal for a coming mass voter suppression campaign.
“This is a red alert moment," said US Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) in the wake of Bannon's comments last month. "We have to start working to protect polling places from Trump’s paramilitary ICE goons before it’s too late."
Trump has also floated getting the US military involved in elections, telling the New York Times in January that he regretted not ordering the National Guard to seize voting machines after his 2020 election loss to former President Joe Biden.
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Understanding MAGA's Plot to Rig the Midterms and Destroy Democracy
Here is a list of the plot’s main elements to help you stay informed, connected, and, above all, engaged.
Mar 12, 2026
The ongoing Trumpian plot to rig the midterms and end democracy is getting crazier and more dangerous by the day. The plot is also becoming increasingly layered and will likely continue all the way to next January 3, when newly elected members of the Senate and every member of the House will be sworn into office.
Keeping abreast of all the twists and turns as the scheme unfolds can be exhausting and overwhelming, and that’s exactly how our narcissist-in-chief and his assorted obergruppenführers want you to feel. But don’t give in. The plot is inherently flawed and, although we can never be certain, it will ultimately fail in the face of the president’s plummeting poll numbers, the deepening affordability crisis, and the growing popular resistance movement.
In the meantime, here is a list of the plot’s main elements to help you stay informed, connected, and, above all, engaged.
Nationalizing Elections by Executive Order, Declaring a National Emergency, and Going to War
In a February 2 appearance on former FBI deputy director Dan Bongino’s podcast, President Donald Trump called on Republicans to “take over“ and “nationalize“ voting in at least 15 states. As if on cue, the Gold Institute for International Strategy, a conservative Washington, DC think tank, convened an “election integrity summit” on February 19. The confab was highlighted by a 30-person roundtable discussion on the need to persuade Trump to issue a new executive order that would give him unprecedented control over how federal elections are run.
There is nothing more dangerous than an autocrat afraid of losing power, and there is no autocrat on the world stage today more fearful and paranoid than Donald Trump.
A who’s who of high-profile election deniers attended the summit, including Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser; attorney Cleta Mitchell, who directs the aptly misnamed Election Integrity Network; and failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake. Also in attendance, according to ProPublica, was Kurt Olsen, a White House lawyer who is reinvestigating the 2020 election, along with other administration officials.Initially drafted in 2025 and currently being updated, the proposed order totals 17 pages. It would authorize Trump to declare an emergency under the National Emergencies Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to counter alleged foreign interference in elections by requiring strict voter ID procedures, accelerating voting roll purges, banning mail-in ballots, and getting rid of voting machines in favor of hand-counting all votes.
The order doesn’t specify which countries have meddled in our elections. But Trump has targeted China in the past, and is currently accusing Iran, complaining in a 1:35 am Truth Social rant on February 28 that Iran interfered in the “2020, 2024 elections to stop Trump, and now faces renewed war with United States.” This serves the dual purpose of adding another justification for the war and, as election lawyer Marc Elias has noted, another rationale for Trump’s midterm power grab.
Like the executive order on voting rights Trump issued in March 2025, the new proposed order should be overturned by the courts, but only after costly and protracted litigation. Under Article I of the Constitution, the states determine the “times, places, and manner of holding elections.” Congress can pass legislation to regulate state voting procedures, but the president has no independent authority to do so.
Still, there is considerable peril ahead. No court rulings can prevent red states from voluntarily complying with Trump’s demands and affecting down-ballot races that might favor Democrats. Thus far, at least 10 states, including Texas, have handed over their full voter files to the Department of Justice, and the DOJ has sued more than 20 states that have refused to do the same. Even worse, on January 28., the FBI seized voting records from an election center in Fulton County, Georgia, after Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger rebuffed the administration’s records request. The specter of similar raids in noncomplying states looms as the midterms approach.
The SAVE Act and Its Successors
Realizing the limitations of unilateral executive action, Trump loyalists have introduced legislation to accomplish what his executive orders cannot.
The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act passed in the House on April 10 and is pending before the Senate. If enacted, it would require all Americans to provide a birth certificate, passport, or some other documentary proof of citizenship in person every time they register or re-register to vote, and require each state to ensure that only US citizens are registered to vote and to remove noncitizens from their voter lists. It would also create a private right of action, after the fashion of the Texas antiabortion law, to allow disgruntled individuals to sue election officials who register voters without obtaining proof of citizenship and establish criminal penalties of up to five years in prison for election officials who violate the act.
Fortunately, the act has stalled in the Senate, blocked at least temporarily by the filibuster rule that requires a 60-vote majority to advance legislation. However, two new bills—an amended version of the SAVE Act and the Make Elections Great Again Act—have been introduced in the House with strong backing from Trump, who claimed in his recent State of the Union address that “cheating [by Democrats in elections] is rampant.” Should any of the bills reach the Resolute Desk, the courts will be hard-pressed to block them, although legal challenges will no doubt be filed. And in yet another Truth Social rant posted in the early hours of March 8, Trump threatened not to sign any legislation until the act passes the Senate.
Mid-Decade Gerrymandering
Every 10 years, after the census, the Constitution requires the states to redraw the boundaries of their congressional districts to reflect population changes in a process known as reapportionment, or redistricting. If done fairly, the process provides equal representation for all voters regardless of race, gender, or party affiliation, guided by the ideal of “one person, one vote.”
Sadly, the process is deeply flawed and often yields to gerrymandering. A portmanteau coined after the salamander-like image that resulted on a map of the voting districts created by Massachusetts Gov. Elbridge Gerry in 1812, gerrymandering today refers to the abusive practice of drawing electoral boundaries to give an advantage to a dominant party, group, or socioeconomic class.
Until now, states have typically redistricted only once per decade. But last July, under intense pressure from Trump, Texas broke the norm, drafting a new congressional map designed to give the GOP five additional House seats. Since then, other states have followed suit, touching off a mid-decade gerrymandering war that has spread to California, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and Florida, and soon to other states. On balance, the math slightly favors the Republicans. But the war could easily backfire as a new blue wave appears to be building, and more voters, even in red states, come to realize they have been duped by the con man from Queens.
Deploying ICE at the Polls
In a February 3 podcast, former White House strategist Steve Bannon called on Trump to send Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers to polling sites to prevent noncitizens from voting. Echoing the president’s own oft-repeated conspiracy theory, Bannon said:
We’re going to have ICE surround the polls come November. We’re not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again. And you can whine and cry and throw your toys out of the pram all you want, but we will never again allow an election to be stolen.
Asked about Bannon’s comments two days later, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “I can’t guarantee that an ICE agent won’t be around a polling location in November… but what I can tell you is I haven’t heard the president discuss any formal plans to put ICE outside of polling locations.”
Leavitt’s remarks were anything but reassuring for an administration that thrives on deceit. It is a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison to deploy federal troops or armed federal law enforcement to any polling place. It would not be illegal, however, for ICE to deploy to blue state cities on Election Day in the general vicinity of polling places with the goal of intimidating newly naturalized citizens from voting. In fact, it would be astonishing if ICE stayed home.
January 3, 2027
If all other tactics and any lawsuits the GOP launches fail, Trump and his most die-hard adherents will have one last opportunity to stop the Democrats from taking over the House and possibly the Senate on January 3, 2027, when the next Congress is sworn in.
The 20th Amendment mandates that every new Congress convene at noon on January 3. The first session of each chamber is supposed to be purely ceremonial in nature, just like the joint session of Congress that convenes on January 6 to count Electoral College ballots after a presidential election. But as we saw on January 6, 2021, ceremony can quickly give way to chaos, and even outright insurrection. This is especially true when given a patina of legality, as the 2020 election deniers concocted the theory that Vice President Mike Pence had the discretion to reject swing-state electoral votes cast in favor of Joe Biden.
If anything, there is even more opportunity for disruption and potential chaos on January 3. Each chamber has its own rules for the swearing-in process. In the House, the members elect vote to select a new speaker, who is sworn into office by the dean of the House—the most senior (longest-serving) member, regardless of party. Once sworn in, the new speaker administers the oath to the members elect.
The American people, on the other hand, are waking up and rejecting the neofascist horrors their president is offering them and their children.
But what happens if the dean refuses to swear in a new speaker, alleging election fraud? The current dean of the House is Kentucky Republican Hal Rogers, an election denier who voted against the certification of the 2020 election. If Trump demands, would Rogers delay or decline to swear in a Democratic speaker? Would he defy the president?
In the Senate, each newly elected member is sworn in by the vice president of the United States, who serves as president of the Senate. What happens if JD Vance, following instructions from his boss, refuses to swear in a critical number of Democrats?
Each chamber has procedures for resolving election disputes, but they are rarely invoked, and it remains to be seen how Trump would exploit them.
There is nothing more dangerous than an autocrat afraid of losing power, and there is no autocrat on the world stage today more fearful and paranoid than Donald Trump. He is prepared to do anything he can to stave off defeat, but his age and incompetence have finally caught up with him, and his aura of invincibility has been pierced. The American people, on the other hand, are waking up and rejecting the neofascist horrors their president is offering them and their children. In the end, they will see to it that the plot to rig the midterms and end democracy fails.
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Trump Is Rage Baiting the US Into a Second Civil War
In a healthy democracy, all sides generally recognize the legitimacy of the system itself, regardless of internal squabbles. In the United States, this is no longer the case.
Feb 22, 2026
A January 2026 Gallup poll showed that 89% of all Americans expect high levels of political conflict this year, as the country heads toward one of its most decisive midterm elections ever.
Gallup, however, was stating the obvious. It is a surprise that not all Americans feel this way, judging by the coarse, often outright racist discourse currently being normalized by top American officials. Some call this new rhetoric the "language of humiliation," where officials refer to entire social and racial groups as "vermin," "garbage," or "invaders."
The aim of this language is not simply to insult, but to feed the "Rage Bait Cycle"—tellingly, Oxford’s 2025 Word of the Year: A high-ranking official attacks a whole community or "the other side"; waits for a response; escalates the attacks; and then presents himself as a protector of traditions, values, and America itself. This does more than simply “hollow out” democracy, as suggested in a Human Rights Watch report last January; it prepares the country for “affective polarization,” where people no longer just disagree on political matters, but actively dislike each other for who they are and what they supposedly represent.
How else can we explain the statements of US President Donald Trump, who declared last December: “Somalia... is barely a country... Their country stinks and we don't want them in our country... We’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country. Ilhan Omar is garbage. She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage.” This is not simply an angry president, but an overreaching political discourse supported by millions of Americans who continue to see Trump as their defender and savior.
We are entering a state of regime cleavage—a political struggle no longer concerned with winning elections, but one where dominant groups fundamentally disagree on the very definition of what constitutes a nation.
This polarization reached a fever pitch at the 2026 Super Bowl, where the halftime selection of Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny ignited a firestorm over national identity. While millions celebrated the performance, Trump and conservative commentators launched a boycott, labeling the Spanish-language show “not American enough” and inappropriate. The rhetoric escalated further when Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem suggested Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents would be “all over” the event, effectively ostracizing countless people from their right to belong to a distinct culture within American society.
The weaponization of culture and language was not limited to the stage; it split American viewers into two distinct camps: those who watched the official performance and those who turned to an “All-American” alternative broadcast hosted by Turning Point USA featuring Kid Rock. This "countering" is the very essence of the American conflict, which many have rightly predicted will eventually reach a breaking point akin to civil war.
That conclusion seems inevitable as the culture war couples with three alarming trends: identity dehumanization; partisan mirroring—the view that the other side is an existential threat; and institutional conflict—where federal agencies are perceived as "lawless," sitting congresswomen are labeled "garbage," and dissenting views are branded as treasonous.
This takes us to the fundamental question of legitimacy. In a healthy democracy, all sides generally recognize the legitimacy of the system itself, regardless of internal squabbles. In the United States, this is no longer the case. We are entering a state of regime cleavage—a political struggle no longer concerned with winning elections, but one where dominant groups fundamentally disagree on the very definition of what constitutes a nation.
The current crisis is not a new phenomenon; it dates back to the historical tension between 'assimilation" within an American "melting pot" versus the "multiculturalism" often compared to a "salad bowl." The melting pot principle, frequently promoted as a positive social ideal, effectively pressures immigrant communities and minorities to "melt" into a white-Christian-dominated social structure. In contrast, the salad bowl model allows minorities to feel very much American while maintaining their distinct languages, customs, and social priorities, thus without losing their unique identities.
While this debate persisted for decades as a highly intellectualized academic exercise, it has transformed into a daily, visceral conflict. The 2026 Super Bowl served as a stark manifestation of this deeper cultural friction. Several factors have pushed the United States to this precipice: a struggling economy, rising social inequality, and a rapidly closing demographic gap. Dominant social groups no longer feel "safe." Although the perceived threat to their "way of life" is often framed as a cultural or social grievance, it is, in essence, a struggle over economic privilege and political dominance.
There is also a significant disparity in political focus. While the right—represented by the MAGA movement and TPUSA—possesses a clarity of vision and relative political cohesion, the "other side" remains shrouded in ambiguity. The Democratic institution, which purports to represent the grievances of all other marginalized groups, lacks the trust of younger Americans, particularly those belonging to Gen Z. According to a recent poll by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), trust in traditional political institutions among voters aged 18-25 has plummeted to historic lows, with over 65% expressing dissatisfaction with both major parties.
As the midterm elections approach, society is stretching its existing polarization to a new extreme. While the right clings to the hope of a savior making the country "great again," the "left" is largely governed by the politics of counter demonization and reactive grievances—hardly a revolutionary approach to governance.
Regardless of the November results, much of the outcome is already predetermined: a wider social conflict in the US is inevitable. The breaking point is fast approaching.
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As Trump Attacks the Republic, the Cowardly Democratic Party Still Won't Fight to Win
With few exceptions, the Democratic Party apparatus is coasting, playing “it safe,” and expecting that the Trumpsters will deliver the Congress to it in November.
Jan 31, 2026
“How’s the Democratic Party’s ground game in Pennsylvania?” I asked a friend several weeks before the 2024 presidential election. He replied optimistically that there were far more door knockers this year than in 2022.
It turned out these door knockers were just urging a vote for the Democrats without putting forth a compelling agenda attached to candidate commitments on issues that mean something to people where they live, work, and raise their families. There was no Democratic Party “Compact for the American People.” Then-President Joe Biden visited Pennsylvania, which went Republican, many times, with his most memorable message being that he grew up in Scranton.
Once again, the vacuous, feeble Democratic Party is relying on the Republicans and the cruel, lawless dictator Donald Trump to beat themselves to gain control of the Senate and the House.
Legendary reporter Seymour Hersh on Thursday made the case for the Republicans taking themselves down, to wit: “I have been told by an insider that the internal polling numbers are not good …” and that “anxiety in the White House that both the House and the Senate might fall to the Democrats is acute. Trump’s poll numbers are sliding… The public lying of cabinet members in defense of ICE has not helped the president or the party. Trump hasn’t delivered on the economy, except for the very rich, and he hasn’t made good on early promises to resolve the disastrous war between Russia and Ukraine.”
Their aversion to building their own momentum to answer the basic questions “Whose side are you on?” and “What does the Democratic Party stand for?” remains as pathetic as it was in 2022 and 2024.
GOP operatives are assuming the Democrats will take back the House by a comfortable number and now think the Senate, where the GOP holds a three-seat majority. There are six seats in play. The GOP’s biggest fear is that their negatives continue to increase, propelled by a pile of unpopular Trumpian actions, ugly behavior, and corruption. The combination of all these things could create a critical mass and produce a landslide comparable to the Reagan-led victory in 1980. In this election, the Republicans defeated seemingly unbeatable Senate veterans like Sen. Warren Magnuson (D-Wash.), Sen. Gayord Nelson (D-Wis.), and Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho), and gave the GOP control of the Senate.
So, what is the Democratic Party doing during this GOP slump? It is Déjà vu all over again. The Dems are furiously raising money from commercial special interests and relying on vacuous television and social media ads. They are not engaging people with enough personal events, and they are not returning calls or reaching out to their historical base—progressive labor and citizen leaders. Most importantly, they are not presenting voters with a COMPACT FOR AMERICAN WORKERS. Such a compact would spark voter excitement and attract significant media coverage.
Their aversion to building their own momentum to answer the basic questions “Whose side are you on?” and “What does the Democratic Party stand for?” remains as pathetic as it was in 2022 and 2024. Ken Martin, head of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), recently quashed a detailed report he commissioned about why the Democrats lost in 2024. He has refused to meet with leaders of progressive citizen organizations. We visited the DNC headquarters and could not even get anyone to take our materials on winning issues and tactics. We offered the compiled presentations of two dozen progressive civic leaders on how to landslide the GOP in 2022. This material is still relevant and offers a letter-perfect blueprint for how Democrats could win in 2026. (See winningamerica.net). (The DNC offices are like a mausoleum, except for visits by members of Congress entering to dial for dollars.)
Imagine a mere switch of 240,000 votes in three states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin) would have defeated Trump in 2024. That margin would have been easily accomplished had the Democratic Party supported the efforts of AFL-CIO and progressive union leaders who wanted the Dems to champion a “Compact for Workers” on Labor Day, with events throughout the country. (See letter sent to Liz Shuler, President of AFL-CIO, on August 27, 2024).
The compact would have emphasized: raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 per hour, benefiting 25 million workers, and increasing Social Security benefits frozen for over 45 years, which could have benefited over 60 million elderly, paid for by higher Social Security taxes on the wealthy classes. The compact would also include: a genuine child tax credit that would help over 60 million children, cutting child poverty in half; repeal of Trump’s massive tax cuts for the super rich and giant corporations (which would pay for thousands of public works groups in communities around the nation); and Full Medicare for All (which is far more efficient and lifesaving than the corporate-controlled nightmare of gouges, inscrutable billing fraud, and arbitrary denial of benefits).
Droves of conservative and liberal voters would attend events showcasing winning politics, authentically presented, as envisioned for the grassroots Labor Day gatherings, suicidally blocked by the smug, siloed leaders of the Democratic Party in 2022 and 2024.
Clearly, this is a party that thinks it can win on the agenda of Wall Street and the military-industrial complexes. (See Norman Solomon’s book The Blue Road to Trump Hell: How Corporate Democrats Paved the Way for Autocracy. It can be downloaded for free at BlueRoad.info.) The Democratic Party scapegoats the tiny Green Party for its losses again and again at the federal and state levels to the worst Republican Party in history—BY FAR.
It is fair to say that, with few exceptions, the Democratic Party apparatus is coasting, playing “it safe,” and expecting that the Trumpsters will deliver the Congress to it in November.
The exceptions are warning about this hazardous complacency, such as adopting James Carville’s ridiculous advice just to let the GOP self-destruct (though recently he also has urged a progressive economic agenda). There are progressive young Democrats challenging incumbent corporate Democrats in the House. They are not waiting for a turnover in the party’s aging leadership. They believe the country can’t wait for such a transformation. Our Republic has been invaded by the Trumpsters, who are taking down its institutional pillars, its safety nets, and its rule of law. Our democracy is crumbling by the day.
As for the nonvoters, disgusted with politics, just go vote for a raise, vote for health insurance, vote for a crackdown on corporate crooks seizing your consumer dollars and savings, and vote for taxing the rich. That’s what your vote should demand, and these are the issues that should be conveyed to the candidates campaigning in your communities.
Tell the candidates you want a shakeup, not a handshake. (See, the primer for victory, “Let’s Start the Revolution: Tools for Displacing the Corporate State and Building a Country that Works for the People” 2024).
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