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On “The TMI Show,” hosts Ted Rall and Manila Chan mourn the death of Pope Francis, a profound loss that has reverberated globally, intensifying calls for peace in conflict zones like Ukraine. The pontiff, known for his humility and advocacy for the marginalized, leaves a legacy of interfaith dialogue and environmental stewardship through Laudato Si’. His passing, at age 88, has prompted tributes from world leaders, with millions reflecting on his message of compassion.

Francis’ final days were marked by appeals for non-violence, notably in Ukraine, where he urged reconciliation. His absence now challenges global leaders to honor his vision for a more just world, as vigils and memorial masses unfold from St. Peter’s Square to Buenos Aires.

Shifting to Ukraine, Rall and Chan dissect the fragile Russia-Ukraine cease-fire talks, clouded by ongoing violence. The Kremlin’s Easter truce, announced for April 19-20, was undermined by air raid alerts, with Zelenskyy reporting thousands of violations. A U.S.-brokered partial cease-fire on energy infrastructure, agreed in March, falters as both sides trade accusations. Trump’s minerals deal with Kyiv fuels Moscow’s ire, while Russian drone strikes in Kyiv and a Palm Sunday bombardment in Donetsk crush peace hopes. With Russian offensives surging in Kursk and Zelenskyy seeking European aid amid Trump’s tariff threats, the hosts probe Putin’s motives behind pausing energy strikes and whether Trump’s April 20 deadline is a bluff. Rall and Chan’s sharp analysis unravels this diplomatic chess game, where civilian lives hang in the balance. Stream The TMI Show 24/7 for unfiltered truth—don’t miss this critical episode!

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The remarkable story of Pope Francis and his politics is in my book: “Francis, The People’s Pope.” He will be hard to replace:

Order here:
https://a.co/d/9kmQuZ3

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Harvard University dropped a bombshell, becoming the first major institution to defy Donald Trump! The former president demanded Harvard ditch diversity programs, ban protest masks, and enforce merit-only hiring, threatening to yank billions in funding. He also pushed for viewpoint audits to curb what he calls leftist bias, aiming to reshape the Ivy League icon. Harvard said no way, refusing to bend to what they call unlawful overreach. This move risks over $2 billion in frozen grants, sparking a showdown that could inspire others to resist. Will Harvard gamble big and win, or will Trump pressure crush the academic giant? The battle for control is heating up fast!

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From Gulf of America to mass expulsion of “illegals” (people of color) to continuing genocidal complicity in Gaza to whatever the daily news brings us... welcome to Trump America! Welcome to the small-minded white nation so many long for, free once again from those large, inconvenient values—e.g., the Declaration of Independence—that keep disrupting the way things are supposed to be.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal...”

Cone on! In Trump America, those words were never meant to be taken literally. They create a sense of what I call empathic sanity, which has led to, for instance, the civil rights movement. But as President Donald Trump understands, empathic sanity can’t compete politically with hatred and fear—the creation of some good solid enemies—especially when mainstream Democrats, in their desperation for financial backing, are more than willing to shrug and minimize their values in the name of compromise.

If all people are created equal, my God, that pushes the limits of today’s world beyond the awareness of most legal bureaucracies, not to mention beyond the actions of most governments.

Trump, on the other hand, snorts at compromise, at least publicly, and pushes the agenda that works politically. He’ll do so even in defiance, for instance, of the Supreme Court, which recently demanded the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from the hellhole prison in El Salvador to which he was sent without trial, without charges, without any chance to plead innocence. Garcia is a legal U.S. resident (father of three children who are U.S. citizens, husband of a U.S. citizen) and didn’t commit a crime, but he was snatched by ICE agents out of the blue and sent to a foreign prison. Team Trump has ignored the court’s demand for Garcia’s return, declaring that his deportation was an act of “foreign policy”—which they can conduct free of oversight.

This is all about clearing the country of enemies: of non-whites. Call them terrorists, call them criminals—dehumanize them—and then deport them. In Trump America, this is foreign policy. Millions of Americans are now in fear of deportation—for expressing the wrong political opinion (stop bombing Gaza), for simply being the wrong color.

And as Thom Hartmann pointed out, Trump is planning to up the ante. His team could start going after “you and me”—U.S. citizens who simply annoy him politically. Hartmann quotes Trump, in conversation with El Salvador’s authoritarian president, Nayib Bukele: “Home grown criminals. Home growns are next.”

And he adds, referring to the prison where Garcia was sent (the U.S. pays El Salvador for its use as a human dumping ground): “You gotta build about five more places. It’s not big enough.”

Trump as a looming Hitler? Yes, I’m sure that’s part of the current state of America, but in the present moment the primary issue is the full-on return of racism. As Clarence Lusane writes in The Nation:

There is a straight line from the 2017 “unite the right” rallies in Charlottesville to the far-right-led “Stop the Steal” movement to lies about Haitians eating cats and dogs to Donald Trump’s first day in office upon his return to power. No president in the post-civil-rights era has been as racially aggressive as the now-47th president.

Trump, Lusane notes, is the nation’s “white nationalist in chief.” His actions three months into his second term range from renaming the Gulf of Mexico (what was it again... Gulf of Some Country a Little Further North) to “re-renaming” military bases after Confederate generals to shutting down all DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) programs to stopping “the expanding population of Black, Latino, and Asian people in the United States.”

Indeed, Lusane writes: “The second coming of Trump will be one long slog through the bowels of racial animus and juvenile reprisals. Permanent resistance is the way forward.”

Permanent resistance is certainly necessary, but as I think about what this means, I return to the concept of empathic sanity—that is to say, valuing all of humanity and working to create a world that works for everybody. There’s more to this than simply “opposing Trump”—fighting, you know, our enemy. It’s also a matter of honoring and acting in sync with large, complex values.

What might this mean? Here’s one example, from Jewish Voice for Peace, regarding a rally a number of organizations held recently—on Passover—in New York City. Common Dreams quotes the organization’s social media post about it:

We are outside Federal Plaza to say: Stop arming Israel. End Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Free political prisoners held by ICE. Stop the attacks on immigrants, trans people, and students.

They chanted for peace in all directions: “None of Us Are Free Until All of Us Are Free.”

Jewish Voice for Peace organizer Jay Saper, whose great uncle had been at Auschwitz, put it this way:

This Passover, the Jewish festival of liberation, we cannot celebrate as usual while Palestinians in Gaza face famine and the U.S.-backed Israeli government uses starvation as a weapon of war.

The Seder ritual cannot be theoretical: It calls us to strengthen our commitment to the liberation of the Palestinian people. We commend the courageous students and all people of conscience raising their voices in dissent to Israel’s genocide in Gaza and call for the immediate release of Mahmoud Khalil and all political prisoners.

“The Seder ritual cannot be theoretical”: That hits the heart of it. No real values are theoretical. If all people are created equal, my God, that pushes the limits of today’s world beyond the awareness of most legal bureaucracies, not to mention beyond the actions of most governments. This is not a simplistic cry. It forces us to grope for understanding that lies well beyond the borders we have set for ourselves.

Hassan’s life was not always confined to a single room. But when he became a refugee, he didn’t just lose his home, he lost his freedom and independence.

Hassan is a young refugee man from Sudan with a physical disability that requires him to use a wheelchair. Before the war in Sudan forced him to flee to Egypt, he lived in an accessible home, which allowed him to move around independently. Now, he is trapped without a wheelchair on the fourth floor of a building with no elevator. His apartment is completely inaccessible, forcing him to spend 24 hours a day in bed.

I learned about Hassan’s journey on a call I convened as part of my role leading the Disability Inclusion and Accessibility Program at the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), a global legal aid and advocacy nonprofit. Our work to ensure that forcibly displaced people with disabilities have equal access to pathways to safety and lasting refuge has never been easy, but since U.S. President Donald Trump took office, it has become nearly impossible. This population is under attack for being refugees, people with disabilities, and beneficiaries of U.S. foreign aid.

“He thinks if only the president knows what he is going through, and that all his resettlement expenses will be taken care of by volunteer sponsors in the U.S., he will change his mind.”

The sheer volume of anti-immigrant policies enacted by the Trump administration risks obscuring the harm each one inflicts on real people. The executive orders issued by the new U.S. administration since January 20 have been devastating for many, but especially for refugees with disabilities and their families. It has also been a loss for the local communities ready to welcome them.

During my meeting with Hassan, I met some of the generous families in Ohio who had come together to support Hassan and his family. When they learned about the Welcome Corps, the private sponsorship program which allows Americans to directly support refugees, the families worked day and night to meet all the requirements to sponsor Hassan’s resettlement to the United States.

“Since then, Hassan has been focused solely on how living in the U.S. will change his life. Without a job and unable to leave his home, he has been spending all of his days following the progress of his sponsors. But the complete ban of the refugee admissions program destroyed all his dreams. It was like a tornado demolishing all we had built with just a few words,” one of Hassan’s sponsors told me.

Hassan is just one of millions of people with disabilities forcibly displaced around the world. While the United Nations doesn’t collect data on the exact number of refugees with disabilities, estimates suggest there may be nearly 18 million people with disabilities in need of resettlement. With the end of programs like the Welcome Corps and the cuts to U.S. foreign aid, their already shaky support system has all but collapsed, leaving refugees with disabilities and their families with zero support.

I have learned in my career as a refugee rights advocate and disability inclusion activist that refugees with disabilities are the last group to be included and the first to be excluded. When challenges arise, refugees with disabilities are on the frontlines.

In nearly every refugee-hosting country, refugees with disabilities are denied access to the services available for citizens. Many of them cannot even obtain disability certificates. As a result, refugees with disabilities and their families solely rely on humanitarian assistance provided by the United Nations or NGOs to access medical support, rehabilitation, assistive devices, and many other needs: a tiny stream of support which is now almost dry with significant cuts to U.S. foreign assistance funds.

It is extremely hard to meet the resettlement eligibility criteria set forth by the U.N. and many destination countries. Having a medical need that can’t be met locally can be a factor in being considered for resettlement, but many refugees with disabilities do not have the information and resources necessary to request this consideration. Those who can access this process often get rejected, and even for those who are accepted, the refugee process is long and complicated. This can mean years, sometimes decades, without life-saving healthcare, accessible homes, or any education or growth opportunities.

That is why innovative programs like the Welcome Corps were a beacon of hope for many refugees with disabilities who were left out of the U.N.-based resettlement. And now, Trump’s refugee ban is pushing them back into a situation where even the inadequate support they used to receive has been demolished due to the foreign aid cuts. Even though federal judges have blocked the government from further implementing the refugee ban and the cuts to USAID, the government has done little to comply with the orders.

The dire situation of people like Hassan requires the Trump administration to take immediate meaningful steps to resume the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. Such a resumption would be consistent with recent federal court orders and congressional intent. Funding for humanitarian and refugee assistance programs, in particular disability inclusion funding, must also be immediately restored. Those advocating for refugee rights also need to prioritize finding solutions for refugees with disabilities and include their voices in their advocacy.

Hassan’s sponsor told me: “I don’t know how to respond when Hassan asks me about the future. He wishes to speak to the president himself to explain his situation. He thinks if only the president knows what he is going through, and that all his resettlement expenses will be taken care of by volunteer sponsors in the U.S., he will change his mind. Hassan wants the president and the American people to know that when given the opportunity in a more accessible environment, refugees with disabilities can flourish and fulfill their potential.”

I couldn’t say it better myself.

As the mother of a childhood cancer survivor from a coastal Alabama cluster, I reflect on the 15th anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster with anger and frustration at the countless lives needlessly destroyed by the spill and its “cleanup.” But more than anything, I am afraid… I am afraid because the same chemicals that wrought havoc on Gulf communities aren’t being disposed of—they are being rebranded to be reused.

During my seven years of assisting cleanup workers at a Miami-based law firm and Government Accountability Project, I saw the stuff of medical nightmares manifest in real life as I came face-to-face with an innocuously named monster: Corexit. Corexit is a chemical oil dispersant that was used liberally in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster to break up oil slicks into smaller droplets that can be submerged underwater. While Corexit was once described as being “as safe as dish soap” by a BP executive, the final chapter of its use in the Deepwater Horizon disaster was not to be told via feel-good commercials of freshly cleaned ducklings. It is still being written by outsiders documenting the broken lives of the men and women who can no longer speak for themselves after volunteering to clean the Gulf.

Many of the men and women who volunteered to clean the Gulf, a body of water that bound together their communities, jobs, and very way of life, died in the months and years after exposure to Corexit, often from serious diseases including blood and pancreatic cancers—silencing their voices long before justice could be served. I personally knew dozens who were exposed and subsequently left the Earth far too soon.

The corporate shell game of rebranding these toxic chemicals under new names must not distract us from the fundamental truth that these dispersants should never be used again in our waters.

I still think about Captain Bill, who came to us when Stage 4 colon cancer appeared after running a supply boat to the sinking Deepwater Horizon rig. He did not believe all the hype from environmentalists about the dangers of dispersants until he got crop-dusted with them. He developed softball sized cysts all over his body filled with bacteria and was left with just months to live. He left behind a wife and three children, including a young son with autism.

I remember Sandra, a woman who always exuded joy during the 20 years I’d known her. Her job for BP required her to hop on and off oil-contaminated boats; she tragically developed a rare myeloproliferative disorder that ended her life at age 60. She left behind a husband who missed her so profoundly that he lasted only a few months without her.

Corexit has been proven to have deadly side effects within humans, but that won’t stop corporate greed from slapping a new label on it and sending it to a different country. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was in the process of finalizing new rules and regulations governing the usage of oil dispersants. Right before the rules were set to be finalized, the manufacturer of Corexit abruptly discontinued its product line which constituted over 45% of globally stockpiled dispersants. This was likely not coincidental; the new EPA rules require manufacturers to truthfully report known or anticipated harm to human health and wildlife from their products. Corexit’s parent company chose to withdraw from the U.S. market while re-registering the same toxic products in the United Kingdom and Brazil in 2024, with France also considering approval.

People and communities were falsely reassured about the safety of the working conditions, as BP told workers personal protective gear was unnecessary when dealing with the chemicals. Now, with the risks and threats of exposure known, the protective gear could have saved hundreds of lives and communities from devastation.

Fifteen years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the legacy of Corexit dispersants continues to manifest in the broken bodies and shattered lives of those who were exposed, including those who spoke out to save future generations. The corporate shell game of rebranding these toxic chemicals under new names must not distract us from the fundamental truth that these dispersants should never be used again in our waters. The time has come to close this dark chapter in our history and commit to solutions that truly protect both our coasts and the people who call them home.

Across the country, cannabis users today will celebrate 4/20, a day synonymous with the plant's consumption and a symbol of its growing acceptance.

But for thousands of people still incarcerated for cannabis-related offenses, 4/20 is not a day of celebration; it’s a reminder of an unjust system that has yet to make amends.

The legal landscape around cannabis has evolved dramatically. Forty-one states now have some form of legal cannabis. Cannabis companies are going public on Wall Street, dispensaries are opening in high-end shopping districts, and tax revenues from legal sales are funding schools and infrastructure.

Nevertheless, tens of thousands of people remain imprisoned for the very substance that is now a billion-dollar industry. Millions of individuals are also still coping with the life-long burden of having a cannabis conviction on their record.

This is a moral and economic outrage that demands an immediate solution.

President Donal Trump and his administration have a chance to go further than President Joe Biden ever did on cannabis by pardoning every individual imprisoned for cannabis at the federal level.

That’s not as unlikely as some might think.

On the campaign trail, Trump said he was starting to “agree a lot more” that individuals should not be criminalized for cannabis when it’s being legalized across the country. He even posted, “I believe it is time to end needless arrests and incarcerations of adults for small amounts of marijuana for personal use.”

In his first term, President Trump commuted the sentences of 16 people and pardoned 6 individuals for cannabis offenses. He also championed the bipartisan sentencing reform bill, the First Step Act, which was designed to promote rehabilitation, lower recidivism, and reduce excessive sentences for certain federal drug offenses.

He’s not alone in his administration. J.D. Vance told Joe Rogan that his overall philosophy on marijuana and psychedelics is to “live and let live,” and reaffirmed that he feels people should not be criminalized over cannabis. Elon Musk, the de facto head of DOGE, famously smoked a blunt on Rogan’s podcast.

Clemency isn’t the only place where President Trump can go further than his predecessor. He could also significantly boost America's budding cannabis industry by rescheduling cannabis. This would both reduce tax burdens and help the United States tap into an industry projected to reach over $100 billion by 2030, while also easing the burden on law enforcement and the judicial system.

Rescheduling is also an opportunity for Trump to deliver for Black and Brown communities, who suffer the most from outdated cannabis policies and supported the president in record numbers in 2024. On average, Black individuals are more than three times more likely than white Americans to be arrested for cannabis despite similar consumption rates. President Trump can help right an injustice that has gone on far too long.

Both granting clemency for people convicted of cannabis-related crimes and rescheduling cannabis would be immensely popular decisions for President Trump. A YouGov poll found that 70 percent of Americans support clearing criminal records for past non-violent marijuana-related convictions. According to an American Civil Liberties Union poll, 84% of registered voters support the release of people serving time for crimes that are no longer considered illegal.

Only one in 10 Americans believe marijuana should not be legal at all, according to the Pew Research Center.

The time for incremental change is over. The cannabis industry is booming, generating billions in revenue and creating jobs. Yet, thousands remain imprisoned for actions that are now considered perfectly legal.

This is a moral and economic outrage that demands an immediate solution. President Trump has a penchant for bold action and the power to turn 4/20 into a day for real celebration through cannabis clemency and rescheduling.

He should seize this moment and right the wrongs that every president this century has kicked down the road.

Followers of the Small Is Beautiful school of environmentalism (to which I subscribe) often critique globalization and advocate localism. The controversial new Trump tariffs seem purpose-made to choke off global trade and promote American domestic manufacturing. Am I thrilled?

Let’s unpack the goals and tactics of both eco-localism and the Trump tariffs and see where there’s congruence, and where there’s contradiction.

Where the Eco-localists Are Coming From

Trade makes many folks materially better off by enabling a local abundance of resources or skills to be shared across a wider area. However, increased trade often worsens economic inequality and depletes and pollutes the environment faster than would otherwise happen. Therefore, eco-localists see trade as a mixed benefit whose unintended negative impacts must be carefully managed.

Globalization of trade raises the stakes of both benefits and risks. On the risk side of the leger, taken to the extreme, it leads to a world in which everything is for sale, all resources are depleted, pollution is everywhere, labor is exploited to the maximum degree, and everything is owned by a tiny number of super-rich investors and entrepreneurs.

The scope of globalization that’s happened in the last few decades is unequaled in human history (the spread of the Roman Empire is one of several smaller-scale precursors). Corporations and banks delivered the technology and capital; trade agreements like NAFTA and trade partnerships like the E.U. contributed the legal framework; and fossil fuels provided abundant, concentrated, storable energy for manufacturing and transport. The result is an integrated global market in which a single product, such as a smartphone, may incorporate design elements from skilled workers in the U.S.; raw materials from 20 countries; and assembly by poorly paid workers in China, Vietnam, or India. The phone can then be sold in scores of nations. The intended benefit is that billions of people get to use a technology that, by its very nature, requires global supply chains, internationally shared technological expertise, and stable rules of economic cooperation and investment. The unintended side effects are that a few people become unimaginably rich while nature is poisoned and people’s mental, physical, and social health deteriorates.

Within the deteriorating circumstances of a world seemingly on the verge of environmental ruin and global conflict, eco-localist strategies are looking more and more sensible.

The winners of the globalization game include a growing global billionaire class and a fast-growing middle class in China, India, and other manufacturing hubs. Middle-class consumers around the world win by getting cheap goods. Corporations and investors reap a windfall.

However, society and nature are losers when globalization worsens inequality while speeding up depletion and pollution. Global economic inequality declined during some decades of the 20th century, but it did so mainly because of the Great Depression and two World Wars. Otherwise, the last century saw a relentlessly widening gap between rich and poor—a trend that has accelerated in the past two decades, not just in the U.S., but in China, India, and elsewhere. Indigenous cultures in less-industrialized nations are hardest hit, as globalization uproots people from traditional village life, thrusting them into cities and factories. Meanwhile, forests disappear, carbon accumulates in the atmosphere, wild creatures vanish, and floods and fires devastate more communities.

The United States, the country that invented consumerism, in part to deal with a glut of production, used to be the world’s manufacturing powerhouse. But, with cheaper labor available in Asia and the “productivity” gains from automation and other technologies, the U.S. has instead become the top global consumer, a center of global finance, the primary military superpower, and the trendsetting conductor of international rules of commerce. The share of U.S. jobs in manufacturing has declined by 35% since the 1970s. And that decline has created political and social problems including political polarization, which in turn is undermining democracy in the U.S. and other countries.

Eco-localists argue that globalization is authoritarian by nature: Increasingly, multinational corporations rule the world. Individuals and communities are powerless by comparison.

Eco-localists make the following recommendations to governments and communities:

• Incentivize cooperative, worker-owned businesses;
• Promote the meeting of human needs through non-market means—i.e., the sharing economy;
• Focus on the well-being of people and nature instead of simply aiming to grow GDP;
• Tax the rich and provide more economic security (including education and healthcare) for lower-income people;
• Re-localize production by regulating big corporations so that smaller, local producers and sellers can remain competitive; and
• Strengthen the rights of communities (including the rights of nature) and the fabric of democracy.

Where the Tariff Terrorists Are Coming From

The Trump tariffs are an unfolding story that changes daily. The goals of this astonishing set of new, constantly shifting trade policies are somewhat unclear, as statements by the president and other officials are sometimes contradictory. U.S. President Donald Trump himself has a longstanding fascination with tariffs, which he sees as coercive tools for achieving various international ends, not all of them economic.

Trump often laments the fact that America runs a trade deficit with many nations. In Trump’s mind, any trade deficit is a loss, and he wants America to win. Here is Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, speaking on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday, April 6:

We’ve got to start to protect ourselves... and we’ve got to stop having all the countries of the world ripping us off. We have a $1.2 trillion trade deficit, and the rest of the world has a surplus with us. They’re earning our money. They’re taking our money, and Donald Trump has seen this, and he’s going to stop it.

Still, trade rebalancing doesn’t seem to be Trump’s only aim. Tariffs could be used either as a weapon to extort concessions from other nations, or as a durable source of income for the government and a way to restructure trade over the long haul, favoring U.S. domestic manufacturers. Trump has cited both purposes. But they are fundamentally incompatible: If successfully used as a bargaining chip, then tariffs will be negotiated away and therefore will provide no long-term income to the government. If they are meant to be held in place to provide long-term income (Trump has even mooted the notion of replacing income taxes with tariffs), then there’s nothing to negotiate. As a side note, there’s one other possible motivation: Tariffs—with carve-outs to specific businesses, industries, or countries—have historically been used as a tool for corruption.

After the announcement of dramatically high tariffs on all nations on April 2 (dubbed “liberation day” by the administration in an Orwellian turn), the U.S. bond market immediately saw a dramatic sell-off, causing the interest rate the government pays on its debt to soar. Trump relented, delaying most tariffs for 90 days while leaving a 10% tariff in place on all nations except China, which he targeted with a 145% tariff. China has responded with its own 125% tariff on all U.S. imports. China has also cut off exports of strategic raw materials. It seems that the trade war Trump has initiated is almost entirely directed toward Beijing; much lower tariffs on other countries could conceivably be used to coerce those countries to stop doing business with China.

A possible outcome would be the commercial isolation of China and the end of its rise as a global superpower capable of eclipsing the U.S. However, if this is indeed Trump’s goal, his strategy seems to ignore the fact that China already has a broad sphere of influence, including trade alliances with Brazil, India, Russia, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates (i.e., the BRICs countries). Further, engineering a clash between the U.S. and its European allies on one side and BRICs nations on the other might not end well, given the fact that Trump has already torched his country’s leadership of the Western alliance through his authoritarian posturing, his undermining of NATO, and his threatening of friendly nations with enormous tariffs. We’re already seeing the European Union negotiating with China to lower trade barriers to Chinese electric vehicles. Prospects for driving a wedge between Asian nations and China might be even worse.

Trump’s strategy does have its cheerleaders. Here’s influencer Ken Rutkowski’s breathless paean:

[Tariffs represent]... a new economic philosophy that restructures the global trade system, repositions the American worker at the core of the system, and challenges the 30 years of offshoring conventions. [They are] a decades-in-the-making strategy to restore industrial self-reliance, real wage growth, and economic security. The new playbook views tariffs as versatile tools. This regime sees them not only as revenue generators but also as negotiation triggers and economic equalizers. Protection? Yes. Leverage? Absolutely. Alignment? Finally. From Wall Street to Main Street. The endgame? A more balanced global economy where America consumes less and produces more, while China consumes more and exports less. It’s a forced rebalancing—one tariff at a time.

Trump’s tariffs are often said to benefit U.S. workers in the long run. Yet this ostensible objective seems contradicted by the administration’s fascination with AI—which, according to Bill Gates, will eliminate all but three kinds of jobs. Further, our supposed worker-centric future is being designed by billionaires, whose interests rarely coincide with those of workers.

If the Trump tariff goal is a world dominated by America, it’s an America that is itself dominated by super-wealthy elites, an America that is no longer a fully functioning democracy, an America with no checks or balances on executive power, an America with no law that its top officials are required to obey, and an America where noncitizens and potentially citizens as well can be whisked off the streets without warning and deported to foreign prisons. New York Congressman Ritchie Torres summed up the situation well:

If a superpower were intent on engineering its own decline, it would antagonize its allies, paralyze its economy with the certainty of uncertainty, erode confidence in the world’s reserve currency, discard due process, defund medical and scientific research, sabotage the most critical form of critical manufacturing—domestic chipmaking—and grow its deficit until debt service devours the largest share of its budget.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration, steeped in hostility toward environmental protection, will not use tariffs to avert environmental catastrophe. Not only has Trump abandoned the Paris climate agreement, but his domestic policies include promoting coal mining and oil drilling, softening pollution regulations, expanding logging on federal lands, and weakening if not killing the Endangered Species Act.

Is There Any Overlap? And What Direction Should We Embrace?

Tariffs could reduce global trade, which seemingly would align with eco-localists’ aims. Perhaps tariffs could be used to protect communities and livelihoods, and as a form of economic defense against globalization. However, eco-localists tend to see tariffs as a tool of last resort, one that often has nasty unintended consequences, such as increased international hostility and higher prices for essential goods. The word “tariff” rarely shows up in books on ecological economics. However, in Beyond Growth, pioneer ecological economist Herman Daly did discuss tariffs briefly:

Nearly all policies for sustainability involve internalizing external environmental and social costs at the national level. This makes prices higher. Therefore free trade with countries that do not internalize these costs, or do it to a much lesser extent, is not feasible. In such cases there is every reason for protective tariffs.

Tariffs, used protectively, could slow or even reverse globalization, providing time and wherewithal for societies to deal with the unintended side effects of recent decades of corporate-led trade expansion. However, this hinges on using tariffs explicitly and consistently to promote policies that reduce pollution, resource depletion, and unfair treatment of workers. There is nothing in the Trump team’s statements to suggest these are significant aims.

Many eco-localists advocate deliberately shrinking the industrial economy to reduce its impact on nature. Shrinking the U.S. economy is not Trump’s explicit goal, but it is an almost certain result of his tariff policies. Liberal and conservative analysts agree that trade barriers will, in David Frum’s words, “make U.S. goods more expensive to produce, costlier to buy, and inferior to the foreign competition.” But rather than reining in trade for the purpose of reducing pollution and exploitation of workers, Trump and his team seem to be intent on accelerating environmental degradation (fossil fuel products are exempt from U.S. tariffs) and increasing economic inequality by weakening government health and safety programs and doling out lavish tax cuts to the rich.

So, even though both eco-localists and Trump administration officials have at times promoted the use of tariffs, they propose using them for entirely different reasons, and, presumably, would achieve very different results. One group is concerned with protecting nature and minimizing economic inequality so that humans and other species can persist. For Trump and his team, the environment is irrelevant, and workers are chumps useful merely for gaining national power. Once achieved, that power can then be leveraged internationally through belligerent tariffs, with the goal of bludgeoning the entire world into submission.

The Trump team’s maximalist power grab is certain to provoke reactions. The world has been plunged into a trade war, but trade wars have a nasty tendency to turn into shooting wars. Within the deteriorating circumstances of a world seemingly on the verge of environmental ruin and global conflict, eco-localist strategies are looking more and more sensible. While there is no likelihood of their national adoption in the U.S. anytime soon, they are perhaps most applicable and effective at the community scale.

Indeed, this is the moment when eco-localism is most desperately needed. As soaring consumer prices, supply chain disruptions, and reductions in government-provided funding and services threaten communities, localists can help bolster local markets and inspire mutual aid efforts, helping mobilize folks to take more responsibility for their own collective resilience and well-being.

We’re LIVE 10 am Eastern time Saturday. But you can watch via Streaming Any Time!

Get ready for an intimate episode of “DMZ America” with political cartooning giants Ted Rall and Scott Stantis. Ted Rall, a fearless left-leaning cartoonist and author, has wielded his pen to challenge authority, sparking both praise and controversy. Scott Stantis, a razor-sharp conservative cartoonist, has drawn for The Chicago Tribune and created Prickly City, captivating audiences for decades. With a combined 90 years of experience, they offer a rare glimpse into the heart of political satire.

This episode dives deep as Rall and Stantis confess their exhaustion with politics, even with the endless material provided by the daily firehose from Trump. They share raw, unfiltered insights on the perilous state of editorial cartooning, threatened not just by authoritarianism but by shrinking newsrooms and AI’s rise. Expect lively banter, clashing perspectives, and their trademark humor as they wrestle with the question: can cartooning survive in today’s world? From their creative struggles to their enduring passion, this is an insider’s look at two masters navigating a fading art form.

Don’t miss this thrilling, candid conversation that’s equal parts frustration and inspiration. Will these legends rediscover their spark, or is political cartooning on its last legs?

The post DMZ America Podcast Ep 201: “Cartoonists Unplugged: Rall & Stantis on Politics Fatigue” appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

“Someday the wealthiest people, deprived of their ability to extract super-profits from developing countries, will turn their attention inward and gobble up the middle and working classes here in the U.S.”

So predicted my economics professor in 1962 at New York’s New School. These words were unbelievable to my 22-year-old ears. Picket fences were springing up all across America, accompanied by paid vacations, job security, and pensions. Expansion of our rights was the only vision on my horizon.

Riding a postwar economic boom, young people like myself were tearing down entry barriers to the middle class. Legal segregation was about to fall, women were gaining access to traditionally “male” jobs, and unions flourished. We enjoyed complete freedom of speech. No way could we be gobbled up.

Now every sector of public life is on the verge of privatization, with our hobbled Post Office the latest target. While not entirely new, this is an upleveling of the plunder.

“The independence movements exploding in Africa, in India, all over the world, will force the wealthiest Americans to seek the predatory profits they are used to at home,” my professor declared. “They will pauperize the U.S. working and middle classes.”

His words lingered, smoldering in the back of my mind. Could this ever come to pass in “the home of the free”? I knew about our blemished past, with its human slavery and genocide of Indigenous nations, yet still I held fast to our promise of democracy for all. The rule of law would never allow oligarchs to plunder our country the way we had plundered others.

In 1964, when the shockingly conservative Barry Goldwater became the Republican candidate for president, I wondered about the prediction. Could this be the moment we began to tumble? In the early morning hours I voted, praying (and I was not then a praying woman) that Lyndon Johnson, the Democratic incumbent, would prevail. He did in a landslide, winning 61.1% of the popular vote. “That was a trial balloon,” my professor said. “They haven’t gathered enough strength yet.”

Republicans went to work winning local elections, then state level. In 1980, when President Ronald Reagan broke the air controller’s strike, I worried again. And union strength—that hold-the-line power—did decline, but enough folks didn’t fold and we retained our democracy.

Yet today the government disappears people without due process; threatens to cut benefits for working people while installing tax cuts for the wealthy; and demands oversight of universities, our bastions of free thought. What is this but the super-profit power grab my professor predicted so long ago?

Republicans have already narrowed our rights—reproductive and voting—to erase 20th-century gains. They’ve gutted public programs, underfunding education and offering for-profit and nonprofit charter schools instead. Our highly efficient public Medicare program has had to compete with private plans for the last 28 years.

(I always understood that a government plan, without profit, would be more cost-effective. I did not know how much better its coverage was until I needed open-heart surgery and my cardiologist asked, “Do you have original Medicare or an Advantage plan? Oh good, original. I can get you right into the hospital. With Advantage it takes weeks.” The private plans, I learned, often deny prior authorization, knowing that only 11.7% of people reapply despite the vast majority of reapplications gaining approval. In my 20 years with traditional Medicare no physician-requested treatment has ever been denied.)

Now every sector of public life is on the verge of privatization, with our hobbled Post Office the latest target. While not entirely new, this is an upleveling of the plunder.

Our population has been shocked and awed, just as intended. Yet we are waking up to great effect, beginning to fight back: Witness the 5.2 million demonstrators in April 5 Hands Off protests. Hundreds of grassroots organizations, taking root in local communities, have been preparing for this moment.

The president of Harvard University, Dr. Alan Garber, has just added the strength of that venerable institution to those holding the line. “The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” he wrote, refusing a federal government demand for oversight. Other respected universities and colleges are rushing to support Harvard, even creating mutual defense pacts to support each other in case of government attack.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) Fighting Oligarchy tour is drawing massive, unprecedented crowds, like the 30,000 who lined up for three miles this week, awaiting a rally in conservative-leaning Folsom, California.

The tide is turning, with brave judges, educators, lawyers, courageous fired government whistleblowers, and countless others in every occupation stepping up.

Once more, people are holding the line. Once more, my old professor’s doomsday prophecy will not manifest. Not now. Not on our watch.

We’ve held off the Big Steal this long. We can do it again.

Unless you’ve lived in South Dakota—which Kristi Noem represented in Congress and later served as governor—there’s a good chance that if you recognize her name, it’s due to the video clip from inside a prison in El Salvador that featured the new secretary of Homeland Security in front of a cell full of shirtless, tattooed, shaven headed Venezuelan deportees that she denounces—while sporting a $50,000 Rolex watch. An immediate effect of which was to raise anew the question of why President Donald Trump had appointed her to a position for which she appeared to have little to no relevant experience.

Some attributed it to her exhibiting a superior level of sycophancy during last year’s vice-presidential speculation season. No, thought others, in such times fawners sprout like toadstools after a summer rain; surely there must be something special about this one. And now, a theory—involving America’s upcoming war with Denmark and Noem’s previous career PR highpoint—the story of how she had once shot her 14-month-old dog, out of frustration at her inability to train her.

For those who savor the surprises of the Trump years, the recently articulated hostility to Denmark has to rank as top tier. We can imagine that he himself was actually as amazed as the next American to learn that humongous Greenland is actually an autonomous territory of otherwise tiny Denmark. And, real estate being the president’s primary business interest, he has decided that the U.S. has greater need for the world’s largest island than Denmark does. Heads that take Trump seriously—as well as those that don’t—were set spinning alike by this newly enunciated national security priority. But as the now ubiquitous, but previously unfamiliar, north pole-centered maps clearly show—across the ever-shrinking Arctic ice pack from the U.S. lies… Russia!

Imagine, if you will, her standing there—in front of a pound filled with chained, baying, deported Great Danes—shotgun in hand, and Rolex on wrist.

The thing is, though, Trump doesn’t actually seem all that concerned about Russia as a security threat. During his February 28 Oval Office encounter with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he went so far as to tell him that “Putin went through a hell of a lot with me.” He’s even claimed that it was Ukraine that started the war with Russia. And the fact is that the secret potential war plans on which the Pentagon intended to brief Elon Musk—before public outcry put the kibosh on the idea—concerned China, not Russia. Which should make it pretty clear which nation is actually being ginned up as the “national security threat.”

Now, the fact is that Trump has never particularly been known for an expansive interest in or knowledge of geography that doesn’t hold some kind of business angle for him. Could it be, then, that he thinks Greenland would actually provide some kind of buffer against China? This all, of course, is speculative, but what we do know is that so far as the prospect of the U.S. taking possession of Greenland, Trump says he “thinks there’s a good possibility that we could do it without military force”—which should be quite reassuring to us all, although he cautioned that “I don’t take anything off the table.”

Hey, that’s what the man said, so let’s imagine what happens when the absurd gets serious. Some may recall that when France proved a tough sell on the endless War on Terror, announcing its intent to veto any United Nations resolution calling for invasion of Iraq, the U.S. House of Representatives responded by altering the menus of three congressional cafeterias—renaming French fries as “freedom fries.” (None will recall, however, when the U.S. entry into the First World War against Germany turned frankfurters into hot dogs.) So, if Denmark continues to balk at the presidential whim, we can no doubt look forward to ordering Cheese Americans to go with our coffee in the future.

But the ire directed at the willful little Scandinavian nation will not likely stop at the pastry shop. Which is what brings us back to the question of what Kristi Noem’s doing here. Well, the story she told about her dead dog was that she was “untrainable,” “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with,” “less than worthless … as a hunting dog.” “I hated that dog,” Noem said. The final straw came when she dropped in on some neighbors, let the dog escape her control, and it proceeded to kill the neighbors’ chickens. After paying for the chickens, she took the dog to a gravel pit and shot it. But that’s not all. She then realized that “another unpleasant job needed to be done,” and went back and got a goat her family had who was “nasty and mean,” prone to chasing and knocking down her kids. Oh, and he smelled bad—“disgusting, musky, rancid.” So she shot the goat too. Didn’t get the job done on her first shot though. Had to go back to the truck for a another shell to finish him off.

None of this story, you must understand, required any sort of hard-nosed investigative journalism to uncover. It comes from a book that Noem herself wrote: No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward, an autobiography—her second—written when she was preening for the vice-presidential nod. She recounted the bizarre anecdote, she says, as an example of her willingness to do “difficult, messy, and ugly” things when they just had to be done. As we know, she didn’t ultimately land the nomination. Some suspect it was because it took her two shots to get the goat. Who knows, but Trump did ultimately decide he wanted her around.

Should the president’s Greenland-Denmark obsession continue to meander on, the campaign against Danish aggression surely won’t stop at the breakfast counter. And it’s when we start to envision additional targets that the potential Kristi Noem role in all this starts to take shape. The most obvious display of this alien roadblock to American national security? It’s the dogs, of course—Great Danes being pretty much the Greenland of dog breeds. The threat that canines of that size—in the service of an enemy power—would pose to America’s most vulnerable citizens—our children—is too obvious to require discussion.

Who—then—better qualified to conduct a national anti-Great Dane campaign than Noem? Imagine, if you will, her standing there—in front of a pound filled with chained, baying, deported Great Danes—shotgun in hand, and Rolex on wrist. Could there be a more powerful image of the nation’s determination in a life and death struggle with Denmark—and if need be against Europe itself? And should any Great Dane think to resist arrest, well, we know that Noem is one government bureaucrat whose bark is not worse than her bite.

Far fetched, you say? Scoff you may, but remember what else you used to consider far fetched until not so long ago. I know that if I had a Great Dane, I’d be thinking about lifestyle alternatives for the dog—perhaps even getting a saddle and trying to pass it off as an Icelandic pony. And I’d get real nervous if I heard that Noem was in town.

As of late, she’s been called ICE Barbie for her appearance at deportation raids. The future? Kristi Noem: Bane of Great Danes? As we are well aware, crazier things have already happened.

Dear President Trump:

We are Harvard Law students who have read the lengthy and comprehensive list of demands on our Harvard University by your staff. They are assuredly designed to turn this institution of higher education, older than the U.S.A., into a fiefdom under your iron rule. As modest students of medieval history, we see that your demands provide a status for the peasants – the students, the vassals – the faculty, but no one for the role of the Lord of the Manor.

It is obvious that you want to become the LORD OF THE MANOR. We have a proposal. There is no more exalted status at Harvard than that of the law professors. They are the best and brightest law professors in the land; if you doubt that, just ask them. They are specialists in knowledge of the law. However, they are not specialists in the seriously destabilizing arena of lawlessness.

Quite candidly, we believe and can document that you are the world’s expert on lawlessness – its range, depth, rewards and modes of escape from accountability. For some unfathomable reason, you have been far too modest about your unparalleled knowledge in this fast-expanding area of immune business and political activity. We make this claim after reading your statements – about twenty of them – where you explicitly declare your superior knowledge over all in such subjects as “trade,” “technology,” “drones,” “construction,” “devaluation,” “banks,” – “renewables,” “polls” and even “the power of Facebook.” (See the book, “Wrecking America: How Trump’s Lawbreaking and Lies Betray All” by Mark Green and Ralph Nader, 2020).

Missing from your expansive proclamations of expertise is the subject of LAWLESSNESS. Having engaged in over 3000 lawsuits and having been sued under tort law and indicted under criminal law, you have demonstrated an escapist skill that even seasoned attorneys find breathtaking. No sheriff has ever caught you. Only one prosecutor has ever convicted you. E. Jean Carroll won two civil tort cases with damages that are still on appeal.

One of your remarkable tactics is interminable stalling of the legal process. Another is how you can personally and continually attack in public, with tough language, the judges and other judicial personnel with complete impunity. As we know from our studies, such vituperative language in the United Kingdom would have landed you in contempt of court and a jail term.

Now, therefore, here is our proposal to fill the position of LORD OF THE MANOR, without impinging on your Day Job as president of the United States. With your permission, we will approach our Dean and request that he appoint you as a VISITING FULL PROFESSOR OF LAW CONDUCTING THE FIRST AND ONLY COURSE IN LAWLESSNESS – its nature, function and strategies of escape from the long arm of the rule of law. It would be the largest class in Harvard Law School history, overflowing our largest auditorium, AUSTIN HALL.

YOU would provide, effortlessly from your extraordinary memory, empirical information never before revealed and analyzed.

Your self-awareness is exceptional, having said in 2019 – “With Article II, I can do whatever I want as President,” and having openly wished that you could be King. To understand the rule of law better, it is necessary to understand the outlaws. This is especially true for you, Mr. President because you once declared, “I know more about courts than any human being on earth.”

Going deeper, you are eminently qualified to lecture us on regions of lawlessness abroad and how you think one should try to establish peaceful and law-abiding governance. The Middle East comes to mind. By enlisting the law school’s reservoir of scholarship on these conflicts you could establish yourself as a Nobel-Prize worthy implementor of a profound peaceful PRO-SEMITISM between Arab and Jewish Semites. Just envision your going to Norway to receive the coveted Award that your detractors could never believe was remotely possible.

We anticipate your affirmative response and understand fully if a condition of your acceptance is that the course be taught by Zoom from the Oval Office. Should you wish to have your lectures streamed to a wider audience, the Law School has all the requisite facilities.

Just your exalted title “Honorable visiting Professor of Law, Donald J. Trump” along with your presiding over the White House will anoint you as the LORD OF THE MANOR. You would be addressed by all members of the Harvard University community as “MY LIEGE.”

We look forward to hearing from you.

Very truly yours,
Harvard Law Students

Donald Trump promised that he would lower prices on day one of his new term in office. He also promised to end the war in Ukraine on his first day. Neither of those quite panned out. But it looks like he might accomplish something not on his list, he quickly ended the manufacturing boom he inherited from President Biden.

You may not know of this boom because it didn’t get much attention during the campaign. This was partly because it was in construction not employment.

Biden’s record on employment in manufacturing was pretty good given the reality of the pandemic, but it did not surge. His recovery package quickly brought back the 600,000 manufacturing jobs lost in the pandemic. We had gotten back those jobs by the spring of 2022. But then growth had trailed off and by the end of his term, manufacturing employment was only slightly higher than it had been at its pre-pandemic peak.

But factory construction tells a very different story. There was an unprecedented boom in factory construction in the Biden administration, as shown below.

Real construction more than doubled over the course of his administration. (These data are adjusted for inflation.) And this was all Biden’s doing. Construction of factories was edging downward under Trump, even before the pandemic.

It should not be a surprise that factory construction rose under Biden, this was by design. His three major bills on long-term spending, the infrastructure bill, the CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), were all designed to boost segments of manufacturing in the United States. Specifically, the goals were to increase production of high-end computer chips, electric vehicles, batteries, solar panels, and other items needed for a green transition.

And these bills worked to a remarkable extent. This boom in factory construction has not yet led to an employment boom in manufacturing, in part because factories are mostly still under construction. But we also are not likely to see a huge employment boom for the simple reason that productivity growth means that factories don’t employ as many people as they used to.

Even large factories tend to employ in the hundreds, not the thousands or occasionally tens of thousands in the factories of half a century ago. Many of the hundreds of people employed in these new factories will be getting good paying jobs, especially if they are union jobs, but it is hard to make much of a dent in a labor force of 160 million workers. The idea that we ever again see a large share of the workforce employed in manufacturing is an illusion that lives only in Donald Trump’s head.

But the good news on manufacturing is in the rear-view mirror. Thanks to Trump’s tariffs threats and his deliberate attacks on President Biden’s programs, it looks like manufacturing employment will be headed downward for the immediate future.

At this point in the administration, we have limited data, but there are a few things we can say with confidence. Factory construction in February was already down 1.4 percent from its October level. Factory construction doesn’t just stop on a dime. It can take two or three years to build a factory. This means factory construction is likely to stay relatively high through 2025, but the direction is clearly downward. Employment is also more likely to go down than up in the year ahead.

This is confirmed by a series of surveys of manufacturers across the country. The New York district Federal Reserve Bank survey of manufacturers found that its expectations index had fallen to a level that was lower than either the trough of the pandemic or the Great Recession. The Philadelphia Fed’s index also plunged, although not to the same extent. Noteworthy in this survey was a sharp decline in expected employment. The ISM nationwide survey of manufacturers also showed expectations of future employment falling sharply.

It seems Trump’s actual and threatened tariffs are the biggest factor here. Our manufacturing is thoroughly integrated with the rest of the world now. If companies have to pay high taxes on the material and components they import from our trading partners, it’s an increase in their costs. They will either have to pass this on in higher prices or eat in the form of lower profits. Either way, it is likely to dampen production.

The uncertainty on future tariff levels is even more harmful. Companies have little basis for deciding on expansion plans if they don’t know whether imports from major trading partners will be taxed at rates of over 100 percent or near zero, as was the case before Trump took office. The rational thing for managers to do in this situation is to delay investment until the picture becomes clearer.

We also know that spending on durable goods soared after Trump’s election, as people attempted to beat the tariffs. Durable goods consumption grew at a 12.4 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter of last year, driven entirely by purchases in November and December, following the election. This pretty much guarantees a slump this year, since people who bought a car in December will not buy another one this summer.

The overall picture for manufacturing does not look very bright right now, especially with Trump doing everything he can to undermine the spending and subsidies that are still to go out the door from the IRA, the infrastructure bill, and CHIPS act. Donald Trump may not be able to claim he ended the Ukraine war or lowered prices on his first day in office, but he does have a credible claim that he brought a quick end to the factory construction boom he inherited from Joe Biden.

How ironic: The most inefficient bureaucracy in government turns out to be Donald Trump’s “Department of Government Efficiency.”

That could be humorous, except that DOGE — a creature of the right-wing Project 2025 — has been devastating to millions of people. And it’s about to get worse. Elon Musk — the flighty überrich autocrat put in charge of “efficiency” by his buddy Trump — is now going after the Social Security deposits of 73 million senior citizens.

But wait, hasn’t Trump himself promised (loudly and often) that he would not ax this essential retirement program? Yes… but Elon is his “gotcha.”

Rather than an honest kill, Musk is strangling the program with bureaucratic red tape. Claiming to be cutting waste, he’s eliminating 7,000 people who administer the program, shouting, “Bureaucratic excess!”

Except, Social Security is actually a renowned model of government efficiency, spending less than 1 percent of its revenue on administration. So by whacking the people who do the work, Musk is actually whacking the people who are due to receive their earned benefits.

For example, he’s decreed that the public can no longer apply for benefits or resolve questions by phone. Instead, they must now travel in person to some distant Social Security office. But the staff there has also been decimated, so people who’ve come from afar are told to go back home and call for an appointment — a call that will often not be answered.

What’s at work here is a Musk-Trump ploy to wreck Social Security’s remarkable record of efficiency. Their intent is to make the service so bad that they can then let profiteering corporations privatize your retirement. Don’t let them.

By Ralph Nader April 18, 2025 Dear President Trump: We are Harvard Law students who have read the lengthy and comprehensive list of demands on our Harvard University by your staff. They are assuredly designed to turn this institution of higher education, older than the U.S.A., into a fiefdom under your iron rule. As modest…

Trump’s historic first 100 days are just around the corner. How is the U.S. doing? What are the global implications, including for climate and the environment, of Trump’s policies to create a “new world order” and “Make America Wealthy Again? In the interview that follows with independent French-Greek journalist Alexandra Boutri, political scientist/political economist, author and journalist C.J. Polychroniou argues that both the future of U.S. democracy and of humanity as a whole are at great risk because of an ignorant, self-serving autocrat at the helm of the world’s most powerful nation.

Alexandra Boutri: Trump’s first 100 days are nearing the end. What have we learned so far about Trump’s second term and his direction for the country?

C. J. Polychroniou: The first thing that ought to be said is that there are significant differences between Trump’s first and second terms. This time he has a much clearer agenda, largely thanks to Project 2025, and is better prepared to see it through to the end. The aim is to undo race and gender progress, restore white dominance, deregulate the economy and use whatever means are available to further enrich the super-rich, and use economic coercion to secure U.S. hegemony. It’s a thoroughly anti-democratic, blatantly neofascist vision that spells serious trouble for the future of democracy, especially given America’s fragile democratic convictions. Indeed, one of the most shocking things so far is the ease with which the country is heading toward a 21st century version of fascism under Trump’s second term.

One of the most shocking things so far is the ease with which the country is heading toward a 21st century version of fascism under Trump’s second term.

This disturbing development speaks volumes of the weaknesses of the U.S. labor movement as well as of the overwhelmingly apolitical nature of civil society. Where are the nationwide protests? The national strikes against the destruction of what is left of U.S. democracy? As for the eerie complacency of the Democrats, it is hardly surprising why there is such a huge loss of trust in the leadership of the Democratic Party.

Alexandra Boutri: Are we witnessing a revolution in the making?

C. J. Polychroniou: With regard to what Trump is doing to American society and its institutions, the right word is “counterrevolution.” Trump is carrying out a fascist destabilization of society in order to stop a progressive agenda, establish new forms of political legitimacy, and suppress, if not eliminate, threats from below. With regard to foreign affairs, he sees the world as a zero-sum game. But it would be naïve to think that what he is after are the interests of the average American citizen. Trump has nothing but contempt for working people. He is both after a world order and an economic regime at home that enriches corporations and the ultrawealthy at the expenses of the many.

Trump is carrying out a fascist destabilization of society in order to stop a progressive agenda, establish new forms of political legitimacy, and suppress, if not eliminate, threats from below.

Alexandra Boutri: Why is the Trump administration so keen in controlling education and taking over cultural institutions, such as the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts?

C. J. Polychroniou: Exerting power over education, taking control of cultural institutions and silencing the press are primary aims of every self-respecting authoritarian regime that wishes to take over civil society in order to transform a country’s political landscape and colonize the consciousness of its citizens. Mussolini did so in Italy; Hitler in Germany; Franco in Spain; and even the colonels of Greece. What Trump and the thugs surrounding him are doing are precisely just that: they are trying to suppress ideas they despise, silence dissent, and convert citizens into a nation of sheep. Fascist goals, fascist tactics. Pure and simple. And, sadly enough, he seems to be doing it with great ease as a huge portion of the American citizenry has already been turned into a nation of sheep. Now it's only up to that small but courageous community of American dissenters and radicals to stand up to the ignorant and stupid autocrat.

Alexandra Boutri: China is standing up to Trump’s bullying tariffs, but the same cannot be said about Europe. Why is that?

C. J. Polychroniou: You have here two entirely different situations. China is a single, unified country. The European Union (EU) is a group of 27 independent countries with different histories, cultures, languages, customs, and interests. These member states work together to promote peace, security and economic efficiency. But the EU lacks a unified military and a centralized fiscal authority. Moreover, Europe is more dependent on trade than either China or the U.S. And since the end of the Second World War, Europe’s defense is also too reliant on the U.S. It is thus hardly surprising that EU senior officials have been desperately trying since the start of Trump’s tariff actions to appear conciliatory and even willing to bend over backwards to appease America’s new King. They were forced to impose new tariffs on specific U.S. products in retaliation for Trump’s 25 percent tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. But don’t forget that Trump even rejected EU’s offer to drop tariffs. And, of course, the EU has now paused its countermeasures on U.S. trade tariffs as a response to the U.S. delaying by 90 days its so-called reciprocal tariffs.

China is not backing down because it can afford to do so. Its leadership knows that it can deal with the side effects of a trade war far more effectively--and less painfully--than the U.S. can. The extent to which Trump seems to understand the realities of the U.S.-trade relationship, let alone of the mechanisms that the Chinese government has at its disposal to deal with economic side effects, is highly questionable.

Indeed, it’s safe to say that a U.S. trade deal with Europe will eventually take place no matter what. Italy’s neo-fascist but politically savvy prime minister Giorgia Meloni may be able to secure an EU-U.S. trade deal in a fashion that no top EU official could, perhaps only because Trump is smitten with her. But what happens with China is anyone’s guess. There are both economic and geopolitical considerations behind Trump’s hostility towards China. And the Chinese no longer view their country as a semi-peripheral country in the global capitalist world. China’s global influence is growing, so its leaders are not going to be intimidated by Trump’s chicken game over tariffs.

Alexandra Boutri: One last question. How would Trump’s energy and deregulation policies impact the fight for climate change?

C. J. Polychroniou: When all is said and done, this is the most important issue of all facing the future of humanity. We have a planet on the precipice. I hate to sound pessimistic, but the odds are already stacked against us. Trump’s manic energy and deregulation policies, which come on top of a mania to deny climate change, will make the task of net-zero emissions by 2050 simply impossible to achieve.

We have a planet on the precipice. I hate to sound pessimistic, but the odds are already stacked against us.

I say this because Trump’s energy and deregulation policies will encourage other fossil-fuel hungry nations to continue with the further exploration and consumption of the poisons that are destroying the planet. In addition, and indicative of what’s happening on the ground with regard to the fight against global warming, a new study by the Political Economy Research Institute (PERI) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst reveals that “governments throughout the world continue to subsidize both the consumption and production of oil, coal, and natural gas.” Overall fossil fuel subsidies, for 2023, amounted to $1.1 trillion. Obviously, such a staggering amount in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry seems to indicate that governments across the world only have worries about short-termism and think very little about the future of humanity. But that’s what capitalism is all about, isn’t it?

People worry about generative artificial intelligence.

Some are afraid it will put them out of work. Others think AI could become too autonomous, like the drones programmed to select their own targets. It will almost certainly accelerate the spread and power of government surveillance. Deep fakes are already being used in efforts to impact public opinion in politics.

Add another reason to keep awake at night: AI could “unperson” you.

Under Stalin the Soviet Union disappeared not only anti-government dissidents but evidence that they had ever existed, famously airbrushing those who had fallen out of favor out of official photos. Retro-engineering history was the inspiration for Orwell’s main character in 1984, who toils at a government ministry in charge of rewriting the past. Eliminating an enemy of the state is one thing; ensuring that their ideas can never inspire anyone in the future by erasing them from history is especially sinister.

The Internet has replaced print newspapers as the first draft of history. Traditional web search engines like Google are increasingly powered by AI. Many people are currently using AI large language models like ChatGPT in lieu of Google. But ChatGPT is not trustworthy, and the problem isn’t merely its tendency to “hallucinate” things that aren’t true. Nor is ChatGPT’s parent company, OpenAI—because it’s abusing its power to unperson its enemies.

I know. I’m one of them.

Type my name into ChatGPT and it’ll respond like a confused robot in a 1960s sci-fi show that shouts “does not compute” as smoke pours out of its ears. “Tell me about Ted Rall” gets you “I’m unable to produce a response.” Try reverse-engineering a response by asking it who did something I did, like win a certain prize or write a particular book; it either lies or refuses to answer. It’s that determined not to admit that I exist.

What did I do to piss off Sam Altman or someone else at ChatGPT (I don’t know who, they won’t answer my emails)? I wrote a 2023 op-ed titled “ChatGPT Libeled Me. Can I Sue?” for The Wall Street Journal about how their AI lied about me. I hoped to get their attention so they’d fix the problem. Instead, they shipped me off to a cyber-gulag.

OpenAI won’t get back to me, so I asked Elon Musk’s generative AI app Grok if I might pay a price career-wise. It replied: “If ChatGPT, used by millions weekly (e.g., 300 million by 2024), refuses to acknowledge you, it could reduce your discoverability. New readers researching ‘Ted Rall’ via AI might find nothing, assuming you’re obscure or irrelevant, especially younger audiences (16–30) reliant on AI tools.”

However, a fellow cartoonist who still has access to ChatGPT (they blocked my account too) got into an interesting, albeit circuitous conversation with the bot over my situation, even as it refused to say my name: “You’re saying he wrote one article in a newspaper, criticized OpenAI, and that alone got him erased? If that’s the full story, that’s deeply troubling. Open societies, and even organizations that value innovation, should be able to handle criticism—especially from thoughtful people.”

My colleague asked to remain anonymous “so they don’t disappear me lol.”

OpenAI’s enemies list is growing. Writing in The Hill in December, George Washington University law professor and TV legal expert Jonathan Turley noted that he had joined “a small group of individuals who have been effectively disappeared by the AI system,” including Harvard Professor Jonathan Zittrain, CNBC anchorperson David Faber, Australian mayor Brian Hood and English professor David Mayer, now deceased yet still unpersoned. As with me, Turley’s banishment was apparently triggered by his writing that he had been defamed by ChatGPT. “The common thread [in these unpersonings] appears to be the false stories generated about us all by ChatGPT in the past,” Turley says. “The company appears to have corrected the problem not by erasing the error but erasing the individuals in question.”  Zittrain, however, wrote in The Atlantic that he has no idea why ChatGPT “appears to release a guillotine” after someone enters his name.

In Europe, privacy advocates achieved a legal “right to be forgotten,” deleting search results that are inaccurate and needlessly distressing, like news accounts of an arrest for a crime in which a suspect was later found innocent. Here in America, individuals need a right not to be disappeared from the public record at the whim of a capricious corporation that refuses to answer any questions. (I contacted OpenAI for comment about this piece. They didn’t reply.)

ChatGPT is projected to control one percent of the search market within this year. So I’ll still be discoverable 99% of the time. Still, this current sliver is growing fast. It seems to me that some higher authority—the government, what else?—ought to nip this novel form of censorship in the bud before it expands to full-fledged Orwellian dystopia.

(Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis and The TMI Show with political analyst Manila Chan. Subscribe: tedrall.Substack.com.)

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Harvard University is providing a lesson that most children learn in elementary school but many leaders of America’s most important institutions have forgotten: The only effective way to deal with a bully is to fight back.

Trump’s Pretext

Columbia University was the first target in U.S. President Donald Trump’s disingenuous crusade against antisemitism. Disingenuous because he claimed that the school’s failures caused Jewish students to feel unsafe. His supposed remedy—withholding $400 million in federal funds—is a non sequitur.

And it’s hypocritical. Did any of these Trump antisemitic episodes make Jewish students feel safer?

• He angrily defended his 2016 campaign Twitter post, “Crooked Hillary—Makes History.” It showed the image of a six-pointed star that included the tagline, “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever.” Evoking a longstanding historical smear against Judaism, dollar bills rained down in the background behind Clinton’s photo.

• He narrated a 2016 campaign ad saying, “The establishment has trillions of dollars at stake… For those who control the levers of power in Washington and for the global special interests—they partner with these people that don’t have your good in mind… that have bled our country dry.” As examples, the ad cut together video clips of billionaire George Soros, former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, and former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein—all of whom are Jewish.

• In August 2017, after counterprotesters in Charlottesville clashed with torch-wielding white nationalists and neo-Nazis chanting the Nazi-associated phrase “blood-and-soil” and “Jews will not replace us,” Trump said, “I think there is blame on both sides. You look at both sides… You also had some very fine people on both sides.”

• In October 2018, Trump hosted white nationalist and Holocaust-denier Nick Fuentes, who spews antisemitic rhetoric, at Mar-a-Lago. Performer Ye (formerly Kanye West), whose antisemitic comments resulted in his suspension from social media platforms, appeared with Trump at a press appearance in the Oval Office.

• And in February 2025, Trump praised as “brilliant” Vice President JD Vance’s Munich speech, which embraced Germany’s far-right political candidate.

“We’re really watching an attack on higher education under the guise of fighting antisemitism, but I cannot emphasize enough how much it will not actually protect Jewish students,” according to Erin Beiner, director of the student wing of J Street, a liberal Jewish-American lobbying group.

Trump’s Real Agenda

Trump’s attack on elite universities seeks to replace academic freedom of thought and speech with Trump-determined ideology and personal fealty to him. He’s working from a role model’s template.

In a February 2024 interview, Vice President JD Vance held out Hungary as an example to emulate: “The closest that conservatives have ever gotten to successfully dealing with left-wing domination of universities is Viktor Orbán’s approach in Hungary. I think his way has to be the model for us: not to eliminate universities, but to give them a choice between survival or taking a much less biased approach to teaching.”

But Orbán is not offering a “much less biased approach to teaching.” He is demanding instruction centered on his view of history and the world.

Conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who has championed Trump’s strategy of attacking America’s universities, observed that when Orbán assumed power in 2010, he wanted “to strengthen Hungary’s cultural foundations—family life, Christian faith, and historical memory—and to create a conservative elite capable of maintaining them.” His “starting point” was education:

• Orbán signed legislation effectively banning Central European University, a liberal-arts institution founded by the financier George Soros to help rebuild academic life after the fall of Communism;

• He closed gender and women’s studies departments at Hungarian universities;

• He took control of the budget of the Hungarian Academy of Science, which funds research institutes in history, literature, and science; and

• He put loyalists on boards that control public university oversight.

As Rufo explained, Orbán is “using muscular state policy to achieve conservative ends.”

Sound familiar?

Columbia Folded

Columbia rolled over on Trump’s demands, including a requirement that went to the heart of university governance and academic freedom: a review of the university’s department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African studies; the Center for Palestine Studies; and similar academic entities.

On March 23, after giving Trump everything he wanted, even Trump’s secretary of education believed that Columbia was “on the right track so that we can now move forward.” She was optimistic that the $400 million would be released soon.

Three weeks later Trump wanted more. With the $400 million still in limbo, the Department of Health and Human services froze another $250 million of funding from the National Institutes of Health.

Harvard Fought

When Trump made even more draconian demands on Harvard University, it said, “No”—even as Trump threatened to withhold $9 billion in federal funds. Seeking functional control of the university, Trump wanted:

• An outside auditor to ensure that each and every academic department is “viewpoint diverse”—which the Trump administration has not defined;

• Plagiarism checks on all current and prospective faculty members;

• All hiring data and subjecting it to federal government audit through at least 2028;

• All admissions data for admitted students and applicants, sorted by race, national origin, grade-point average, and performance on standardized tests, and subjecting it to federal government audit through at least 2028;

• Cessation of all programming related to diversity, equity, and inclusion; and

• Overhauling academic programs that the Trump administration says have “egregious records on antisemitism” and subjecting certain departments and programs to external audit, including the Divinity School, the Graduate School of Education, the School of Public Health, and the Medical School, among others.

Harvard’s President Alan M. Garber responded:

The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights…

No government—regardless of which party is in power—should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.

Hours later, Trump suspended $2.2 billion in federal multiyear grants to Harvard—an especially devastating blow to Harvard-affiliated hospitals. The next day, he threatened Harvard’s tax-exempt status, even though federal law prohibits the president from “directly or indirectly” telling the Internal Revenue Service to conduct specific tax investigations.

Harvard’s final outcome remains uncertain, but capitulation produces certain disaster.

Meanwhile, Harvard is showing the world how to beat a bully.

Has Big Tech gone full Orwell? Cartoonist Ted Rall says he’s been digitally ‘unpersoned’ by ChatGPT, seemingly for the crime of criticizing OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman. Go ahead, ask ChatGPT about Ted Rall—you’ll get nothing but silence. Suspicious, Rall dug deeper and uncovered a disturbing pattern: OpenAI appears to be systematically erasing critics from its AI’s responses, a move straight out of 1984’s playbook. This isn’t just about one cartoonist—it’s a glaring red flag for free speech. If a powerful company like OpenAI can quietly suppress dissent in its AI systems, what’s stopping Big Tech from controlling the narrative everywhere? Rall’s discovery raises tough questions: Can we trust tech giants to protect open discourse, or are they building a future where criticism vanishes into a digital void? As AI shapes our world, this chilling censorship tactic suggests we’re on a slippery slope—unless we demand answers now.

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