On March 8, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agents arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia University student and a prominent leader of pro-Palestinian protests on the university’s campus. They claimed that Khalil’s student visa had been revoked and, when told that he had a green card, said that too had been revoked.

While the full facts of the case are yet to emerge, there seems little doubt that Khalil was detained in retaliation for his activism. U.S. President Donald Trump has frequently and explicitly threatened to go after university protestors, including in his Executive Order on “Protecting the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats,” which I analyzed in an earlier post. Trump celebrated Khalil’s arrest on social media, warning that it was the first “of many to come.”

Some of the “many to come” will likely be identified via the State Department’s newly launched AI-enabled “Catch and Revoke” initiative, which will scrape social media to find “foreign nationals who appear to support Hamas or other designated terror groups” and cancel their visas. Like the executive order cited above, this effort is framed as an anti-terrorism measure. Instead, it is being used to terrorize foreigners and to dissuade people from participating in First Amendment-protected activity for fear that they too will be targeted in some way.

It is part of Trump’s broader effort to subdue all potential sources of opposition by attacking universities, the press, law firms, and jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with ICE.

Starting with the Obama administration, the federal government has built an extensive infrastructure for agencies to comb social media looking for certain types of speech. Even as civil society groups have raised concerns about how these programs could be used to target unpopular speech, they have continued to proliferate.

The State Department, for example, collects social media handles from certain types of visa applicants—some 14 million people a year—which are saved indefinitely in government databases. (The Brennan Center, where I work, and the Knight Institute have challenged this program in court.)

The second Trump administration is aiming to dramatically expand these efforts, collecting social media identifiers from an additional 33 million people, including those applying for permanent residence or adjustment of their immigration status. The first Trump administration’s attempt to do so was blocked in 2021 by the Biden White House’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs on the grounds that the government had not demonstrated “the practical utility of collecting this information.”

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) runs at least 12 overlapping programs that track what Americans say online, several of which are focused on protests. DHS used social media to track protests against the first Trump administration’s immigration policies. During the Biden administration, DHS scanned social media for other targets, such as Americans discussing abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and trucker convoys protesting Covid-19 mandates, as well as broadly monitoring online “narratives and grievances”—i.e., people talking politics.

Even as it adds more and more social media monitoring programs to its repertoire, the government has never shown that these efforts are effective. A February 2017 DHS Inspector General audit of six pilot programs found that the department had not even measured their effectiveness. And the few government evaluations that are publicly available undermine any governmental claims of efficacy. A brief prepared by DHS for the first Trump administration concluded that social media monitoring did not provide useful information for vetting refugees. And, according to a 2021 analysis by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, social media identifiers added “no value” to the immigration screening and vetting process.

Looking for unknown foreign protestors who may have made ostensibly pro-terrorist statements is much harder than vetting the posts of a known person, such as a visa applicant. It will undoubtedly sweep far too broadly and result in mistakes. The AI tools that will be deployed by the State Department likely will be tasked to search for specific words or phrases. The Trump administration has used these types of lists in its attempt to root out diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in the federal government, resulting in various blunders. In one instance, a federal employee who managed relations with private equity-held businesses was placed on administrative leave “pursuant to the president’s executive order on DEIA.” The Internal Revenue Service purged its employee manual of references to the “inequity” of holding on to taxpayer money longer than necessary and the “inclusion” of a taxpayer identification number on a form. The Defense Department flagged for deletion mentions of the World War II Enola Gay aircraft and references to people who have the last name “Gay.”

Even without mistakes, broad social media monitoring will have enormous First Amendment consequences. The types of speech that the administration has declared it intends to target is exceptionally broad. In defending his arrest, DHS said Khalil led activities “aligned” with Hamas, a term untethered to any law or regulation. Statements from Trump and his cabinet characterize foreigners who are in the administration’s crosshairs as “pro-Hamas” (most common), “pro-terrorist,” “terrorist sympathizers,” people who “support terrorism,” and “antisemitic.” These are broad and contested terms. Pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel sentiments have often been conflated with antisemitism or pro-terrorism, leaving a broad swath of people vulnerable to being caught in an AI-enabled social media net.

The Trump administration’s efforts ultimately may sweep even more broadly, seeking out speech that it views as anti-American. The vetting executive order instructed the Secretary of State to recommend measures for foreign nationals who call for the “overthrow or replacement of the culture on which our constitutional Republic stands.” In addition, the sole justification provided by the administration for acting against Khalil is a single line in the Notice to Appear in immigration court: “The Secretary of State has determined that your presence or activities in the United States would have serious adverse policy consequences for the foreign policy of the United States,” citing 237(A)(4)(c)(1) of the Immigration and Nationality Act.” As Adam Cox and Ahilan Arulanantham explained on Just Security, this provision cannot be read as a blank check for the administration to deport people based on an unarticulated foreign policy rationale. But if the administration wants to deport foreigners who take positions contrary to U.S. foreign policy, they will certainly find plenty of fodder on social media.

Khalil’s case and the Trump administration’s promise to go after foreign protestors for their social media posts is an extraordinary assertion of executive power over immigrants living in the United States. But it should not be viewed in isolation. It is part of Trump’s broader effort to subdue all potential sources of opposition by attacking universities, the press, law firms, and jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with ICE. All of these endanger the fundamental constitutional promise of a democratic society in which a multitude of views and interests can be freely expressed.

Say what you will about the president who is dismantling our democracy, but at least he says “thank you” once in a while.

Two weeks ago, after delivering a lengthy and divisive address to a Joint Session of Congress, President Donald Trump mingled with the crowd, shaking hands with his supporters. In a revealing moment, he patted Chief Justice John Roberts on the back and said, “Thank you. Thank you again. I won’t forget.”

Presumably President Trump was thanking Chief Justice Roberts for aiding his election victory and granting him unprecedented power, and not for some great tips on fixing his backswing. Either way, Justice Roberts appeared much obliged. After all, it’s nice to hear a “thank you” when you compromise your personal integrity and trample the Constitution to help a convicted felon win an election.

Structural court reform will be a necessary step to rebuilding our democracy.

Trump understands that he owes a debt of gratitude to Chief Justice Roberts and the Supreme Court. Yet, as we look to the courts to protect us from the Trump administration’s abuses, many have overlooked or forgotten how SCOTUS got us here in the first place. As people harmed by this flood of illegal actions turn to the courts for relief, we must be clear that the Supreme Court helped bring about this crisis by helping Donald Trump win the 2024 election. While the Supreme Court did not directly decide the election for Trump in the way it did for former President George W. Bush in 2000 with its decision in Bush v. Gore, the justices interfered with our elections, our politics, and our society in ways that certainly helped, and may have been decisive, to Trump’s win.

The People’s Parity Project Action released a new report, “The Supreme Court Helped Trump Win,” which examines the numerous forms of assistance the court gave to Trump, from the structural to the political. The court shielded Trump from prosecution for his attempt to steal the 2020 election. The justices prevented states from striking him from the ballot despite the 14th Amendment’s bar on insurrectionists holding office. They allowed unlimited money to flood our politics, permitting billionaires to buy the presidency. They gutted the Voting Rights Act and permitted racial and ethnic gerrymandering, which reduced competition, worsened extremism, and handed Republicans control of the House.

The court also obstructed the signature policy achievements of former President Joe Biden, including student debt relief, protections for transgender people, and immigration reform, leaving Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris with fewer successes to highlight in their campaigns. Over decades, the court weakened labor unions, harming working people’s economic and collective power and benefiting Republican candidates. The persistent threat that the court will strike down any progressive policies has created a sense of futility among voters and elected officials, reinforcing voters’ and potential voters’ belief that “both sides do nothing” and that traditional politicians will not enact meaningful change. This bolstered Trump's renegade, antihero image, making his promises to break everything and start anew more appealing.

As Trump and Musk barrel into Trump’s second term, they are defying laws and the Constitution at every turn. In just a month, they have attempted to end birthright citizenship; frozen federal spending and payments that were already appropriated; illegally accessed Americans’ private data; attempted to eliminate or stymie legislatively created agencies and fire officials in violation of the law; and launched assaults on Black people, immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, and people with disabilities.

Trump’s actions are so extreme and lawless that the Supreme Court will likely step in to curb some of them, such as the ruling this week to stop the Trump administration from illegally blocking $2 billion in funding to USAID. The USAID ruling, and any other SCOTUS attempts to rein in the would-be king, will not outweigh the court’s role in causing this crisis. It will not mean the court has become a brave defender of our most cherished principles. It will simply mean that some breaches are too blatant for even the justices to justify.

As we confront this daunting moment, we must be realistic and clearheaded. This is not the time for false heroes or misplaced faith in systems that have consistently failed the people. We cannot afford to fall into a collective Stockholm syndrome regarding the nation’s highest court, even if the justices do rein in some of Trump’s most extreme actions.

Structural court reform will be a necessary step to rebuilding our democracy. There are no shortcuts or silver bullets; systemic change will require a broad, long-lasting movement of Americans who claim a different vision for our country’s future. Although the idea of significant court reform and planning for the future—four, eight, or even twelve years out—may seem daunting, it is far less radical than what unfolds right before our eyes.

Alex Karp, the CEO of the controversial military tech firm Palantir, is the coauthor of a new book, The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West. In it, he calls for a renewed sense of national purpose and even greater cooperation between government and the tech sector. His book is, in fact, not just an account of how to spur technological innovation, but a distinctly ideological tract.

As a start, Karp roundly criticizes Silicon Valley’s focus on consumer-oriented products and events like video-sharing apps, online shopping, and social media platforms, which he dismisses as “the narrow and the trivial.” His focus instead is on what he likes to think of as innovative big-tech projects of greater social and political consequence. He argues, in fact, that Americans face “a moment of reckoning” in which we must decide “what is this country, and for what do we stand?” And in the process, he makes it all too clear just where he stands—in strong support of what can only be considered a new global technological arms race, fueled by close collaboration between government and industry, and designed to preserve America’s “fragile geopolitical advantage over our adversaries.”

Why not put our best technical minds to work creating affordable alternatives to fossil fuels, a public health system focused on the prevention of pandemics and other major outbreaks of disease, and an educational system that prepares students to be engaged citizens, not just cogs in an economic machine?

Karp believes that applying American technological expertise to building next-generation weapons systems is not just a but the genuine path to national salvation, and he advocates a revival of the concept of “the West” as foundational for future freedom and collective identity. As Sophie Hurwitz of Mother Jones noted recently, Karp summarized this view in a letter to Palantir shareholders in which he claimed that the rise of the West wasn’t due to “the superiority of its ideas or values or religion… but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.”

Count on one thing: Karp’s approach, if adopted, will yield billions of taxpayer dollars for Palantir and its militarized Silicon Valley cohorts in their search for AI weaponry that they see as the modern equivalent of nuclear weapons and the key to beating China, America’s current great power rival.

Militarism as a Unifying Force

Karp may be right that this country desperately needs a new national purpose, but his proposed solution is, to put it politely, dangerously misguided.

Ominously enough, one of his primary examples of a unifying initiative worth emulating is World War II’s Manhattan Project, which produced the first atomic bombs. He sees the building of those bombs as both a supreme technological achievement and a deep source of national pride, while conveniently ignoring their world-ending potential. And he proposes embarking on a comparable effort in the realm of emerging military technologies:

The United States and its allies abroad should without delay commit to launching a new Manhattan Project in order to retain exclusive control of the most sophisticated forms of AI for the battlefield—the targeting systems and swarms of drones and robots that will become the most powerful weapons of the century.

And here’s a question he simply skips: How exactly will the United States and its allies “retain exclusive control” of whatever sophisticated new military technologies they develop? After all, his call for an American AI buildup echoes the views expressed by opponents of the international control of nuclear technology in the wake of the devastating atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II—the futile belief that the United States could maintain a permanent advantage that would cement its role as the world’s dominant military power. Nearly 80 years later, we continue to live with an enormously costly nuclear arms race—nine countries now possess such weaponry—in which a devastating war has been avoided as much thanks to luck as design. Meanwhile, past predictions of permanent American nuclear superiority have proven to be wishful thinking. Similarly, there’s no reason to assume that predictions of permanent superiority in AI-driven weaponry will prove any more accurate or that our world will be any safer.

Technology Will Not Save Us

Karp’s views are in sync with his fellow Silicon Valley militarists, from Palantir founder Peter Thiel to Palmer Luckey of the up-and-coming military tech firm Anduril to America’s virtual co-president, SpaceX’s Elon Musk. All of them are convinced that, at some future moment, by supplanting old-school corporate weapons makers like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, they will usher in a golden age of American global primacy grounded in ever better technology. They see themselves as superior beings who can save this country and the world, if only the government—and ultimately, democracy itself—would get out of their way. Not surprisingly, their disdain for government does not extend to a refusal to accept billions and billions of dollars in federal contracts. Their anti-government ideology, of course, is part of what’s motivated Musk’s drive to try to dismantle significant parts of the federal government, allegedly in the name of “efficiency.”

An actual efficiency drive would involve a careful analysis of what works and what doesn’t, which programs are essential and which aren’t, not an across-the-board, sledgehammer approach of the kind recently used to destroy the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), to the detriment of millions of people around the world who depended on its programs for access to food, clean water, and healthcare, including measures to prevent the spread of HIV-AIDS. Internal agency memos released to the press earlier this month indicated that, absent USAID assistance, up to 166,000 children could die of malaria, 200,000 could be paralyzed with polio, and 1 million of them wouldn’t be treated for acute malnutrition. In addition to saving lives, USAID’s programs cast America’s image in the world in a far better light than does a narrow reliance on its sprawling military footprint and undue resort to threats of force as pillars of its foreign policy.

The most damning real-world example of the values Karp seeks to promote can be seen in his unwavering support for Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

As a military proposition, the idea that swarms of drones and robotic systems will prove to be the new “miracle weapons,” ensuring American global dominance, contradicts a long history of such claims. From the “electronic battlefield” in Vietnam to former President Ronald Reagan’s quest for an impenetrable “Star Wars” shield against nuclear missiles to the Gulf War’s “Revolution in Military Affairs” (centered on networked warfare and supposedly precision-guided munitions), expressions of faith in advanced technology as the way to win wars and bolster American power globally have been misplaced. Either the technology didn’t work as advertised; adversaries came up with cheap, effective countermeasures; or the wars being fought were decided by factors like morale and knowledge of the local culture and terrain, not technological marvels. And count on this: AI weaponry will fare no better than those past “miracles.”

First of all, there is no guarantee that weapons based on immensely complex software won’t suffer catastrophic failure in actual war conditions, with the added risk, as military analyst Michael Klare has pointed out, of starting unnecessary conflicts or causing unintended mass slaughter.

Second, Karp’s dream of “exclusive control” of such systems by the U.S. and its allies is just that—a dream. China, for instance, has ample resources and technical talent to join an AI arms race, with uncertain results in terms of the global balance of power or the likelihood of a disastrous U.S.-China conflict.

Third, despite Pentagon pledges that there will always be a “human being in the loop” in the use of AI-driven weaponry, the drive to wipe out enemy targets as quickly as possible will create enormous pressure to let the software, not human operators, make the decisions. As Biden administration Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall put it, “If you have a human in the loop, you will lose.”

Automated weapons will pose tremendous risks of greater civilian casualties and, because such conflicts could be waged without putting large numbers of military personnel at risk, may only increase the incentive to resort to war, regardless of the consequences for civilian populations.

What Should America Stand For?

Technology is one thing. What it’s used for, and why, is another matter. And Karp’s vision of its role seems deeply immoral. The most damning real-world example of the values Karp seeks to promote can be seen in his unwavering support for Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. Not only were Palantir’s systems used to accelerate the pace of the Israeli Defense Force’s murderous bombing campaign there, but Karp himself has been one of the most vocal supporters of the Israeli war effort. He went so far as to hold a Palantir board meeting in Israel just a few months into the Gaza war in an effort to goad other corporate leaders into publicly supporting Israel’s campaign of mass killing.

Are these really the values Americans want to embrace? And given his stance, is Karp in any position to lecture Americans on values and national priorities, much less how to defend them?

Despite the fact that his company is in the business of enabling devastating conflicts, his own twisted logic leads Karp to believe that Palantir and the military-tech sector are on the side of the angels. In May 2024, at the “AI Expo for National Competitiveness,” he said of the student-encampment movement for a cease-fire in Gaza, “The peace activists are war activists. We are the peace activists.”

Invasion of the Techno-Optimists

And, of course, Karp is anything but alone in promoting a new tech-driven arms race. Elon Musk, who has been empowered to take a sledgehammer to large parts of the U.S. government and vacuum up sensitive personal information about millions of Americans, is also a major supplier of military technology to the Pentagon. And Vice President JD Vance, Silicon Valley’s man in the White House, was employed, mentored, and financed by Palantir founder Peter Thiel before joining the Trump administration.

The grip of the military-tech sector on the Trump administration is virtually unprecedented in the annals of influence-peddling, beginning with Elon Musk’s investment of an unprecedented $277 million in support of electing Donald Trump and Republican candidates for Congress in 2024. His influence then carried over into the presidential transition period, when he was consulted about all manner of budgetary and organizational issues, while emerging tech gurus like Marc Andreessen of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz became involved in interviewing candidates for sensitive positions at the Pentagon. Today, the figure who is second-in-charge at the Pentagon, Stephen Feinberg of Cerberus Capital, has a long history of investing in military firms, including the emerging tech sector.

But by far the greatest form of influence is Musk’s wielding of the essentially self-created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to determine the fate of federal agencies, programs, and employees, despite the fact that he has neither been elected to any position, nor even confirmed by Congress, and that he now wields more power than all of Trump’s cabinet members combined.

As Alex Karp noted—no surprise here, of course—in a February 2025 call with Palantir investors, he’s a big fan of the DOGE, even if some people get hurt along the way:

We love disruption, and whatever’s good for America will be good for Americans and very good for Palantir. Disruption, at the end of the day, exposes things that aren’t working. There will be ups and downs. There’s a revolution. Some people are going to get their heads cut off. We’re expecting to see really unexpected things and to win.

Even as Musk disrupts and destroys civilian government agencies, some critics of Pentagon overspending hold out hope that at least he will put his budget-cutting skills to work on that bloated agency. But so far the plan there is simply to shift money within the department, not reduce its near-trillion-dollar top line. And if anything is trimmed, it’s likely to involve reductions in civilian personnel, not lower spending on developing and building weaponry, which is where firms like Palantir make their money. Musk’s harsh critique of existing systems like Lockheed’s F-35 jet fighter—which he described as “the worst military value for money in history”—is counterbalanced by his desire to get the Pentagon to spend far more on drones and other systems based on emerging (particularly AI) technologies.

Of course, any ideas about ditching older weapons systems will run up against fierce resistance in Congress, where jobs, revenues, campaign contributions, and armies of well-connected lobbyists create a firewall against reducing spending on existing programs, whether they have a useful role to play or not. And whatever DOGE suggests, Congress will have the last word. Key players like Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) have already revived the Reaganite slogan of “peace through strength” to push for an increase of—no, this is not a misprint!—$150 billion in the Pentagon’s already staggering budget over the next four years.

What Should Our National Purpose Be?

Karp and his Silicon Valley colleagues are proposing a world in which government-subsidized military technology restores American global dominance and gives us a sense of renewed national purpose. It is, in fact, a remarkably impoverished vision of what the United States should stand for at this moment in history when non-military challenges like disease, climate change, racial and economic injustice, resurgent authoritarianism, and growing neofascist movements pose greater dangers than traditional military threats.

Technology has its place, but why not put our best technical minds to work creating affordable alternatives to fossil fuels, a public health system focused on the prevention of pandemics and other major outbreaks of disease, and an educational system that prepares students to be engaged citizens, not just cogs in an economic machine?

Reaching such goals would require reforming or even transforming our democracy—or what’s left of it—so that the input of the public actually made far more of a difference, and leadership served the public interest, not its own economic interests. In addition, government policy would no longer be distorted to meet the emotional needs of narcissistic demagogues, or to satisfy the desires of delusional tech moguls.

By all means, let’s unite around a common purpose. But that purpose shouldn’t be a supposedly more efficient way to build killing machines in the service of an outmoded quest for global dominance. Karp’s dream of a “technological republic” armed with his AI weaponry would be one long nightmare for the rest of us.

Israel’s renewed assault on Gaza comes several months after both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch issued reports concluding without equivocation that Israel was engaged in genocide. But very few members of Congress dare to acknowledge that reality, while their silence and denials scream out complicity.

In a New York Times interview last weekend, the Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer put deep moral evasion on display. Among the “slogans” that are used when criticizing Israel, he said, “The one that bothers me the most is genocide. Genocide is described as a country or some group tries to wipe out a whole race of people, a whole nationality of people. So, if Israel was not provoked and just invaded Gaza and shot at random Palestinians, Gazans, that would be genocide. That’s not what happened.”

Schumer is wrong. The international Genocide Convention defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”—with such actions as killing, “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,” and “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.”

It would be untenable to publicly acknowledge the reality of Israeli genocide while continuing to support shipping more weaponry for the genocide.

Such actions by Israel have been accompanied by clear evidence of genocidal intent—underscored by hundreds of statements by Israeli leaders and policy shapers. Scarcely three months into the Israeli war on Gaza, scholars Raz Segal and Penny Green pointed out, a database compiled by the Law for Palestine human rights organization “meticulously documents and collates 500 statements that embody the Israeli state’s intention to commit genocide and incitement to genocide since October 7, 2023.”

Those statements “by people with command authority—state leaders, war cabinet ministers and senior army officers—and by other politicians, army officers, journalists and public figures reveal the widespread commitment in Israel to the genocidal destruction of Gaza.”

Since March 2, the United Nations reports, “Israeli authorities have halted the entry of all lifesaving supplies, including food, medicine, fuel and cooking gas, for 2.1 million people.” Now, Israel’s horrendous crusade to destroy Palestinian people in Gaza—using starvation as a weapon of war and inflicting massive bombardment on civilians—has resumed after a two-month ceasefire.

On Tuesday, children were among the more than 400 people killed by Israeli airstrikes, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proclaimed that “this is only the beginning.”

It’s almost impossible to find a Republican in Congress willing to criticize the pivotal U.S. backing for Israel’s methodical killing of civilians. It’s much easier to find GOP lawmakers who sound bloodthirsty.

A growing number of congressional Democrats—still way too few—have expressed opposition. In mid-November, 17 Senate Democrats and two independents voted against offensive arms sales to Israel. But in reality, precious few Democratic legislators really pushed to impede such weapons shipments until after last November’s election. Deference to President Biden was the norm as he actively enabled the genocide to continue.

This week, renewal of Israel’s systematic massacres of Palestinian civilians has hardly sparked a congressional outcry. Silence or platitudes have been the usual.

For “pro-Israel, pro-peace” J Street, the largest and most influential liberal Zionist organization in the United States, evasions have remained along with expressions of anguish. On Tuesday the group’s founder and president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, issued a statement decrying “the decision by Netanyahu to reignite this horrific war” and calling for use of “all possible leverage to pressure each side to restore the ceasefire.” But, as always, J Street did not call for the U.S. government to stop providing the weapons that make the horrific war possible.

This week, renewal of Israel’s systematic massacres of Palestinian civilians has hardly sparked a congressional outcry. Silence or platitudes have been the usual.

That’s where genocide denial comes in. For J Street, as for members of Congress who’ve kept voting to enable the carnage with the massive U.S.-to-Israel weapons pipeline, support for that pipeline requires pretending that genocide isn’t really happening.

While writing an article for The Nation (“Has J Street Gone Along With Genocide?”), I combed through 132 news releases from J Street between early October 2023 and the start of the now-broken ceasefire in late January of this year. I found that on the subject of whether Israel was committing genocide, J Street “aligned itself completely with the position of the U.S. and Israeli governments.”

J Street still maintains the position that it took last May, when the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to halt its military offensive in Rafah. “J Street continues to reject the allegation of genocide in this case,” a news release said.

It would be untenable to publicly acknowledge the reality of Israeli genocide while continuing to support shipping more weaponry for the genocide. That’s why those who claim to be “pro-peace” while supporting more weapons for war must deny the reality of genocide in Gaza.

The stereotype that youth-led climate initiatives are too risky to fund is outdated and, in fact, severely limits the opportunities for talented young entrepreneurs and activists. It stifles the very innovation needed to create a sustainable future. As we grapple with the pressing realities of the climate crisis, it is no longer a matter of whether we should support young leaders; it’s a matter of urgency. To succeed in addressing our environmental challenges, we need to tap into the energy, creativity, and bold leadership that young people bring to the table.

When I was just 16 years old, I submitted a climate research paper to the United Nations Development Program in Pakistan. Since then, I’ve had the privilege of working with global organizations, speaking on CNN about the devastating impact of climate change in my home country, and leading the transformation of a college club into a full-fledged nonprofit. These experiences have shown me firsthand how young people are not just passionate about environmental change—they are driving it.

Yet, despite their passion and fresh ideas, youth-led environmental action remains massively underfunded. Less than 1% of institutional climate funding currently goes toward young people. Many, like myself, have struggled to secure the necessary resources to bring our ideas to life. As the next generation holds the key to solving the climate crisis, failing to support these leaders only exacerbates the problem. The global climate crisis is urgent, and so is the need to empower young people with the funding, mentorship, and platforms they need.

We know time is running out to avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis. If we are to truly address it, we must fund and support young activists today.

I’ve seen this challenge play out in my own journey. As a student in London, I faced challenges from being a woman of color trying to secure funding and support for environmental initiatives. Back in Pakistan, while I’ve been able to push forward with awareness campaigns and advocacy, I’ve encountered plenty of hurdles—whether it’s dealing with politicians who don’t take me seriously or navigating security concerns because of my public activism. Despite these challenges, I remain convinced that the future of climate change solutions lies in the hands of young people—especially women.

Supporting youth-driven solutions is not just about giving young people opportunities—it’s about ensuring our movement is more inclusive, diverse, and effective. Young leaders have the ability to solve problems that older generations may not recognize. I founded the Climate Action Society at University College London, a project that eventually became an international nonprofit. The key to its success was understanding that leadership doesn’t come with age—it comes from a commitment to action and collaboration. The support we received, including recognition from the United Nations and the U.K. Government, was crucial in amplifying our impact.

One of many initiatives directly addressing the need to support youth-led climate solutions is The Iris Prize by The Iris Project, an international award that celebrates and funds young environmental stewards dedicated to catalyzing climate action in their communities. Fiscally hosted by the Global Fund for Children, The Iris Prize invites young people aged 16-24 who are actively protecting local ecosystems, restoring natural habitats, and driving community-based environmental efforts to showcase their innovative ideas and solutions for a sustainable future.

The awards aim to help close the funding gap by shining a light on the action young people are already taking to protect and restore nature, and the lives of those working to defend their environment. Beyond financial support, winners also receive climate communications training, organizational development training, and mentorship, equipping them with the resources they need to increase their impact and scale their projects.

The funds have supported a range of projects, such as revitalising ecosystems in Bolivia, training women in sustainable farming in Guatemala, and addressing pollution in Sierra Leone. These projects are having a real impact on communities, and supporting them through funding will go a long way in helping them scale that impact. At a time when global philanthropic funding has been cut, putting pressure on hundreds of organizations in the global South, funding grassroots initiatives is more important than ever.

As someone who has worked tirelessly in climate activism, I have seen how young people are already changing the world through their grassroots efforts. However, without the support of initiatives like The Iris Prize and others, many of these projects will struggle to scale and reach their full potential.

The global community must shift its mindset. If we are to make a real, lasting difference, we must embrace youth-led initiatives as central to our global strategy. The leaders of tomorrow are already here, working to solve the problems that older generations have failed to address. Now, it’s time to support them.

We know time is running out to avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis. If we are to truly address it, we must fund and support young activists today. The future depends on it. Through initiatives like The Iris Prize and others, we can ensure that youth-led solutions not only thrive but are scaled for maximum impact. Let’s give these innovators the funding and resources to make the change we desperately need.

My name is Mahmoud Khalil, and I am a political prisoner. I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana where I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law.

Who has the right to have rights? It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here. It isn’t the Senegalese man I met who has been deprived of his liberty for a year, his legal situation in limbo and his family an ocean away. It isn’t the 21-year-old detainee I met, who stepped foot in this country at age nine, only to be deported without so much as a hearing.

Justice escapes the contours of this nation’s immigration facilities.

If anything, my detention is a testament to the strength of the student movement in shifting public opinion toward Palestinian liberation.

On March 8, I was taken by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents who refused to provide a warrant, and accosted my wife and me as we returned from dinner. By now, the footage of that night has been made public. Before I knew what was happening, agents handcuffed and forced me into an unmarked car. At that moment, my only concern was for Noor’s safety. I had no idea if she would be taken too, since the agents had threatened to arrest her for not leaving my side. DHS would not tell me anything for hours—I did not know the cause of my arrest or if I was facing immediate deportation. At 26 Federal Plaza, I slept on the cold floor. In the early morning hours, agents transported me to another facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. There, I slept on the ground and was refused a blanket despite my request.

My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza, which resumed in full force Monday night. With January’s cease-fire now broken, parents in Gaza are once again cradling too-small shrouds, and families are forced to weigh starvation and displacement against bombs. It is our moral imperative to persist in the struggle for their complete freedom.

I was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria to a family which has been displaced from their land since the 1948 Nakba. I spent my youth in proximity to yet distant from my homeland. But being Palestinian is an experience that transcends borders. I see in my circumstances similarities to Israel’s use of administrative detention—imprisonment without trial or charge—to strip Palestinians of their rights. I think of our friend Omar Khatib, who was incarcerated without charge or trial by Israel as he returned home from travel. I think of Gaza hospital director and pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who was taken captive by the Israeli military on December 27 and remains in an Israeli torture camp today. For Palestinians, imprisonment without due process is commonplace.

I have always believed that my duty is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor, but also to liberate my oppressors from their hatred and fear. My unjust detention is indicative of the anti-Palestinian racism that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past 16 months as the U.S. has continued to supply Israel with weapons to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention. For decades, anti-Palestinian racism has driven efforts to expand U.S. laws and practices that are used to violently repress Palestinians, Arab Americans, and other communities. That is precisely why I am being targeted.

While I await legal decisions that hold the futures of my wife and child in the balance, those who enabled my targeting remain comfortably at Columbia University. Presidents Minouche Shafik, Katrina Armstrong, and Dean Keren Yarhi-Milo laid the groundwork for the U.S. government to target me by arbitrarily disciplining pro-Palestinian students and allowing viral doxing campaigns—based on racism and disinformation—to go unchecked.

Columbia targeted me for my activism, creating a new authoritarian disciplinary office to bypass due process and silence students criticizing Israel. Columbia surrendered to federal pressure by disclosing student records to Congress and yielding to the Trump administration’s latest threats. My arrest, the expulsion or suspension of at least 22 Columbia students—some stripped of their B.A. degrees just weeks before graduation—and the expulsion of Student Workers of Columbia President Grant Miner on the eve of contract negotiations, are clear examples.

If anything, my detention is a testament to the strength of the student movement in shifting public opinion toward Palestinian liberation. Students have long been at the forefront of change—leading the charge against the Vietnam War, standing on the frontlines of the Civil Rights Movement, and driving the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Today, too, even if the public has yet to fully grasp it, it is students who steer us toward truth and justice.

The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent. Visa holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs. In the weeks ahead, students, advocates, and elected officials must unite to defend the right to protest for Palestine. At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.

Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.

There was at least one heartwarming moment during President Donald Trump’s long-winded speech to Congress on March 4. Just before he announced that his administration is going to prioritize reducing childhood cancer (a plan that I debunked last week), Trump introduced Devarjaye “DJ” Daniel, a Black 13-year-old cancer survivor sitting with his father in the balcony. DJ, who dreams of becoming a police officer, was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2018 and given only five months to live. Since then, he has undergone 13 brain surgeries.

“A young man who truly loves our police,” said Trump. “…DJ has been sworn in as an honorary law-enforcement officer actually a number of times.” Trump then took DJ by complete surprise by making him an honorary member of the U.S. Secret Service.

On its face, it was a magnanimous gesture. One could only feel for DJ, who has gone through so much. A closer look, however, reveals that the tribute Trump paid to DJ masks at least two hypocritical realities.

Just how serious is Trump about getting toxins out of the environment? If his first administration is any indication, not at all.

First—and most obvious—Trump betrayed the police officers who defended the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. As soon as he was sworn in on January 20 he pardoned or commuted the sentences of nearly all of the 1,600 convicted insurrectionists who violently stormed the U.S. Capitol, including hundreds who were guilty of assaulting police. He also ordered the Justice Department to dismiss all pending cases.

Second, Trump’s new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator just closed the agency’s environmental justice offices, wants to slash its budget by at least 65%, and has targeted more than two dozen rules and policies for elimination, putting people like DJ at greater risk.

Houston Area Residents Are Exposed to Multiple Carcinogens

How did DJ get cancer? “DJ’s doctors believe DJ’s cancer likely came from a chemical he was exposed to when he was younger,” Trump explained. He then linked DJ’s plight to the increase in childhood cancer rates over the last 50 years and pledged to make reversing that trend “one of the top priorities” of his administration’s “make America healthy again” initiative. “Our goal is to get toxins out of our environment,” he said, “poisons out of our food supply, and keep our children healthy and strong.”

If so, the Trump administration could start with cleaning up DJ’s home town of Houston, which ranks sixth on the list of the top 10 U.S. hotspots with the worst fine-particle air pollution, according to a March 2023 analysis by The Guardian. Like the other nine places on the list, Houston metro neighborhoods with a high percentage of Black and Latino residents have the most contaminated air because they are “fenceline communities” next door to polluting facilities. As one of the researchers who conducted the analysis told The Guardian, “What we’re seeing here is segregation. You have segregation of people and segregation of pollution.”

DJ lives in Pearland, a suburb that sits on the border of Harris and Brazoria counties, 14 miles south of downtown Houston. Although Pearland is not a fenceline community, it is only 10 to 20 miles from some of the dirtiest petrochemical plants in the metro area, and air pollution does not stop at political boundaries.

Based on federal data from 2011 to 2015, The Guardian analysis did not identify the companies most responsible for Houston’s foul air, but subsequent studies based on more recent data did.

Ten Houston-area facilities wound up on a list of the top 100 worst air polluters in the country compiled in 2020 by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit. Using 2018 data from the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory, EIP’s report weighted pollutants based on how hazardous they are when inhaled and calculated that only 10 Houston area facilities were responsible for nearly 38% of the 288 million tons of “toxicity-weighted” air pollution the 410 petrochemical facilities in the metro area emitted.

Five of those 10 facilities, including Dixie Chemical, ExxonMobil Chemical, ExxonMobil’s Baytown Refinery, and LyondellBasell Channelview, are located in Harris County. Two others, INEOS USA Chocolate Bayou Works chemical plant and Dow Chemical—at 7,000 acres the largest chemical manufacturing facility in the Western hemisphere—are in Brazoria County. Pearland is only 10 miles from Pasadena, where Dixie Chemical is located; 22 miles from Baytown, home to the two ExxonMobil facilities; and 18 miles from Channelview, home to LyondellBasell’s 4,000-acre chemical manufacturing complex.

EIP tracked the top three chemicals each of the 10 facilities released. It found that the seven plants in Brazoria and Harris counties collectively emit at least five that cause cancer in humans—1.3 butadiene, benzene, formaldehyde, ethylene oxide, and nickel—and another four that are “probable” human carcinogens, including cobalt and naphthalene. LyondellBasell Channelview is the biggest source for ethylene oxide, which poses one of the metro area’s highest health risks.

More recently, a July 2024 report by Air Alliance Houston identified the top “dirty dozen” air polluters in the area based on 2018 to 2022 data from the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The 12 facilities include three cited in the EIP report—Dixie Chemical, ExxonMobil’s Baytown complex (including the refinery and chemical plant), and LyondellBasell Channelview—and nine others, including Calpine’s Deer Park Energy Center, Chevron Phillips Baytown, and Shell Deer Park Chemical. Deer Park, in Harris County, is only 14 miles from Pearland.

Like EIP, Air Alliance Houston found that the majority of the worst polluters are located near low-income and Black and Latino neighborhoods, causing health problems ranging from respiratory irritation in the short term to cancer over the long term.

The Trump Administration Wants to Destroy the EPA

Just how serious is Trump about getting toxins out of the environment? If his first administration is any indication, not at all.

Just after he was elected president in 2016, Trump gave The New York Times his first on-the-record news media interview and proclaimed that “clean air is vitally important” and “crystal clean water is vitally important.” By the time he left office, his administration had rolled back or eliminated nearly 100 environmental safeguards.

This time around, Trump has wasted no time undermining the government’s ability to protect the public from environmental hazards. Back in 2017, Trump proposed cutting the EPA budget by 31%. Last month, his new EPA administrator, Lee Zeldin, said he wants to cut the budget by at least 65%, which would severely cripple the agency.

Over the past 20 years, 82% of oil and gas industry donations and 90% of coal industry donations went to Republicans, so well before Trump first ran for office, the party has functioned as an arm of the fossil fuel industry.

Just last week, Zeldin announced his agency will kill 31 key environmental safeguards. “Today is the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen,” he said in a statement on March 12. “We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion to drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S., and more.”

Three former EPA administrators—William K. Reilly, who served under George H.W. Bush; Christine Todd Whitman, who served under George W. Bush; and Gina McCarthy, who served under Barack Obama—warned that Zeldin’s plan would endanger the lives of millions of Americans. Dismantling longstanding regulations would be a “catastrophe,” said Reilly, “and represents the abandonment of a long history” of EPA actions protecting public health and the environment.

That same day Zeldin issued his “historic” announcement, it was reported that he is also planning to eliminate EPA offices responsible for addressing the disproportionately high levels of pollution in minority and low-income communities as a part of Trump’s war on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). An internal EPA memo obtained by a number of news outlets revealed that Zeldin is going to shut down all of the agency’s Environmental Justice Divisions at its 10 regional offices “immediately.” Zeldin already closed the agency’s Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights in Washington, D.C., which was established in 1992 during the George H.W. Bush administration.

In the memo, dated March 11, Zeldin said closing the environmental justice offices is in part a response to a Trump executive order calling for “ending radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferences.” When CBS News asked him to elaborate, Zeldin said in a statement: “President Trump was elected with a mandate from the American people. Part of this mandate includes the elimination of forced discrimination programs.” Never mind that Black, Brown, and low-income communities suffer the most discrimination, environmental and otherwise.

A Government for Sale

Why are Trump and the Republican Party so intent on weakening and eliminating health and environmental protections? Follow the money. Over the past 20 years, 82% of oil and gas industry donations and 90% of coal industry donations went to Republicans, so well before Trump first ran for office, the party has functioned as an arm of the fossil fuel industry.

Last April, Trump promised roughly two dozen oil executives at a private meeting at his Mar-a-Lago resort that he would roll back Biden-era environmental rules if they donated $1 billion to his presidential campaign. Although the attendees, who included officials from Chevron, Continental Resources, ExxonMobil, and Occidental Petroleum, did not honor Trump’s request, fossil fuel interests poured $96 million directly into Trump’s campaign coffers during the 2023-24 election cycle, according to an analysis by the environmental group Climate Power. Meanwhile, 83% of the oil and gas industry’s contributions to congressional candidates—$15.7 million—went to Republicans, according to Open Secrets.

The oil and gas industry also dug deep to help pay for Trump’s inaugural bash. His inaugural committee received $2 million from Chevron, $1 million from ExxonMobil, and $1 million from Occidental Petroleum.

So when Donald Trump says his administration is going to rid the environment of toxins, you can bet that the exact opposite is going to happen. More kids like DJ Daniel—as well as more adults—in Houston and other highly polluted places will suffer from respiratory diseases, cancer, and other serious health problems. It’s no wonder why the Republican Party’s nickname, GOP, now stands for Gas and Oil Party.

This column was originally posted on Money Trail, a new Substack site co-founded by Elliott Negin.

U.S. President Donald Trump has never been coy about his desire to bend universities to his will. Last week, Columbia University became the testing ground to see how far he can push that agenda.

On March 7, the Administration announced it was cancelling $400 million in federal funding from Columbia, alleging that the university violated Title VI by failing to redress the “persistent harassment of Jewish students.” Last Thursday, it issued a list of demands that Columbia must fulfill before any talks on reinstating funds can even begin.

Among them: Place the Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department “under academic receivership;” devise a plan to “hold all student groups accountable” for violating university policies; and empower law enforcement to “arrest and remove” students who “foster an unsafe or hostile work or study environment.”

The question is whether Columbia will fight or whether it will sacrifice the free speech rights of its faculty and students to appease the Trump administration.

But there’s one demand that gives the others their bite: Columbia must adopt a new definition of antisemitism. This definition matters because it will determine what speech gets muzzled in the departments under receivership, and what speech results in discipline, removal from campus, and expulsion.

While the letter stops short of explicitly mandating a specific definition, it unsubtly reminds the reader of the Trump administration’s embrace of the so-called IHRA definition, which declares it antisemitic to hold Israel to a “double standard,” “deny the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor,” or compare its policies to those of the Nazis.

The implication here is clear: Adopt IHRA or kiss a half billion dollars goodbye.

The purported interest in protecting Jewish students from antisemitism is a transparent pretext. The Trump administration is a den of antisemites. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has claimed that Covid-19 was “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews. The Pentagon’s deputy press secretary is an avid spreader of antisemitic conspiracy theories. And let’s not forget about Elon Musk, who turned X into a safe space for white supremacists, promoted tweets downplaying the Holocaust and blaming Jews for the “great replacement,” gave two Hitler salutes at a rally, and then jetted off to a right-wing convention in Germany where he opined that Germany’s real problem was “too much focus on past guilt.”

If Elon Musk were the president of Columbia, the university would have lost its Title VI funding long ago.

Nor is the right-wing’s love affair with IHRA rooted in its solicitude for Jews. IHRA is their definition of choice because, unlike other working definitions of antisemitism, IHRA is broad enough and vague enough to sweep up virtually any criticism of Israel. Pro-Israel litigants have invoked IHRA to argue that it is inherently antisemitic—and creates a hostile environment for Jewish students—to criticize Israel for supporting “Jewish supremacy,” notwithstanding Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s declaration that Israel is a “state, not of all its citizens, but only of the Jewish people.” Or to suggest that Israel is maintaining an apartheid in the occupied territories, even though Israeli’s third-largest newspaper, its human rights NGOs, and the International Court of Justice agree with that assessment. Or to accuse Israel of committing ethnic cleansing, even though Israel’s former defense minister came to the same conclusion and Israeli officials openly advocate mass expulsions. Even calling for Palestinians and Jews to have equal immigration rights has been labeled antisemitic on the grounds that the influx of Palestinians would make Jews a minority and “obliterate the Jewish people’s right to self-determination.”

There’s a malign genius to the administration’s approach. Trump and his enablers know they can't directly muzzle students or faculty without facing First Amendment lawsuits. To be clear, that doesn’t mean the administration won’t try. ICE has already begun arresting foreign student activists, and DOJ has signaled plans to charge protestors under federal counterterrorism laws. But the administration surely understands that most of those actions will be thwarted in the courts.

As a private institution, however, Columbia is unconstrained by the First Amendment. There’s no redress in the courts if Columbia starts expelling students for criticizing Israel. So the trick is to find a way of outsourcing the censorship to university administrators. And that’s where the funding cuts come in. As explained by one of the strategy’s architects, the threat of defunding is designed to create an “existential terror” that will “discipline [universities] in a way that you could not get through administrative oversight with 150 extra Department of Ed bureaucrats.”

To be clear, this tactic is also blatantly illegal. The Executive cannot withdraw Title VI funding without making findings of fact, providing an opportunity to be heard, and submitting a written report to Congress—none of which has happened here. And the Executive can only defund the specific programs that are found to be out of compliance. The law doesn’t allow the sort of blanket cuts that have been imposed.

And even if the administration complied with these requirements, the First Amendment bars the government from conscripting universities into their efforts to censor protected speech. It likewise bars the government from leveraging public funds to force a university to endorse a state-sanctioned view on a matter of public concern (i.e., whether criticism of Israel is antisemitic). In a 2013 case, Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, the Supreme Court struck down a law requiring an NGO to have “a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking” before it could receive grant money to help combat the spread of HIV. Writing for a 6-2 majority, Chief Justice John Roberts acknowledged that the NGOs (like Columbia) were free to turn down the funding, but held that the government could not force the NGO to choose between its First Amendment rights and federal largess: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”

The question is whether Columbia will fight or whether it will sacrifice the free speech rights of its faculty and students to appease the Trump administration.

The Trump Administration is clearly counting on the latter, and not without cause. Columbia has been a case study in preemptive acquiescence: In recent weeks, university administrators have threatened disciplinary measures against students for writing op-eds calling for divestment from Israel, for sharing social media posts in support of the protests, and for co-hosting an art exhibition in a private building about the occupation of a campus building. After two students—one a recent IDF soldier—showered protesters with a foul-smelling spray, Columbia responded by forcing into retirement a professor who expressed concern about Israeli students coming to Columbia “right out of their military service,” and then paid a $400,000 settlement to the students who sprayed the chemical.

This is not going to end with Columbia: the Department of Education has sent similar letters to 60 other universities. And the assault on academic freedom is not going to be limited to discourse about Israel. This battle is, in a real sense, the front lines. If Columbia—with its $14 billion endowment—folds, it’s hard to imagine others won’t follow. If Columbia’s administrators cannot find the backbone to protect free speech on its campus, students and faculty will have to defend their constitutional rights themselves, in court.

After a federal judge pressed the Trump administration to provide evidence by 5 pm Monday about whether the White House had violated the court’s order in deporting migrants with little to no due process, so-called border czar Tom Homan said that the flights would continue regardless. “We’re not stopping,” he said. “I don’t care what the judges think.”

In our system, judges don’t just “think.” They have the final say, unless their rulings are appealed to the Supreme Court, in which case the high court’s majority has the final final say.

On Monday afternoon, it became apparent that Trump’s Justice Department shares Homan’s odd view of our judicial system. DOJ lawyers filed papers telling the judge that the administration would not provide any further information about the deportation flights, and that the court should vacate the hearing.

Later, speaking Monday evening on Fox News, Attorney General Pam Bondi criticized the judge, saying “What he’s done is an intrusion on the president’s authority.”

What’s going on here?

A very dangerous game.

On Sunday night, Trump told reporters that a federal judge in California who ordered the administration to rehire thousands of fired probationary workers was “putting himself in the position of the president of the United States, who was elected by close to 80 million votes.”

Excuse me? In our system of government, courts pass judgment on actions of a president and the executive branch. Courts don’t put themselves in the “position” of a president. They act as the Constitution empowers them to act — as a co-equal branch of government.

If the executive branch doesn’t agree with what a lower-court judge decides, it can appeal to a higher court and ultimately to the Supreme Court.

Trump isn’t the only one to make this unconstitutional claim. In early February, Trump’s vice president, JD Vance, declared that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” It was an odd statement coming from someone who has studied at one of America’s preeminent law schools — and it was logically absurd, since it’s up to judges (and eventually the Supreme Court’s justices) to determine a president’s “legitimate power.”

Let’s be clear. Trump has openly violated numerous laws and constitutional provisions — such as ending birthright citizenship; giving associates of Elon Musk’s government-slashing effort access to a sensitive Treasury Department system; transferring transgender female inmates to male prisons; placing thousands of U.S. Agency for International Development employees on leave; and effectively dismantling USAID and folding it into the State Department.

In response, federal judges have temporarily barred a slew of Trump orders from taking effect.

But not until now has Trump or his regime blatantly refused to follow a judge’s order.

What happens when this or another lower-court ruling goes to the Supreme Court, and the high court rules against Trump?

Vance has said that if this occurs, Trump should “stand before the country like Andrew Jackson did and say, ‘The chief justice has made his ruling. Now let him enforce it.’”

Never mind that the quote attributed to Jackson is, as one scholar has noted, “probably apocryphal.” It’s heard more and more from Trump appointees these days, as exemplified by Homan’s remark this morning and this afternoon’s Justice Department filing.

Trump’s appointments in his second term are having the opposite effect of his first-term appointees. In his first term, they restrained him somewhat. Recall that the Justice Department’s top brass threatened to resign en masse if he appointed as attorney general the one assistant attorney general who was prepared to sell his soul to Trump and say the 2020 election was stolen from him.

This time, his appointees are magnifying his worst instincts. Rather than act as guardrails, they are egging Trump on.

Many people wonder if we’re in a “constitutional crisis.” Definitions of that phrase vary considerably, as do opinions about whether we’re in one now.

My worry is that Trump is surrounded by extremist anti-democracy nihilists, including his vice president, who are encouraging him to defy the Supreme Court.

If and when he does, we’ll be in a constitutional crisis that should cause every American to take to the streets.

Let’s discuss something happening under our noses: The middle class is disappearing.

Last week, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) teamed up with Republicans to pass a government funding bill. If you ask them, they’ll say, “We did this to save American workers!”

But, if they cared about American workers, they wouldn’t have cut $13 billion from healthcare, education, and infrastructure while adding $6 billion to defense. Unless the average American is now classified as a fighter jet, that extra money isn’t going to help you.

So the next time a politician tells you they’re fighting for you, ask them: What are they doing to take wealth and power away from the billionaire class?

And that’s the problem. Over and over, we’re told that these decisions are in our best interest. Yet somehow, the rich keep getting richer while the rest of us are left with higher bills, lower wages, and a government that never seems to have money for schools or healthcare—but always has billions for bombs.

Why? Because the billionaires at the top have turned the economy into a giant vacuum—and guess what? It’s sucking up everything you own.

Here’s the kicker: Most people don’t even realize it’s happening. Things cost more. Your savings may be shrinking. But you still have food on the table, so it doesn’t feel like a crisis—yet.

Seniors notice it first—property taxes and school taxes. Their fixed income isn’t stretching as far, so they complain about taxes because they assume the government can do nothing about rising prices but can lower taxes.

Younger people? They know something is off, but they’ve been told to blame immigrants. ”They’re buying up your homes! They’re driving up rent!” That’s exactly what the rich want you to believe—because as long as we’re busy fighting each other, we’re not paying attention to the people rigging the system.

Are we going to fall for it again? Or are we going to start paying attention?

While Schumer and Fetterman claim to be fighting for the working class, their actions—like voting for a government funding bill that slashes social spending while protecting corporate interests—show they’re more focused on keeping the machine running than fixing what’s broken.

What’s broken? The fact that wealth isn’t disappearing—it’s just being moved.

The Pandemic Was Among the Biggest Wealth Transfers in History—And You Paid for It

It started how these things always begin: with regular people getting squeezed. Offices shut down. Businesses closed. Millions of people were laid off overnight. Rent was still due, bills kept coming, and suddenly, survival wasn’t just about avoiding a virus—it was about making it to the next month without losing everything.

Meanwhile, something very different happened in a parallel universe occupied by the world’s wealthiest men. In just two years, the 10 richest men on the planet doubled their net worth—going from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion. That’s an extra $15,000 per second. Not for doing anything new. Not for inventing anything, building anything, or working harder than anyone else.

At the same time, 160 million people fell into poverty. That’s roughly half the U.S. population—wiped out financially while the wealthiest men on Earth raked in $1 trillion.

This wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t a glitch in the system. It was the system. The pandemic proved that the real money isn’t in work; it isn’t in clocking in early and staying late. It’s in ownership. If you have read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki tried to teach us this; the rich listened.

Billionaires became more prosperous by owning companies that laid people off, raising prices, and cashing in on government bailouts. They owned the companies from which we bought food, mortgages, and electricity. The system isn’t designed to reward labor but to reward the people who profit from it.

Trillions of dollars in stimulus money flooded the market. Some of it went to everyday people, but most of it—directly or indirectly—ended up in the pockets of those who already had more money than they could ever spend. And just like that, the most significant wealth transfer in modern history was complete.

Your Wealth Didn’t Vanish—It Was Transferred Upward

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the government injected massive cash into the economy to prevent total collapse. And let’s be clear—that was the right move. Despite all the hand-wringing about inflation on the news, people needed money to survive.

But then, when workers didn’t immediately rush back to low-paying jobs, the rich threw a tantrum. Suddenly, they claimed that the government had “overstimulated” the economy—suggesting that people were so flush with cash that they just decided to stop working.

You’re not struggling because of bad luck or bad budgeting. You’re struggling because the rich own everything—and they’re making sure you own nothing.

Like most economic takes from the ultra-wealthy, this was a complete lie. Yes, increasing the money supply can contribute to inflation, but this kind of inflation is easy to manage. You can pull money back out of the economy through taxation or adjustments to monetary policy. The real problem wasn’t too much money—it was that, for once, regular people had a tiny bit of breathing room, and billionaires didn’t like it.

Here’s how they pulled off the biggest wealth heist in modern history:

We Pay Them for Everything

The rich don’t make money by working. They make money because they own everything, and because they own everything, we’re forced to pay them for everything.

• They own our homes → We pay rent.
• They own the businesses where we shop → We pay for goods and services.
• They own the farms and energy companies → We pay them every time we eat or turn on the lights.
• They own the banks → We pay them interest when we borrow money.

They Raise Prices—Because They Can

Now, here’s where it gets worse. Since they own everything, they set the prices. And what do they do? Raise them.

• Housing is unaffordable. That’s because investors buy homes and turn them into overpriced rentals.
• Grocery prices are ridiculous. That’s because big corporations own the farms, the processing plants, and the grocery chains.
• Energy bills keep rising. That’s because the same handful of companies own the power plants, oil refineries, and gas pipelines.

And when everything gets more expensive, what do we do? We pay them more, and now they have us blaming immigrants.

They Loan Us Money—And Make Us Pay Them Back With Interest

Since prices are rising faster than wages, most people can’t keep up. But instead of fixing the problem, the rich found another way to profit: debt.

• Can’t afford a home? Here, take out a mortgage—and pay them interest for 30 years.
• Struggling with everyday expenses? Just put it on a credit card—and pay them interest forever.
• Want to get an education? Take out student loans—and keep paying them long after you graduate.

So, we pay them for necessities, and when we can’t afford those things, we borrow from them—and pay them even more in interest.

The End Result?

Every year, the rich own more because they’re constantly collecting our money. Every year, we own less because we’re constantly paying them for necessities. And it gets worse. The more money they collect, the more they buy up assets—houses, land, businesses—making it even harder for the rest of us to catch up.

Schumer and Fetterman Just Helped Keep This Rigged System in Place

So why does this all matter? Because instead of addressing these problems, our leaders keep making them worse. Schumer and Fetterman’s latest vote shows exactly where their priorities are. They passed a funding bill that keeps the government running but at the cost of cutting billions from social programs. Meanwhile, defense spending—where corporations and wealthy investors make billions in profits—keeps growing.

It’s Time to Face the Truth

You’re not struggling because of bad luck or bad budgeting. You’re struggling because the rich own everything—and they’re making sure you own nothing. And as long as our leaders keep protecting them, things will only worsen.

So the next time a politician tells you they’re fighting for you, ask them: What are they doing to take wealth and power away from the billionaire class?

And let’s be clear—Chuck Schumer is not the leader we need right now. Under his watch, Democrats failed to deliver real economic relief, leaving millions frustrated enough to turn to President Donald Trump. Under his leadership, the party keeps acting like taking the high road will somehow fix a rigged system. It won’t.

It’s time to fight back. And that starts with demanding new leadership—because Schumer has already shown us whose side he’s on.

When on January 23 of this year, California Senator Jarred Huffman stood on the House floor to voice his opposition to the Fix Our Forests Act, or FOFA,, he bitterly noted how the bill had been rushed to a vote without normal consultation.

The reason for the rush was obvious. Fires were raging in the suburbs of Los Angeles and FOFA’s proponents wanted to capitalize on the tragedy to pitch their bill, which in the name of wildfire prevention exempts vast acreage of backcountry logging from ordinary scientific and judicial oversight. The irony is that the LA fires had no connection with forests whatsoever. They began as grass and brush fires near populated areas, which, fanned by ferocious Santa Ana winds, quickly spread building to building, with disastrous results.

The irony widens when you consider that in 2024, Huffman, along with California Republican Jay Obernolte, introduced a bill that actually would help communities deal with fire. Called the Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience Act, it proposed $1 billion per year to help communities harden homes and critical infrastructure while also creating defensive space around their perimeters. The bill was introduced this year yet again, six days after FOFA was rushed to a vote, but it hasn’t even been given a hearing by the House Natural Resources Committee. That committee is chaired by Oklahoma Republican Bruce Westerman, who, it turns out, is the chief sponsor of the Fix Our Forests Act.

Once again, it’s the same old formula: slash citizen oversight in the name of wildfire reduction.

Do you see the political convolutions at work here? A very real fire danger facing communities is used to promote a bill focused primarily on back country “fuels reduction,” far from such communities, while the Huffman-Obernolte bill, that focuses on the communities themselves, gets nowhere. The process not only puts millions of acres of mature and old-growth forests at risk of massive “mechanical treatments,” it leaves the immediate fire dangers faced by communities largely unaddressed.

This political formula is nothing new. Twenty two years ago, then-President George W. Bush signed into law the Healthy Forests Restoration Act of 2003, which also sought environmental restrictions for expanded logging under the pretext of preventing wildfires like those in California. The concern for conservationists was the same then as it is now—logging interests and the U.S. Forest Service using the wildfire threat to create “emergency” authority to bypass environmental reviews and curtail judicial oversight, providing easier access to mature and old-growth forests, while doing little in the way of home hardening and community protection.

Proponents of the Fix our Forests Act would counter that there are provisions within the bill that help coordinate grant applications for communities. That’s well and good, but falls far short of what the Huffman-Obernolte bill provides, which not only includes major funding to harden homes and critical infrastructure, but helps with early detection and evacuation planning and initiates Community Protection and Wildfire Resilience plans for insurance certification.

Further, there is a plethora of research that contradicts the notion that fuels reduction and forest thinning protects communities from wildfire. In fact, intensive forest management is shown to often increase fire severity. Meanwhile, the industry position that forest protection increases fire risk doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. Indeed, years of mechanical treatments have done little to solve the problem, while doing tremendous ecological damage.

Now we have President Donald Trump’s all-caps Executive Order: “IMMEDIATE EXPANSION OF AMERICAN TIMBER PRODUCTION.” Once again, it’s the same old formula: slash citizen oversight in the name of wildfire reduction. The order calls for action to “reduce unnecessarily lengthy processes and associated costs related to administrative approvals for timber production, forest management, and wildfire risk reduction treatments,” while putting community safety up as the justification. From the first paragraph: “Furthermore, as recent disasters demonstrate, forest management and wildfire risk reduction projects can save American lives and communities.” Only they don’t. The only things shown to save lives and communities are the types of actions put forth by the Community Protections and Wildfire Resilience act.

The Democratic Party has a history of protecting public lands and a constituency that expects such protection. A similar thing can be said of certain moderate Republicans, where a courageous spirit prevails when it comes to environmental protection. If there ever was a time to remember that tradition and that spirit, it would be now.

In 1776, America declared independence not just from a king, but from an entire feudal order. The promise was radical: no more lords and vassals, no more aristocratic monopolies, no more inherited rule. It was a vision of self-governance, economic freedom, and political democracy.

As we know, this promise was deeply flawed from the outset—built atop the brutal reality of chattel slavery, which entrenched a racial caste system even as the revolution sought to break from feudal hierarchy.

Still, the revolutionary spark—that governance should belong to the people, not an inherited elite—set a course for future struggles, from abolition to labor rights to civil rights. The unfinished promise of 1776 has always been to extend that right to everyone, dismantling old forms of domination wherever they persist.

The fight against neo-feudalism must be reclaimed by a left willing to challenge entrenched power at its roots, not merely manage decline.

Yet nearly 250 years later, we find ourselves under the shadow of a system that eerily resembles the one we once revolted against. Power is no longer held by monarchs but by corporate oligarchs and billionaire dynasties. The vast majority of Americans—trapped in cycles of debt, precarious labor, and diminishing rights—are not citizens in any meaningful sense.

We talk around this reality. We call it “money in politics,” “corporate influence,” and “economic inequality.” But these are symptoms, not the disease. The disease is neo-feudalism—a system in which power is entrenched, inherited, and designed to be impossible to escape. And unless we call it by its true name, we will never build the movement needed to fight it.

Feudalism may have faded in name, but many of its structures remain. Today’s hierarchy mirrors the past in ways we can no longer ignore.

• Then: Lords owned the land, and peasants worked it under their control.
  Now: A handful of corporations and investment firms own vast swaths of housing, farmland, and industry.
• Then: Aristocracies passed power down through hereditary privilege.
  Now: Dynastic billionaires and corporate monopolies ensure that wealth remains concentrated in a ruling class.
• Then: The peasantry was bound to their lords by custom, debt, and necessity.
  Now: Student debt, medical bills, and stagnant wages trap entire generations in perpetual economic dependence.
• Then: Political power was controlled by a small elite who ruled by divine right.
  Now: The illusion of democracy masks the fact that billionaires fund both parties, controlling policy no matter who is elected.

This is not the free society America was supposed to be. It is a highly stratified system in which the many serve the interests of the few, with no meaningful path to real power. And worse, the establishment left—rather than challenging this order—has come to represent it.

The Democratic Party was once the party of the working class. Today, it has become the party of the professional-managerial elite—the bureaucrats, consultants, and media figures who believe that governing is their birthright.

The establishment left has in many ways absorbed the role of the aristocracy—not just in terms of wealth but in the way it positions itself as the enlightened ruling class. They claim to stand for “equity” and “democracy,” yet do nothing to challenge the real structures of power.

Instead, they manage decline while maintaining their own privilege—careful not to upset the donor class that sustains them.

As newly elected Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin put it, “There are a lot of good billionaires out there that have been with Democrats, who share our values, and we will take their money. But we’re not taking money from those bad billionaires.”

Pronouncements from global elites certainly don’t help either. The now-infamous slogan “You’ll own nothing and be happy”—popularized by the World Economic Forum and widely interpreted as a blueprint for a hyper-managed future—only fuels growing resentment toward an emerging system where ownership, autonomy, and mobility are increasingly out of reach for the average person.

This is why figures like Steve Bannon and reactionary populists have hijacked the narrative of neo-feudalism. Despite his own ties to oligarchs, Bannon has correctly identified that America is no longer a capitalist democracy but a feudal order where power is locked away from ordinary people.

He explicitly frames this crisis as a return to feudal hierarchy: “The ‘hate America’ crowd… they believe in some sort of techno-feudal situation, like was in Italy, back in the 14th and 15th century… where they are like a city-state, and there are a bunch of serfs that work for them. Not American citizens, but serfs, indentured servants.”

He has also drawn direct comparisons between modern economic conditions and serfdom: “Here’s the thing with millennials, they’re like 19th-century Russian serfs. They’re in better shape, they have more information, they’re better dressed. But they don’t own anything.”

However, Bannon’s solution—a nationalist strongman government—represents just another form of vassalage.

Reactionary populists like Bannon, President Donald Trump, and Tucker Carlson exploit real economic grievances and redirect them into a revenge narrative. Instead of seeing neo-feudalism as a system that transcends party or nationality—one that has evolved from medieval serfdom to corporate vassalage—they reframe it as a nationalist grievance.

Bannon likens “globalists” (an ambiguous term) to feudal overlords, but insists that nationalism can break their grip. Trump labels the deep state and liberal elites as the enemy, but assumes the role of a strongman to restore justice. Carlson says the working class is being crushed, but blames cultural elites rather than the billionaire class as a whole.

This misdirection is key. Rather than exposing the true architects of neo-feudalism—corporate monopolists, financial barons, and entrenched dynasties—these reactionaries redirect public anger toward an amorphous “cultural aristocracy” of media figures, academics, and bureaucrats. The real oligarchs escape scrutiny, while the working class is fed a narrative that pits them against cultural elites rather than the economic structures that keep them in servitude.

The only way forward is to complete the unfinished revolution against feudalism—not through reactionary nationalism, but through systemic transformation. The fight against neo-feudalism must be reclaimed by a left willing to challenge entrenched power at its roots, not merely manage decline.

The question is no longer whether neo-feudalism exists. The question is whether the left will finally recognize it—and act before it’s too late. If it fails, the fight will be lost to those who see the problem but offer only deeper subjugation as the solution.

The Irish do love a good story and a good celebration. The celebration of St. Patrick’s Day has evolved from the observance of the death of St. Patrick in the fifth century into a celebration of Irish culture and heritage. The corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, and Guinness I understand; the green beer—not so much.

While the modern day “Wearing O’ the Green” for many adds to the fun, the original adoption of green ribbons, clothing, and hats by the Society of United Irishmen and the street ballad “The Wearing of the Green” (lamenting the oppression of the 1798 Irish rebellion) were never known by many and forgotten by most.

The Choctaw, unlike the British government, recognized the humanity and suffering of the Irish people, even as the Choctaw still suffered and had little to give.

During the 700 years of British colonial rule of Ireland, the Irish like all subjects of British settler colonialism suffered violence and coercion to further the economic power of the empire. The methods of how to control native populations, the land, and natural resources varied from empire to empire, but those methods resulted in resistance and often wars of rebellion. Worldwide, whether in Ireland, India, Africa, Asia, the Americas, or the Palestinian state—people, eventually, will reject their oppressors.

On this St. Patrick’s Day we would do well to remember a chapter of often forgotten history, the relationship between the Irish people and the Choctaw Nation. In 1847, during the worst of the Irish famine, the Choctaw Nation, roughly 15 years after their forced journey from their ancestral home in Mississippi to Indian territory in Oklahoma on the “trail of tears and death,” collected and sent $170—over $5,000 in today’s money—to Midleton in County Cork, Ireland.

The Choctaw, unlike the British government, recognized the humanity and suffering of the Irish people, even as the Choctaw still suffered and had little to give. They had been forced to cede 11 million acres, they still mourned lost family members, yet they gave what they could, seeing that their own suffering was now lived by the Irish.

Often, times of suffering and adversity bring out, as former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln called it, “the better angels of our nature.” The people of Ireland and the Choctaw Nation shared a common suffering and formed a common bond that still exists. In 2018, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar visited the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma and noted, “A few years ago, on a visit to Ireland, a representative of the Choctaw Nation called your support for us ‘a sacred memory.’ It is that and more. It is a sacred bond, which has joined our peoples together for all time. Your act of kindness has never been, and never will be, forgotten in Ireland.”

Indeed they did not forget, and in 2020, as the Navajo and Hopi tribes suffered during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Irish people, citing the generosity of the Choctaws, raised nearly $2 million for the Navajo and Hopi peoples. In gratitude for the gift, Gary Batton, chief of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, said, “We have become kindred spirits with the Irish in the years since the Irish potato famine... We hope the Irish, Navajo, and Hopi peoples develop lasting friendships, as we have.”

Colonialism has a long and tragic history, sadly still seen today. If only as an afterthought, while celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, we should remember the common bond that exists between the oppressed peoples of the world. Perhaps we might call upon those “better angels of our nature” and do what we can to resist the oppression here, in Palestine, in Ukraine, in Africa, and realize that across oceans or even across the street, we must recognize each other’s humanity.

The strategic lawsuit against public participation, or SLAPP, lawsuit by Energy Transfer Partners against Greenpeace is a blatant attack on free speech, enabled by a biased legal system stacked with unqualified, partisan judges. It exemplifies how corporate power, run amok, threatens one of the most fundamental American rights—the right to dissent.

In late February, we watched this unfold in a small courtroom in Mandan, North Dakota—a town just across the Missouri River from Bismarck, now the site of a legal mugging. The victims? The entire climate and environmental movement, represented by Greenpeace. The assailants? Energy Transfer Partners (ETP), Dakota Access Pipeline, and their legal enforcers at the infamous fossil fuel law firm Gibson, Dunn, & Crutcher.

In President Donald Trump’s dystopian America, stacked juries and sham trials may soon become the new normal.

ETP’s CEO, Kelcy Warren, isn’t even pretending otherwise. He admitted the lawsuit’s purpose is “to send a message.” When asked if he wanted to cut off funding for groups like Greenpeace, he answered, “Absolutely.” He has even suggested that environmental activists should be “removed from the gene pool.” Now Warren has commandeered a public court and stolen public resources and citizens’ time, all to wage his revenge attack and get his “pound of flesh.” He’s just picked out the biggest environmental justice name he could think of—Greenpeace—as his victim.

In truth, this case is about silencing dissent. It continues the long-standing erasure of Native American rights, sidelining the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe—the true leaders of the DAPL protest movement—while targeting anyone who dares challenge corporate billionaires and fossil fuels.

We've seen this playbook before. When Chevron lost a $9.5 billion judgment in Ecuador for its deliberate dumping of billions of gallons of cancer-causing oil waste as Texaco. It decimated Indigenous communities and is a big reason why Native Americans should be worried fossil fuels will poison their water—Chevron did it intentionally. Then, to escape justice in Ecuador, it weaponized the U.S. legal system to wage SLAPP attacks and denied access to justice for Indigenous peoples, which culminated in the unprecedented imprisonment of a U.S. lawyer for a misdemeanor contempt charge—via a private corporate prosecution.

Gibson Dunn, central to both cases, is a prime example of how unethical lawyers manipulate the courts to crush free speech. In the Greenpeace case, they claim “tortious interference” over statements Greenpeace repeated from news reports—statements that were true. More chillingly, ETP argues that Greenpeace is liable for any alleged crimes at Standing Rock because it trained activists in deescalation, nonviolence, and safety. If the same logic applied, those who trained January 6 insurrectionists in political activism would be held liable for the Capitol riot—an irony that exposes the selective use of accountability.

The world saw the footage from Standing Rock: brutal police crackdowns, mass arrests, and unchecked violence against Indigenous and allied protesters. Yet no security personnel faced consequences—only demonstrators. Now, ETP seeks to gaslight the public in a courtroom where nearly every juror has admitted bias against Native Americans and environmental activists, with direct ties to the fossil fuel industry. In President Donald Trump’s dystopian America, stacked juries and sham trials may soon become the new normal.

This case could redefine First Amendment rights for everyone in the U.S. It must be exposed for the grave threat it is. Bipartisan efforts are underway to bring a federal anti-SLAPP law into effect to help protect the right to free speech. This case should light a fire under those efforts because, for many, the ability to peacefully protest and organize is all we have left.

Maybe Democratic New York Senator Chuck Schumer was correct.

Maybe it was more important for him to align himself with President Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and congressional Republicans than to resist them with one of the few weapons that Democrats possess—the Senate filibuster.

Maybe calling the Republicans’ bluff to shut down the government would have been worse than the pain that Trump, Musk, and their allies continue to inflict on the nation and the world.

Or maybe Schumer just blew it.

Rather than walk the confident path of a leader, Schumer’s missteps undermined his future effectiveness and empowered Trump, Musk, and MAGA Republicans.

We’ll never know, but it doesn’t matter. Regardless of his ultimate rationale, Chuck Schumer failed a critical test of leadership and should resign as minority leader.

Hanging on Too Long

Age isn’t the reason that Schumer should step aside, but it’s a contributing factor. At 74, he’s one of the youngest of an aging old guard. Like his elderly colleagues, he had to sacrifice a lot personally to reach the heights that he now enjoys. The allure of power and prestige causes too many leaders across numerous professions to hang on too long.

The phenomenon is pervasive in politics. But eventually reality becomes painfully obvious. For President Joseph Biden Jr., it was a disastrous debate performance; for Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), it was periodic public “freezes” as news cameras rolled; for the late Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), it was humiliating physical and mental deterioration.

For Chuck Schumer, it was his confusing rhetorical journey to a vote that intensified the GOP’s grip on the nation and made the Democratic party complicit in their destructive agenda. Rather than walk the confident path of a leader, Schumer’s missteps undermined his future effectiveness and empowered Trump, Musk, and MAGA Republicans.

At this critical inflection point for democracy, America cannot afford a rudderless resistance from a compromised leader.

From Vocal Opponent…

With the barest of majorities and nearly unanimous Democratic opposition, House Republicans passed a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government open for the next six months. But overcoming the 60-vote threshold necessary to end a Democratic filibuster in the Senate required the support of eight Democrats. (Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) had announced that he would not vote with his fellow 52 Republicans to support the resolution.)

As minority leader, it’s not Schumer’s job to govern. His responsibility is to lead the opposition, especially in the rare situations where the Democratic minority holds even a modicum of leverage. Controlling the votes needed to break a Senate filibuster provided such leverage.

At first, Schumer performed his role. Shortly after the House approved the CR, he announced that Democrats would insist on limiting it to 30 days—through April 11—rather than the six months that House Republicans had approved:

Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort, but Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their continuing resolution without any input—any input—from congressional Democrats. Because of that, Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House CR…

Schumer added, “Our caucus is unified on a clean April 11 CR that will keep the government open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can pass.”

So far, so good. That was March 12.

To Apologetic Supporter…

The next day, Schumer reversed course and said that he would vote with Republicans. Rather than lead fellow Democrats in the Senate, he also said that they were on their own. In the end, nine Democrats joined him in supporting the GOP’s resolution.

But it’s not merely the debatable wisdom of Schumer’s final vote that renders him incapable of leading Senate Democrats from here. His public journey and feeble rationale are his undoing.

Schumer’s op-ed in The New York Times offered an elaborate rationale for the final decision:

• “[A] shutdown would give Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk permission to destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate than they can right now.” Schumer said that It would give them the ability to declare vast swaths of the government “non-essential” and close them until the budget impasse broke.

But it’s difficult to see how Musk and his team could operate more quickly or more ferociously to destroy the federal workforce.

• “[C]ongressional Republicans could weaponize their majorities to cherry-pick which parts of government to reopen.”

But congressional Republicans have ceded their constitutional responsibilities to Trump and Musk. Weaponization began on Inauguration Day.

• “[S]hutdowns mean real pain for American families.”

But the Trump/Musk agenda is already inflicting “real pain” on a massive scale.

• “[A] shutdown would be the best distraction Donald Trump could ask for from his awful agenda.”

But if Trump and Musk tried to blame Democrats for a shutdown, the Democrats’ rebuttal is simple: Republicans control the entire government. Instead, he gave Republicans a new talking point: Democrats joined Republicans in bipartisan approval of the CR.

More pointedly, Schumer’s stated reasons for supporting the CR also existed 24 hours earlier, when he announced his unqualified opposition to it.

To Incriminating Explanations of His Reversal

During an interview after the vote, Schumer tried to justify his flip-flop.

• He said that he didn’t expect the resolution to pass the House and reach the Senate.

That reveals a lack of foresight and planning.

• He said that his initial opposition was a negotiating tactic aimed at giving Democrats maximum leverage in their fight against the legislation.

That reflects a lack of judgment and the absence of negotiation skills.

• He said that he “hoped” they could negotiate with Republicans to get a 30-day extension, rather than the 90 days in the House’s CR.

That suggests a strategy that is no strategy at all: hope.

And Schumer remains blind to the reality surrounding him:

I think the whole Democratic Party is united on what I mentioned in the earlier broadcast, showing how bad Trump is in every way… We’re succeeding.

United? Succeeding? On the same day that the Times published Schumer’s interview, a national poll showed that the Democratic Party’s favorability rating had dropped to an all-time low: 29%. Even among Democrats, the party’s approval rating is below 50%.

And that was before nine Senate Democrats supported the Republicans’ CR. It was a Trump-Musk-GOP win for which Trump congratulated Schumer:

Congratulations to Chuck Schumer for doing the right thing—Took “guts” and courage! The big Tax Cuts, L.A. fire fix, Debt Ceiling Bill, and so much more, is coming. We should all work together on that very dangerous situation. A non pass would be a Country destroyer, approval will lead us to new heights.

Maybe Trump’s praise will be Schumer’s kiss of death as minority leader.

The combined efforts of President Donald Trump, Republicans in Congress, and pro-Israel groups, like the Anti-Defamation League, have declared war on the liberal ideals of freedom of speech and assembly and the very idea of the university. Republicans and their allies are demanding universities eliminate any mention of diversity, equity, and inclusion in admissions or programming, and they have put in place a grossly distorted and expanded definition of antisemitism. In both instances, they have told educational institutions that failing to bow to these diktats will find their federal funding cut.

While organizations representing both faculty and administrators have cautioned against complying with the requirement to eliminate DEI, already some universities have done just that. Dozens of institutions have scrubbed their websites of the now-taboo words and programs. Offices to promote diversity have been closed, and courses have been canceled.

More ominous has been the damage done to free speech and academic freedom by the threats of the administration and Congress to punish universities that do not take measures to rein in what they call “antisemitism.” The main problem with this edict is that it’s based on a bogus definition of antisemitism, long promoted by the pro-Israel group, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)—a definition that equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism. Their argument is that criticism of Israel is antisemitic because it is the only Jewish state and therefore criticism of Israel is threatening to Jews who identify with it. At best, the “logic” is far-fetched. At worst, it’s a crude effort to silence and punish critics.

For his part, Donald Trump saw criminalizing protesters and forcing universities to cower as yet another way to pave the road to his authoritarian reach.

In their efforts to impose their definition, the ADL found eager accomplices among right-wing fundamentalist Christians, Republicans in Congress, and Donald Trump—though their reasons for doing so may have differed. But whether their collaboration was a marriage of convenience or consensus, the result has been serious damage to higher education.

The ADL wants to silence the growing chorus of critics of Israeli policies. Right-wing Christians, driven by a heretical view of the Old Testament that sees Israel as necessary for their hoped-for Final Days, want to protect Israel. As they form about 40% of the GOP’s voter base, Republicans and Trump want to keep them happy. Because the earliest pro-Palestinian demonstrations occurred on a number of prestigious university campuses, Republicans also see this effort as a way to amplify their targeting of “elites” and “liberals.” And as critics of Israeli policies are largely Democrats, Republicans see defending Israel as a wedge issue that strengthens their base while making life uncomfortable for Democrats. For his part, Donald Trump saw criminalizing protesters and forcing universities to cower as yet another way to pave the road to his authoritarian reach.

These diverse interests have coalesced in a coordinated assault on academic freedom, free speech, and critics of Israel. An early sign of this assault was evident during last year’s congressional hearings in which a number of Ivy League university presidents were summonsed to appear in order to be skewered by Republican members of Congress. The hearing’s most memorable moment began with a Republican representative, falsely claiming that the expression heard in some demonstrations “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” was an antisemitic call for genocide against Jewish people. She then quickly shifted gears asking the presidents whether there were punishments for calling for genocide against Jews. The presidents were flummoxed by this illogical leap and gave confused responses.

Then, in the midst of the Columbia University campus protests, the Republican Speaker of the House made a visit to the school demanding a crackdown. Other Republicans joined in pointing out that the campuses were bastions of un-American liberal elitism and needed to be taught a lesson. A congressional committee threatened to cut federal funds to campuses that didn’t stop protests, punish protesters, and rid their campuses of pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel activities and courses.

Pro-Israel groups were emboldened to file complaints with the Office of Civil Rights charging administrators with turning a blind eye to faculty and student antisemitism.

In the face of these challenges, the cowering began. During the summer of 2024: campuses brought in security consultants to rewrite faculty and student codes and handbooks; courses were eliminated; and faculty were silenced. Columbia University even set up an office that encouraged students to file complaints against pro-Palestinian students and faculty. Repression was in full swing.

With the election of Donald Trump the pressures intensified. Columbia University became a “whipping boy” because of both its prestigious status and demonstrated willingness to cower. Despite the university’s efforts, last week the Trump administration increased the pressure on Columbia, announcing that the school was losing $400 million in federal grants. Clearly Mr. Trump intended to teach as the same lesson he was teaching Ukraine (and indirectly other countries or campuses): “Do what I demand, or you'll be punished.”

Then came the news from Mr. Trump that a graduate student at the university, Mahmoud Khalil, was being deported for antisemitism. Other than the fact that Khalil was the lead negotiator on behalf of the student protestors, there was no evidence of anything he had said or done to warrant that charge.

It appears that the purposes behind this move are to create fear, silence criticism of Israel, and force the university and students and faculty to bend in the face of this oppressive march toward authoritarian rule. With widespread protests being mounted in the face of this pending deportation, it remains to be seen whether Trump’s deportation order will succeed or backfire. In either case, damage has been done and not only to free speech, but also to the very idea of academic freedom that has long been a hallmark of American education.

***

For several years following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Zogby International polled Arab attitudes toward the United States. We were prompted to do so by a Time Magazine cover which featured then-President George W. Bush’s famous response to the question: “Why did Arab terrorists attack us?” He was quoted as saying they did so because “they hate our values of democracy and freedom.”

Our survey results found that Bush’s flippant observation was untrue. In every Arab country in which we polled, substantial majorities expressed strong appreciation for America’s freedom and democracy. They also liked: the American educational system, American cultural products, and the American people.

What Arabs did not like were American policies, especially those toward Palestinians, and Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. In follow-up interviews we conducted to better understand the findings, one respondent said, “I love America’s values, but they don’t want to apply them to Arabs.” Another said, “I studied in America, and I love the country. I don’t feel America loves me. I feel like a jilted lover.”

At the poll’s conclusion we asked respondents for their overall favorable or unfavorable attitude toward the U.S. The results were overwhelmingly unfavorable. and when we asked whether their attitudes were based on America’s values or policies, it was the policies that were determinative.

Not only is Donald Trump continuing the policies of his predecessors that are alienating to Arabs, but he’s also damaging the very values of freedom and democracy that the rest of the world admires about our country.

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer had one job: to stand between President Donald Trump and the complete dismantling of American democracy. Instead, he caved—again—handing Trump the power he craved without a fight, without a demand, without even a moment of real resistance. With every cowardly compromise, Schumer isn’t just failing Democrats—he’s enabling an autocrat in real time.

The question most Democrats want to ask of Leader Chuck Schumer in the Senate appears to be, “How’s that ‘keeping the government open to hold Trump accountable’ thing working out for you?”

Everything Trump does now going forward, when people or the press complain, he will say was authorized by “bipartisan legislation” with “the full support of the Senate Democrats.”

Democrats in the Senate must stop playing defense, call out the authoritarian threat by name, use government shutdowns and the debt ceiling as leverage, and put democracy at the center of very negotiation.

In fact, just hours after Schumer and a handful of timid Senate Democrats voted to pass Trump’s Enabling Acts of 2025 legislation, the president issued an executive order gifting Russian President Vladimir Putin with the gutting of the Voice of America, Radio Liberty, and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Smithsonian Institution.

He then assaulted civil service workers by shutting down the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, and attacked women and Black people by shutting down the Minority Business Development Agency, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, and the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund.

Meanwhile, the House and Senate are both in recess: Congress is shut down, but Trump sure isn’t. Thanks, Chuck.

And this cave-in to the Mango Mussolini has Democratic voters so furious they’re reconsidering donations and even voting in 2026.

Eight years ago, as Trump was starting his first term, NBC News reported that 59% of Democratic voters told pollsters they wanted Democrats in Congress to make compromises with Trump, and only a third (33%) said they should “stick to their positions even if that means not being able to get things done in Washington.”

But that was eight years ago (and apparently the era in which Schumer is still living). Today, Democratic voters have a completely different message for their elected representatives: Fight like hell!

Fully 65% of Democrats say even if it means shutting down the government, their representatives and senators should stick to their guns and fight on both issues and principles; only 32% still want Democrats to compromise with Republicans.

The result of Schumer’s caving in to the GOP is now a shocking 27% approval level for the Democratic Party.

Democratic voters get what Sens. Schumer, Kirsten Gilibrand (D-N.Y.), John Fetterman (D-Pa.), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), Schatz (D-Hawaii), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Angus King (I-Maine) did, and they hate it. Those senators had seen this GOP strategy coming ever since the election was called back in November, and they never bothered to inform Americans about what Republicans were up to.

As a result, Trump now has massively more power than he did last week, and Democrats won’t have another chance to force compromise or even stop him until this summer—probably late June—when the ability of the federal government to move money around collides with the debt ceiling (which we hit this past weekend).

Republicans are already planning to punk Schumer and his “peace-in-our-time” colleagues again. And it sure appears that Democrats have already ceded the rhetorical field to them by not letting Americans know—in a way as unmistakable as were the Tea Party protests against former President Barack Obama adding a Medicare buy-in to Obamacare—about what the stakes and Republican plan will be.

As a result, Indivisible, arguably the most powerful and influential Democratic group in the nation, just openly called for Chuck Schumer to step down:

“After weeks of constituents demanding that Democrats use this rare, precious point of leverage on the government funding bill, Schumer did the opposite,” co-executive director Ezra Levin wrote. “He led the charge to wave the white flag of surrender. But Indivisible has no intention of surrendering to Trump, Elon Musk, and congressional Republicans.”

Leadership of the group reached out to their 1,600 local Indivisible groups nationwide with two emergency meetings; 82% of group leaders in New York state (Schumer’s state) and 91% of Indivisible leaders nationwide voted to demand Schumer step down from his position as Senate minority leader.

“We thank him for his service,” the Indivisible press release says, “but we need new leadership in this moment and we understand to get there we need a chorus of support for change… Our democracy is in danger. The path ahead will be hard. Indivisibles are ready to do the work—it’s time for a Senate Democratic leader who is too.”

American political observers who’ve been wondering for years what Putin has on Trump are beginning to alter their perspective, based on how he’s ignoring court orders, using the Justice Department as his own instrument for revenge, and crushing any Republican who dares speak up or stand up against him.

Instead of fearing Putin, there’s a growing consensus that Trump simply sees Putin as his role model, a situation that’s actually even more dangerous.

He, too, lusts for absolute, unquestioned power in a major nation, democracy be damned. He’s already taking steps to enrich his friends and imprison his enemies, regardless of the legality of either. He’s laying the foundation to shut up or break any opposition, be it in the media, in Congress, or in the streets.

This is how democracies die, from the end of the Roman republic to Germany in the 1930s to modern-day Russia and Hungary. In every case, there were opponents of the wannabe dictator who tried to warn the people, and in each of those cases they were ignored (even though they reflected majority public opinion).

Both Russia and Hungary show how democracies don’t collapse overnight—they erode step by step. Institutions are undermined, dissent is crushed, elections are rigged, and economic power is concentrated in the hands of a corrupt elite. Once these three pillars—governance, civil liberties, and economic fairness—are dismantled, reversing the slide into tyranny becomes increasingly difficult.

Last week, Trump snatched three students from their homes and is detaining them—in defiance of our nation’s First Amendment—pending deportation simply because they said things that pissed off him and his fellow criminally corrupt autocrat, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

He’s been in defiance of multiple court orders to restore funding and hiring to federal agencies, and just defied a federal judge who ordered his deportation planes to turn around in midair (they didn’t).

And now his Justice Department is investigating green organizations like Habitat for Humanity (having frozen their checking account) as well as people involved in movements like Black Lives Matter. It’s just a matter of time before they go after groups like Indivisible and FiftyFifty.one, commentators on TV (he said MSNBC and CNN are “illegal” on Friday), and writers on Substack (they’ve already sued Jim Stewartson for over $1 million).

Trump is punishing prosecutors for investigating his crimes, politically destroying Republicans who dared challenge him, and trashing American media and allies who don’t suck up to him sufficiently. His cabinet meetings resemble something out of North Korea (or the old Apprentice show), with his underlings engaging in effusive, slobbering, over-the-top praise of Dear Leader’s brilliance, charisma, and manliness.

He is, in other words, following Putin’s template from the late 1990s and early 2000s as if it were a checklist. Which is, in part, why Schumer’s betrayal was so destructive, both to the Democratic Party and the country.

The U.S. still has time to rescue our democracy, but only if our elected Democrats will explicitly recognize the warning signs and act decisively.

Schumer and his colleagues could have demanded Republicans fund election security (Trump just shut down that agency), reinstate ethics laws, get big money (Elon Musk, et al) out of politics, expose disinformation in media and social media (Trump shut that agency down, too), and restore accountability for the traitors who killed three police officers and smeared literal shit all over the offices of Democrats in the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

Even if he got none of it, the demands and negotiations would have gotten all of them into the media.

Instead, Schumer gave it all away. He gave Trump exactly what he wanted, without even the smallest glimmer of a fight.

This is no way to run a political party or the Democratic faction in the Senate.

It’s time for new leadership that understands how communication works in the 21st century, is committed to defeating Trump and Trumpism, and can effectively tour the media and the country to galvanize the people.

Democratic decline doesn’t spontaneously stop itself; it must be fought tooth-and-nail at every level. Every time Democrats hand Republicans a win without even exacting a symbolic concession, it strengthens the GOP’s hand both in public opinion and future negotiations.

While Democrats play by the old rules, Republicans have fully abandoned them, and, so far, they’ve suffered no consequence whatever for attacking our democracy. They won’t stop until it’s too late to prevent the authoritarian slide.

Democrats in the Senate must stop playing defense, call out the authoritarian threat by name, use government shutdowns and the debt ceiling as leverage, and put democracy at the center of very negotiation. Every budget fight, every bill, every debate must include protections for our democracy.

It’s too late to screw around any more; Vladimir Putin, fossil fuel billionaires, and their neofascist and white male supremacist buddies have declared open war on our democracy, and we need a warrior, not a backroom dealer, at the front of our movement if we are to rescue this nation.

There is no more room for weak leadership, no more time for calculated political inaction. Schumer must go, and Democrats must replace him with a leader who understands the existential stakes of this moment.

If we don’t mobilize now—if we don’t demand real resistance—we won’t just lose another election. We’ll lose our democracy.

St. Patrick's Day is celebrated by millions of Americans every year.

It's a recognition of the shared heritage of two great countries.

But the meaning of St. Patrick is something most Americans get exactly wrong.

This misunderstanding reveals why these two nations—once so similar—are now worlds apart.

Here's what Americans need to know.

***

[Sound of a bullet chambered, waves breaking in indifference.]

Venice Beach, twilight.

I'm minding my own business when—

[Flash]

A gun is pointed at my face.

Random violence. Pointless. American.

But this isn't just about crime. It's deeper.

In America, violence isn't a national crisis—it's a block-by-block lottery. You're safe until you're suddenly not.

I grew up in Ireland, and we simply don't live this way.

Why?

Because violence isn't just about guns—it's about trust.

The Real Heist

[Cut to marble floors, quiet handshakes, silent theft.]

While Americans are busy fighting each other—left vs. right, immigrants, tariffs—the real robbery happens quietly:

• Trust gutted—institutions hollowed until safety nets snap.
• Inequality weaponized—the rich feast; everyone else fights each other over crumbs.
• Desperation manufactured—crime, addiction, despair—all intentional side-effects of profit-driven division.

Ireland is no saint. But this desperation doesn't dominate, because trust—even when imperfect—remains intact. Arguments rarely become instant death sentences. Less inequality means fewer people forced into despair. Institutions still hold, even when they falter.

The difference? People in Ireland still expect their institutions to function. Americans expect them to fail.

Trust itself is being deliberately dismantled, turning neighbors into threats instead of allies.

And when trust collapses, what and who fills the void?

Manufactured Chaos

[Cut to your uncle, veins bulging, shouting about "libtards!"]

Left vs. Right: the puppet show you can't stop watching.

• Two-party spectacle: a staged distraction from real theft.
• Media outrage: addictive scrolling keeping you blind to what's really happening.
• Global chaos: Siding with dictators, up is down, bad is good.

Your neighbor isn't robbing you.

They are. Slashing the federal government, agencies, medicaid, SNAP under the guise of efficiency and long-term good to turn billionaires into trillionaires while consolidating power. All the while…

Pulling your strings.

Carjacking your anger.

They aren't just feeding your fear—they're refining it into a weapon.

St. Patrick's Fire: A Moral Inferno

[Cut to 433 AD. Hilltop. A forbidden flame.]

The Irish High King had one rule: No fire before mine.

Then Patrick lit his fire—a flame of open defiance.

The Druids warned: "If that fire isn't put out, it'll never be extinguished."

They were right. It burned through an empire for 800 years.

So, what's America's fire?

• It's not partisan warfare.
• It's not scapegoating migrants.
• It's a moral stand against those profiting from fear—against those robbing your fundamental right to live without fear.

Who Are the Real Snakes?

Patrick banished snakes from Ireland—but there were no snakes. They were poisoners of trust, hope, and community.

America's snakes?

• Social media owners who profit from, and shape, fear.
• Politicians who weaponize division.
• Corporate interests dismantling your safety to line their pockets.

President Donald Trump isn't fighting snakes—he is the snake. But he's not alone. They're everywhere, wearing different skins, exploiting the fear they manufacture.

The Only Question That Matters This St. Patrick's Day

Forget distractions. Forget the puppet show.

Ask yourself this:

Do I feel safe?

Not just from violence—

• Safe from losing healthcare overnight?
• Safe from sudden joblessness?
• Safe enough to trust your community, your future?

America doesn't have to be this way.

They built it like this.

Which means you can unbuild it. And trust can be rebuilt.

But you must see the snakes. If you don't, you'll never fight the right battle—you'll fight each other while they watch and profit.

***

St. Patrick was a slave. He defied a corrupt king. He lit a fire.

That fire was truth—a moral truth against injustice. And it can't be put out.

It burned through 800 years of oppression, famine, and war.

He didn't just bring religion—he brought something far more powerful.

St. Patrick's Day isn't about shamrocks or beer.

It's about your resistance.

This year, don't just celebrate.

Act.

Light. Your. Fire.

When I was 10 or 11, I joined up with a group of girls at summer camp to single out a tall, gawky campmate who had reached puberty much earlier than the rest of us. Ganging up on Ilene was a way to bond with the other girls, to reassure myself that I wasn’t an undesirable outsider like her. There was a brief, intoxicating sense of power in it that quickly curdled into guilt when her mom came to speak to the camp counselor about her daughter’s misery.

While I’m embarrassed by this memory, I think under the right circumstances almost all of us are capable of being cruel. It often arises when we’re repulsed by our own insecurity or weakness. We then project it onto others so we can avoid feeling bad about ourselves.

Cruelty is also a tool of power. From authoritarian rulers to internet trolls, cruelty is often disguised as strength, when instead it reveals a profound weakness—an inability to engage with others in good faith. Right now we see it playing out in the White House, as U.S. President Donald Trump tries to assert his control through fear, modeling the dictators he coddles. “Trump is acting like a king because he is too weak to govern like a president,” explains journalist Ezra Klein. Terrorists use terror because they know it’s the only tool they have.

When cruelty becomes fashionable—when it is seen as strength rather than a moral failing—societies descend into darkness.

As a child of Holocaust survivors, the president’s public displays of callousness chill me. His proud, unapologetic heartlessness reminds me how humans are capable of unspeakable brutality. Yale University psychology professor Paul Bloom describes cruelty as even worse than dehumanization. Dehumanization is what enables soldiers to enter into battle and kill without moral paralysis. By contrast, Bloom writes, “Cruelty is when you act fully aware of the humanity of the persons you are mistreating or humiliating. In fact, that’s the whole point.”

This sadistic streak was fully evident when Trump and Vice President JD Vance ganged up on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office, making him grovel for an empty deal and publicly humiliating him for being insufficiently submissive. That the meeting was even televised made it feel like a gladiator fight in the Colosseum. Red meat for the masses. A signal that cruelty is not only acceptable, but to be celebrated. “This is going to be great television,” said Trump, smiling at the cameras as the meeting ended.

And that's what really makes this so dangerous. Because history shows us that cruelty has a seductive pull. The Nazis weren’t an anomaly; they were an extreme manifestation of a tendency that has existed throughout human history. When cruelty becomes fashionable—when it is seen as strength rather than a moral failing—societies descend into darkness. And cruelty, when normalized, begets more cruelty. One sees it in how families often pass down abusive behavior over generations or how everyday Germans behaved under Hitler during World War II. “If you and I were in Nazi Germany,” says Bloom, “we’d like to think we’d be the righteous ones, we’d be the heroes. But we might just be regular old Nazis.”

Ultimately though, while cruelty can be contagious, tyrants fall not just because people oppose them, but because, deep down, most of us long for a world where respect is earned through decency, not domination. Through every dark time in history, there is always a counterforce—a fundamental human longing for justice and decency—that helps bring down oppressive regimes. In the end, cruelty is a learned behavior, but it’s also a choice. It’s easy to be an asshole, especially under duress, while compassion takes practice and intention. If we recognize our own capacity to be cruel, we can opt to counter it or at least refuse to nourish it.

But it’s not that easy. When I hear about the slashing of programs that will result in the death and suffering of millions or how trans people and immigrants are being scapegoated to serve as distractions from billionaire plunder or when Musk says that “empathy will be the downfall of western civilization,” I feel murderous. It makes me feel cruel and stirs a desire for retribution. Yet, if I let the rage take over, I have fallen right into Elon’s trap.

Recently, I was talking with my best friend from high school about Israel when she told me that Muslims aren’t like us, that you couldn’t think of them as people. My gut response was to berate and shame her. But instead, I chose to hold back until I could give more thought to my response. Two days later she called me to tell me that her partner was gravely ill. We still haven't been able to talk about her troubling words, but now I have a better idea of what I will say. I will ask her to share the pain behind her anger. I’m not sure what made her utter the words she used, but I’m pretty sure it had nothing to do with Muslims.

When we do talk, I hope she can acknowledge her misplaced resentment and that we can repair our relationship. I hope I’m able to extend her some compassion and not lash out. I will remind myself that the world won’t get better by giving in to my worst instincts. If we are to defy the power of cruelty, we must choose—again and again—to respond with something better.

In May of 1986, I received a master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. That degree has been a proud part of my resume in the many years since.

As Columbia rushes to appease the Trump administration by expelling, suspending, and revoking the degrees of a growing number of students accused of peaceful protest and exercising their constitutional rights to free speech and assembly, I unequivocally renounce my degree and any affiliation with the university. I charge Columbia with complicity in the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank and with terrorizing its anti-genocide, pro-Palestine students, faculty, and staff. I charge Columbia with appeasement of and partnership with fascist governments (Biden and Trump) in Washington.

The shameless capitulation of Columbia to government pressure is reflective of the corporate, neoliberal selling-out of academia. Academia, exemplified by Columbia University, has surrendered its proclaimed mission of intellectual independence and endeavor, and the academic pursuit of knowledge and social advancement.

Today, I renounce my 1986 master’s degree from SIPA. I renounce it in the name of Mahmoud Khalil, of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, of Hind Rajab, of Shaban al-Dalou, of all those who are names and not numbers.

In Gaza today, during this holy month of Ramadan, more than 2 million people suffered through the 14th day of a criminal siege imposed by Israel. No food, no water, no electricity for light, heat, desalination, or medical equipment, and no humanitarian aid or supplies have been permitted into the decimated Gaza Strip for two weeks. The people, who continue to experience a genocide conducted by the United States and Israel, are dying of hunger, of thirst, of disease. They are dying from their untreated wounds, from hypothermia, from shelling, sniping, and drone attacks. They are dying from causes too numerous to count.

In the West Bank today, Palestinians continue to be driven from the Jenin, Tulkarm, and Nur Shams refugee camps—camps established because the Nakba of 1948 made them refugees in their own land. Today, the Israel Defense Forces (let’s call it what it is—the IOF—Israel Occupation Forces) continued to tear up roads, wells, and infrastructure across the West Bank, deny Palestinians their supposedly inalienable right to return, take selfies amid the rubble of homes and schools, shoot children, and defecate on the floors and furniture of the emptied buildings.

In other words, this was an ordinary day in the lives of Israeli soldiers and decision-makers in Tel Aviv and Washington, D.C. And yet, in this world that fascism and genocide turn upside down, it is not the perpetrators of these historic crimes who are in the dock. Instead, peacefully protesting students are targeted by their own schools and government.

On March 13, the Zionist administration of Columbia University (recall that Zionism is a racist, supremacist, settler colonial political ideology), rushed to cooperate with the Trump administration after it received an extraordinary letter listing nine demands Columbia must meet to avoid having $400 million in federal funding denied. Eager to comply with this extortion, university officials announced that an additional 22 students were expelled, suspended, or had their degrees revoked.

The next day, the U.S. Department of “Homeland Security” (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) followed up on their abduction and rendition to Louisiana of Columbia graduate and green-card holder Mahmoud Khalil with the arrest of a second student, who is also Palestinian. Evoking the “Commie sympathizers” trope of the Red Scare, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem referred to the students as “terrorist sympathizers.” Meanwhile, Columbia allowed federal agents to search dorm rooms at Columbia University. At the request of Columbia University “Public Safety” officers, the New York Police Department (NYPD) entered Butler Library to investigate graffiti in a men’s restroom.

On March 14, I drove from my home in western Massachusetts to W. 116th Street and Broadway in Manhattan to stand with pro-Palestine students of Columbia and Barnard, and leaders of Within Our Lifetime. As an alumna, I felt compelled to be in the presence of their humanity, their courage, and their uncompromising, untiring dedication to Palestinian liberation from the river to the sea.

To Dr. Keren Yarhi-Milo, dean of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, and former officer and intelligence analyst of the IOF: We see who you are. We see the role you have played in calling in the NYPD on the peaceful students of last spring’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment. We see your hosting of former Israeli prime minister and war criminal Naftali Bennett (“I’ve killed many Arabs in my life and there’s nothing wrong with that”), who joked about distributing exploding pagers to anti-genocide students at Harvard a few days ago.

Today, I renounce my 1986 master’s degree from SIPA. I renounce it in the name of Mahmoud Khalil, of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, of Hind Rajab, of Shaban al-Dalou, of all those who are names and not numbers. I denounce the terrorism of Columbia University, and of all the U.S. administrations, Democratic and Republican, that have supported and partnered in the decades-long dehumanization and genocide of the Palestinian people. I denounce Columbia’s and the U.S. government’s monstrous conflation of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism that puts Jews in the way of true danger and is, in itself, anti-Semitic.

Each day of the deepening fascism of the U.S. is another day of starvation, displacement, and terror for Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank. But in renouncing my degree and burning my diploma, I say: I will never stop talking about Palestine.

Following the example of the protesters who burned their draft cards during the Vietnam war, I call on all CU alumni to join me in publicly burning our Columbia diplomas.

Many alumni can give firsthand accounts of the 1968 anti-Vietnam war protests at Columbia that led to nonviolent occupation of campus buildings. When campus negotiations failed, Columbia called in 1,000 police, resulting in the arrest of over 700 students and the shutdown of the university. True to corporate, neo-liberal and neo-fascist form. But the protests on Columbia’s campus and campuses across the U.S. contributed to ending the largest U.S. colonial war of the 20th century.

No symbolic gesture such as burning diplomas can atone for the suffering that Zionist institutions like Columbia and Barnard cause and are complicit in. Each day of the deepening fascism of the U.S. is another day of starvation, displacement, and terror for Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank. But in renouncing my degree and burning my diploma, I say: I will never stop talking about Palestine. The repression of Columbia University and the U.S. government, as with all historic repression, lights the flame of deepening and widening resistance and change.

The people will teach the Zionist authorities a long overdue lesson. As the students of Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) explained, in responding to CU administration anger over “Free them all” graffiti spray painted on the President’s House on March 14, “The people will not stand for Columbia University’s shameless complicity in genocide. The University’s repression has only bred more resistance and Columbia has lit a flame it can’t control.”

“Free them all” refers not just to Mahmoud Khalil. Not just to all pro-Palestine students persecuted by Columbia and by DHS, ICE, President Donald Trump, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. It refers to all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli torture prisons. It refers to the Palestinian people, past, present, and future. And ultimately, it refers to us all, since ultimately, we are all Palestinian. I hope that the flames of burning Columbia diplomas will help light the way toward this freedom.