In virtually every election held in every district and every state on 4 November, Democrats improved on their performance in last year’s presidential election. And in many places, they exceeded their most optimistic predictions. “No Kings” went to the polls.
Activism in neighbourhoods around Chicago shows that thousands of working people are willing to stand against the authoritarianism coming from the Trump administration in ways that elites at institutions like universities, corporations and the Democratic Party are not.
Why would the US government destroy the country’s research capability, sabotage its economy, and put crackpots and incompetents in charge of some of its most essential functions?
Developments since right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s murder have exposed the lie that conservatives and the far right are somehow champions of “free speech” against a censorious left “cancel culture”.
Even if tariffs don’t have the catastrophic effects—like COVID-era empty store shelves and price gouging—that many predicted, they will still contribute to a slowing economy, higher prices and potentially mass lay-offs.
Donald Trump ruined everyone’s Fourth of July holiday by signing what he so fatuously called the “One Big Beautiful Bill”. It may be the single most damaging piece of legislation signed into law since: who knows?
The end of the Trump-Musk “bromance” was as predictable as the sun rising in the east. But the speed of the collapse and the vitriol unleashed were something to behold.
If satirists tried to produce a caricature of legislation designed to steal from the poor to give to the rich, they couldn’t have done much better than the “big, beautiful bill” that the US House of Representatives passed by one vote on 22 May.
World politics is entering a much more dangerous and unstable time in which wars, conflict and repression will be more on the order of the day than they have been for decades.
