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"The "globalization" the left opposes is something altogether different: the domination of multilateral decision-making by powerful financial interests. That's worth opposing." (Photo: Number 10/flickr/cc)
The once-proud political project known as "centrism" is collapsing around the globe, despite increasingly desperate attempts by billionaire backers to revive it.
The center-right's implosion can be seen in the weakened state of Theresa May's Conservatives in Great Britain, the recent setback for Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, and the withering of the GOP's Mitt Romney wing.
But what about the center-left, the "New Labour"/"New Democrat" phenomenon that once seemed to offer so much hope? Can it survive? More importantly, should it?
Political scientist Sheri Berman recently wrote an op-ed for the New York Times that made the case for Western Europe's failing social democrats. "Across Europe, social democratic or center-left parties are in decline," Professor Berman writes, adding:
"In elections this year in France and the Netherlands, the socialist and labor parties did so poorly that many question their future existence... Even if you don't support the left, this should be cause for concern. Social democratic parties were crucial to rebuilding democracy in Western Europe after 1945. They remain essential to democracy on the Continent today."
Professor Berman correctly diagnoses one aspect of what ails these parties, noting that center-left politicians like Britain's Tony Blair and Germany's Gerhard Schroder "celebrated the (free) market's upsides while ignoring its downsides."
It's worth lingering for a moment on those downsides: Economic inequality continued to skyrocket under Blair in Great Britain and Schroder in Germany, and Bill Clinton in the United States. The global economy was gravely damaged by the financial crisis of 2008, as Professor Berman notes, but that near-catastrophe wasn't caused by impersonal forces. It was the result of widespread banker fraud, made possible by the active collaboration of politicians from both parties.
The center-left rarely even chastised, much less prosecuted, bankers for their criminality in the runup to the economic crisis, whose devastation is still felt around the globe. Instead, it left them in charge of their institutions and in possession of their freedom and their ill-gotten gains.
When faced with the global economic disaster these bankers caused, Blair didn't name names. Instead he said things like this: "Look upon this crisis not as an occasion to regress in policy or attitude of mind; but as a chance to renew, as an opportunity to open a new chapter in humanity's progress to a better future for all."
The political program Professor Berman eulogizes didn't just fail to "offer a fundamental critique of capitalism." It provided capitalism's worst excesses with ideological cover. Instead of hewing to well-understood professions of left-leaning values like "equality," it offered cliches about "equality of opportunity" that were indistinguishable from those of its center-right opponents.
Worse, when confronted with the economic damage that bankers caused, the European center-left turned against its supposed constituency by bailing out the banks and imposing strict austerity measures on working people.
The U.K. Labour Party, like its European and American counterparts, became obsessed with proving its "fiscal responsibility" -- so much so that it was considered a major gaffe when party leader Ed Miliband failed to mention the deficit in an address. "No one should doubt our seriousness about tackling the deficit," he said by way of apology.
Democrats under Clinton and Obama shared the European center-left's deficit obsession, but were forced to back away from it somewhat under political pressure. European social democrats stuck to the austerity program and lost even more support than Democrats did from their core voters.
Then there's foreign policy. Blair misled his country into war in Iraq -- a deception which most Britons still find literally unforgivable, according to a 2016 poll -- while centrist Democrats largely voted to support it here in the United States. That hurt both parties. One study showed that Donald Trump, who cynically ran as an anti-war candidate, gained a statistically significant level of additional support from communities with high military casualties.
The study shows that, without those votes, the election might have gone the other way.
Professor Berman's characterization of left leaders like Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn and the movement they represent will be unrecognizable to anyone familiar with them.
Her characterization of them as "an anti-globalization far left," without defining that label, repeats a canard that's been articulated many times by figures like Blair and Clinton. In a 2009 speech, in the wake of the global financial crisis, Blair put it this way (in a speech that, oddly, recently disappeared from his foundation's website):
"There is a myth that globalization is the result of a policy driven by Governments; and can be altered or even reversed by Governments. It isn't. It is driven by people. Globalization is not just an economic fact. It is about the internet, its power to communicate, influence and shape a world whose frontiers are coming down. It's about mass travel, migration, modern media. It is not simply an economic fact; it is in part an attitude of mind. It is where young people choose to be."
Strip away the Soylent Green-esque language - "It's people! Globalization is people!" -- and this is nothing but airy-fairy gibberish. After all, who on the left is against migration, media, or some vaguely defined "attitude of mind"?
Barring an extraterrestrial electromagnetic pulse of unprecedented scale, the internet and modern media will carry on. The question Blair and his colleagues elide is this: The global trade deals they promoted have increased inequality, weakened labor rights, and ceded sovereign authority to an arbitration system that is heavily stacked in favor of the enormously wealthy.
People aren't against globalization as Blair defines it. They're against trade deals that hurt them economically in order to benefit powerful interests. The "globalization" the left opposes is something altogether different: the domination of multilateral decision-making by powerful financial interests. That's worth opposing.
Berman continues says the parties of the newly-risen left "generally offer an impractical mishmash of attacks on the wealthy, protectionism, increased welfare spending and high taxes." Impractical? Those "attacks on the wealthy" and "high taxes" propose taxation rates that fall well below 1950s and 1960s-era levels.
Their "protectionism" would replace bad trade deals with better ones. These leaders are, if anything, overly conciliatory toward the "deficit" crowd, because they insist on offering "pay-fors" for their increased welfare spending.
"These policies may appeal to the angry and frustrated," Berman writes, "but they turn off voters looking for viable policy and a progressive, rather than utopian, view of the future." Leaving aside the question of viability, I would like to see some numbers to support that claim. There is growing support for bigger government and an improved social safety net in the US, while Corbyn's proposals poll very well in Britain.
As for "the angry and frustrated" -- yes, voters are both of those things. Why shouldn't they be? For too long, the center-left ignored their needs in order to pursue the notion that government could be run by insiders from both parties, through that quiet process of back-room negotiation known as "bipartisanship." Kenan Malik, also writing in the New York Times, accurately characterized the British and European center-left of recent decades:
"With the dismantling of the postwar political system has gone, too, the old division between social democracy and conservatism. The new fault line -- not just in British politics but throughout Europe -- is between an elite, technocratic managerialism, governing through structures that often bypass democratic processes, and a growing mass of people who feel alienated and politically voiceless."
The same could be said of its counterpart in the United States. The consensus rule of political insiders across the globe, from center-left to center-right, has not responded to voters' needs or wishes. As a result, it is falling. That's not tragedy; it's democracy. Europe's center-left became complacent and complicit: complacent in its power, and complicit in its relationship to corporate power.
Professor Berman worries that, without, "populism will flourish and democracy will decay." But the left's populism is answering the unmet needs of people in Western Europe and the United States. That's not decay; it's progress.
Trump and Musk are on an unconstitutional rampage, aiming for virtually every corner of the federal government. These two right-wing billionaires are targeting nurses, scientists, teachers, daycare providers, judges, veterans, air traffic controllers, and nuclear safety inspectors. No one is safe. The food stamps program, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next. It’s an unprecedented disaster and a five-alarm fire, but there will be a reckoning. The people did not vote for this. The American people do not want this dystopian hellscape that hides behind claims of “efficiency.” Still, in reality, it is all a giveaway to corporate interests and the libertarian dreams of far-right oligarchs like Musk. Common Dreams is playing a vital role by reporting day and night on this orgy of corruption and greed, as well as what everyday people can do to organize and fight back. As a people-powered nonprofit news outlet, we cover issues the corporate media never will, but we can only continue with our readers’ support. |
Richard (RJ) Eskow is a journalist who has written for a number of major publications. His weekly program, The Zero Hour, can be found on cable television, radio, Spotify, and podcast media.
The once-proud political project known as "centrism" is collapsing around the globe, despite increasingly desperate attempts by billionaire backers to revive it.
The center-right's implosion can be seen in the weakened state of Theresa May's Conservatives in Great Britain, the recent setback for Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, and the withering of the GOP's Mitt Romney wing.
But what about the center-left, the "New Labour"/"New Democrat" phenomenon that once seemed to offer so much hope? Can it survive? More importantly, should it?
Political scientist Sheri Berman recently wrote an op-ed for the New York Times that made the case for Western Europe's failing social democrats. "Across Europe, social democratic or center-left parties are in decline," Professor Berman writes, adding:
"In elections this year in France and the Netherlands, the socialist and labor parties did so poorly that many question their future existence... Even if you don't support the left, this should be cause for concern. Social democratic parties were crucial to rebuilding democracy in Western Europe after 1945. They remain essential to democracy on the Continent today."
Professor Berman correctly diagnoses one aspect of what ails these parties, noting that center-left politicians like Britain's Tony Blair and Germany's Gerhard Schroder "celebrated the (free) market's upsides while ignoring its downsides."
It's worth lingering for a moment on those downsides: Economic inequality continued to skyrocket under Blair in Great Britain and Schroder in Germany, and Bill Clinton in the United States. The global economy was gravely damaged by the financial crisis of 2008, as Professor Berman notes, but that near-catastrophe wasn't caused by impersonal forces. It was the result of widespread banker fraud, made possible by the active collaboration of politicians from both parties.
The center-left rarely even chastised, much less prosecuted, bankers for their criminality in the runup to the economic crisis, whose devastation is still felt around the globe. Instead, it left them in charge of their institutions and in possession of their freedom and their ill-gotten gains.
When faced with the global economic disaster these bankers caused, Blair didn't name names. Instead he said things like this: "Look upon this crisis not as an occasion to regress in policy or attitude of mind; but as a chance to renew, as an opportunity to open a new chapter in humanity's progress to a better future for all."
The political program Professor Berman eulogizes didn't just fail to "offer a fundamental critique of capitalism." It provided capitalism's worst excesses with ideological cover. Instead of hewing to well-understood professions of left-leaning values like "equality," it offered cliches about "equality of opportunity" that were indistinguishable from those of its center-right opponents.
Worse, when confronted with the economic damage that bankers caused, the European center-left turned against its supposed constituency by bailing out the banks and imposing strict austerity measures on working people.
The U.K. Labour Party, like its European and American counterparts, became obsessed with proving its "fiscal responsibility" -- so much so that it was considered a major gaffe when party leader Ed Miliband failed to mention the deficit in an address. "No one should doubt our seriousness about tackling the deficit," he said by way of apology.
Democrats under Clinton and Obama shared the European center-left's deficit obsession, but were forced to back away from it somewhat under political pressure. European social democrats stuck to the austerity program and lost even more support than Democrats did from their core voters.
Then there's foreign policy. Blair misled his country into war in Iraq -- a deception which most Britons still find literally unforgivable, according to a 2016 poll -- while centrist Democrats largely voted to support it here in the United States. That hurt both parties. One study showed that Donald Trump, who cynically ran as an anti-war candidate, gained a statistically significant level of additional support from communities with high military casualties.
The study shows that, without those votes, the election might have gone the other way.
Professor Berman's characterization of left leaders like Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn and the movement they represent will be unrecognizable to anyone familiar with them.
Her characterization of them as "an anti-globalization far left," without defining that label, repeats a canard that's been articulated many times by figures like Blair and Clinton. In a 2009 speech, in the wake of the global financial crisis, Blair put it this way (in a speech that, oddly, recently disappeared from his foundation's website):
"There is a myth that globalization is the result of a policy driven by Governments; and can be altered or even reversed by Governments. It isn't. It is driven by people. Globalization is not just an economic fact. It is about the internet, its power to communicate, influence and shape a world whose frontiers are coming down. It's about mass travel, migration, modern media. It is not simply an economic fact; it is in part an attitude of mind. It is where young people choose to be."
Strip away the Soylent Green-esque language - "It's people! Globalization is people!" -- and this is nothing but airy-fairy gibberish. After all, who on the left is against migration, media, or some vaguely defined "attitude of mind"?
Barring an extraterrestrial electromagnetic pulse of unprecedented scale, the internet and modern media will carry on. The question Blair and his colleagues elide is this: The global trade deals they promoted have increased inequality, weakened labor rights, and ceded sovereign authority to an arbitration system that is heavily stacked in favor of the enormously wealthy.
People aren't against globalization as Blair defines it. They're against trade deals that hurt them economically in order to benefit powerful interests. The "globalization" the left opposes is something altogether different: the domination of multilateral decision-making by powerful financial interests. That's worth opposing.
Berman continues says the parties of the newly-risen left "generally offer an impractical mishmash of attacks on the wealthy, protectionism, increased welfare spending and high taxes." Impractical? Those "attacks on the wealthy" and "high taxes" propose taxation rates that fall well below 1950s and 1960s-era levels.
Their "protectionism" would replace bad trade deals with better ones. These leaders are, if anything, overly conciliatory toward the "deficit" crowd, because they insist on offering "pay-fors" for their increased welfare spending.
"These policies may appeal to the angry and frustrated," Berman writes, "but they turn off voters looking for viable policy and a progressive, rather than utopian, view of the future." Leaving aside the question of viability, I would like to see some numbers to support that claim. There is growing support for bigger government and an improved social safety net in the US, while Corbyn's proposals poll very well in Britain.
As for "the angry and frustrated" -- yes, voters are both of those things. Why shouldn't they be? For too long, the center-left ignored their needs in order to pursue the notion that government could be run by insiders from both parties, through that quiet process of back-room negotiation known as "bipartisanship." Kenan Malik, also writing in the New York Times, accurately characterized the British and European center-left of recent decades:
"With the dismantling of the postwar political system has gone, too, the old division between social democracy and conservatism. The new fault line -- not just in British politics but throughout Europe -- is between an elite, technocratic managerialism, governing through structures that often bypass democratic processes, and a growing mass of people who feel alienated and politically voiceless."
The same could be said of its counterpart in the United States. The consensus rule of political insiders across the globe, from center-left to center-right, has not responded to voters' needs or wishes. As a result, it is falling. That's not tragedy; it's democracy. Europe's center-left became complacent and complicit: complacent in its power, and complicit in its relationship to corporate power.
Professor Berman worries that, without, "populism will flourish and democracy will decay." But the left's populism is answering the unmet needs of people in Western Europe and the United States. That's not decay; it's progress.
Richard (RJ) Eskow is a journalist who has written for a number of major publications. His weekly program, The Zero Hour, can be found on cable television, radio, Spotify, and podcast media.
The once-proud political project known as "centrism" is collapsing around the globe, despite increasingly desperate attempts by billionaire backers to revive it.
The center-right's implosion can be seen in the weakened state of Theresa May's Conservatives in Great Britain, the recent setback for Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, and the withering of the GOP's Mitt Romney wing.
But what about the center-left, the "New Labour"/"New Democrat" phenomenon that once seemed to offer so much hope? Can it survive? More importantly, should it?
Political scientist Sheri Berman recently wrote an op-ed for the New York Times that made the case for Western Europe's failing social democrats. "Across Europe, social democratic or center-left parties are in decline," Professor Berman writes, adding:
"In elections this year in France and the Netherlands, the socialist and labor parties did so poorly that many question their future existence... Even if you don't support the left, this should be cause for concern. Social democratic parties were crucial to rebuilding democracy in Western Europe after 1945. They remain essential to democracy on the Continent today."
Professor Berman correctly diagnoses one aspect of what ails these parties, noting that center-left politicians like Britain's Tony Blair and Germany's Gerhard Schroder "celebrated the (free) market's upsides while ignoring its downsides."
It's worth lingering for a moment on those downsides: Economic inequality continued to skyrocket under Blair in Great Britain and Schroder in Germany, and Bill Clinton in the United States. The global economy was gravely damaged by the financial crisis of 2008, as Professor Berman notes, but that near-catastrophe wasn't caused by impersonal forces. It was the result of widespread banker fraud, made possible by the active collaboration of politicians from both parties.
The center-left rarely even chastised, much less prosecuted, bankers for their criminality in the runup to the economic crisis, whose devastation is still felt around the globe. Instead, it left them in charge of their institutions and in possession of their freedom and their ill-gotten gains.
When faced with the global economic disaster these bankers caused, Blair didn't name names. Instead he said things like this: "Look upon this crisis not as an occasion to regress in policy or attitude of mind; but as a chance to renew, as an opportunity to open a new chapter in humanity's progress to a better future for all."
The political program Professor Berman eulogizes didn't just fail to "offer a fundamental critique of capitalism." It provided capitalism's worst excesses with ideological cover. Instead of hewing to well-understood professions of left-leaning values like "equality," it offered cliches about "equality of opportunity" that were indistinguishable from those of its center-right opponents.
Worse, when confronted with the economic damage that bankers caused, the European center-left turned against its supposed constituency by bailing out the banks and imposing strict austerity measures on working people.
The U.K. Labour Party, like its European and American counterparts, became obsessed with proving its "fiscal responsibility" -- so much so that it was considered a major gaffe when party leader Ed Miliband failed to mention the deficit in an address. "No one should doubt our seriousness about tackling the deficit," he said by way of apology.
Democrats under Clinton and Obama shared the European center-left's deficit obsession, but were forced to back away from it somewhat under political pressure. European social democrats stuck to the austerity program and lost even more support than Democrats did from their core voters.
Then there's foreign policy. Blair misled his country into war in Iraq -- a deception which most Britons still find literally unforgivable, according to a 2016 poll -- while centrist Democrats largely voted to support it here in the United States. That hurt both parties. One study showed that Donald Trump, who cynically ran as an anti-war candidate, gained a statistically significant level of additional support from communities with high military casualties.
The study shows that, without those votes, the election might have gone the other way.
Professor Berman's characterization of left leaders like Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn and the movement they represent will be unrecognizable to anyone familiar with them.
Her characterization of them as "an anti-globalization far left," without defining that label, repeats a canard that's been articulated many times by figures like Blair and Clinton. In a 2009 speech, in the wake of the global financial crisis, Blair put it this way (in a speech that, oddly, recently disappeared from his foundation's website):
"There is a myth that globalization is the result of a policy driven by Governments; and can be altered or even reversed by Governments. It isn't. It is driven by people. Globalization is not just an economic fact. It is about the internet, its power to communicate, influence and shape a world whose frontiers are coming down. It's about mass travel, migration, modern media. It is not simply an economic fact; it is in part an attitude of mind. It is where young people choose to be."
Strip away the Soylent Green-esque language - "It's people! Globalization is people!" -- and this is nothing but airy-fairy gibberish. After all, who on the left is against migration, media, or some vaguely defined "attitude of mind"?
Barring an extraterrestrial electromagnetic pulse of unprecedented scale, the internet and modern media will carry on. The question Blair and his colleagues elide is this: The global trade deals they promoted have increased inequality, weakened labor rights, and ceded sovereign authority to an arbitration system that is heavily stacked in favor of the enormously wealthy.
People aren't against globalization as Blair defines it. They're against trade deals that hurt them economically in order to benefit powerful interests. The "globalization" the left opposes is something altogether different: the domination of multilateral decision-making by powerful financial interests. That's worth opposing.
Berman continues says the parties of the newly-risen left "generally offer an impractical mishmash of attacks on the wealthy, protectionism, increased welfare spending and high taxes." Impractical? Those "attacks on the wealthy" and "high taxes" propose taxation rates that fall well below 1950s and 1960s-era levels.
Their "protectionism" would replace bad trade deals with better ones. These leaders are, if anything, overly conciliatory toward the "deficit" crowd, because they insist on offering "pay-fors" for their increased welfare spending.
"These policies may appeal to the angry and frustrated," Berman writes, "but they turn off voters looking for viable policy and a progressive, rather than utopian, view of the future." Leaving aside the question of viability, I would like to see some numbers to support that claim. There is growing support for bigger government and an improved social safety net in the US, while Corbyn's proposals poll very well in Britain.
As for "the angry and frustrated" -- yes, voters are both of those things. Why shouldn't they be? For too long, the center-left ignored their needs in order to pursue the notion that government could be run by insiders from both parties, through that quiet process of back-room negotiation known as "bipartisanship." Kenan Malik, also writing in the New York Times, accurately characterized the British and European center-left of recent decades:
"With the dismantling of the postwar political system has gone, too, the old division between social democracy and conservatism. The new fault line -- not just in British politics but throughout Europe -- is between an elite, technocratic managerialism, governing through structures that often bypass democratic processes, and a growing mass of people who feel alienated and politically voiceless."
The same could be said of its counterpart in the United States. The consensus rule of political insiders across the globe, from center-left to center-right, has not responded to voters' needs or wishes. As a result, it is falling. That's not tragedy; it's democracy. Europe's center-left became complacent and complicit: complacent in its power, and complicit in its relationship to corporate power.
Professor Berman worries that, without, "populism will flourish and democracy will decay." But the left's populism is answering the unmet needs of people in Western Europe and the United States. That's not decay; it's progress.
"Our nation's public schools, colleges, and universities are preparing the next generation of America's leaders—we must take steps to strengthen education in this country, not take a wrecking ball to the agency that exists to do so."
In a letter to U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon on Monday, Sen. Bernie Sanders led more than three dozen of his Democratic colleagues in dismissing the Trump administration's "false claims of financial savings" from slashing more than 1,000 jobs at the Education Department, emphasizing that the wealthy people leading federal policy "will not be harmed by these egregious attacks" on public schools.
"Wealthy families sending their children to elite, private schools will still be able to get a quality education even if every public school disappears in this country," reads the letter spearheaded by Sanders (I-Vt.), the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. "But for working-class families, high-quality public education is an opportunity they rely on for their children to have a path to do well in life."
The decision by President Donald Trump and his unelected billionaire ally, Elon Musk of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency( DOGE), to slash the Department of Education (DOE) workforce by 50%—or 1,300 people—and take steps to illegally close the agency has already had an impact on students, noted the senators, pointing to a glitch in the Free Application for Federal Financial Aid (FAFSA) that preventing families from accessing the applications "not even 24 hours after the staff reductions were announced."
"The staff normally responsible for fixing those errors had reportedly been cut," reads the letter, which was also signed by lawmakers including Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
"Without the Department of Education, there is no guarantee that states would uphold students' civil and educational rights."
The letter was sent as The Associated Press reported that cuts within the DOE's Office of Civil Rights have placed new barriers in front of families with children who have disabilities. Families who can't afford to take legal action against schools or districts that are not providing accommodations or services for students with disabilities have long been able to rely on on the office to open an investigation into their cases, but the AP reported that "more than 20,000 pending cases—including those related to kids with disabilities, historically the largest share of the office's work—largely sat idle for weeks after Trump took office."
"A freeze on processing the cases was lifted early this month, but advocates question whether the department can make progress on them with a smaller staff," reported the outlet.
The reduction in force has been compounded by the fact that the remaining staff has been directed to prioritize antisemitism cases, as the Trump administration places significant attention on allegations that pro-Palestinian organizers, particularly on college campuses, have endangered Jewish students by speaking out in favor of Palestinian rights and against Israel's U.S.-backed assault on Gaza and the West Bank.
An analysis of more than 550 campus protests found that 97% of the demonstrations last year remained non-violent, contrary to repeated claims by both Republican and Democratic lawmakers that they placed Jewish students in danger. Meanwhile, the Trump administration, pro-Israel advocates, and Republicans have dismissed outcry over Musk's display of a Nazi salute at an inaugural event in January.
"Special needs kids [are] now suffering because of a manufactured hysteria aimed [at] silencing dissent against genocide," said writer and political analyst Yousef Munayyer. "Utter depravity."
In their letter, Sanders and his Democratic colleagues noted that "several regional offices responsible for investigating potential violations of students' civil rights in local schools" have also been shuttered, expressing alarm that many cases will likely "go uninvestigated and that students will be left in unsafe learning environments as a result."
They noted that at a time of "massive income and wealth inequality, when 60% of people live paycheck to paycheck," the federal government's defunding of public education "would result in either higher property taxes or decreased funding for public schools, including in rural areas."
"It is a national disgrace that the Trump administration is attempting to illegally abolish the Department of Education and thus, undermine a high-quality education for our students," wrote the lawmakers. "These reductions will have devastating impacts on our nation's students and we are deeply concerned that without staff, the department will be unable to fulfill critical functions, such as ensuring students can access federal financial aid, upholding students' civil rights, and guaranteeing that federal funding reaches communities promptly and is well-spent."
Trump, they noted, has expressed a desire "to return education back to the states" despite the fact that state governments and local school boards already make education policy, with just 11% of public education funding coming from the DOE.
However, "the Department of Education has a necessary and irreplaceable responsibility to implement federal laws that ensure equal opportunity for all children in this country," they wrote. "These laws guarantee fundamental protections, such as ensuring that children with disabilities receive a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment, that students from low-income backgrounds and students of color will not be disproportionately taught by less experienced and qualified teachers, and that parents will receive information about their child's academic achievement."
"Without the Department of Education, there is no guarantee that states would uphold students' civil and educational rights," said the lawmakers. "We will not stand by as you attempt to turn back the clock on education in this country through gutting the Department of Education. Our nation's public schools, colleges, and universities are preparing the next generation of America's leaders—we must take steps to strengthen education in this country, not take a wrecking ball to the agency that exists to do so."
"Any potential deal that would give Elon Musk and his DOGE associates unilateral authority to manipulate the most critical, expansive national mail network on the planet is deeply troubling," wrote a group of House Democrats.
A group of House Democrats is demanding that the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform conduct a public hearing on the Trump administration and the so-called Department of Government Efficiency's plans for the U.S. Postal Service, in light of recent reporting that U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy says he signed an agreement with DOGE to assist the nation's mail service "in identifying and achieving further efficiencies."
The news follows Washington Post coverage from February, when the outlet reported that U.S. President Donald Trump is considering putting the Postal Service under the control of the Commerce Department. In December, the Post also reported that Trump was eyeing privatizing the Postal Service. Elon Musk, a GOP megadonor who is playing a core role in Trump's efforts to slash federal spending and personnel, has also said the Postal Service should be privatized.
Postal workers unions are fiercely opposed to any effort to privatize the Postal Service.
"The Trump administration... is now subjecting the USPS, America's most trusted federal institution, to the chainsaw approach of Elon Musk and DOGE. This broad assault on the independence of the USPS demands congressional oversight, especially from the committee with jurisdiction over the USPS," according to the letter, which was signed by 20 House Democrats.
In a March 13 letter to congressional leaders, U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told Congress he signed an agreement with representatives from Elon Musk's DOGE and the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) so that DOGE could help the U.S. Postal Service, which has experienced billions in financial losses in recent years, work to address "big problems."
The Postal Service plans to cut 10,000 employees in the next 30 days through a voluntary early retirement program, according to DeJoy's letter.
DeJoy cited challenges facing the Postal Service, such as "mismanagement of our self-funded retirement assets," "burdensome regulatory requirements restricting normal business practice," and "unfunded mandates imposed on us by legislation."
The letter demanding a public hearing, which was addressed to House Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), was spearheaded by Oversight Committee Ranking Member Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), and Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.)
"This backroom agreement between the billionaire-led DOGE and Postmaster DeJoy sets off alarm bells about this administration's plans for the Postal Service's role as a cornerstone public institution," according to the letter. "The Postal Service facilitates the delivery of more than 115 billion pieces of mail each year, a significant portion of which is delivered to rural, low-income, and hard-to-reach areas that would not otherwise receive service if not for the universal service obligation, which has received bipartisan support in Congress and is integral to the mission of Postal Service."
"We agree that there are steps Congress could take to strengthen the financial sustainability of the Postal Service, but any potential deal that would give Elon Musk and his DOGE associates unilateral authority to manipulate the most critical, expansive national mail network on the planet is deeply troubling," they continued.
The group is urging that the committee hold a hearing and wrote that they have prepared a letter to send to DeJoy asking that he furnish any signed agreements he made with the GSA and DOGE. The group is urging that Comer also sign on to that letter.
"We already have a good voting system and it's not broken, so it doesn't need to be fixed," said the Utah advocacy director for Mormon Women for Ethical Government.
Utah has the unusual distinction of being a deep-red state where voters enjoy automatic by-mail voting, but that will likely change in the next few years, in part thanks to the influence of conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation.
The state is poised to codify legislation that would get rid of the practice of automatically mailing ballots to all active, registered voters. The GOP-controlled legislature recently passed a bill that will phase out the state's current automatic by-mail voting system by 2029 and also requires voters to list the last four digits of their state identification number with their return envelope beginning in 2026, according to the Utah News Dispatch. Those who opt in to voting by mail and include their state ID information will still be able to vote by mail.
The bill is a scaled back version of an earlier proposal that would have "drastically restricted voting by mail and required most Utahns to return their ballots in person at either a polling place or a drop box manned by at least two poll workers while showing their government-issued ID," per the Utah News Dispatch.
Utah Republican Gov. Spencer Cox is expected to sign the legislation, The Washington Post reported Monday.
"We already have a good voting system and it's not broken, so it doesn't need to be fixed," Melarie Wheat, the Utah advocacy director for Mormon Women for Ethical Government, told the Post. "There are going to be people who are expecting their vote-by-mail ballot and are not going to get it, who are going to say, 'Well, it's just not worth it and I don't have time to go in at this point and vote in person.'"
Chris Diaz, director of legislative tracking for the Voting Rights Lab, told the outlet that "there's never been a state that did this, in taking that step backwards after adopting universal mail voting."
In 2012, Utah began allowing counties to run elections entirely by mail if they chose to do so, according to the outlet Bolts. Eventually, by 2018, about 90% of Utah voters cast ballots by mail, and in 2020 the state changed the default voting method for registered voters to vote by mail by automatically mailing a ballot to them (while still providing in-person voting options).
Researchers at Brigham Young University found that the shift to vote by mail led to a dramatic increase in voter participation in municipal elections.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that mail-in voting leads to fraud—despite having used the system himself in Florida. Research has found that incidences of fraud with mail-in ballots are exceedingly rare—and a recent legislative audit of Utah's election system failed to find "significant fraud."
State Rep. Jefferson Burton (R-64), the lawmaker who championed the bill, conceded to Bolts that the audit had not found widespread fraud in the state and that vote-by-mail has had a positive impact on turnout.
According to the outlet, when speaking about the bill Burton cited a scorecard maintained by the Heritage Foundation, the right-wing think tank that published the far-right policy blueprint Project 2025. The Election Integrity Scorecard gives Utah a relatively poor ranking—53 out of 100. Utah gets poor marks for its "absentee ballot management" and for currently not requiring a photo ID or a unique identifier when participating in vote by mail, among other criteria.
"As [the] Utah House GOP championed a bill to effectively end vote by mail, I kept hearing one organization repeatedly cited: The Heritage Foundation," wrote Emily Anderson Stern, a reporter for The Salt Lake Tribune, wrote on Bluesky.
"While pushing for an end to Utah's universal vote-by-mail election system, state lawmakers—including House Speaker Mike Schultz—have repeatedly relied on the Heritage Foundation's policy perspectives, referencing them in public debate, interviews, promotional materials, and social media posts," according to reporting published by Anderson Stern last week.