Live at 9 AM Eastern & Streaming 24-7 Thereafter:

Editorial cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM Eastern time.

Today we discuss:

• RFK Jr. is haunted by 2024 arguments about “reparenting” American children, especially Blacks, on wellness farms, which he proposed building in rural communities across the US. “Every Black kid is now just standard put on Adderall, SSRIs, benzos, which are known to induce violence,” Kennedy has said. “Those kids are going to have a chance to go somewhere and get reparented and live in a community,” he said.

• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the biggest adversary the US faces is not Iran, but the “feckless and defeatist words” of Democrats and some Republican lawmakers. He repeatedly stressed that the war was necessary because Iran posed an “existential threat” to the United States. “I know the American people support that mission, despite your loose talk and words like ‘quagmire.’”

• A historic drop in representation by Black members of Congress may be on the way after the Supreme Court’s landmark decision to further weaken the Voting Rights Act.

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The post The Re-Parent Trap | DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

This May Day, I’ll be one of the millions who will peacefully take to the streets to denounce the cruelty and corruption of this administration and the oligarchs it serves. I will march because I believe our lives are worth more than dollars and cents. Every one of us deserves the right to live in dignity with hope for the future. I invite you to join me.

May Day began in the 19th century, when industrial workers came together to demand something we now take for granted: an eight-hour workday. At that time, even children worked 12 or more hours straight in factories, every day. We too easily forget how far we have come, and that victories like these were won by organized people.

In 1884, there was an extreme concentration of wealth in the United States, so labor organizers called for a general strike every year on May 1 until all workers achieved “eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, and eight hours for what we will.” It took many strikes and marches, advances and setbacks, but the eight-hour workday ultimately became the law of the land in 1940.

This year, the organizers of May Day Strong are calling for everyone to participate in a new version of a general strike—with no work, no school, and no shopping—wherever you are. There will be large, peaceful marches you can easily join in cities and towns in every state.

This year, I find inspiration in everyone who has marched before me, and in all those across the country who are finding their voices as we step into the streets in this dark moment. Because it truly is up to us.

May Day Strong’s rallying cry is #WorkersOverBillionaires, at a time when the difference between rich and poor is even worse in this country than it was in the 19th century. The top 1% in this country controls more wealth than the bottom 93%, while one man—Elon Musk—controls more than 52% of American families.

Every four seconds, Musk and billionaires like him rake in more than the average person makes in a year. Extreme wealth is concentrating even more, fueled by the more than $1 trillion in tax cuts granted by the Trump administration to the ultra rich and corporations last year. But there’s more at stake than income inequality. We all know that a basic right in a healthy democracy is to have free and fair elections: While this ideal has never really been true for many of us, it’s a hard-fought right that guarantees us having a voice in how the country, and our daily lives, are run. That is precisely why it is under attack at this very moment.

That’s why the organization I lead, People’s Action, has joined May Day Strong and more than 400 partner groups across the country to host democracy bootcamps and solidarity schools, so every community can be prepared to defend democracy. You can join a solidarity school where you live, or organize your own. The materials we have developed for these trainings are freely available to anyone who wishes to use them, in English and Spanish, at organizingfordemoracy.org.

May Day has long served as an inspiration for the immigrant rights movement. For two decades, it has called for May 1 to be a “Day Without Immigrants,” as a way to show solidarity and make the work and contributions of immigrants visible to everyone.

This year’s organizers also found inspiration in Minneapolis, where faith and union leaders called for schools and businesses to close for a “Day of Truth and Freedom” on January 23, to protest the violent treatment of immigrants and peaceful protesters by federal agents.

More than 75,000 people poured into the streets of Minneapolis to express their outrage, and thousands more did in other cities. It worked: In the face of this solidarity, clear evidence the people of Minneapolis would stand together and protect each other, federal agents left the city.

Who answered the call in Minnesota? Workers of all sorts, small business owners, neighbors, mothers with children, pastors with their faithful, doctors, nurses, and teachers. That is, everyone who believes violence is never the answer, and that we all deserve better.

I am also inspired by the people of Hungary, who just ended the authoritarian rule of Viktor Orbán with their most effective tool: their votes. Despite all of Orbán’s efforts over 16 years to restrict, silence, and intimidate civil society, Hungarians united around a simple truth: They want to live in a future free from fear. Together, they won. And if they can do it, we can, too.

This year, I find inspiration in everyone who has marched before me, and in all those across the country who are finding their voices as we step into the streets in this dark moment. Because it truly is up to us. No one is coming to save us: We must rely on each other.

So I invite you to march with me this May Day, then let’s organize to win elections and protect our right to vote this November. Together, we can prove the power of organized people. I’ll be marching in Florida this year, and if you are nearby, you are welcome to join us. But wherever you are, I encourage you to do something. You will make new friends when you do.

It does not matter why, how, or when you decide it is time for a change. It could be today. What matters right now is that we show up for one another, and we learn how to organize with new neighbors to create a democracy where every one of us has a voice, a vote, and the right to live with dignity. You can choose to do this now.

Perhaps theologian Walter Wink can help us understand Pete Hegseth, America’s self-declared “secretary of war” and spokesman, for God’s sake... for God. At a recent prayer service at the Department of Defense, for instance, Hegseth, after calling the Iranians “barbaric savages” who deserve no mercy, called on the citizens of his country to pray for victory “in the name of Jesus Christ.”

Love thy neighbor, folks! Earlier he had boasted that the American bombing campaign had “unleashed twice the firepower in its first five days as the initial ‘shock and awe’ bombing phase of the Iraq War in 2003.” You might recall, of course, that this campaign included the devastation of a school in Minab, which killed—murdered—around 170 people, including over 100 children. God bless America.

Wink, in his book The Powers That Be, discusses what he calls “the myth of redemptive violence”—the belief that violence saves us. Indeed, “It doesn’t seem to be mythic in the least,” he writes. “Violence simply appears to be in the nature of things. It’s what works. It seems inevitable, the last and, often, the first resort in conflicts. If a god is what you turn to when all else fails, violence certainly functions as a god.”

And when we use it, that’s God with an uppercase G. Just ask Hegseth. All of which leaves me emotionally shredded, as I think about the country, the world, the future. How can it be that the hell of war is so fully a part of the American identity, preparation for which consumes half the national budget every year? How can it be that the waging of war—the consequences of war—so easily morphs into an abstraction, at least over here where the bombs aren’t falling, and most discussions of it (not counting the fervor of the anti-war protesters) focus on strategic and political rather than moral issues? Just check out the media.

Unlike dead schoolchildren, harm to Vance’s political future can’t be written off as collateral damage, apparently.

Here, for instance, are some fragments of a recent article in The Atlantic, which, while it was hardly gung ho about the Iran war, oozed, you might say, an abstract neutrality about it—and about all the wars we have to be ready to wage in the future. Worry NO. 1 the article addressed concerned how many American weapons were being used up:

Vice President Vance “has also expressed his concerns about the availability of certain missile systems in discussions with President Trump, several people familiar with the situation told us. The consequences of a dramatic drawdown in munitions reserves are potentially dire: US forces would need to draw from these same stockpiles to defend Taiwan against China, South Korea against North Korea, and Europe against Russia.”

The unquestioned assumption is that war is inevitable—ho hum. No larger questioning occurs, no mention of the looming environmental disaster these coming wars will inflict on the planet. Just an academic shrug. A few paragraphs later:

Pentagon leaders’ positive portrayals present an incomplete picture at best, people familiar with intelligence assessments told us. According to those internal estimates, Iran retains two-thirds of its air force, the bulk of its missile-launching capability, and most of its small, fast boats, which can lay mines and harass traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. At least in terms of resuming stalled maritime commerce, "those are the real threat," one person told us.

The world being presented to the reader seems like a video game. At least that’s the case in this article, which detaches war from any mention of blood and destruction, any mention of schoolchildren lying dead beneath collapsed infrastructure as loved ones dig for their bodies. I’m not saying strategic data doesn’t belong in war reporting, just that if it’s not part of the larger context of the moral realities of war, it turns hell into nothing more than an abstraction. This is the role the mainstream media has long claimed for itself.

But some people are affected by the war, we learn:

The vice president was skeptical about the merits of attacking Iran before the war started; Trump has acknowledged that Vance was "maybe less enthusiastic" about a conflict that has proved deeply unpopular among American voters. But the vice president has multiple factors to balance: his desire to work smoothly with other senior officials, his track record of opposing "forever wars," and his prospects should he mount a presidential run in 2028.

Vance and Hegseth both have a major stake in the war’s outcome... Several people close to Trump believe Vance now sees his political future as tied to what happens in Iran.

Unlike dead schoolchildren, harm to Vance’s political future can’t be written off as collateral damage, apparently.

And the myth of redemptive violence marches on.

While the world’s attention has been hijacked by the new American, made-for-Israel war against Iran, a quieter act of resistance is gathering on the deep blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea. An act of defiance determined to remind the international community that there is no pause in Gaza’s genocide, and there will be none for those fighting to end it.

The Global Sumud Flotilla, (sumud means "steadfast" in Arabic), is now on its 2026 spring mission. International activists boarding close to 100 boats, with Greenpeace's Arctic Sunrise providing technical and operational support, are sailing to Gaza under the slogan: We sail until Palestine is free.

The goal is clear, and against all odds, to establish a direct maritime corridor to Gaza's shores, delivering what Israel's blockade has long denied the more than 2.2 million human beings. The 1,000 multinational seafarers carry something harder to quantify: the accumulated moral weight of a world that has grown tired of watching governments perform concern while doing nothing.

Before speaking of what the flotilla is sailing toward, the world must first reckon with what it has chosen to normalize: Israeli occupation of 53% of Gaza. Its suffocating blockade controls every calorie that enters the strip, so precisely, so deliberately engineered, that humanitarian organizations have documented an official daily intake for Gaza's children, a number calculated not to sustain life but to regulate its slow erosion. A supposed ceasefire that never ceased using food as a weapon in a war of starvation.

For all its firepower, Israel has not found a weapon capable of extinguishing people’s determination to stand up against injustice.

Since the October 10, 2025 ceasefire announcement, the headlines moved on, but Israel kept killing. Six months later, United Nations Human Rights Chief Volker Türk reported that at least 738 Palestinians had been murdered since that ceasefire took effect, with airstrikes, gunfire, and shelling continuing daily across the strip. “Palestinians have no blueprint for survival… Whatever they do or don't do, wherever they go or don't go, there is no safety or protection afforded to them. It is hard to square this with a ceasefire,” he said.

It cannot be squared, because it is a one-sided ceasefire. More than six months on, Israel continues to cordon 2.2 million Palestinians into 47% of their own land, an open-air prison shrinking by the day, its walls drawn not in concrete but by the calculated silence of the international community. Homes, or what had remained of them at the time of the ceasefire, have since been systematically razed to the ground. More than 1 million human beings are not permitted to return, not even to pitch a tent over the rubble of what was once their home.

They are separated from their homes and farms by the so-called yellow line. In reality, it’s a red bloodline, demarcated not by markings, but by the corpses of murdered Palestinians. A moving death trap that follows Gazans into their streets, their neighborhoods, their tents. A father walking his child to what remains of a school. A woman carrying water back to a tent. A man standing outside because his home no longer has walls. Any of them, at any moment, can fall within the “bloodline” death coordinates, and be shot.

To hide the story, Israel kills the witnesses attempting to document the murder. On April 8, the Israeli military murdered another journalist, Mohammed Wishah. Wishah, the 294th Palestinian journalist targeted by Israel in Gaza since October 2023. According to Brown University, Watson School, as of April 2025, Israel “killed more journalists in Gaza than the US Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War (including the conflicts in Cambodia and Laos), the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990s and 2000s, and the post-9/11 war in Afghanistan, combined.”

Israel has exported the same tactic to Lebanon, where the targeting of journalists and media workers has brought the total number of murdered Lebanese journalists to more than 20. It is a regional Israeli strategy of silencing witnesses, not an isolated pattern of collateral damage. The number of murdered journalists in Palestine and Lebanon are not just a statistic. It is an Israeli methodology. Where the blue helmet and the press vest have become Israeli military priorities, not because journalists carry weapons, but because Israel fears the camera more than it fears the gun.

This is why Gaza remains sealed to a complicit international press. A blackout designed to conceal what Israel's killing machine is doing on the ground. When it cannot stop the truth from existing, it kills the locals who expose it. When it cannot stop the world from eventually seeing, it ensures the world sees as little as possible, as late as possible, and filtered through its own hasbara outlets. The camera is the enemy because the camera does not lie, does not accept military briefings as fact, and does not look away from a child pulled from under the rubble in Gaza, or a screeching cat rescuing its kitten from under concrete wreckage in Lebanon. Evidence is the one thing that cannot be bombed into rubble, or starved into submission, so it murders the bearers of the truth.

The Global Sumud Flotilla understands this. Among those sailing are journalists, documentarians, and human rights monitors. People of conscience who have chosen to place their bodies between Gaza and the world's forgetting. Israel has intercepted previous attempts in international waters many times before, jamming their signals, seizing their vessels, humiliating activists, and dragging them into custody. It’ll certainly try again. But the calculus of the world’s public opinion has shifted. Every interception is new proof, and every crew member taken in the dark Mediterranean night is a witness who will tell a story.

Israel has the most sophisticated military hardware American taxpayers’ money can buy. Its drones hunt journalists by name, and a diplomatic shield is held in place by Washington's veto. What it neither has nor can manufacture is the power to kill an idea whose time has come. The flotilla sails, again, because Gazans have not surrendered. It sails because the blue helmet and the press vest, though stained with the blood of nearly 300 journalists, still mean something to the people who wear them. Activists, representing the best of humanity, have come from all seven continents because history is being written beneath the stars and across the cobalt waters. They stand apart in a world that has chosen to look away.

Yet, and for all its firepower, Israel has not found a weapon capable of extinguishing people’s determination to stand up against injustice. Gaza will be free. The only question is, how many flotillas must sail, and how many witnesses must be murdered, before the world’s conscience awakens.

When you write a book called The Billionaires Have Two Parties, We Need a Party of Our Own: How Working People Can Build Independent Political Power, you provoke a lot of angst in some of your readers. More than a few are still haunted by the memory of Ralph Nader and his quixotic 2000 presidential campaign, good fun until, as many believe, he took the election away from Al Gore, the Democrat, and gave it to George W. Bush, the Republican.

Spoiler, spoiler, spoiler echoes in their minds as this year’s make-or-break November elections approach. Won’t talk of third parties encourage defections from the Democrats and risk helping MAGA? Better, it is thought by the worriers, to bury all such discussion.

Even my friend Bob Kuttner, the astute political commentator, knocks me down with the age-old observation that the “American constitutional system, with its lack of proportional representation for minor parties, makes it almost impossible for new parties to gain a lasting foothold.”

That’s certainly the case when the focus is on presidential races. The story, however, is entirely different at the state and local level, where independent third parties have won thousands of offices and have helped to reshape America. The Populists did it in the 1880s and 1890s, the Socialist Party did it in the early 20th century, and the Minnesota Farm-Labor Party did it in the 1920s. These third parties led the charge to stop child labor, legalize labor unions, and rein in the corporate robber barons. They, not the Democrats, constructed the foundation of the New Deal that elevated the lives of working people.

I would like third party skeptics to take a four-step cure:

Step one: Close your eyes and recall what happens on just about every election night. What do you see about five seconds after the polls close? Half the voting districts in the country flash red. They are immediately lost to the Democrats again and again and again. The sad truth is that in 130 congressional districts there is, in reality, only one party, and the Democrats lose by 25 percent or more time after time, that is, if they even run a candidate at all.

Step two: Admit that in those districts the Democratic Party is ineffectual and therefore the spoiler issue isn’t an issue. Repeat once a day: The spoiler problem does not exist in the 130 congressional districts that the Democrats lose by 25 percent or more.

Step three: Take a strong dose of Dan Osborn, the working-class candidate who is running for Senate in Nebraska as an independent and is doing better than any Democrat has done in decades. Why? In deep red America the Democratic brand is poison, but progressive populism can take hold and grow when contested by independent working-class candidates. Run as a Democrat and you’re defeated before you start.

Step four: Think more carefully about what works. While progressive groups like the Working Families Party do admirable work reforming the Democrats in blue and purple districts, their identity as progressive Democrats makes it almost impossible for them to have any impact in red America. (See Chapter 6 of my book.)

I hope that these four steps make it easier for the worriers to hear the central argument of my book:

Working people are alienated from the Democratic Party and need a political home of their own, especially in red America.

We need to understand the causes of that alienation and how a new political home can be built outside the two major parties without becoming a spoiler in any shape or form.

It’s time to put aside the spoiler canard. In fact, it’s time to get used to the fact that more and more independents are running in red America, attacking both billionaire parties. The Democrats, not the independents, are becoming the new spoilers as they realize that they are now the third party. (See Montana right now.)

You may find other points of contention in my new book, and I’m happy to talk about them all, but the third-party spoiler problem isn’t one of them. Take a look and decide for yourself.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels taught us that capitalism is a system primarily characterized by private control over the means of production. In other words: Factories and banks are privately owned. Business decisions are guided by whether they generate surplus value that can be appropriated as profit by the owners. Workers become a commodity, one that must, however, market itself and generate exchange value.

In this context, the state’s primary role is to safeguard these relations of production and balance the interests of the various factions of capital. In doing so, the construction of neoliberal ideologies sought to minimize state benefits for the poorer strata of society, destroy the protective mechanisms of poorer societies, and simultaneously transfer state resources to capitalist oligarchies. Those who demanded the elimination of subsidies were, in fact, the very ones who benefited from them. Elon Musk is a current example of this, having actively helped reduce government spending while simultaneously securing subsidies for SpaceX.

Capital has always been and remains constantly on the lookout for new avenues of exploitation. This requires, on the one hand, the necessity of permanent economic growth within society and, on the other hand, the constant development of new global markets. This not only comes at the expense of people but also devastates and destroys the ecology of this planet. The compulsion and the inherent dynamics of capitalism to constantly grow and achieve ever-higher profits lead to the depletion of the planet and, step by step—but also through tipping points—destroy the conditions of existence on Earth.

Marx and Engels already foresightedly analyzed in the mid-19th century how the process of globalization unfolds under capitalism—here is their famous and still relevant quote from the Communist Manifesto:

The need for ever-expanding markets for its products drives the bourgeoisie across the entire globe. Everywhere it must take root, everywhere it must expand, everywhere it must establish connections. Through the exploitation of the world market, the bourgeoisie has made production and consumption cosmopolitan.

Capitalism means the embedding of economic greed in the deep structures of a society. This manifests itself in an extreme wealth gap, with very rich multimillionaires and billionaires and an increasingly larger class of impoverished people. The Marxist theory of impoverishment applies not only to the wealth gap between the rich nations of the Global North and the nations of the Global South affected by global exploitation, but is now also evident in the wealthier nations.

US President Donald Trump, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Vice President JD Vance, and others are examples of the capitalist right wing, which is attempting, through radical means, to undermine the welfare state and install an extremely ruthless form of capitalism.

Capitalism expanded worldwide as part of its historic triumphal march. It not only spread from Europe into all geographical regions of the world, but it also penetrated hegemonicly into the inner spaces of human coexistence—as Elmar Altvater notes:

The micro- and nanostructures of life are assigned value and thereby manipulated in such a way that their transformation into commodities and their exploitation in monetary form result. Private retreats are not safe from the constraints of money and capital. Forms of social co-existence are increasingly structured in contractual terms and thereby subjected to the logic of monetary market equivalence. Capitalist valorization is an all-encompassing yet, within the confines of the planet, limited and limiting principle, whose rules must be obeyed as if they were God’s commandments.

In an ever-evolving and diversifying capitalism, zones are emerging worldwide where financial oligarchies live behind guarded walls, largely evade taxes, and refuse to fulfill the social obligations of a community. The system described by Canadian-born historian Quinn Slobodian as “crack-up capitalism” is characterized by him as follows:

Within the national containers, one finds unusual legal spaces, anomalous territories, and peculiar jurisdictions. There are city-states, tax havens, enclaves, free ports, technology parks, duty-free zones, and innovation centers. The world of nation-states is littered with zones—and we are only beginning to understand their influence on contemporary politics.The capitalist Struggle for Resources

The privatization of public funds, destructive investment in weapons and the military, the lack of purchasing power among impoverished segments of the population, geopolitical rivalries, as well as the finite nature of the Earth’s resources and the struggles over them lead to economic crises that are managed in various ways. Eco-imperial tensions are—according to political scientists Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen:

Tensions between states and state alliances resulting from capitalism’s access to an ‘outside’ that is becoming increasingly available and uncontested in the ecological crisis. These eco-imperial tensions are becoming a structural feature of international politics; they are therefore not merely temporary but permanently present.

The extreme political right, in particular, exploits the crisis-prone nature of capitalism to promise authoritarian solutions to crises and, ultimately, to further exacerbate the wealth gap if it gains the power to do so. Human rights are disregarded; international law is violated. The struggle for resources such as oil, gas, and rare earths, and the billions in profits associated with them, shapes international politics and leads to wars and mass displacement.

Currently, the largest fossil fuel dealers—the US, Russia, and Iran—are fighting over global resources in the interests of their economies and financial capital. They are also fighting against an emerging capitalist faction and against cooperative initiatives that aim to solve the global energy problem with the help of renewable energy.

This critique applies not only to conditions in the Global North but also to the capitalist development path in the countries of the Global South—according to political scientist and activist Alexander Behr:

A brutal class struggle is also underway in many other countries of the Global South. The national bourgeoisie serves the interests of transnational corporations. In the short term, it can rely on a growing middle class that wants to secure its imperial lifestyle. But the hegemonic development path—whether state-interventionist as in China or neoliberal as in Brazil—is deeply destructive and will further intensify resource conflicts in the future. It thus ultimately jeopardizes the security of supply for all people.

It should be noted here that a struggle over solar energy does not lead to wars. The sun’s energy is limitlessly usable for us humans. The struggle over fossil fuels and rare earths is a struggle over limited resources that will become increasingly scarce in the future. The peace- and ecology-oriented journalist and author Franz Alt therefore writes in his article “Sun and Wind Do Not Need the Strait of Hormuz”:

One of the most crucial questions for the future is: War over oil or peace through the sun? The Iraq War, the Afghanistan War, the war over Venezuela, and now the Iran War: All these wars were or are wars over fossil fuels. Sun and wind, however, are gifts from heaven. They are energies of peace.

Of course, we must not forget that even “green” raw materials needed to produce electric car batteries (e.g., lithium or cobalt) are already hotly contested—regardless of whether the electric cars are powered by solar energy.

Authoritarian Capitalism

Authoritarian capitalist systems have no qualms about invading other states to secure and expand their own economic growth as well as the returns and privileges for their ruling classes. In states where the scope for public action is still governed by democratic constitutions, however, an internal societal debate takes place. The question here is whether international law and human rights must be respected or whether asserting interests through military means is appropriate. Societies with a democratic self-image, however, are currently tending toward militarization and increasingly authoritarian structures in the face of individual states perceived as threats. Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, for example, is a trigger here.

In this context, the arms industry appears to be prevailing over capitalist circles more interested in peace regarding the use of public, state funds, due to geopolitical trends. This means that an industry and its shareholders are currently gaining the upper hand, whose products are used for destruction, rather than for constructive investments. Conversely, attempts are being made to divert public funds away from ecologically oriented industries and social support for underprivileged segments of society in order to finance weapons and military personnel.

Wars are—besides geopolitical power ambitions—primarily resource wars in the interest of capital owners who profit from them and speculative war profiteers.

To this end, for example in Germany, a horrendous level of national debt disguised as a “special fund” is being accepted. This means that funds necessary for repairing what has been destroyed and for rebuilding alternative societies are also being withdrawn from future generations. This constitutes a massive privatization of public funds.

Naomi Klein discusses disaster capitalism and its profit-maximizing shock strategy. Natural disasters, military conflicts, or massive economic crises are deliberately exploited under capitalism to engineer economic redistribution and increase returns. Democratic structures and development would be brutally suppressed if the exploitation of disasters were to be hindered.

In particular, the combination of capitalism and an authoritarian-repressive social structure is a highly dangerous systemic alliance.

In this context, the further development of the means of production in a digital direction driven by artificial intelligence serves both to increase profits and to monitor and manipulate the population, as well as to enhance the efficiency of weapon systems used in wars—according to the Greek economist and politician Yannis Varouvakis (2025):

The implications are staggering: ubiquitous surveillance, automated targeting on the battlefields, macroeconomic instability (as cloud rents destroy aggregate demand), the end of democracy itself as an ideal (hailed by Peter Thiel), and the death of universities, replaced by personalized AI extensions.

US President Donald Trump, Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Vice President JD Vance, and others are examples of the capitalist right wing, which is attempting, through radical means, to undermine the welfare state and install an extremely ruthless form of capitalism. In doing so, they seek to revise and abolish the centuries-long struggle of exploited and alienated people—both in their daily lives and in their work—against the inhuman power of unbridled capitalism.

Conclusion: On the Necessity of Rule-of-Law and Democratically Organized Control of Power

Wars are—besides geopolitical power ambitions—primarily resource wars in the interest of capital owners who profit from them and speculative war profiteers. The more repressive a state’s social structure is, the easier it is for its ruling “elite” or capitalist oligarchies to legitimize wars and enforce them within society.

The death of people—including civilians—the destruction of painstakingly built infrastructure, as well as ecocide—the destruction of nature as a weapon of war—do not play a role in limiting the actions of these systems.

Critical peace research seeks to analytically elucidate this connection and raise awareness of it. At the same time, its task should also be to develop step-by-step perspectives on how to strengthen democracy within society in a broader sense and how international understanding and cooperation can be achieved.

In this context, the topic of "capitalism" must not be overlooked. All systems—including capitalism—must be scrutinized to determine the extent to which their structures exhibit excesses of power that go beyond the state’s legitimate monopoly on the use of force. Domination without constitutional and democratic oversight leads to domestic repression and the destruction of interstate peace and international peace orders. States such as Russia, the US, or Turkey are current capitalist examples of this—even if they are authoritarian in different ways.

Peace, on the other hand, requires a social system whose economic practices are both solidarity based and ecological, and which takes the rule of law, international and human rights, and democracy seriously. This system can begin within capitalism, but will only be able to fully develop in a different social formation that can no longer be described as a capitalist society.

The defeat of Viktor Orbán and the Fidesz Party in Hungarian national elections on April 12 signaled a turning point for right-wing movements across Europe and in the United States. Orbán, having used quasilegal to tools control the electorate, enrich himself and his cronies, and align the country with Russian interests, was soundly beaten, with a centrist, Peter Magyar and the Tisza Party, winning a supermajority in parliament. Magyar promised to abandon the corrupt rule of Fidesz, its close ties to Russia, and its connections with the international MAGA movement. How could Orbán have failed so spectacularly; after all, US Presidnet Donald Trump put his influence on the line to support him by ordering Vice President JD Vance to appear at a Budapest rally on the eve of the elections?

Over 16 years Orbán had established stricter and stricter control over Hungarian society. He came to power on a wave of voter resentment over the 2008 global financial crisis that forced many people into poverty, and because of the belief that Hungary had lost sovereignty to European Union interests in Brussels. New laws enabled Fidesz to manipulate voting. Police actions and surveillance helped to intimidate alternative voices. Endemic corruption gave financial advantages to Fidesz politicians and their allies. The party used government-owned media to identify immigrants, minorities, and other enemies as threats to the traditional family as the foundation of society. Yet, in the end, Orbán’s turn away from Europe, toward Moscow, and against Ukraine in the war with Russia, along with a foundering economy, proved too much for Hungarian voters.

There had been almost universal support for democratic reforms among Hungarian voters after the collapse of the USSR. Throughout the 1990s the expat financier, George Soros, invested heavily in Eastern Europe to establish educational institutions and programs dedicated to human rights, in particular in Hungary. Eventually, however, Fidesz politicians came to accuse Soros of being part of a “globalist” conspiracy to control the country. The conflict between the vision of Orbán for authoritarian rule and that of people like Soros for an “Open Society” gained traction in the run-up to the April 2024 election. The catastrophic loss of Fidesz in the elections has now triggered concern among right-wing politicians across Europe—and in the MAGA movement in the US—that voters have finally rejected their heavy-handed, authoritarian rule.

From Open to Closed Society

A symbol of the bankruptcy of socialism was the East German Trabant, an automobile with a smoke-belching two-cycle engine made available for the working class consumer. Before the Wall fell in November 1989 in Berlin, pro-democracy movements had opened the borders in Hungary and Poland. East Germans, as yet unable to travel directly to the West, drove some 20,000 Trabants into Budapest, abandoned them with their keys in the ignition for anyone to claim, and took trains to Vienna and thence to the Federal Republic of Germany to reunite with friends and family.

In general, the Orbán-Putin-MAGA countries underperform the world in life expectancy and infant mortality.

In sharp contrast with the clunky, polluting Trabants were nascent institutions of democracy, some of which were supported by George Soros. Soros (b. 1930) has become the bugaboo of right-wing ideologues and antisemites who are convinced he represents an international conspiracy of bankers, a conspiracy theory that Orbán brought to the fore in Hungarian elections. In the mid-1940s the Soros family used forged documents to escape the mass deportation of Jews from Hungary to the Auschwitz death camps as organized by Adolf Eichmann. Soros moved to London to pursue university, began work in finance, and developed highly successful hedge funds. Soros’ philanthropic efforts date to 1979 and the award of scholarships to Black South Africans under apartheid.

Soros established the Central European University (CEU) in 1991 to rebuild “open societies” in East Central Europe after the collapse of the USSR. He created the CEU “to foster critical thinking—which at that time was an alien concept” in socialist universities. He endowed CEU with $250 million in 2001. Soros’s vision was of a university dedicated to examining the contemporary challenges of "open societies” and human rights.

Soros also funded the Open Society Archive (OSA) from 1995. At the end of the Cold War, OSA secured the collections of the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) from its Munich offices. The archive, totaling over 3 kilometers of materials on the history of the Eastern Bloc, documented the murderous Soviet invasions of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 during the so-called Prague Spring. The materials reveal the essence of the closed socialist system; the failure of central economic planning; the endemic corruption of party officials; and the damage to culture, literature, and the arts of ideological interference. Communist officials felt so threatened by RFE/RL that they bombed the Munich offices in 1981, injuring seven people and causing $1 million in damage. I was honored to receive one of the early OSA grants in 1996 to work in the Budapest archive—and consider the socialist detritus of Trabants.

Having quickly established an international reputation for academic excellence, CEU ran afoul of the illiberal Orbán regime because of its pro-democracy stances and pedagogy; CEU had opened leading women’s and environmental studies departments, for example. In the 2010s the government forced CEU into exile in Vienna as part of its effort to close civil society groups. Fidesz instead promoted culture wars through Christian, nationalist, anti-immigrant, and homophobic programs and propaganda that served as a template for similar political impulses as far away as the United States.

The attack on the CEU further resembled Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ongoing battle against scientific freedoms. After a brief period of reform and internationalization, the Kremlin centralized control over university curricula and personnel appointments. It has arrested researchers for public lectures under charges of treason for revealing “state secrets.” It opened offices of state security police, the FSB, on every campus. It is no coincidence that, in the battle against critical thinking, Trump and his allies are carrying out an assault on academic integrity by withholding funds, threatening academic programs that celebrate diversity, and insisting on teaching “patriot,” ahistorical education.

But incoming Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Magyar intends to reverse this heavy-handed interference. After the elections, he promised to end state funding of the Matthias Corvinus Collegium, a university breeding ground for elites aligned with the Fidesz political party whose faculty felt pressure to write promotional articles for Fidesz. He is seeking to rekindle Hungarian academic excellence to spur economic growth.

Orbán’s Illiberalism and Economic Stagnation

With a population of 9.5 million people, Hungary’s economy ranks much higher in global output than in population. The country’s high economic performance was noteworthy even under socialism with the NEM (New Economic Policy, 1968-1991), a turn to market mechanisms and away from central planning that led the country to outperform other economies in the socialist bloc, something called “Goulash Socialism.” But like Donald Trump who falsely claims that his policies enable the US economy to thrive in the growing, self-imposed isolation of tariffs and other questionable macroeconomic policies, Orbán came to power in part by condemning the global economic system that led to the 2008 financial crisis. He promised to overcome Hungary’s embarrassment at having to accept a €20 billion European bailout to avoid bankruptcy. He promised to break with the “liberal paradigm" and build a "sovereign" economy free from the EU dictates. These were strange claims given the fact that Hungary relies significantly on EU market access, EU investments and imported energy, and EU institutional rules that it uses as leverage for its economy.

After a brief recovery in the 2010s, owing precisely to the influx of foreign capital and EU funds, Hungary’s economy faltered. It stagnated because of underinvestment in education and innovation that led to stultified growth, and because of the sloughing off of benefits and privileges to party loyalists. The shocks of the Covid-19 pandemic, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, an energy crisis, and growing conflict with the EU that led to the suspension of EU funds “were not the source of these problems but rather sharply exposed pre-existing structural weaknesses.” The practice of funneling contracts to friends, family, and chosen oligarchs, which resembles the selling of crypto and stock deals out of public view and the awarding of government contracts that are so prominent in the US under Trump and Russia under Putin, contributed to public disgust.

Growing poverty, the collapse of healthcare, and universal corruption damned Orbán to lose. In general, the Orbán-Putin-MAGA countries underperform the world in life expectancy and infant mortality. In Hungary severe doctor shortages due to emigration, longer patient waiting times, and shortages of such basic supplies as toilet paper turned off voters. To balance budgets on the poor, the country’s healthcare spending fell to among the lowest in the European Union. (In the US, ahead of the midterm elections in November, a healthcare crisis has unfolded. It is caused by MAGA policies that have sent costs skyrocketing, cut insurance programs, removed safety nets, forced people into bankruptcy, yet have seen industry profits increase to $54 billion in 2025. This has triggered backlash among voters.)

Identifying Internal Enemies

On top of rigging the electoral system, media, and economy to hold onto power, Orbán advanced a pro-family, anti-immigrant, and antisemitic message to cement his grip. Since 2013 Fidesz has used Soros’ face on billboards and in other campaign materials to suggest that the Jewish financier had a secret agenda to destroy Hungary. In 2026, the billboards carried the same messages, but with photographs of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who is also of Jewish descent. Other rightists employ the same tactics. Putin accuses Jews of being godless people who try to tear apart the Russian Orthodox Church, and he frequently distorts the history of the Holocaust to lay some of the blame for Nazism on Jews. Trump has accused Jews of being disloyal; he calls bankers “Shylock” to tie them to the stereotype of the evil Jewish moneylender, Shylock, in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice; he consorts with racist, antisemitic extremists and claims that some Nazis are “good people”; and he calls Soros and other Jews “globalists,” a code word for claiming that they conspire to control the world’s economies. Trump seeks nothing less than the prosecution of Soros in US courts.

Like other illiberal societies, Fidesz has promulgated anti-LGBTQ legislation. In its rejection of human rights agendas advanced by Soros and others, the party claims to defend the family from decadence and immorality. In the early 2020s, Fidesz banned same-sex couples from adopting children, ended legal recognition of transgender people, and prohibited speech about homosexuality. The European Commission recently rejected these laws as contrary to the values set forth in the Treaty on European Union and the principle of non-discrimination in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU. Not to be deterred, in March 2025 the government banned a Budapest Pride event and authorized city authorities to use facial recognition software to identify—and fine —participants. The parade drew 100,000 marchers—a harbinger of the election failure. All of this was in the name of championing the values of Christian civilization which were threatened by what Orbán called “gender madness.”

In all these ways Fidesz set an example for the feckless Trump who appoints MAGA loyalists as the heads of regulatory agencies and seeks the consolidation of major communications companies under sycophantic billionaire businessmen.

Putin had shown Orbán the way. In June 2013 the Russian parliament passed a law to punish LGBT individuals with fines and imprisonment for even speaking about “non-traditional” relationships. The law encouraged police to ignore rising violence against the community. In the US, conservative states have long agitated against equal rights for the LGBTQ community through laws limiting bathroom access, denying driver’s licenses, making hormonal therapy illegal, and other discriminatory practices. Under Trump the federal government has ratcheted anti-trans propaganda, misinformation, and discrimination; blocked gender-affirming care, stifled research; and banned trans people from serving in the military.

In its programs and initiatives, the Open Society organizations stand in solidarity with gays, lesbians, Roma, and other people. For George Soros this was a personal quest. “In every country I visited,” Soros recalled, “I saw the same pattern. Roma communities were denied access to decent housing, employment, healthcare, and education.” Pointedly, in 2023, Alex Soros, who succeeded his father as chair of Open Society, announced the launch of the Roma Foundation for Europe, supporting a new generation of Roma leaders working across the Western Balkans, Eastern Europe, Spain, Italy, and Germany.

Control of Media to Disseminate Fear

If Soros and Fidesz had cooperated in the 1990s in the effort to rebuild Hungary from socialist stagnation, the relationship grew hostile after Orbán lost in 2002 elections. In the 2010s, after Orbán returned to office, Fidesz, with a two-thirds majority of seats in parliament, amended Hungary’s constitution to ensure future victories. In 2013 it passed rules to limit pre-election political advertising to broadcasters controlled by Orbán’s allies. Ownership of the media shifted to these oligarchs through inexpensive loans from state-owned banks that enabled them to buy up media outlets. The state, the biggest advertiser in Hungary’s media market, pulled advertising from outlets deemed hostile to Fidesz, starving them; for example, Klubradio was forced off air in 2021. State-controlled media spread absurd messages of fear that included the claim that Ukraine was ready to invade Hungary. They depicted Magyar “as a reckless enemy of peace, bent on dragging Hungary into the war in neighboring Ukraine.”

In all these ways Fidesz set an example for the feckless Trump who appoints MAGA loyalists as the heads of regulatory agencies and seeks the consolidation of major communications companies under sycophantic billionaire businessmen. He rails against fake news. Showing allegiance to Orbán, Putin, and other authoritarians, he attempted to shutter the Voice of America and RFE/RL, perhaps because they provide an alternative to Kremlin, Chinese, and other misinformation efforts. He tasked conspiracy theorist Kari Lake to cut programs; fire employees; and stop broadcast, investigation, and reporting activities. Overnight, such shows as “Current Time” that provided information beyond Kremlin control were cancelled and journalists were fired. In this way, Trump cemented Kremlin dominance of messages at home: Putin’s government controls six national TV networks, two national radio networks, two news agencies, two national newspapers, and over 60% of the remaining press.

In the end Orbán was unable to fix the recent election. A huge turnout of 74% of voters who were angry about failed economic policies and overly friendly ties with Russia—the nation that had murdered hundreds of Hungarians in the 1956 invasion—ensured a landside loss. When he was interviewed after his victory on the state-controlled M1 television network by a still-hostile newscaster, Magyar reprimanded her for spreading “lies” about his family and compared the channel’s coverage to propaganda from North Korea and Nazi-era Germany.

International MAGA Networks from Washington to Budapest

Illiberalism has had significant international ramifications, notably in bringing together such unlikely conservative bedfellows as Orbán, Putin, and Trump into the effort to foment rightist victories across the globe. The cast of international right-wing characters who endorsed Orbán did not help him to victory. The last minute, highly publicized visit by US Vice President JD Vance, and increasingly vocal endorsements from Trump on Truth Social, backfired with an electorate fed up with Orbán. He had become synonymous with democratic backsliding: a gangster-driven authoritarianism that weakened judicial independence, degraded media pluralism, entrenched patronage networks, and sought out repeated battles with Brussels, not only as a Hungarian leader but as “a transnational symbol for the authoritarian and nationalist right.” JD Vance parroted this litany of complaints about “bureaucrats in Brussels” trying to “destroy the economy of Hungary.”

Russian election interference, consisting of disinformation campaigns and direct financial support, has been far more dangerous, intrusive, and long-term. Between 2014 and 2022 Moscow spent over $300 million financing foreign political parties. As of 2023, more than 900 political parties and organizations in 19 European countries were promoting pro-Russian narratives, for example, the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party whose members sabotaged arms deliveries to Ukraine and seek to block military assistance to Kyiv. In addition, Putin hosts far-right gatherings and uses covert tools, threats, and violence to achieve foreign policy ends.

Against this history of the rise and fall of Hungarian socialism; the rise and fall of Hungarian illiberalism, Russian interference, and invasion; and the overlap of rightist groups and interests from Europe to the US, Orbán’s electoral failure may represent a turning point.

In exchange for Russian support, Orbán stalled Ukrainian EU accession negotiations. He blocked a €90 billion EU loan to Ukraine over the latter’s refusal to allow Russian oil to transit to Hungary through the Druzhba pipeline (recently opened). Russian front organizations produced memes, graphics, and videos for Hungarian social media that were designed to incite hostility between Hungary and Ukraine. A Kremlin-linked bot network, “Matryoshka,” shared fake posts on X that portrayed Orbán as “a peacemaker” and a victim of warlike Ukrainians. Even worse, reminiscent of Trump’s clumsy efforts to coerce Ukraine into providing “dirt” on his 2020 election opponent, Joe Biden, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó established a hotline with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to give Moscow strategic information on critical EU issues. Szijjártó acted on behalf of the Kremlin to remove sanctioned oligarchs from EU blacklists. It appears that Orbán put his chips in with Putin and Chinas Xi Jinping because he believes that the European Union was doomed to collapse.

The rightist connections are deeply incestuous. Incoming Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar accused Orbán of diverting taxpayer money to the US’ CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference). Indeed, CPAC has “deep roots in Hungary,” its website is filled with positive reference to conservative Hungary, and it “stood firmly” with Orbán during the recent election campaign. CPACHungary spreads the same kind of disinformation as CPAC. Attempting to frighten Hungarian voters into thinking seeing the Tisza party as anti-Hungarian, CPACHungary claimed that “Brussels and Kiev may be on the side of Tisza, but Europe and the world stand by Viktor Orbán.” CPACHungary shares with CPAC anti-immigrant and homophobic positions, insisting that the “Hungarian right clearly stood in favor of border protection, family, and peace policies.”

Soros and Democratic Transitions

But Hungarian voters had clearly had enough of the corrupt Fidesz regime. It did not help that Orbán and his circle had made money through corrupt deals, as became shockingly visible after the release of drone footage of Orbán’s estate with manicured gardens, underground garages, and zebras grazing on the grounds at a kind of Hungarian Mar-a-Lago, Hatvanpuszta. Orbán claimed it was his father’s property and had nothing to do with him or Fidesz.

With Orbán defeated, the potential for a return to Hungary’s commitments to the EU has been renewed. These commitments include a Hungarian vote on EU sanctions against Russia. Already a €90 billion EU loan to Ukraine has been approved, while a project between Orbán and Putin to build two Rosatom 1,200 megawatt reactors at Hungary’s Paks nuclear power plant on the basis of 40 year loans and technological dependencies—against EU and local interests—has been put on hold.

There has been an alternative vision to Fidesz illiberalism since the 1990s in the Open Society programs. For his efforts to support human rights, establish a new university, build a research archive on the history of socialist repressions, and create “open” institutions, George Soros has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize a number of times, including by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. In 1992 Soros established the International Science Foundation (ISF) with a $100 million grant to support scientists in the former Soviet Union during economic and political crises that saw research programs collapse. Russian security agents tried to stop the ISF in the 1990s, claiming that the West (and a Jewish banker, Soros,) were buying Russian science on the cheap. In 2017, the Soros Open Society Foundations announced that he had transferred $18 billion for the future work of the foundations, bringing the total since 1984 to over $32 billion. These amounts likely make Soros the world’s most generous donor based on the percentage of his net worth donated.

Against this history of the rise and fall of Hungarian socialism; the rise and fall of Hungarian illiberalism, Russian interference, and invasion; and the overlap of rightist groups and interests from Europe to the US, Orbán’s electoral failure may represent a turning point. His loss in the April 2026 elections serves as a warning to right-wing autocrats that corruption, poverty and authoritarianism do not sell. Indeed, the Hungarian results may be a bellwether for the midterm elections in the US.

The fossil fuel industry is the most powerful and destructive industry in the history of the world. Right now the fate of our planet hangs on our ability to defeat the political power of that industry. It is ready to do anything, including making alliances with pro-fascist forces to maintain its ability to make profits. Understanding the insidious ways it has worked to undermine democracy will be helpful for protecting democracy and challenging the destructive actions of this industry.

Capitalism is the practice of putting profits at the center of how decisions are made about how to produce and distribute resources. Those with capital are able to shift social institutions to enable them to gain even more capital. Entities, such as corporations, come to be self-perpetuating agents whose only goal is profit making.

Capitalism existed long before fossil fuels. But for over a century, fossil fuels, and fossil fuel-based corporations, have been at the heart of capitalism. Fossil fuels have made energy plentiful, which has led to the development of forms of industry and approaches to agriculture that use a lot of it. As we are seeing with the war on Iran, fossil fuels have become the life blood that keeps the global capitalist economy running. Fossil fuel-centered corporations are some of the most powerful entities in the world.

Over time, and in many places, capitalism extracts profits, exploits labor, and despoils nature with very little force. It becomes a matter of course how the systems function. But the original forms of accumulation that allowed some companies to be enormously powerful, and to shape the regulatory world in which they operated, came from brutal expropriation. Capitalism began with slavery and colonialism and a willingness to do anything to make profits.

As the fossil fuel industry increasingly resorts to attacks on democracy to maintain its ability to profit, an important part of protecting democracy is exposing one of the biggest and most determined players behind the current attacks.

The fossil fuel industry has, from its beginning, supported violent overthrows and encouraged states to install authoritarian governments to ensure its ability to engage in extraction. Many of the places where fossil fuels are extracted have been controlled politically by brutal forces kept in power by so-called liberal democratic forces. We see this story in Mexico in 1911, in Iran in 1954, in Shell Oil’s despoliation of Ogoniland in Nigeria in the 1980s.

Outside of those extraction zones, for many years, and in many places, the fossil fuel industry was compatible with liberal democracy. The US was able to have a liberal democratic government, and most countries in the world could as well, as long as those governments supported political and economic practices that allowed for the profitability of powerful industries. The markets constructed to facilitate capitalist processes can generally function fine in collaboration with governments that allow for high standards of living, social safety nets, and civil liberties, as long as those governments have kept processes in place that allow for the extraction of profits. As soon as any government gets in the way of that ability, the so-called liberal democratic order that dominates the global economic system has been prepared to overthrow those governments to put new ones in place that are willing to act in its interests.

Retired General Wesley Clark has argued that US foreign policy has focused on keeping regimes in power that would support the continued use of the dollar as the currency used for trading oil—the petrodollar. By ensuring that regimes are in power that support the continued use of the petrodollar, the US is able to ensure that it has some control over the continued flow of the lifeblood of the global economic system.

Capitalism is compatible with democracy as long as that form of democracy allows the economic world to be dominated and controlled by markets, which are constructed in ways that make them immune from accountability. The fossil fuel industry has functioned in alliance with a nominally democratic US, as long as the US government has also engaged in military action when it was needed to keep the oil, and profits, flowing. It is new that the fossil fuel industry has been aligned with fascism in the US and other Western countries.

Fascism is a particular form of authoritarianism that grows when a capitalist elite worries that its power is going to be threatened by democratic forces. An authoritarian government is one that tries to control all aspects of society and close down dissent. It holds power closely in a small group and is not accountable to its people. Fascism is authoritarianism that runs on popular support. It emerges in contexts that require elections to hold governmental power, where the people are in danger of not acting in elite interests.

A fascist government generally creates in-groups and out-groups in order to get people to bond emotionally with its movement. It uses the power of the government, violence, and threats of violence to intimidate people into compliance. It acts in the interests of an economic elite while pretending to be anti-elitist. And it uses anti-intellectualism and attacks on media and other cultural systems to pull people into its way of thinking and feeling. It often harks back to a mythical past where the in-group had more power and prestige, and society was stable.

In the middle of the 20th century, Germany, Italy, and Spain had nominally democratic governments that were in crisis. The governments were not able to keep the economy functioning in the interests of elites. In the political chaos that comes from an economy that is not functioning well, parties emerge that use extreme racist nationalism to consolidate popular support for authoritarian regimes. It is that move, of using hatred to consolidate popular support, that distinguishes fascism from other forms of right-wing or authoritarian politics.

As the climate crisis has developed, people all around the world are working to shift how we meet our needs in society away from a dependence on fossil fuels. With clean forms of energy fully developed and ready to take over as the energy sources running our economies, the fossil fuel industry is in a fight for its survival. It is aligning itself with fascist forces to remain profitable. To survive, it is prepared to take the whole planet, as well as liberal democracy, down with it.

In the past, the industry has impacted US politics by donating to and leaning on both Democratic and Republican politicians. For example, the industry remains the largest donor to California’s politics, even as that state has a two-thirds Democratic majority. But as renewables become more economically competitive, and many forces are challenging their ability to profit, the industry is seeing a bleak future. And so, for many years, it has been participating in a broad set of challenges to democracy as a strategy to maintain the conditions needed to maintain its profitability.

The move toward fascism in the US has come as a result of the success of the Reagan Revolution’s attack on the New Deal and anything that remotely resembles socialism. The fossil fuel industry has been a part of that revolution every step of the way. There is a line of thinking that was crystallized in the 1971 memo "Attack on American Free Enterprise System," written by the soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell. The Powell Memo outlines a blueprint for how to fight back against emerging challenges to corporate power. Oil barons and political activists the Koch brothers were influenced by the memo and went on to found the think tank the Cato Institute to promote a free-market ideology that argues against regulations on industry in general, and especially against environmental regulations that might impact the fossil fuel industry. It also argued against social safety net programs, such as the programs put in place under the New Deal. Other powerful think tanks, such as the Heritage Foundation, have worked assiduously to promote that set of ideals. That organization was founded by Richard Melon Scaife, heir to a Gulf Oil fortune.

The work of these forces paid off with the election of Ronald Reagan and the triumph of the Reagan Revolution. That revolution challenged the power of unions, destroyed the social safety net systems developed under the New Deal, and rolled back environmental regulations and other limits on corporate power. It allowed inequality to flourish.

Part of what fueled popular support for the Reagan Revolution was the mobilization of racial resentments, used to encourage white voters to blame their precarious situation on people of color, especially on Black people. The Democratic Party decided to ride that wave, and Bill Clinton ran for the presidency on the idea that he would get rid of social safety net programs such as Aid to Families with Dependent Children and get tough on crime, coded in the public imagination as Black. The Reagan Revolution led to extreme pro-business decisions by the Supreme Court, such as Citizens United, which have further eroded our democracy. Many other court decisions over the past decades have allowed monopoly power to go unchecked.

The extreme free market form of capitalism engendered by the Powell Memo and the Reagan Revolution have led to a crisis in capitalist democracy in the US. As people’s lives have been made increasingly precarious by the lack of a safety net and by extreme inequality, they have been ripe for a revolt against the dominant system. In the 2016 election many voters favored populist Bernie Sanders and others favored right-wing pseudo-populist Donald Trump.

The democratic party decided to make its peace with the populists and began working for a return to support for some New Deal social programs as well as strong action to address the climate crisis. The Republican Party went all in on a pro-corporate fossil fuel dominated pseudo-populism, and won in 2016. That coalition won again in 2024. It did this by leaning hard on people's resentments against the system and elites, and by mobilizing people’s passions against imagined enemies, such as immigrants and trans people.

As the US has traveled this destructive path, the fossil fuel industry has walked right along with the Republican Party. The fossil fuel industry contributed heavily to the climate denial movement and the right-wing think tanks that linked climate action with the bogeyman of socialism. It has funded extreme right-wing politicians, including President Trump. It wrote the chapter on energy in the Heritage Foundation’s 2025 policy manifesto. It is pushing for legislation to make itself immune from lawsuits to hold it accountable for the destruction it causes. Many of its former industry executives are in Trump’s cabinet. The only way for this dying industry to maintain its hegemony is to hide behind the mask of nationalism, a way to get people to vote for politicians who clearly act against their interests.

As we fight to protect democracy, we need to challenge any attempts to distract our attention from the forces causing our precarity. We need to engage in deep forms of solidarity, where we encourage others to not fall for political rhetoric that blames the wrong people for why we are experiencing extreme inequality, ecological devastation, war, and the unraveling of the systems that support stable lives.

As the fossil fuel industry increasingly resorts to attacks on democracy to maintain its ability to profit, an important part of protecting democracy is exposing one of the biggest and most determined players behind the current attacks: the fossil fuel industry. The future of democracy requires an end to the political power of the fossil fuel industry.

At this crucial moment in world history, it is incumbent on all of us to fight for accountable democratic politics, and to challenge the political imperatives being driven by an industry that is flailing and causing unprecedented devastation to our planet and our politics. It is up to us to consign it to the dustbin of history before more damage is done.

Conflict reporter/writer/cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.

Today we discuss:

• Social media profiles attributed to Cole Tomas Allen, the 31-year-old Californian charged with attempting to assassinate President Trump over the weekend, are not radical. He’s centrist, moderate liberal. The same could be said of Luigi Mangione, accused of murdering the CEO of United Healthcare. Are we becoming radicalized—or are average people resorting to radicalized tactics?

• FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is reconsidering the broadcasting licenses of Disney’s 8 TV stations for “early renewal” years ahead of their due dates — suggesting the action was spurred by Disney’s DEI policies. The announcement comes one day after Trump and first lady Melania demanded that Disney-owned ABC fire late-night host Jimmy Kimmel over a joke about them.

• The world is threatened by a “suicidal” model of capitalism that is leading to war and the potential extinction of humanity, Colombian President Gustavo Petro says, as he convened 57 governments to address the climate crisis. “There is inertia in the power and the economy of this archaic form of energy – fossil fuels – that lead to death. Undoubtedly, that form of capital can commit suicide, taking with it humanity and [other] life,” he said. “The question that needs to be asked is whether capitalism can truly adapt to a non-fossil energy model.” The former economist said the world was in a perilous position: “We are heading towards barbarism. And barbarism is the prelude to, or the very essence of, fascism.”

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During the 1960s, America was deep in the throes of the US War in Vietnam. In addition to student protests of the war, there were also “teach-ins”—gatherings that questioned not just the war, but the systems behind it, on campuses all across the country. This anti-war movement inspired the start of another; the fight for environmental protection, giving birth to Earth Month in 1970.

Earth Month is not only a moment of reflection about sustainability and the protection of the environment; it is a test of what we choose to do with what we know. This year’s theme, “Our Power, Our Planet,” asks us to consider where power truly lives. In Laos and Ukraine, the answer is clear: It lives in the land and its people.

Land feeds families and shapes culture. It determines whether a child grows up with stability or scarcity. In Laos, more than 70% of the population depends on agriculture. Golden green glutinous, or “sticky,” rice fields stretch across the country, joined by cassava, coffee, and vegetables that sustain both households and local markets. In Ukraine, fertile black soil has long made the country a cornerstone of the global food system, feeding more than 400 million people through exports of wheat, corn, barley, and sunflower seed.

In both countries, the land carries a hidden burden.

Safe land means farmers can plant without fear, invest in their futures, and pass on their livelihoods to the next generation.

Between 1964 and 1973, the US dropped at least 2.5 million tons of ordnance on Laos, with nearly a third failing to detonate. Today, unexploded ordnance litters every province, leaving a quarter of villages affected. Fertile ground is laced with danger.

Ukraine is now becoming all too familiar with this reality. Over four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion, over a quarter of its land is estimated to be contaminated with explosive remnants of war. Just like in Laos, their legacy will endure for generations.

For farmers, this threat is daily life.

In Ukraine, images circulate of tractors moving steadily through fields under gray skies, in rain, even under fire. There is a kind of grim humor in the idea that farmers will cultivate their land no matter the obstacle. Beneath the dark humor of those internet memes is a gritty determination to survive.

In Laos, that risk has been a constant for decades.

Mae Tao Seesom was just in her early 20s during the war in Laos. She remembers having to hide in caves to avoid danger. Unable to farm their land, she and fellow villagers had to harvest what grew in the forest.

Decades after the war, in 2019, Mae Tao Seesom was cooking for her grandchildren when a cluster bomb exploded under her fire. Luckily, no one was injured. This time.

In Ukraine, Oksana Lukiyanchuk’s newly inherited farm is only 35 kilometers from the front lines; she moved to her own farm in 2021 to generate a livelihood for her young family and a legacy to pass on to her newborn son. Only months later, Russia invaded.

The war has drained her workforce; she now works her land with just one hired hand. Under constant threat of drones, Oksana continues to build her business; as a fifth-generation farmer, her ties to the soil here keep her from leaving. This sense of belonging emanates widely among Ukrainian farmers, and is the reason many continue to risk everything to grow on these front lines.

What lies beneath the soil does more than threaten lives; it constrains entire economies.

In Laos, farmers often avoid deep plowing or expanding irrigation for fear of what they might uncover. The result is lower yields and lost potential. Infrastructure—from roads to schools to clinics—cannot move forward without clearance. Decades after the last bombs fell, vast areas of land remain unused.

Ukraine now stands at the beginning of a similar economic struggle. Agriculture is one of its largest sectors, with consequences far beyond its borders. Smaller farms face labor shortages as workers are drawn into military service. Larger producers race to maintain supply chains under constant disruption.

Yet, this is not a story of helplessness. It is a story of leadership.

In Laos, unexploded ordnance clearance has become a national priority, embedded in its development strategy and backed by decades of commitment. Progress has been steady: Casualties have declined, and more land is made safe each year. National institutions, international organizations, and local communities work in concert, ensuring that clearance efforts reach those most in need.

In Ukraine, that same sense of urgency has taken root with remarkable speed. Organizations like Fondation Suisse de Déminage hire hundreds of explosive ordnance risk educators to meet farm staff where they are—at farmers markets, in schools, and on their land—to ensure everyone living in hazardous areas knows the threat of these weapons. As the country develops new landmine technology, this risk education saves lives now, and will remain necessary for decades on.

While the risks of demining are immediate, so are the returns.

Safe land means farmers can plant without fear, invest in their futures, and pass on their livelihoods to the next generation. It allows roads to be built, markets to grow, and communities to thrive. It restores not only productivity, but dignity.

This is why demining is not simply a humanitarian effort. It is one of the most direct and effective investments in development. It strengthens food systems, reduces poverty, and builds resilience all at once.

It is also achievable.

The experience of Laos shows that progress, while gradual, is real. With sustained commitment, improved technology, and strong partnerships, contamination can be reduced, lives can be saved, and land can be returned to those who depend on it.

Ukraine’s future is not yet written. But the path ahead is clearer because others have walked it before.

If land is life, then clearing land is renewal.

This Earth Month, as we reflect on the power we hold, we should recognize that some of the most profound acts of environmental stewardship begin not with planting or preservation, but with making the ground safe enough to stand on.

In Laos and Ukraine, that work is already underway—unceasingly, by the people, and with extraordinary courage.

Trump is spending at least $2 billion a day to attack Iran, which doesn’t include the economic cost of the disruption to oil supplies. Now he’s offering $500 million to the oil-rich UAE for no discernible reason. Everyone is getting in on the grift of taxpayer money except the American taxpayers who are suffering in a crappy job market and rising prices.

The post Trickle Across Future Economics appeared first on Ted Rall's Rallblog.

Thirty years and thirty pounds ago, Workman published “Revenge of the Latchkey Kids,” my bestselling entry in the Gen X manifesto genre. I argued in snotty prose and spiky scratchboard cartoons that Americans born in the 1960s and early 1970s faced a set of challenges that made us the first generation of the 20th century doomed to face downward mobility—to be worse off economically, and by extension politically and culturally, than our parents.

As the word “revenge” implies, it wouldn’t be all bad. We’d be ignored by the Powers That Be—and we’d never become full-fledged members thereof—but we’d also be left alone; we would find our way.

Still, we were born under a dark star. Ours was the first postwar generation to enter a crappy job market hobbled by student loan debt and globalization. Lost, alienated and broke, we married later and had fewer kids and bought our first homes late or not at all. Whatever age we were at a given time was a bad time to be that age. Downsizing targeted us mercilessly in our 50s and now, as we wade into our 60s, they want to take away our Social Security.

As tough as it’s been for my cohort, though, the hand dealt to Generation Z—people born in the 2000s and early 2010s, who are entering the job market as young adults, is many factors worse.

Gen X arrived at the party after the Boomers gobbled all the food and guzzled all the booze. But we were scrappy. We scavenged leftovers and half-finished drinks, bullied the DJ into playing some rad post-punk, and chatted up the stragglers as we collected the coolest stories no one from another generation would ever want to hear.

Gen Z won’t even get to see that there was a party.

We took 17 years to pay off our “ten year” student loans, but it’s hard to see how a Gen Zer with $160,000 in debt, at much higher interest rates than we paid, will ever earn enough to shake off their yoke. Politicians saddled us with $1 trillion in federal debt; Gen Z has $40 trillion. We could place hope in the 1990s economic expansion, the birth of the Web, the end of the Cold War, and relatively truthful print media. Gen Z came of age during the bizarro America of the Covid pandemic, has AI slop, fake bot ads for jobs on LinkedIn, Donald Trump, a dead Democrat Party, and a deep-fake world where nothing is what it seems.

Gen X was subjected to stressors Baby Boomers couldn’t begin to comprehend. Boomers ducked-and-covered throughout the Cold War and fretted about Vietnam draft numbers, but their home lives felt about as safe as one could in the nuclear family. Gen X watched their families disintegrate from divorce and dysfunction, forced to understand from an early age that they were on their own—neither their families nor their government could ever be counted upon to help.

Life has been tough on Gen X—and Z already has it worse. Gen Zers report much higher levels of anxiety, depression and other mental health afflictions. They are also far likelier to self-medicate with illegal drugs. Their Internet-native childhoods have driven them insane.

I don’t think Gen Z will have their “revenge” in the sense I had in mind in the mid-1990s. They’re facing a set of challenges that look about as close to insurmountable as anyone could have imagined: the climate crisis and the probability that it will cause the collapse of human civilization by 2040 or 2050, late-stage capitalism, a moribund two-party electoral political system, an obsolete constitution incapable of being amended, rising unemployment and poverty in a jobs market being revolutionized by artificial intelligence. But Gen Z has something neither Silent Gens nor Boomers nor Xers nor Millennials have: they’re clearheaded.

An April 24th letter to the editor by Charles Huschle to the New York Times addressed the absence of younger voters at the anti-Trump “No Kings” marches we see every few months. “These protests are a huge waste of time. Their utility date is way past due. My generation knows more than you think. We know, for example, that if folks want to unseat the administration, then they need to march on weekdays, in Midtown Manhattan (not on family-friendly Saturdays) or encircle the White House and start camping out there.

Every civil resistance movement goes through stages to be effective. The tactics of staging large demonstrations are worn out. People of my generation know it’s time for the next stage. That’s why we aren’t out on the streets with our esteemed elders.”

If the first step toward tackling a difficult future is acknowledging that there are problems, Gen Z is past that. The second step—refusing to engage with or waste time and energy on solutions that have been proven ineffective—is underway. For Gen Z, survival will be the best revenge.

For what it’s worth, Gen X will be cheering you on.

(Ted Rall, the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of “Never Mind the Democrats. Here’s What’s Left.” Subscribe: tedrall.Substack.com. He is co-host of the podcast “DeProgram with Ted Rall and Jamarl Thomas.”)

 

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Can anything make farmers turn away from President Donald Trump?

How right-wing populism has gripped rural areas, especially among farmers, is evidenced by the results from the past few presidential elections.

Still, critical challenges are emerging for key constituencies in Trump's base, principally due to the damage that the Iran War is doing in the countryside. Similar conditions pushed Irish farmers to the streets in early April, causing a change among political leadership shortly after, and also helping producers receive some much-needed relief.

That Irish farmers took to the streets shouldn't surprise folks. Earlier this year in January, some of them were also demonstrating, but against the EU-Mercosur trade deal. Not too long ago in 2024, their counterparts across the English Channel throughout many European countries staged weeks of actions to protest free trade deals and excessive bureaucratic regulations. Outside of Europe, in Mexico beginning in 2025 and continuing into 2026, farmers, for many of the same reasons, are blocking roads to demand government intervention to address falling prices for their produce.

The Iran War is placing unnecessary stress on farmers and most other working people. Such conditions are similar to those in Ireland, which led farmers to find common cause with others.

Taking a quick glance at these recent protests taking place around the world, farmers in the United States seem to be asleep at the wheel as producers in many other countries are taking control by challenging their governments and calling for economic justice.

It is not the case that farmers in the US are living large.

In 2025, farm bankruptcies rose by 46% compared with 2024. In 2026, even though there appears to be some movement in a positive direction concerning prices for corn and soy farmers, the jump in what they have to pay for fuel and fertilizer caused by how the Iran War devastates global supply chains is eating into their profits.

Making matters worse, the fertilizer industry is heavily concentrated. A standard metric for measuring concentration—the four-firm concentration ratio (CR4)—shows that the leading four companies in fertilizer markets control about 75% of sales. When that figure is above 40% within a certain industry, according to researchers, then illegal practices such as price-fixing become endemic and consumers pay more than they should at the register. Put simply, the negative economic impacts from the Iran War are compounded by an industry looking for excuses to further jack up prices.

Meanwhile, the current version of the Farm Bill in Congress woefully fails to meet the needs of a farm economy facing crisis.

First, pricing policy to support farmers was decided last year in the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB) when the surge in input prices was not on the political radar. Adding insult to injury for our food and farm system, the OBBB also cut food assistance support and climate change initiatives. Speaking to problems farmers are facing, nowhere in the current Farm Bill do we find any discussion of taking on corporate power. Investing in transitioning farms to small-scale, young producers is also mainly an afterthought in the legislation. How hundreds of agribusiness commodity groups support the current version of the legislation, while as many small-scale producer-led groups have voiced opposition, is testament to the fact that our farm policy is about propping up export markets instead of feeding Americans and creating resilient systems.

Trump’s billion-dollar handout to large-scale, mainly high-income farmers at the start of the Iran conflict shows an administration not concerned with sustaining our food system, but with padding the pockets of rich elite allies.

Farmers in Ireland faced similar challenges and felt that they had no choice but to go to the streets. Their actions, drawing comparisons to France’s yellow vests movement, also boasted no clear leaders. In locally organized, spontaneous actions, groups from April 7 to 14 mobilized by blockading strategic oil refineries as well as slowing down traffic on key streets and highways.

Their mobilizations bore some fruit. First, they managed to secure a short-term relief package in the form of direct payments to offset rising fuel costs. Politically, they also caused some political shifts, driving leaders to leave the governing coalition in opposition to how the farmers were treated. While short of generating long-lasting structural change, the demonstrations in Ireland still show how small-scale protests driven by economic malaise can get national attention and prompt change.

Perhaps more importantly for US farmers is how the Irish managed to overcome their relative isolation in society and mobilize with others. Particularly, Irish producers brought truckers to their side, which aided with their efforts at creating roadblocks and slowdowns. Their interests also were aligned, as truckers also have been negatively impacted by rising fuel prices.

With a Farm Bill widely maligned working its way through Congress, legislators have apparently decided to forget about making meaningful changes to our food and farm system. Meanwhile, the Iran War is placing unnecessary stress on farmers and most other working people. Such conditions are similar to those in Ireland, which led farmers to find common cause with others. Now is as good as any other for their counterparts in the US to say enough is enough and denounce a rigged economy that benefits the few at the expense of the many.

Last week, I visited three chronically understaffed Social Security “ghost offices” in Ohio. These are Social Security field offices with too few staff to meaningfully serve the local community. That means people have to wait months for an appointment, if they can get one at all. It is getting harder and harder for Americans to claim their hard-earned benefits.

Kelly Phillips Erb recently wrote in Forbes about the five-month long ordeal her widowed 77-year-old mother went through to claim Social Security benefits. Stories like that are playing out across the country.

This is no accident. The Trump administration engineered the ghost office crisis. Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) forced thousands of workers, including many of the most experienced, out of the Social Security Administration. Thousands more workers were reassigned away from field office work to answer the 1-800 number, without proper training. In 2025 alone, Social Security offices lost an estimated 20% of staff.

Ghost offices are now beginning to turn into closed offices. Over a dozen Social Security offices around the country are currently closed due to lack of staff. It simply isn’t possible to run Social Security properly without the dedicated, experienced staff that Musk forced out.

The three Ohio Social Security field offices I visited were in Painesville, Middleburg Heights, and Columbus. Each of these areas is represented by a Republican congressman who is helping to decimate Social Security.

Donald Trump and Elon Musk are wrecking our Social Security system so they can rob it. And every Republican in Congress is complicit. They’ve all voted for budgets that underfund Social Security, while cheering on DOGE’s cuts.

That includes Senator Jon Husted (R-Ohio), who is on the ballot this November. His opponent is longtime Social Security champion Sherrod Brown, who is running to return to the US Senate. Brown has always fought to protect and expand Social Security, and to fully fund the system’s customer service. Meanwhile, Husted and his fellow Republicans are demolishing Social Security brick by brick.

Last November, Husted introduced a so-called “Balanced Budget Amendment.” That would have forced cuts to Social Security, making it illegal to pay promised benefits. Husted wants to deny you the benefits you’ve earned, so that billionaires can buy more golden yachts.

He isn’t alone. The three Ohio Social Security field offices I visited were in Painesville, Middleburg Heights, and Columbus. Each of these areas is represented by a Republican congressman who is helping to decimate Social Security.

The Columbus office is in Ohio’s 15th district, currently represented by Republican Rep. Mike Carey. Carey’s likely Democratic opponent, Adam Miller, joined me at the rally outside the office, where he railed against the Trump administration’s cuts and vowed: “We need to expand Social Security staffing, outreach, and hours. That’s what a Democratic Congress is going to do!”

The Middleburg Heights office is in Ohio’s 7th district, currently represented by Republican Rep. Max Miller—one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the country. The district has a staggering 7,161 Social Security beneficiaries for every field office worker. Like Husted, Max Miller supports a Balanced Budget Amendment that would make it illegal for Social Security to pay promised benefits.

I also visited an office in Painesville, which is in Ohio’s 14th district, currently represented by Rep. David Joyce. The district has lost 16% of its Social Security staff in the last year. Like the other Republicans, Joyce has consistently voted for budgets that underfund Social Security.

During my time in Ohio, I met field office staffers who are struggling to keep up with the workload. They are dedicated public servants who work relentlessly every day, but one person simply can’t do the jobs of five, 10, or 15 people forever. I also met Americans who are struggling to access their hard-earned benefits because of the Trump sabotage.

For the sake of Social Security’s future, we need to vote Republicans out of office this November, and replace them with Democrats who will hold the Trump administration accountable. My trip to Ohio was just the beginning.

In the coming weeks, I am traveling to Social Security ghost offices in New York, New Jersey, Montana, and more to highlight what is happening across our country. Join the fight to stop the ghost office crisis at GhostOffices.org.

LIVE 9:00 am Eastern time, Streaming Anytime:

Editorial cartoonist Ted Rall and political analyst Jamarl Thomas deprogram you from mainstream media every weekday at 9 AM EST.

Today we discuss:

• Low-cost airlines are asking the Trump administration for $2.5 billion to offset some of the cost of fuel, which has surged because of the war with Iran. Spirit Airlines is negotiating a loan of up to $500 million from the government; the government would have the right to purchase ownership stakes in the airline through financial instruments known as warrants. The government could end up owning as much as 90% of the Spirit, in its second bankruptcy in two years.

• A joint offensive by Tuareg separatists of the Azawad Liberation Front and JNIM militants linked to Al Qaeda represented a major setback for Mali’s military junta and its Russian paramilitary partners. Defense minister Lt. Gen. Sadio Camara, a key liaison between the Malian Army and Russian paramilitary forces, was killed in the coordinated attacks.

• Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of former Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov, went on trial in absentia in Switzerland in connection with alleged bribery and money laundering involving assets worth hundreds of millions of dollars. She is in a “prison colony” in Uzbekistan. Swiss prosecutors say Karimova developed and ran a crime ring known as “The Office” that involved several dozen people and multiple companies. She is accused of depositing funds “of criminal origin” in Switzerland and abroad, and arranging for safe deposit boxes for the deposit of cash, jewelry and other valuables.

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This spring people have been raising awareness of the harms caused by Unilateral Coercive Measures, UCMs or “sanctions”. Sanctions have become the “go-to” foreign policy tool of the United States government, now impacting a quarter of the global economy and one-third of the world’s population. These measures cause an average of 564,000 deaths around the world annually—comparable to the toll from armed conflict—mostly among children under 5 years old.

On April 22 Congress held a briefing on “Humanitarian Impacts of Economic Sanctions, Cuba as a Case Study,” with three outside experts: Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic Policy, co-author of the largest study ever conducted on the impacts of sanctions on mortality; David Paul, co-founder of the SanctionsKill campaign, retired nurse practitioner, and co-author of a letter from health workers to Congress about child deaths from sanctions; and Danny Valdes, co-founder of Cuban Americans for Cuba, who shared the perspective of bi-national families impacted by the longstanding and escalating US blockade of Cuba.

Economist Weisbrot said that 71% of the world’s broad economic sanctions are imposed by the United States. These unilateral measures violate international law by deliberately targeting civilian populations for collective punishment in the hope of bringing about regime change, and may even constitute war crimes. In addition to his global study, Weisbrot has compiled research that found US sanctions on Venezuela’s oil industry caused the worst depression in world history outside of wartime, leading to 40,000 excess deaths in just one year, from 2017-2018. And current data on Cuba shows a strained health system and deteriorating health indicators, such as a doubling of infant mortality over the past eight years due to the tightening of the US blockade.

David Paul painted a devastating picture of life in Cuba under escalated coercive measures, especially the fuel blockade which is causing massive power outages and disrupts transportation, the production and distribution of food, refrigeration, water and sanitation, and the operation of ambulances and lifesaving medical equipment. He said this is not an embargo, but an actual blockade of the island. “People in the US government make the false claim that ‘Cuba can buy all the medicines wherever they want.’ It’s a total lie, when in reality all their banking transactions are blocked. [The US] will threaten and punish any corporation—domestic or international—or government, that trades with you. But you are free to buy!”

One parent asked, “Why is the president of the United States deciding whether my son lives or dies?”

More pregnant women are starting prenatal care late and suffering from malnutrition, which results in premature births and low birth weights. More babies are at risk of dying from congenital malformations because of the shortage of functioning diagnostic equipment like ultrasounds needed to detect them. Half of all essential medicines are no longer available in the country, as Cuba cannot even import the raw materials needed to keep its pharmaceutical industry afloat. Children are dying from treatable cancers due to lack of medicines, and physicians are hand-pumping ventilators for their patients when the lights go out. Heartbroken Cuban doctors tell parents, “We know what medicine your daughter needs to treat her cancer, we know where it is, but we can’t get it because they won’t sell it to us.” One parent asked, “Why is the president of the United States deciding whether my son lives or dies?”

Valdes reported an exponential deterioration of conditions on the island between his visits in October 2025 and March 2026, due to the lack of fuel, such as health problems caused by uncollected garbage in the streets of Havana. He says that some blame Cuba exclusively for these troubles, but one cannot deny the role played by US policy. Cuban Americans are impacted because they cannot easily visit relatives or efficiently send them remittances, which can make the difference “between eating and not eating; between accessing medicines and going without.” He noted that the Florida International University poll, running since 1991, reports that 52% of Cuban Americans support the embargo, yet 70% also support the sale of medicine to Cuba. This shows they are not actually in favor of maximum pressure policies.

The host of the briefing, Congresswoman Delia Ramírez (D-Ill.), is a strong proponent of respectful and constructive US foreign policy. She is a leading co-sponsor of H.Res. 1056, which calls for a reset of US relations with Latin America and the Caribbean, including the end of all unilateral economic sanctions. The congresswoman indicated that from Presidents James Monroe to Donald Trump, US interventionism has left a legacy of destruction and distrust, which never leads to peace and democracy.

Congress is gaining awareness of these injustices. A growing number of lawmakers are working to curtail the threat of military force against Cuba, and several signed a statement condemning the ongoing blockade and have endorsed legislation to end it. Some even use the proper terminology, calling for an end to “coercive economic measures.” Are they finally listening to the demands of the American people to end the longest blockade in history? Ever more people are moved to act. During its Congressional Advocacy Day on April 15, Doctors Against Genocide insisted that Cuba be allowed to import medical supplies and pushed legislation to lift the blockade.

We must take advantage of this moment to grow the movement to expose the human cost of sanctions and work to end them. Popular education materials are available on the SanctionsKill website, such as the Sanctions Toolkit. A recent webinar titled “Sanctions Undermine Children’s Right to Health” uses Cuba and Venezuela as case studies to illustrate these impacts and propose a new approach to human rights, such as the Peoples-Centered Human Rights framework.

As stated in the Letter calling on Congress to end child-killing sanctions, “Imposing collective punishment on the innocent is morally reprehensible. It must stop.” Join the fight to end Unilateral Coercive Measures by contacting AmericasWithoutSanctions@gmail.com, a project of the SanctionsKill campaign.

On April 19, 2026, an image circulated of an Israeli soldier standing before a statue of Jesus Christ in Debel, a Maronite Christian village in southern Lebanon, bringing a hammer down upon the sacred face while another soldier recorded him. The image spread within hours because it seemed to compress a moral education into one gesture.

Tucker Carlson was furious. So was a segment of the American right that has, for years, supplied the political and theological conditions that produced this soldier. That is the story the image tells, if you are willing to read it past the shock.

Since October 7, 2023, Israeli soldiers have assembled one of the most extensive self-incriminating records in the history of modern warfare. They posted thousands of videos to Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook under their own names—soldiers posing with Palestinian women's underwear in the ruins of their homes, filming the humiliation of detainees, torching food supplies, demolishing houses while comrades cheered. The Israel Defense Forces chief of staff eventually issued a communiqué instructing troops to stop filming what he called "revenge videos." That such an instruction had to be issued is the revelation.

A soldier films his contempt after the contempt has been sanctioned. He brings a hammer to the face of Christ in a Lebanese Christian village after spending long enough in a world where the sacred things of subjugated people are available for whatever use he finds amusing. The camera reveals how comfortable the contempt has already become.

Here is Islamophobia in one of its oldest disguises: Muslim injury must first pass through a Christian icon before Christian power agrees to see a wound.

That comfort has been built over decades, through laws and habits that operate below the threshold of outrage. Palestinian life under Israeli rule is managed through permits withheld without explanation, military courts where the accused often faces a sealed file in place of evidence, and detention orders renewed in six-month increments until time joins the punishment. At Sde Teiman, a desert detention facility established after October 7, five soldiers were charged in February 2025 with beating a Palestinian prisoner, breaking his ribs, puncturing a lung, and causing a perforated rectum. When the soldiers were arrested, far-right members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition stormed military facilities in protest. The defense minister called the prosecution a blood libel. In March 2026, Israel's top military lawyer dropped all charges. Netanyahu declared that Israel must spare its "heroic fighters."

The United Nations special rapporteur found in March 2026 that torture had become a structural feature of the ongoing genocide, extending from prisons into bombardment, starvation, forced displacement, and the terror of soldiers and settlers. B'Tselem has described Israel's prison system as a network of torture camps for Palestinians.

The same contempt moves through sacred space. Gaza's only Catholic church was struck by Israeli fire in July 2025, killing three people. In February 2026, during Ramadan, Israeli settlers vandalized and set fire to a mosque near Nablus, spray-painting insults against the Prophet Muhammad. The Palestinian Ministry of Religious Affairs said settlers had attacked 45 mosques in the West Bank in the previous year. Israeli authorities condemned the incident and promised a search—which is how impunity often speaks when it wishes to sound like law.

The deeper scandal lies in the moral conditioning of recognition. A violated Muslim sanctity can be treated as a security matter, a disputed incident, another complication in a place supposedly fated to brutality. Then a soldier raises a hammer against Christ, and men who had tolerated the pulverizing of Gaza discover that their theology has been disturbed. Here is Islamophobia in one of its oldest disguises: Muslim injury must first pass through a Christian icon before Christian power agrees to see a wound.

Tucker Carlson weeps for the statue in a world his own political allies helped construct. Mike Huckabee, the United States ambassador to Israel, told a television audience in February 2026 that it would be "fine" if Israel took over the entire Middle East. He had already stated that there is "really no such thing as a Palestinian." He is a Christian who calls on the Bible. The president he serves stood beside Netanyahu in February 2025 and announced that the United States would "take over" Gaza and that its 2 million inhabitants should "go to other countries." The United Nations said this constituted ethnic cleansing.

The United States has been a co-author of this order—replenishing the arsenal, shielding Israel at the Security Council, resisting the jurisdiction of international courts, treating Palestinian death as a cost to be managed after the weapons have done their work. In March 2026, the administration bypassed congressional review to approve a $650 million bomb sale to Israel, invoking emergency authority while Palestinians were still living under ruins made by earlier emergencies.

Christian Zionist theology has blessed this map from the beginning: a map in which Palestinian land, Lebanese land, and Syrian land can be folded into sacred entitlement. That theology sanctifies the conditions, the army carries them out, and supremacist politics rewards the result. The soldier with the hammer grew inside that order. He filmed himself because he believed the record would survive as proof of victory.

What struck the statue was already striking everything else. The violence became visible to a new audience. A conscience that required the face of Christ as its activation point had been choosing all along.

April 28 is National Superhero Day. It’s a shame that Superman is fictional, because our planet needs saving from its most deadly threat: climate change. Our real heroes will come from science, not planet Krypton.

The threat of climate change is not theoretical, and neither are the health impacts. The Earth was 2.3°F warmer in 2024 than during the 20th-century average, and the 10 warmest recorded years have all taken place between 2015 and 2024. According to the World Health Organization, 3.6 billion people already live in areas highly vulnerable to climate change. Climate-driven deaths are rising, from heat illness and malnutrition to vector-borne disease and disasters such as flooding. Thirty-seven percent of heat-related deaths are linked to human-induced warming, a number expected to climb.

Yet at the very moment when the world needs bold climate action, the Trump administration has taken major steps backward. The United States, historically the world's largest emitter, pulled out of the Paris Agreement and failed to show at last year's United Nations Climate Change Conference, sending clear messages to international partners. Federal disinvestment has been staggering: The latest proposed federal budget will cut the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget by 52% and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's by 32%. Funding for climate change research has been gutted across major universities. We are not on track to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, a deadline scientists view as essential for planetary stability. This backslide disproportionately harms low-income communities, contributing to rising climate-related mortality.

Even as the US retreats from its international and domestic commitments to reduce emissions, America still has a league of planet defenders made up of scientists, engineers, and activists. They may not have capes, but their work saves lives.

No one is coming to save us, and while the impacts of climate change may feel distant to some healthcare providers, the rest of us cannot afford to sit this one out.

It's time for physicians to step up and join the fight. This is not just an environmental issue; it’s a public health issue. All the statistics about heatwaves, floods, and disasters aren’t just abstract; they’re at the bedside. We’re seeing the direct impacts of climate change in emergency medicine as it affects both the types of diseases we’re treating and how we deliver care.

As a physician myself, I know asking overworked healthcare providers to do more is, well, a big ask. But research shows that physicians are viewed as credible messengers on climate-related issues. Our voices and expertise matter, not just in clinics and operating rooms, but in our communities. We know that change does not just come in the form of lobbying and big communication campaigns. Often, it can come from everyday conversations. It can look like asking patients how they keep their medications cool during a heatwave or reviewing their asthma action plan in preparation for wildfire season. By leading with curiosity, we can help patients make the connection between their environment and its effect on their health.

It can take the form of a discussion with your colleagues about eco-friendly prescribing, like opting for tablets over liquid formulations or dry powders instead of propellant inhalers. Within our hospitals and clinics, we can make simple changes like adding recycling bins and minimizing the use of single-use disposables. Plastic waste is a huge problem in the medical field, but it’s a scalable problem within our control.

No one is coming to save us, and while the impacts of climate change may feel distant to some healthcare providers, the rest of us cannot afford to sit this one out. Joining the Justice League of climate change advocacy does not mean taking on everything; it means starting with doing something. The planet doesn’t need a superhero; it needs all of us to take a step toward changing our practice.

While stopping evictions is the PAH’s [Platform for People Affected by Mortgages, or Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca] most well-known activity, the movement only began to use civil disobedience as a tactic of resistance out of necessity. Foreclosure processes tend to move slowly and a series of other problems must be resolved before eviction is imminent. At some point, people in the assembly started getting eviction notices, but the first ones to receive them didn’t feel the strength to try and resist the police kicking them out. In 2010, PAH Barcelona was approached by a man named Lluís who had just received a date for eviction from his house in La Bisbal del Penedès. He was desperate, claiming that he’d rather fill his house with butane canisters and blow it up, than to hand it over to the bank. At the PAH, they quickly understood the need for an alternative solution.

The platform’s founders realized that at some point they would have to resort to direct action to stop evictions, but they didn’t think they’d be capable of it... until they were forced to. To stop Lluís’ eviction, they armed themselves with a strong narrative, echoing the legal and ethical arguments against eviction, and an energetic communication campaign that included signs, banners, and media coverage. Moreover, the entire action was recorded.

They knew they had to avoid violence, and when the judicial delegation arrived, the activists did not physically engage them, but simply blocked the entrance to the house, tried to talk them out of evicting Lluís and refused to move. There was little the two police officers could do, and the eviction was postponed. Two days later, the PAH released the video of the demonstration, providing proof of what would later become one of the movement’s slogans: “Sí se puede!”

Harnessing Legitimacy

Members of PAH hold a protest. (Photo by PAH-Barcelona)

Civil disobedience as a tactic to stop evictions became part of the PAH’s regular activity. “What we have to do to stop evictions has become so normalized that when we talk about it at the assembly, we don’t speak in terms of ‘we’re engaging in civil disobedience,’ although that is what we do, and perhaps we should reflect more on that,” ponders Berni from PAHC Bages. “The PAH emerged at a time when thousands of evictions for mortgage defaults were taking place and the issue affected a lot of people who thought they were middle class; in the public discourse, everyone saw that this was something dramatic and unfair,” recalls Emma from PAHC Sabadell. “The fact that in this context, a group of people spoke out to draw attention to this injustice and engaged in nonviolent but active civil disobedience led to the success of the PAH model and its acceptance within society,” she concludes.

“The experience of protesting inside a bank with fifty people is really fulfilling, it takes away your fear and it empowers you.”

To ensure that the platform’s civil disobedience continues to be successful, it’s vitally important for it to preserve that legitimacy. That means being able to justify each and every action as legitimate. Although it will sometimes react to emergency situations, the PAH only takes action on evictions affecting people already involved in the platform. At their assemblies, PAH groups make it clear that they’re not an eviction prevention service, but that they work on the basis of mutual support and only try to block evictions when the people being evicted do not have proper alternative housing.

Beyond the general idea behind these actions—to resist peacefully at the entrance to the building to prevent the judicial delegation from entering—they must be carefully planned and roles must be assigned to make sure everything runs smoothly. If there are minors in the family’s care, a solution must be found to ensure that they aren’t in the house at the time when the eviction is scheduled. It’s very important to support the family, who might be out on the street with their compas, or prefer to resist from inside their home. It’s also very important to remember that the action revolves around their interests and they must be kept informed of what’s happening and able to make decisions when necessary.

Outside, the aim is to keep people’s spirits up while they wait for the judicial delegation to arrive, which might take the whole morning. It’s important to have people to energize the protest in creative ways and give directions. Although people can move around, someone must be responsible for making sure that the door is always protected.

It’s also important to decide in advance how to communicate the purpose and legitimacy of the action to the public, and who will be in charge of communicating with the authorities and the media, rather than leaving it to be decided on the spot.

It’s also helpful to consider preparing the affected person how to deal with the press, if necessary. The movement’s social media presence and its relationship with the media are also very important, as these are tools that can be used to amplify the PAH’s demands and reinforce its legitimacy.

Empowering Actions

Members of PAH-Barcelona stick flyers on a bank window. (Photo by PAH-Barcelona)

The PAH has an extensive repertoire of actions that goes far beyond stopping evictions. In fact, stopping an eviction is not usually the final solution, but a postponement that should make it possible to find a more permanent answer to the problem. This might require action against financial institutions, public authorities or water, electricity, and gas companies. Besides taking action in support of specific cases, big demonstrations can be called to target the institutions responsible for the problems faced by many families.

“I remember the first time we occupied a bank, back in 2010 or 2011. We occupied Caixa Catalunya and the riot police came to kick us out; that was ecstasy, a real high, and then the fear disappeared,” says Delia from PAH Barcelona. “The experience of protesting inside a bank with fifty people is really fulfilling, it takes away your fear and it empowers you.” Many people emphasize the strength of collective action; sometimes the mere act of covering a bank with posters condemning its actions is very powerful. “Wallpapering is a high, an outlet for your rage; you can take out all the hatred you’ve built up inside and stick it all over the institution,” says Juan Luis from PAH Torrevieja.

That’s where the festive tone and creativity of the PAH’s actions come in. Even if you’re protesting against a very difficult issue, you have to make room for joy. If you occupy a bank, you can use the leaflets that are there for anyone to take as confetti and play music or put up balloons and banners. “It wiped away my fear of the bank when I saw how all the employees could leave and the office would be left alone, occupied by activists,” says Juan Luis. The PAH manages to paralyze the bank’s activity without confronting anyone or even directly hindering its work. The movement’s actions are simply intended to make its presence felt because the bank is unwilling to continue its activity in these conditions.

Of course, everyone experiences these actions in their own way and that’s why some groups in Madrid organize what they call “fear workshops.” “These are workshops for people to learn how to act during an action: how to avoid losing their temper or falling for police provocation, how to rely on colleagues. In short, how to overcome yourself so that you can go to the protest, even if you’re afraid, because nothing is going to happen to you in 90 percent of the cases,” explains Alejandra from PAVPS [Platform for People Affected by Public and Social Housing], Madrid.

It’s also important to think about how to look after people in these protests. This can be done, for example, by warning when there’s a possibility that the police show up and recommending that people in an irregular administrative situation stay away to avoid unnecessary risks. “Besides that, they tell you how to act or how to hold onto another person so that they don’t hurt you if they’re trying to remove you by force,” adds Francisco from PAH Barcelona.

This excerpt is adapted from Yes, It’s Possible! A Handbook for Building Power by João França and The Platform for People Affected by Mortgages, published by Common Notions. Copyright (c) 2026 Common Notions. All rights reserved. Do not republish.

It takes decades to build institutions and the norms and values that keep them working, but far less time to destroy them.

Less than two years into the second Trump administration, the United States finds itself in an undeclared war with Iran, while at home, efforts to undermine institutions like the Justice Department and the legitimacy of elections continue to grow, alongside the threat of Christian nationalism, an ideology that weakens democracy by narrowing the definition of who belongs. At the same time, immigration enforcement has been at the forefront of normalizing the repressive use of state power, with two US citizens killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and deaths in ICE custody reaching their highest levels in two decades. There is cause for serious concern about the future of US democracy, as exclusionary rhetoric and practices contribute to political instability.

I grew up in a politically unstable system. In just a few years at the end of the 1990s, Ecuador went through five presidents, a civilian-military uprising, a banking collapse, rising inflation, and widespread social unrest. When I first came to the United States as an exchange student, I didn’t understand the importance of “institutional legitimacy,” the idea that an institution is rightful, appropriate, and deserving of trust or respect. In my home country, no such legitimacy existed—and the consequences were dire.

Now, I see Americans’ confidence in institutions—particularly those meant to protect the public and uphold justice, such as the Justice Department and the police—being weakened in real time. At the same time, President Donald Trump continues to delegitimize the entire US electoral system by promoting his (baseless) claim that the 2020 election was stolen. Because of this misinformation, the majority of Republicans believe this to be the case (62%), compared with 31% of all Americans, according to a survey by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), where I am the director of research.

As we move through this election season and approach the nation’s 250th anniversary, it is worth reflecting on how diversity, trust, tolerance, respect, honesty, and empathy are hallmarks of the American democratic ideal.

It is deeply troubling to see continued messaging from the president that risks undermining confidence in the integrity of midterm elections, instilling widespread fear around voting, and advancing immigration rhetoric and policies that demonize vulnerable minorities and limit their rights. Freedom House, an organization that monitors democracy levels worldwide, reports that over the past decade, US democracy has declined from 92 (out of 100) to 81 in 2025, reflecting a gradual erosion in key democratic indicators, particularly in the protection of minority rights.

Despite recent changes in the Department of Homeland Security’s leadership, the Trump administration has continued to pursue its aggressive immigration agenda, conflating undocumented immigrants with violent criminal convictions, and, most recently, with Trump’s push for the Supreme Court to uphold his executive order ending birthright citizenship.

Diversity strengthens democracies by bringing different perspectives to decision-making. It also cultivates empathy by exposing individuals to experiences beyond their own and encouraging tolerance and mutual respect. By contrast, autocracies favor conformity, distrust, the concentration of power, intimidation of critics, and targeting of minorities, like immigrants.

Most, but not all, Americans disagree with the Trump administration’s divisive, dehumanizing policies. PRRI’s recent survey shows solid majorities of Republicans (61%) and Christian nationalism adherents (57%) favor “allowing ICE officers to arrest and relocate undocumented immigrants to detention centers in states far from their home without allowing them to challenge their detainment in court.” They also favor “allowing ICE officers to regularly conduct surveillance and arrests at sensitive locations like schools, hospitals, places of worship, and social service locations” (54% and 53%), suggesting a willingness among these groups to expand state power at the expense of due process and civil liberties.

In addition, a growing movement is challenging traditional understandings of empathy. Data from PRRI finds that while most Americans agree more with the idea that “empathy is a moral value that is the foundation of a healthy society” (80%) than that it is “a dangerous emotion that undermines our ability to set up a society that is guided by God’s truth (16%),” a quarter of Republicans (25%) and nearly 4 in 10 Christian nationalism adherents (37%) agree that empathy is dangerous.

I find myself asking: At what point did we lose sight of the democratic principles we used to uphold? What happened to our commitment to human rights, the fight against corruption, limits on the unchecked use of power, and, simply put, the truth? When did we stop caring about other human beings?

As we move through this election season and approach the nation’s 250th anniversary, it is worth reflecting on how diversity, trust, tolerance, respect, honesty, and empathy are hallmarks of the American democratic ideal. What is happening across the country and abroad should serve as a wake-up call about our commitment to democratic institutions and values, compelling us to come together to repair the damage.