Archives for category: Extremism

We live in strange and dangerous times. For the first time in memory, maybe ever, the rule of law itself is under attack. Our Dear Leader has threatened judges who rule against his wishes. He and his lawless administration ignore decisions they don’t like. He installed a Supreme Court majority who were vetted by the far-right Federalist Society. That majority proceeded to overturn Roe v. Wade, despite their repeated pledges not to do so, and to gut the Voting Rights Act, terminating guarantees of equal rights for Black Americans.

At this time when the rule of law itself is disregarded by the President, who is himself ruled only by whim and self-aggrandizement, two retired judges expressed their concern in The Guardian.

Judge Michael P. Connelly and Judge Robert F. Orr wrote:

Last October, US lawyers, judges and rule-of-law advocates traveled to Warsaw as guests of the Carter Center. Neither of us was among them. But when our colleagues returned, their stories inspired us.

They told us about judges and lawyers across central Europe who had been surveilled, smeared, prosecuted and sometimes jailed for standing between political power and courts meant to remain independent.

And they kept going.

Poland’s example was especially compelling. When its government sought greater control over the judiciary, Polish judges put on their robes and marched through Warsaw. Judges from across Europe joined them in what became the March of 1,000 Robes.

Then they left their courthouses and traveled through towns and villages, explaining what an independent judiciary means to a farmer, shopkeeper, parent or business owner. They talked about law not as an abstraction, but as protection against arbitrary power.

They understood a truth Americans can no longer overlook: judicial independence cannot survive merely because judges believe in it. The public must understand why it matters.

That lesson brought us on to a bus.

Last month, shortly after the United States celebrated its 250th birthday, the Justice in Motion tour traveled from western Pennsylvania through Ohio and into Michigan. Thirty sitting and retired judges, lawyers and advocates handed out pocket constitutions, met students and asked a question Americans do not consider often enough: what does the rule of law mean in everyday life, and what happens when we take it for granted?

In Columbus, we did something neither of us imagined during our years on the bench. We put on our robes and marched from the federal courthouse toward the supreme court of Ohio, carrying purple flowers, an international symbol of judicial independence.

American judges do not ordinarily march in the streets. Nor should they. The judiciary derives much of its legitimacy from restraint. Judges do not campaign for particular outcomes or answer criticism with press conferences. They speak through their decisions. But these are no ordinary times.

And our Polish colleagues taught us that silence can carry its own risk.

Our march was not about Democrats or Republicans, nor about defending particular judges or decisions. It was about defending the system that allows legal disagreements to be resolved according to law rather than political power.

One of us was elected to the supreme court of Ohio as a Democrat. The other was elected to the supreme court of North Carolina as a Republican and is now an independent. Through two long careers, we have disagreed about plenty.

That is precisely the point.

The rule of law is not a partisan possession.

Both sides enter a courtroom with the right to be heard. Judges must apply the law to the facts without regard to which party is more powerful, popular or politically useful.

Sometimes judges get it wrong. That is why we have appellate courts. Sometimes courts issue decisions that elected officials or citizens strongly dislike. That is unavoidable in a constitutional democracy.

The answer is appeal, legislation where constitutionally permissible, or constitutional amendment. It cannot be intimidation, retaliation for unpopular rulings or the suggestion that compliance with lawful court orders is optional.

Once adherence to judicial decisions depends upon whether the politically powerful agree with them, we have left the rule of law behind.

In Wooster, Ohio, about 150 people gathered across from the historic courthouse. The discussion was not about red America or blue America. It was about ordinary life.

The rule of law is why you can deposit money in a bank and expect it to be there tomorrow. It is why contracts mean something, property can be protected and an individual citizen can enter a courthouse and challenge the government.

These protections seem ordinary only because generations before us built institutions strong enough to make them ordinary. When the rule of law works, it is almost invisible.

Judges are trained – rightly – to exercise restraint. During our years on the bench, we spoke through our rulings. That tradition is essential to maintaining confidence in an impartial judiciary.

But restraint should not be confused with silence about the survival of the institution itself.

When judges are threatened because of their rulings; when an adverse decision is answered not with an appeal but with demands for retaliation; when courts are judged legitimate only when they produce politically desired outcomes, those who understand the system have an obligation to explain what is being lost.

Our Polish friends understood this before we did. Their circumstances differ from ours, and comparisons should be made carefully. But the lesson travels well.

The rule of law does not defend itself. Neither does an independent judiciary. Constitutions are pieces of paper unless citizens and public officials possess the courage and habits necessary to honor them.

Four days on a bus will not persuade a nation. The purpose was more modest: to begin conversations, one community and one citizen at a time, about institutions Americans have been fortunate enough to take for granted.

That work belongs not only to judges and lawyers, but to all of us.

The rule of law is not something judges possess. It is something citizens inherit.

And every generation must decide whether to preserve it.

What’s giving us hope now

Justice Robert F Orr (retired): What gives me hope is the scope of individuals and groups now focusing and talking about the rule of law and the independence of our judiciary. Our bus trip had a great mix of backgrounds and experience both in the judges participating and meeting us at stops as well as the young people who amplified the message across various media platforms. It’s genuinely a national movement.

Justice Michael P Donnelly (retired): What gives me hope is the genuine appreciation we encountered during the bus tour for the role of an independent judiciary in protecting individual rights and civil liberties. The people we met understood that these freedoms, defended at great sacrifice throughout our history, cannot be taken for granted – and that each generation must be willing to stand up for them.

Michael P Donnelly is a retired justice of the supreme court of Ohio
Robert F Orr is a retired justice of the supreme court of North Carolina. Both participated in the Justice in Motion tour organized by the Democracy Rising Collaborative and Keep Our Republic

Categories Academic Freedom, Bigotry, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Justice, Trump

Will a Fascist, Racist, Anti-Semite Win a Major Election in Texas?

By dianeravitch

August 6, 2026 //

Bo French is an uber-bigot who is running for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission. Don’t be misled by the title. The Railroad Commission has very little to do with railroads. It oversees the oil and gas industry in Texas and wields enormous power over an essential industry.

You might want to learn about Bo French, because he is running for an important statewide seat. Also because he voices the sentiments of the dark underbelly of American political life.

The Texas Monthly reports on the ascent of a native fascist:

Last week Bo French, the Republican nominee for the Railroad Commission of Texas, sent out a bizarre fundraising email. Framed as a reminder of the 108th anniversary of the Communist overthrow of Russia, the email included an AI-generated image of his Democratic opponent, Jon Rosenthal, smiling in the chambers where the country’s then-ruling Romanov family was executed in 1918. Rosenthal, French’s campaign continued, has “much in common with the Marxist revolutionaries who brutally executed” the Romanovs, and has plans for his own “infernal revolution” of Texas. “My opponent has spent his time in office mocking Christianity, the Virgin Birth, and Christian Communion, while voting against religious liberty and for the spread of Islam,” the email continued.

If you’re wondering what, exactly, a century-old Russian coup has to do with the railroad commission, which regulates the state’s oil and gas industry, then you’re likely not alone. But among a small audience—those attuned to white supremacist dog whistles—the accusation almost certainly perked up some ears.

You see, Rosenthal is Jewish. And while French did not explicitly name the Bolshevik revolutionaries who overthrew Russia a century ago, the email appears to be nodding to an antisemitic conspiracy theory that claims there is a Jewish Communist cabal intent on controlling the world and stamping out Christianity. Known as Judeo-Bolshevism, the theory was crucial to Adolf Hitler’s rise and a key justification for the Holocaust. It remains central to the worldviews of many modern fascists, who maintain that communism—and, by extension, immigration—are tools used by Jews to destroy the West and white people.

In a statement to Texas Monthly, Rosenthal called French’s post “true to form.” The Texas House member from the Houston area and longtime mechanical engineer in the oil and gas industry continued: “While I’m working on substantive solutions for the people of Texas and our energy grid, his whole campaign is about pejorative and racist attacks.”

Neither French nor his campaign responded this week to numerous requests for an interview, or to clarify whether he intended to invoke the conspiracy theory. But his other recent posts make clear he has a deep familiarity with esoteric racist views that were once largely confined to fringe corners of the far right.

This week, in response to a video that purported to show nonwhite people trespassing in a restricted part of Yellowstone National Park, French posted a quote from “The Camp of the Saints”—an obscure French dystopian novel that depicts immigrants as diseased, feces-eating hordes and has enjoyed a recent resurgence among the global white nationalist movement. “Your universe has no meaning to them,” French wrote on X to his 80,000 followers, without revealing the source of the quote. “They will not try to understand. They will be tired, they will be cold, they will make a fire with your beautiful oak door . . .”

Citing fears of “gay race communism,” an impending “massacre of heritage Americans,” and the nation ending up like modern South Africa, French has called for the United States to “be Rhodesia,” the African pseudostate in the sixties and seventies in which Black people were violently oppressed by a ruling white minority. Rhodesia has inspired numerous racist killers—most infamously Dylann Roof, the self-described “Last Rhodesian” who massacred nine Black congregants at a South Carolina church in 2015.

“We are all Rhodesians now,” French wrote in January.

It wasn’t long ago that such views were largely relegated to the online backwater of the neo-Nazi movement or manifestos left by fascist mass shooters, according to Wendy Via, a veteran researcher of the far right and cofounder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. “They are well-known to people who study extremism,” Via told me. “But they’re not well-known to even your average racist. These are the ideological basis for the white supremacist movement.”

Even if they’re not yet widely accepted, she said, such views are slowly being normalized by President Donald Trump, the scaling back of moderation on many social media websites, and the proliferation of the “great replacement” theory—which claims there is an intentional, often Jewish-driven, effort to demographically replace white people in Western countries. In May, for instance, Greg Bovino, the former Border Patrol commander-at-large under Trump, spoke to a global conference of neo-Nazi-affiliated activists and extreme far-right political figures who had gathered in support of the “remigration” movement, which seeks to forcibly remove people of color, including legal citizens, from their countries. (Detractors have another name for such efforts: “ethnic cleansing.”)

In Texas, French has been a key purveyor of similarly extreme rhetoric, and he helped make anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant bigotry mainstream in the broader state GOP. He’s called for 100 million people—nearly a third of the American population—to be deported, and for two nonwhite Texas House members to be stripped of their citizenship and removed from the country. He wants some Native Americans—“third world savages”—to be kicked out of America too. French says Texas needs to “ban Islam” and “round upevery Muslim” for deportation. Last week he toldhis followers it was “time to go round up all the Chinese and send them packing!” McCarthyism and the Christian Crusades, he argues, didn’t go far enough. And this week he referred to America’s “not in labor force” population—an economic term for nonworkers that includes retirees, students, and those with serious handicaps—as “low IQ parasites.”

Categories Texas, Bigotry, Racism, Evil, Fascism, Elections, Extremism

Vasquez-Heilig: Real Republicans Don’t Impose Their Views on Others

By dianeravitch

August 5, 2026 //

I remember, a time long ago, when Republicans believed in small government. Except for public health, they believed in allowing localities and states to make their own decisions.

Trump Republicans, however, believe in imposing their beliefs on everyone else . They use the power of the federal government to enforce their views.

We have seen this with the executive orders that Trump has signed, making programs in “diversity,equity, and inclusion” a reason to defund research grants at institutions of higher education. I can’t imagine President Eisenhower or President Bush (either of them) wielding that stick. And I haven’t forgotten that President Nixon initiated affirmative action, which the Trump administration considers illegal and “racist.”

Similarly, we have seen the Trump administration demanding tribute from law firms, major media, and universities, in exchange for freedom from federal harassment. It vigorously fought the right of women to control their own bodies. It demanded that transgender members of the military be fired, without regard to their years of service or commendations from superior officers.

Julian Vasquez examines the latest Trump administration effort to coerce universities to accept the Trump agenda.

He writes:

When the Trump administration issued its February 2025 Dear Colleague letter attacking diversity, equity, and inclusion in education, I responded nationally on Democracy Now! I warned that higher education had not faced political interference this serious since McCarthyism and asked whether universities would “surrender or resist.”

That Dear Colleague letter went down in flames. Federal courts blocked the directive, finding serious constitutional and procedural problems. In August 2025, a federal court vacated both the letter and its associated certification requirement. The administration eventually abandoned its appeal. Now the Trump administration is trying again.

On August 3, 2026, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon issued “A National Call to Action to University Presidents and Governing Boards.” It calls on every college and university to publish a statement by the end of 2026 explaining how it will address admissions, faculty hiring, academic viewpoints, grading, artificial intelligence, foreign influence, research, affordability, and national priorities.

This letter is more carefully written than its failed Dear Colleague predecessor. It does not explicitly threaten universities with the loss of federal funding. It presents itself as an invitation to restore public trust and even acknowledges that there is “no single template for academic excellence.”

But universities should recognize the pattern. When the courts stop one attempt at political control, the administration repackages the same objective and returns through another channel. Expect more legal battles. If the administration tries to transform this ostensibly voluntary letter into funding conditions, investigations, accreditation pressure, or binding institutional obligations, expect it to lose again.

Red States Will Likely Embrace the Letter

In Republican-controlled states, many governing boards and university presidents will likely treat McMahon’s letter as federal permission to intensify attacks on faculty work, tenure, diversity programs, student expression, and academic freedom.

The letter gives presidents and boards a ready-made list of questions. Are academic departments sufficiently “pluralistic”? Are faculty hiring and evaluation practices considering the “right” perspectives? Is research sufficiently aligned with the “national interest”? Are universities placing American priorities ahead of global commitments? These questions sound reasonable until politicians begin supplying the answers.

A board, president, provost, or dean that wants to target a professor, academic department, research center, or student organization can now point to the secretary of education and claim that Washington has demanded action. The letter could become a pretext for investigations, curriculum reviews, program closures, hiring interference, and ideological screening. It does not create those powers. But it may embolden political officials to exercise powers they do not legally possess.

In blue states, many university presidents and boards will probably roll their eyes. They will recognize the document as political theater written by officials with limited understanding of university teaching, research, and shared governance. But they cannot safely dismiss it. The Trump administration has already demonstrated its willingness to use federal funding to reward allies and punish perceived opponents.

Political Retaliation Is Not Hypothetical

The administration acknowledged in court that it canceled approximately $7.6 billion in grants based on whether the affected states voted for Donald Trump in 2024. The canceled projects were concentrated in 16 states that supported Kamala Harris. A federal judge concluded that the politically selective cancellations violated constitutional equal-protection requirements. The Associated Press reported on the ruling.

That episode should concern every university president. If an administration will cancel billions of dollars in congressionally authorized grants based on how a state voted, universities must consider whether this new letter identifies the new political tests that could later determine which institutions receive grants, face investigations, or become targets of federal enforcement.

This is more of the same. Political loyalty is being substituted for neutral governance for all. Red-state institutions may be rewarded for adopting the administration’s agenda. Blue-state institutions may be punished for resisting it. In both cases, federal power becomes an illegal tool for encouraging political conformity.

Please open the link, which shows that Secretary of Education Linda McMahon may well be the least qualified person to serve as Secretary of Education.

Yet, here they are, Trump and McMahon, trying to use their political leverage to reshape higher education.

They are not Republicans. They are not libertarians. They are authoritarians.

Categories Academic Freedom, Bigotry, Censorship, Extremism, Higher Education, Trump

Todd Blanche Vows to Attack Abortion Rights in Every State

By dianeravitch

August 5, 2026 //

Behind closed doors, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche assured faith-based opponents of abortion that he would act forcefully to outlaw the purchase of abortion pills by mail.

The New Republic wrote:

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche went mask-off last week, promising behind closed doors to roll back abortion access even further, and telling religious pro-life hard-liners that he wanted the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturning the right to abortion to become “permanent in every single state.”

Blanche made the comments in a “prayer call” last Thursday hosted by the White House Faith Office and attended by various faith leaders. The call was not open to press and not on the record, although the entirety of the call is now up on YouTube.

“We don’t have complete victory yet, but we will have victory, and victory will be soon, and it will be permanent,” Blanche said. “If states have said, ‘We are going to protect the unborn and we’re going to protect every life from the moment of conception,’ we’re putting practices and policies in place so that other states and other organizations can’t attack that.”

“They can’t do things like they’re doing with mailing in mail-order drugs,” Blanche added, singling out abortion pills.

This is a far cry from the answer he offered at his confirmation hearing, when he claimed he would “carefully evaluate every lawful action available to ensure the faithful enforcement of the Comstock Act,” the 150-year-old law that bans the mailing of contraceptives and other things considered to be “obscene.”

He also noted that the Trump administration is “putting practices and policies in place” to block abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol from being sent to states that have banned abortion, a process that would require the Justice Department to invoke the Comstock Act—something President Trump specifically said he wouldn’t do back in 2024 while campaigning.

“A vote to confirm Todd Blanche is a vote ‘so that the Dobbs decision becomes permanent in every single state,’” Senator Patty Murray wrote Tuesday on X. “Those were his own words to anti-abortion extremists. Senators who vote for Blanche are voting for an Attorney General who will attack abortion rights in EVERY state.”

Categories Extremism, Gender, Health, Medicine

Florida Threatens to Defund Catholic Schools Unless They Allow Students to Opt Out of Vaccines

By dianeravitch

August 4, 2026 //

Florida has become a very weird state. There’s hardly a conspiracy theory that Governor Ron DeSantis is not championing, especially when the subject is public health. DeSantis hired Dr. Joseph Ladapo as the state’s surgeon general, putting the lives of Floridians at risk.

Dr. Ladapo doesn’t believe in vaccinations. Disregarding science, he has sought to make all vaccines a matter of choice, not the protection of public health. Thus, no matter what other medical professionals may say, Dr. Ladapo wants to ban all vaccines mandates.

It’s an odd time to take a stand against vaccinations. Florida is experiencing an uptick in measles cases: As July 2026, Florida has reported 154 confirmed measles cases. Florida ranks among the states with the highest measles case counts in the country this year.

Nationally, the CDC reports 2,371 confirmed measles cases in the U.S. so far in 2026—the highest annual total in more than 30 years.

Now Florida’s state attorney general has threatened to withhold public funding from Catholic schools unless they allow their students to opt out of vaccines.

The Independent reported:

Florida’s attorney general has threatened to pull funding from Catholic schools unless they allow their students to opt out of vaccine requirements.

James Uthmeier, the attorney general, revealed on X that he had sent a letter to the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops (FCCB) expressing concern that schools within the faith may refuse to grant religious exemptions for vaccinations for the upcoming school year.

The letter, which was sent on July 31, is the latest in a series of pushes by lawmakers to change Florida’s vaccine mandates.

According to Uthmeier, at least one diocese appears to have “embraced” a position raised by the National Catholic Bioethics Center that the schools cannot offer exemptions on religious grounds because the Catholic Church does not teach that use of vaccinations produced in cell lines derived from the tissue of an aborted fetus is “intrinsically evil.”

Uthmeier, a Catholic himself, says that such a position is “concerning” as state law requires public and private schools to offer exemptions if parents have religious objections.

“I therefore urge Catholic schools to comply with Florida law and grant religious exemptions to school vaccine policies,” Uthmeier wrote. “Failure to comply could jeopardize eligibility for state educational scholarship programs.”

The Archdiocese of Miami says that over 95 percent of students attending the city’s Catholic schools are on some kind of state scholarship, according to The Miami Herald. Many receive around $6,500 with which to pay for their tuition.

Uthmeier has demanded an answer to his letter by August 7.

Michele Taylor, a spokesperson for the FCCB, told CBS News that the conference is reviewing the letter and will respond to the attorney general.

“Be assured, Florida’s Catholic schools are operating in accord with the law and Church teaching,” Taylor said.

Under state law, students attending both public and private schools must be vaccinated against diseases including polio, chickenpox and measles. Schools, including Catholic institutions, do permit medical exemptions from vaccines with a valid doctor’s note.

Vaccination mandates have increasingly come under attack in Florida, with Joseph Ladapo, the state’s surgeon general, likening the mandates to “slavery” late last year.

“Who am I to tell you what your child should put in your body?” he said. “I don’t have that right. Your body is a gift from God.”

Ladapo also pledged to end “every last one” of the mandates.

However, experts slammed his claims, with Democratic state Representative Anna Eskamani branding the plans a “public health disaster in the making.”

The Florida Education Association also said that reducing vaccinations puts “children’s health and education at risk.”

Categories Ethics, Extremism, Florida, Health, Medicine, Safety, Science

Florida: How Vouchers Are Destroying Public Schools and Violating the State Constitution

By dianeravitch

August 3, 2026 //

Article IX, Section 1 of the Florida constitution:

a) The education of children is a fundamental value of the people of the State of Florida. It is, therefore, a paramount duty of the state to make adequate provision for the education of all children residing within its borders. Adequate provision shall be made by law for a uniform, efficient, safe, secure, and high quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high quality education and for the establishment, maintenance, and operation of institutions of higher learning and other public education programs that the needs of the people may require.

Article I, Section 3;

Religious Freedom

There shall be no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting or penalizing the free exercise thereof. Religious freedom shall not justify practices inconsistent with public morals, peace or safety. No revenue of the state or any political subdivision or agency thereof shall ever be taken from the public treasury directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution.

The Florida state constitution explicitly requires that the state provide a free public education for all children. It explicitly forbids the use of any public funds for religious schools. In 2012, then Governor Jeb Bush promoted a referendum to change the constitution and allow vouchers for religious schools. Florida voters resoundingly said NO. But the voice of the people did not dissuade Bush and his friends.

Florida now has a full/blown universal voucher system where the state funds children who attend religious schools, private schools, even home schools, regardless of family income. Most of the children who use vouchers were already in nonpublic school.

The state now spends billions of dollars every year on charter schools and vouchers. Many charter schools operate for profit. Their lobbyists work in tandem with the legislature, which seems eager to defund public schools.

Ironically, Jeb Bush used to boast that Florida was successful because of its toughs count ability. Yet this is the same governor who pushed through vouchers, even though voucher schools have NO accountability.

Go figure.

Stephanie Vanos wrote the following article for the Orlando Sentinel. She is a member of the Orange County School Board, where her children are enrolled.

She wrote:

There is an alarming misuse of public funds in Florida that isn’t just unfair and irresponsible, it undermines our state’s constitutional obligation to provide a high-quality, uniform education for every child and erodes trust in the very system meant to serve all of Florida’s children.

The taxpayer-funded voucher program has created a shadow educational system, one where billions in taxpayer funds move with little oversight, leaving families and communities in the dark about how their money is spent. This lack of accountability and transparency has created a fractured, unequal education landscape, robbing students of stability and opportunity no matter where they go to school.

Approximately $5 billion in taxpayer money is being siphoned away from our traditional public schools into voucher systems. Private schools that accept vouchers are held to a tiny fraction of the standards our public schools must meet, if any at all. Nearly a quarter of all state funding for education is now drained by voucher programs that serve only 15.3% of Florida’s students and overwhelmingly benefit families who were already paying to send their child to private school. How is this fiscally responsible?

The consequences of this system are clear in Orange County, where my kids go to school.

This year, our county was forced to close seven public schools and cut hundreds of positions despite the district earning high grades. An estimated $315 million of education money will be diverted from Orange County Public Schools to vouchers just this year. These closures and loss of funding are a direct result of a state system that puts politics and profits ahead of students.

Traditional public schools across the state are held to incredibly high standards on how and what they teach students, who they hire, how they report grades and more. However, the taxpayer-funded voucher program and charter schools are not held to the same standards and measures of accountability despite receiving public tax dollars.

Charter schools, deemed public schools by law, sometimes serve an unmet need in a community, and may operate transparently under a fully nonprofit model. In some cases, they can benefit our larger communities. However, charter schools operate with far fewer requirements and accountability measures than traditional public schools, and far too many are franchise operations, run by for-profit management companies that benefit affiliated for-profit entities with our tax dollars.

Categories Accountability, Closing schools, Democracy, Education Industry, Equity, Ethics, Extremism, Florida, School Choice, Vouchers

Heather Cox Richardson on the GOP Vendetta Against Dr. Fauci

By dianeravitch

July 30, 2026 //

Heather Cox Richardson wrote about the GOP hearings on Dr. Anthony Fauci, led by Senator Rand Paul. Why attack Dr. Fauci? It’s a useful distraction from pressing issues of this day: Trump’s flailing war on Iran; rising inflation; the Epstein files; cuts to Medicaid and Medicare.

During the pandemic, Dr. Fauci was the voice of reason and the voice of science.

What were Republicans doing during the pandemic? Trump was their voice, and he told people to relax, COVID would simply disappear on its own. He suggested that people could protect themselves by injecting bleach or taking Ivermectin pills. He is as qualified to offer medical advice as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Trump deserves credit for investing in the development of a vaccine for COVID. Dr. Fauci oversaw the race to create an effective vaccine.

Once available, Dr. Fauci urged people to get the shot. Trump, instead of taking credit for the rapid production of the vaccine, allied himself with anti-Vaxxers. Be it noted, however, that Trump and his family received the vaccine.

In this post, Richardson wrote about Trump’s plummeting poll numbers and the military quagmire in Iran, then wrote about the attacks on Dr. Fauci:

And so, Republicans are devoting themselves to serving red meat to their MAGA base, ginning up sound bites for distribution on social media.

On the menu today was Dr. Anthony Fauci, the 85-year-old former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infections Diseases who, serving in that capacity for 38 years, advised seven different presidents of both parties. President George W. Bush awarded Fauci the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work in creating the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which has saved an estimated 26 million lives. Trump named Fauci to the President’s Coronavirus Task Force in January 2020.

But, as Savannah Behrmann and Jeanine Santucci of USA Today reported in October 2020, Trump turned on Fauci as he cautioned against Trump’s confident predictions that the disease would disappear quickly. By February 28, Trump insisted that Democrats were “politicizing” covid, and by April 26, news broke that Trump wanted to sideline Fauci, although Fauci was considered trustworthy and viewed favorably by a 3:1 margin.

By the summer, as Trump’s panic over how the economic crisis caused by the pandemic might hurt his reelection prospects, he turned on Fauci, who continued to support measures to stop the spread of the disease. Trump worked to undermine Fauci’s warnings, saying that the doctors and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were “lying” about covid.

By July, he mused about why Fauci had a high approval rating and he didn’t. When Fauci testified to Congress that U.S. cases were spiking while European countries were seeing sharp drops in covid cases because European countries had shut down 95% of their economies while the U.S. had shut down only 50%, Trump posted: “Wrong! We have more cases because we have tested far more than any other country…. If we tested less, there would be less cases.”

As Trump continued to criticize Fauci and yet ran a campaign ad suggesting Fauci endorsed his reelection, the doctor continued to emphasize that he was “not a political person.” He added: “And I have never—either directly or indirectly—endorsed a political candidate.” In October he dismissed Trump’s attacks, saying: “They don’t bother me. I know what my job is, and I’ve gotta do it and I’m going to do it. So that kind of—whatever you want to call it—is to me, I just, it’s noise.”

As Aaron Rupar reminded us today, Trump himself awarded a presidential commendation to Fauci “in recognition of [his] exceptional effort on Operation Warp Speed.”

But with the arrival of a vaccine that helped to put the worst of the pandemic behind us, MAGA Republicans began to demonize Dr. Fauci not only as the source of the mask mandates and school shutdowns they hated, but also as the source of the virus itself, alleging—without evidence—that the disease had escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China, for which the U.S. National Institutes of Health provided funding.

After voters reelected Trump to the presidency in 2024, he and his loyalists vowed to prosecute Fauci. Trump ally Steve Bannon called for “rough Roman justice” for Fauci, as well as special counsel Jack Smith and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley. Before he left office, former president Joe Biden issued a preemptive pardon for Fauci—and others—to protect them from political prosecution, saying: “The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense.”

But Republicans have continued to demonize Fauci, ginning up anger against him in their base even as the rest of the country has moved on. Now, with the political tides running so strongly against the Republicans before the 2026 midterm elections, they are clearly trying to rekindle the fury of the last presidential election.

As the Associated Press reported today, for years, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has accused Fauci of lying about the origins of covid, an accusation Fauci has called “preposterous” in testimony before Congress. Paul has repeatedly called for Fauci’s arrest and imprisonment and, in 2023, published a book with Fauci on the cover, explicating what he called the “Great Covid Cover-Up.”

The Trump administration has fed Paul’s crusade, with Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. searching for eight months to find Fauci’s private diary on government computers, then handing the files over to Paul and to Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI). Neither Kennedy, Paul, nor Johnson told Fauci they had obtained his 1,000-page diary before they published it, in full, last week.

In July 2021, Fauci wrote in his diary that an analysis of the viruses used in the Wuhan lab “clearly indicate(s) that it is molecularly impossible for the viruses under the auspices of the NIH grant to have been manipulated into or evolved into” the covid virus.

Now chair of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Paul subpoenaed Fauci in June to appear before the committee. Unwillingly, as his lawyers noted Paul’s many statements calling for Fauci to be jailed, Fauci did so today.

In an opening statement, Fauci said that he believed “the sole reason [Paul] is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something—anything—that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, quote, behind bars, unquote.”

“Any reasonable person who has followed his unhinged obsession with me would readily come to the same conclusion,” he said. “Therefore, although it pains me to do so because of the respect I have for the legislative branch of government and my decades-long record of cooperating with Congress, under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the 5th Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions.”

More than 100 times he did exactly that as Republicans berated him, calling him “a narcissist and a megalomaniac and a liar,” mocking him, and asking him, “Do you feel like you’re in deep sh*t?” What Republicans did not do is introduce any evidence that the 85-year-old lifelong public servant had broken any laws.

More to the point was Senator Bernie Moreno (R-OH) yelling at Fauci about closings during the pandemic, blustering: “Who the f*ck do you think you were?” F-bombs are rare on the Senate floor, and the outburst has gotten significant media attention.

That attention has distracted from the other reason Moreno is in the news. As Abby Vesoulis of Mother Jones reported, Moreno has said nothing as his daughter’s ex-husband, Representative Max Miller (R-OH), has been credibly charged with the violent abuse of her and their 2-year-old daughter. As the Republicans struggle to hold on to their congressional majorities, Republican leaders have refused to call for Miller, who is running for a third term, to resign.

—

Categories Ethics, Extremism, Health, Medicine, Science, Trump

Miles Taylor: Trump Just Quietly Tripled His Personal Hires for Top Jobs

By dianeravitch

July 28, 2026 //

When I worked in the federal government during the administration of President George W. Bush, I learned a lot about how the civil service functions. I was Assistant Secretary for Education Research and Innovation in the U.S. Department of Education. A small number of people in my office were political appointees. The vast number were civil servants.

The highest ranking civil servants were designated SES–Senior Executive Service. Only the very best civil servants reached that rank. These are people with long and distinguished careers. They are the best of the best. Like most civil servants, they are nonpartisan and they have lifetime tenure.

Miles Taylor informs us that Trump has just turned these top civil servants into at-will employees. He can fire them for any reason or no reason.

This is part of his Project 2025 plan to remove resistance to his total control of the government.

Miles Taylor was Chief Of Staff in the Department of Homeland Security during Trump’s first term. He famously wrote an op-d for The New York Times with the byline “Anonymous,” describing his role in “the resistance” inside the Trump administration.

Miles Taylor wrote on his Substack blog “Defiance”:

The president did something yesterday that almost no one noticed. He signed an order that will allow him to fully hijack (and politicize) the federal government, like never before.

While the country was looking elsewhere, Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday to convert roughly 8,000 of the federal government’s most senior career officials into employees he can fire for any reason, or no reason at all.

The order is called “Implementing Schedule Policy/Career in the Excepted Service,” a name obviously engineered to be skimmed past. And surprisingly, almost everyone obliged. The coverage that followed dutifully reported that thousands of workers are now “easier to fire,” which is true and also misses the point entirely.

The point is that these are the top lieutenants across the federal government. In other words, these are the people serving right under Trump’s political appointees (the ones he assigns to run federal departments and agencies). Presidents get “their people” to reshape policy priorities. And Americans count on the rest of the government staff, the career officials, to carry out the workings of those agencies and follow the law faithfully and impartially. Trump has just upended that centuries-old system.

His executive order would, in effect, triple the number of people inside of government who he can personally toss out on a whim, as easily as his own top henchmen. It’s a breathtaking takeover of the machinery of state. And if it’s not challenged in the courts, it will make it easier for Trump to weaponize almost every agency under his purview.

The number of “political appointees” in the executive branch hovers around 4,000. Think of these as the top jobs. Each president comes in and spins up an HR operation to bring in ideologically-aligned folks to fill those roles, most of which are in charge of running key departments, agencies, boards, and commissions across the federal government. You can see them all here in what’s called the “Plum Book.” They serve at the pleasure of the president and can be hired and dismissed at will.

That was the kind of role I was in as DHS chief of staff in the first Trump administration. I wasn’t protected by anything other than the president’s favor. That’s why — when you make a decision to speak out about wrongdoing — you’ve got to be prepared to quit or be fired. You have no protections if you fall out of favor with the president. Unfortunately, that’s why you see so many Pam Bondis and Todd Blanches, eagerly doing whatever Trump wants. They know how easy it is to lose their job.

That four thousand number is important. It’s the practical measure of a president’s direct grip on the executive branch. Everyone underneath those positions, some two million civil servants, has historically been insulated from political whim by removal protections dating to the reforms that ended the spoils system back in the 1800s. Those protections are the entire reason a new president inherits a functioning government, rather than giant shell of a machine to reconfigure each time we have a national election.

Yet Trump just took 8,000 of those highest-ranking career officials and effectively turned them into potential shock troops. They are no longer protected workforce. The office directors, deputy directors, chiefs of staff, senior advisers, and people who draft regulations and decide who receives federal grants have been stripped of their protections, which means Trump can dispose of them whenever he wants and for whatever reason. Add that to the 4,000 appointees he already controls, and the universe of executive-branch officials who now serve entirely at his pleasure has, in functional terms, roughly tripled.

The White House disputes this with a smirk. These remain “career” positions, they insist. They are not technically political appointments. Strictly speaking, this is correct. But as the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service put it, that’s “a distinction without a difference.” It’s now just a meaningless category. The president can toss them out as easily as his own, hand-picked loyalists. And surely the White House is already thinking about how they’ll short-circuit the “merit” process to restock those vacant roles with campaign aides and January 6 rioters.

The chilling effect has begun either way, before any of these 8,000 people have been replaced. An official who can now be fired this very afternoon for “subversion of presidential directives” — the order’s own language — does not need to be hand-picked to understand what is now expected of him or her. The threat does all the work. And the result is that Donald Trump has expanded the ranks of his political army almost instantly.

What just happened is almost certainly illegal. A coalition of federal employees unions are, I hope, prepared to fight hard. There already have been against similar orders. Here’s why they need to take this one down.

The president’s authority to pull positions out of the protected civil service comes from a provision of Title 5 that lets him make only “necessary exceptions” from the competitive service. That word, “necessary,” was something government managers were keenly aware of when I was in the executive branch. Job categories could only be reclassified in extenuating circumstances — basically where it was urgently necessary to create a position that wasn’t selected through the normal competitive service system.

Reclassifying 8,000 senior careerists to make them fireable at will is not “necessary” for good administration. It’s the total opposite of the merit-based system the laws exist to protect in the first place. Indeed, the rights being stripped away are supposed to be written in stone, e.g. the right to notice before firing, the right to appeal to an independent board, etc.. A president cannot use a magic wand to erase the very protections Congress wrote into law. They were put in place for this exact reason, that is, to prevent presidents from either party from simply firing all the top people across government and stuffing agencies with inexperienced, political bootlickers.

Upon reading it, I found the most revealing detail to be how the order was seemingly written to escape scrutiny. A rule this consequential would normally have to go through what’s called the Administrative Procedure Act, requiring a period of public comment, a reasoned justification, and review by a court that can strike it down as arbitrary, if needed. But Trump didn’t want that. He wanted to wave his wand. So the White House performed a quiet bit of engineering. They wrote the rule to make the president himself (not the Office of Personnel Management) the official who formally moves positions into this new category because the president, unlike an agency, is not technically bound by that Act. They might as well have admitted their goal was to break the law.

The famously brutal English king Henry VIII didn’t need to appoint every man in his court to make every man in his court afraid. All he had to do is make them aware that he might swing the axe at any time. In America, we’ve spent more than a century building a civil service so that the people who enforce our laws answer to the law and not to the mood of one man. Yesterday afternoon, Donald Trump tried to change that.

All I can tell you now is this: we’re going to help fight it. Stay tuned.

Your friend, in defiance,

Miles Taylor

P.S. Help spread the defiance by sharing this

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Jobs, Trump

Randi Weingarten: Why We Are Fighting for a Better Society for All

By dianeravitch

July 27, 2026 //

This is one of Randi Weingarten’s best speeches. She delivered it at the 2026 Convention of the American federation of Teachers on July 26 in Washington, D.C.

Not only does she identify income inequality as a dire threat to our democracy, she speaks one of the greatest lines I have ever read:

Mr. President, you don’t own July Fourth. You own Jan. 6.

Randi points out that the dramatic income inequality of our times is destroying the middle class. Unions build a strong middle class. The large increase in the number of billionaires is it a sign of a healthy society; it is a sign of gross inequality.

As more people slip out of the middle class or hang on by their fingertips, our social problems get worse.

How do we restore a thriving middle class? Encourage the growth of strong unions.

She reminds us that today only 1 of every 10 workers belongs to a union. Union workers are paid more, significantly more, than non-union workers. In mid-century America, when 1 in 3 American workers were in a union, we had the largest middle class and the lowest income inequality. And she says, “That’s why, in the long term, growing the union movement is key to solving America’s affordability crisis.”

Rightwingers have done their best to eviscerate unions. And they have won significant victories in the courts.

But, despite the obstacles, the AFT is growing. It now has the largest number of members in its history: 1.875 million members. Al Shanker and Sandy Feldman would be proud of that accomplishment.

Unions are key to a better life.

Randi said in her address:

We plan our conventions years in advance. When we decided to hold this convention in our nation’s capital, to coincide with the celebration of America’s founding 250 years ago, who would have thought that the grievances that led to the American Revolution would be so relevant and relatable today? Or that America would have a new kind of aristocracy based on mind-blowing wealth?

In the United States, there are now 1,000 billionaires—and the world’s first trillionaire—at a time when nearly half of American households—46 percent—don’t earn enough to make ends meet.

This wealth imbalance—the top 1 percent having as much wealth as the entire bottom 90 percent of Americans combined—has led to a power imbalance that affects the lives of everyone in our country. These oligarchs influence policy. They have the power to undo social progress. To sway financial markets, monopolize the media, buy elections and undermine democracy.

In an earlier period of extreme wealth inequality, the country elected Franklin D. Roosevelt, and his New Deal programs lifted millions of Americans out of poverty.

This time, the country elected Donald Trump, and well …

Remember that warning—about the barbarians at the gate? Well, the barbarians aren’t at the gate, they are inside, including at the highest levels of government.

The president and his cronies are abusing government powers to punish political opponents. Every day they find new ways to attack voting, presumably to entrench themselves. Their war on working-class Americans includes stripping collective bargaining rights from 1 million federal workers, including members of our union, in the biggest act of union-busting in U.S. history. All while engaging in the most blatant corruption in modern American history to enrich themselves.

The attacks—on unions, on working people, on public education, on higher education, on the public good, on democracy—didn’t start with Trump. They’ve been decades in the making, going back to the 1971 memo by future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell that successfully plotted corporate dominance in American politics. And the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision that fueled the massive surge of “dark money” in elections—which has now been supercharged by the court’s ruling last month that blew up whatever campaign finance limits were left. And its 2018 Janus decision that anti-union forces hoped would drive a stake through the heart of public sector unions. Project 2025 became the playbook to enact this extremist agenda. This year’s Callais decision not only gutted what remained of the 1965 Voting Rights Act but did so in time to affect the 2026 elections. Then there’s the bare-knuckled crusade to destroy public education and higher education. Just look at Christopher Rufo’s tweets, or his unabashed declaration years ago that “To get to universal school choice, you really need to operate from a premise of universal public school distrust.”

And I haven’t even gotten to Big Tech and artificial intelligence.

Yes, the other side has enormous power. But this is what they don’t have: the power of the people.

That’s not a mere slogan; it’s the potential to work together, to bargain together, to protest together, to vote together, to act together to bring about change—real, lasting, life-improving change. That is the power and potential of our movement and of the AFT.

Our union stands at the intersection of the ways that regular people gain and exercise power in our democracy—through public education, unions and voting.

The skills and knowledge people secure through public and higher education expand opportunity—that’s power. Union contracts improve economic well-being—that’s power. Elections—voting for people who answer to their constituents, not wealthy donors—that’s power.

It’s power not just for ourselves, but for our students, our patients and our communities. Power to build what Martin Luther King Jr. called the “beloved community”—an America where hate has no home. Where the trans nurse, the Palestinian teacher, the Jewish student, and every person regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, gender or place of origin, feels welcome, safe and valued.

We use our power for good—against chaos, cruelty and corruption. We care, we fight and we show up—for a better life for all. Oh, and one more thing: We get shit done!

We are a fighting union. To quote the president of Texas AFT, Zeph Capo, “Our members will forgive us if we fight and lose, but they’ll never forgive us if we don’t even fight.”

Look at what we have fought for, and won, in these last two years—despite constant challenges.

Through the AFT’s student debt clinics and our other activism, we have helped more than 1 million borrowers, many of them our members, get $78 billion in student debt forgiven! That is life-changing; people can start a family, buy a home, save for retirement.

The AFT has filed more than 25 lawsuits against the illegal actions of the Trump administration. If I talked about all of them, I would blow everyone’s bets on the length of the speech. So here are just a few: The Trump administration tried to stop any school—pre-K through college—from doing anything that could be construed as advancing diversity, equity and inclusion, essentially erasing 60 years of civil rights law. And it sought to condition all federal funding for schools on compliance with its dictates. We sued, and we won. We challenged the administration’s policies to detain and deport noncitizen students and faculty for participating in protected political speech. Again, we won. We sued to stop the administration from stripping federal funding from universities and to stop its efforts to control curriculum, hiring and speech. You guessed it—we won.

And then there’s the collective bargaining victories. Like for better wages—from Boston to Kansas City, from Chicago to Los Angeles and so many more. That’s the union difference: Union workers’ wages are 11 percent higher than nonunion workers. Unionized teachers earn 24 percent more in states with collective bargaining, and education support professionals earn 13 percent more.

And as we speak, the city council in New York City is voting to provide every United Federation of Teachers-represented paraprofessional a $10,000 “Respect Check” that the union has relentlessly fought for.

Life is better with a union.

It goes beyond wages. Take the United Educators of San Francisco, whose successful strike this year led to winning premium-free healthcare not only for members but for their families.

And paid parental leave. Kudos to our affiliates in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Fairfax County (Va.), New York City and Oregon for making great strides to help families thrive.

And safe staffing. The UFT has had some incredible wins through arbitration. And in New Jersey, our healthcare union, Health Professionals and Allied Employees, has negotiated 14 contracts in a row with enforceable safe-staffing provisions. And now one of our newest affiliates, Hawaii Nurses and Healthcare Professionals, has created a broad coalition to do the same.

And we have a sacrosanct commitment to retirement security. After a generation-long battle, we won passage of the Social Security Fairness Act that gave millions of public workers the full benefits they had earned but been denied. Our New York unions made great progress this year to fix Tier 6; now younger workers who had inferior pensions can retire in their late 50s. And AFT Massachusetts, AFT Pennsylvania and our Alaska affiliates are making progress on retirement security as well.

There’s also what we have fended off. The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers reached an agreement to stop the cuts of 340 school-based positions for the coming school year. In Utah, a labor coalition including AFT Utah gathered more than 250,000 signatures and got the Legislature to repeal a ban on public sector bargaining. AFT New Hampshire has a mean game of whack-a-mole—defeating right-to-work, school vouchers and campus carry legislation, and successfully challenging a law that restricted teachers’ rights to teach and students’ access to honest history. In New York, our unions—United University Professions and the Public Employees Federation—and a broad community coalition successfully fought to keep SUNY Downstate hospital open after years of threatened closure, and they secured $1.1 billion to upgrade and expand facilities and services.

These are fights we’ll have to keep waging. The Republicans’ Big Ugly Bill cuts $1 trillion in Medicaid, makes the largest cuts to nutrition assistance in history, triples the cost of student debt for tens of millions of Americans, and threatens hundreds of rural hospitals with closure—all to give $1 trillion in new tax cuts to the richest 1 percent. State and local budgets are seeing the strain. We’ll keep fighting, school district by school district and hospital by hospital.

Then there is artificial intelligence—the most seismic industrial revolution of our time. From UUP in New York to the University Professionals of Illinois, we’ve won strong contract language so AI won’t be used to take our jobs, replace our professional judgment, or evaluate or discipline us.

And density matters: Like New York State United Teachers in education, Oregon’s density in healthcare is making a difference. The Oregon Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals secured the largest raises in its history—nearly 35 percent over four years for registered nurses. And OFNHP and HNHP in Hawaii have aligned all their contract expiration dates for the next Kaiser battle.

And then there is the protection of our students, our patients and our neighbors from brutal immigration tactics, like the recent fatal shootings by ICE agents in Texas and Maine of two men who should be alive today. Healthcare locals in Oregon won legislation to protect healthcare facilities from immigration enforcement. Educators across the country have fought for their students’ release from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers. Our Twin Cities union family peacefully and courageously stood up to the occupation and harsh immigration enforcement that led to the killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti and terrified thousands of immigrant families. We were there with mutual aid—food, diapers, rent money, books, toys and safe passage for children to and from school.

The AFT is always at the ready to help—like with our program for states and locals in crisis. Right now, we are helping our members in Florida, who are in the bull’s-eye of anti-union attacks intended to wipe them out. Let me be clear: We are with you every step of the way. And we’re investing in our affiliates through our MOVE grants, which affiliates are using as fuel to engage members, connect with community and strengthen their power.

This is what the power of the people looks like: caring, fighting, showing up and getting shit done.

This administration is waging a war on knowledge, from school voucher schemes, to erasing rather than facing history, to selling the Department of Education off for parts, to its all-out assault on higher education. Here, too, we’re not just fighting back; we’re putting forward big ideas.

The AFT and the American Association of University Professors have launched a national higher education campaign. We’re fighting to keep vital research funded and against attacks on academic freedom. We won collective bargaining rights for higher education employees in Maryland and made strides toward free college in Connecticut and Pennsylvania. In April, the AFT and AAUP released “A Blueprint for Strengthening and Transforming Higher Education”—and we launched it in Texas, because that is ground zero in the attacks on critical thinking.

Through AFT Healthcare’s Code Red campaign, we’re working to secure safe staffing limits, enforceable workplace-violence standards, and contracts that help recruit and retain frontline caregivers. That’s good for patients and for healthcare workers.

And on AI, we have a multifaceted plan: from limiting screens and child-facing AI for young students, to a tech tax to hold tech companies accountable for the massive disruptions their products are creating, to contract language, to our National Academy for AI Instruction to help educators master AI so AI doesn’t master us. AI is not going away, so we’re going to fight for the protections that matter to our members, our families and our communities.

And of course, we give out books, 11 million and counting, to children and families through our Reading Opens the World program.

All this is why the AFT is bigger, badder and more big-hearted than ever.

The AFT is the fastest-growing union in the AFL-CIO. Since our last convention, we have organized 173 more units, with close to 60,000 new members in these new locals. New affiliations have deepened our work in states like Hawaii, Michigan, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. And many existing locals have grown as well.

I am thrilled to announce that, despite everything that’s been thrown at us, we have hit a historic milestone: We proudly represent more members than ever before. Today the AFT is 1.875 million members strong!

People see the value of belonging. They see that we’re a fighting union—and that we get shit done! It’s amazing. You are amazing. And we are not going to let up. Too few people have the benefit of a union.

Half of all nonunion workers want to join a union, but only 1 in 10 workers in the U.S. belongs to a union. Americans are 14 times more likely to have an Amazon Prime membership than to be a member of a labor union.

In the mid-20th century, when 1 in 3 American workers were in a union, we had the largest middle class and the lowest income inequality. That’s why, in the long term, growing the union movement is key to solving America’s affordability crisis.

But what do we do now? We’ve got to win elections. And here’s why.

As I said, 46 percent of households—55 percent of households of color—did not earn enough to make ends meet in 2024. And inflation has soared since then. That means there’s not enough to put food on the table, gas in the tank and still cover rent. It means constant stress and struggle.

Our members see it every day in the people they teach, heal and protect.

And our members feel it.

This winter we surveyed AFT members about the financial issues that keep them up at night, and 7,500 responded. Nearly three-quarters report living paycheck to paycheck, and more than a third say they are unable to cover all of their monthly bills.

There are few things worse than the fear of not being able to provide for your family. Reading our members’ responses took me back to my teenage years when my father was laid off. I remember my parents whispering about which bills they had to pay now and which they could hold off on until he found work. They tried to protect my sister and me from knowing, but there’s no hiding anxiety that deep.

Millions of Americans believed Trump’s promises to end inflation and make America affordable again on “day one.” It’s “day 542” since he took office. Is anybody paying under $2 a gallon for gas like he promised? What happened to the “DOGE dividend checks”? Or your tariff rebate check? After they got rid of the Obamacare tax credits, have they fixed healthcare?

Trump isn’t worried about being able to afford healthcare, housing or anything else. Since returning to the White House, he has raked in more than $2.2 billion, through what government watchdogs call unprecedented corruption and self-dealing.

The president has called the affordability crisis “bullshit.” And he has said, “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation.” But he has made it worse.

Trump’s tariffs sent the strong economy he inherited into a slump, even with an AI bubble. His trade wars are costing American families $1,000 more every year. He started a costly war against Iran that has left us worse off than when it started. Trump said taxpayers wouldn’t pay “one dime” for his ballroom, but it turns out we’re on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars.

We’re not holding our breath for the president to deliver on his promises to lower costs. We’re fighting for economic security and to put more money in our members’ pockets—like the 1 million borrowers we’ve helped get Public Service Loan Forgiveness relief. Our Fight for Affordability builds on that work, with resources to help navigate medical and credit card debt and on other support people are legally entitled to but may not know about.

And we are working with allies in Congress on bold solutions, like increasing the minimum wage to $25 and passing the Working Americans’ Tax Cut Act, which would exempt 104 million lower-income adults from federal taxes—paid for by millionaires paying a fairer share. We’re pushing for increased funding for public schools and colleges. We’re fighting back against the draconian cuts to Medicaid and to rural hospitals. Millions of children risk going hungry because of the heartless changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in the Big Ugly Bill; we are fighting for every single one of them.

But we need majorities in statehouses and in Congress this year, and ultimately the White House, to secure the foundational changes we seek.

Threats to Democracy

We face another grave danger: dire threats to democracy. I know, some of you are thinking, here she goes. But really, when is the erosion so much that we can’t get our freedoms back?

I remember the scoffing when terms like “authoritarian” were first used. And I have been asked repeatedly about why I used the term “fascist” in the book I wrote, Why Fascists Fear Teachers.

Unfortunately, the answer is clearer every day.

I don’t actually care what you call it, but I care very much about what Trump is doing. He is weaponizing the justice system to target political opponents, journalists and dissenters. He is sending armed forces trained for war to police American cities, especially to Democrat- and Black-led cities. He is using the presidency for his own benefit and to enrich himself and his family. He is trying to obstruct free and fair elections to maintain power.

Donald Trump keeps trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election. He urged on the Jan. 6 rioters and pardoned even those who brutally attacked officers bravely protecting the Capitol.

He is aggressively testing the legal and constitutional limits of presidential power.

Then there are the lies. It started with crowd size but now he lies about everything—about election results, the economy, his critics, the war in Iran. Even the botched paint job on the Reflecting Pool.

And sadly, instead of uniting the country to celebrate the great American experiment of democracy, what did Trump do for the 250th? He held what he described as “the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all.”

Mr. President, you don’t own July Fourth. You own Jan. 6.

I speak and write about democracy a lot because education is vital to understanding, and understanding is vital to acting. If we don’t heed the warnings from the generals who worked for Trump in his first term; if we don’t recognize the hallmarks of authoritarianism—fear, division, isolation and apathy; if we don’t learn the lessons of tyrants, how do we the people have the shared understanding and the urgency to organize and mobilize for democracy to work for working people.

As I wrote last year, fascists fear teachers because they fear a well-educated citizenry. They fear what educators do—the teaching of critical thinking, of honest history, of pluralism—because their brand of greed, power and privilege cannot survive in a democracy of diverse, educated citizens. We see it in the book bans. In the attacks on DEI. In the efforts to control what schools and universities can and cannot teach. And in the attempts to rewrite and whitewash history.

To be clear: Fascists don’t just fear teachers—they fear, loath and try to silence all of us who stand up for democracy, dignity, fairness and opportunity for all.

And stand up we must.

Americans are losing faith in democracy. Seven in 10 U.S. adults say they are dissatisfied with the way democracy is working in the country. Young Americans in particular feel the country is on the wrong track.

I understand the disappointment. But we cannot give up on democracy. Winston Churchill was right when he said in 1947, “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried.”

But we must improve it. As John Dewey said, “Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.”

Look at where democracy is being born anew: In Hungary, where this spring 80 percent of voters turned out to reject Viktor Orbán’s far-right agenda, ending his 16-year grip on power. In South Korea, where labor unions spearheaded mass protests and nationwide “strikes to defend democracy” after the president declared martial law. And here at home, at May Day and “No Kings” protests in small towns, suburbs and cities across America, where millions of people turned out to say we will not stand by while democracy is dismantled.

We are not helpless to change what is wrong. We can build a better future and a stronger democracy. But that requires winning in November.

Elections

As big and bad and big-hearted as we are, neither bargaining nor bullhorns alone will get us out of these treacherous times.

To get a working-class tax cut, to pass living-wage legislation, to get limitless money out of politics, to fix the healthcare system, to strengthen education, and to restore vital safety net and climate programs, we have to win majorities in 2026 and the White House in 2028. We have to elect people who support working people, leaders with real plans to make life better.

Strengthening public schools and stopping the reckless runaway train that private school vouchers are becoming should not be a partisan issue. Ensuring everyone who works can earn a living wage should not be a political issue. Fighting so everyone has access to high-quality, affordable healthcare should be a human priority, not one party’s priority. Shoring up Social Security to keep seniors out of destitution should have universal support. Addressing the climate crisis that threatens all humanity should unify all humanity.

Perhaps one day these issues will be bipartisan.

But sadly, the reality is that since Trump’s first term, Republican officeholders’ support for our priority issues averaged just 8 percent, while Democrats averaged 95 percent. Do I wish that was different? Of course. And do I wish Democrats were bolder? I do. But Republican leaders don’t even seem to want to try.

This election will decide whether we are a country governed by the people or ruled by the powerful. A country of opportunity or oligarchy. A country whose people live in freedom or in fear.

Do we want a future where billionaires and a trillionaire continue to grow their wealth at the expense of working people? Or one where working people earn a decent wage, support their families and take a vacation once in a while?

Do we want a future in which classrooms lack resources and life-changing research is abandoned? Or one in which we can nurture the potential of every student and continue to lead the world in bold discoveries?

Do we want a future where big healthcare corporations put profits over people? Or one in which every person—every person—has access to healthcare, and healthcare professionals have the resources, staffing and power to help their patients?

Do we want a future ruled by tech bros and robots? Or a future grounded in dignity and humanity?

Do we want a future in which elections are rigged to maintain one-party control and government is for sale to the highest bidder? Or one in which every person’s vote matters and government serves the people?

That’s what’s at stake in November 2026. And the future we want is within reach. We can win majorities in the House and in the Senate and in state capitals. Majorities who will act on our priorities.

But only if we vote, get others out to vote, and protect the vote. That’s why we are committing to our most ambitious election program ever.

Here’s the math: 1.3 million AFT members and their families live in a place where there is a competitive race in November. 600,000 of us are in battleground gubernatorial states. 464,000 live in the states with the seven top U.S. Senate battleground races. We need to flip four seats to win a Senate majority that works for working folks. And we have more than 1,000 members and voting family members in 86 critical, competitive congressional districts. We only need a net gain of three seats to win a working folks’ majority in the U.S. House. Can we do it?

With the AFL-CIO, we have a goal of reaching 2 million new voters. That means the AFT has to turn out about 200,000 more householders than in the last election. That means we need 28,000 volunteers to make calls, knock on doors and get out the vote—28,000 out of 1.875 million. Can we do it?

And it’s not just about getting out the vote in this election but also about protecting the vote. That’s why we are launching a new Democracy Defenders election protection program. We are recruiting 5,000 members to make sure that people can exercise their right to vote free from intimidation. Our Democracy Defenders will be part of the 50,000 people the AFL-CIO is recruiting for this critical work. Can we do it?

People power can win, but we need to be all in, and that means we need you to be all in. No one can do everything, but each of us can do something to win in November and achieve the better future we fight for.

So are we going to vote? Are we going to get out the vote? Are we going to protect the vote?

Conclusion

That’s the energy and commitment we need to achieve the America we dream of: An America where everyone has opportunity and economic security. An America where everyone’s dignity and freedoms are respected. An America whose democracy not only endures but finally lives up to its noble ideals.

I’ve spoken often this year about Martin Luther King Jr.’s final book, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? Since January 2025, we have experienced a lot of chaos, fear and division.

Lately, I find myself drawn to another piece of King’s wisdom—that the “arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I still believe that, and I hope you do too.

But the arc doesn’t bend on its own. It bends toward freedom and opportunity through the work you do every day making a difference in people’s lives—in classrooms, at the bedside, in our communities. You bend the arc. Unions bend the arc. Voting bends the arc. The power of the people bends the arc toward justice.

On this 250th anniversary of our nation, that is our responsibility. That is what I am asking you to do, what I am asking us to do—this bigger, badder, big-hearted union and our 1.875 million members.

And when we do, when we bend that arc, we will change the trajectory of our nation and secure a better future for all, from sea to shining sea. Thank you.

Watch the full speech

https://www.aft.org/media/oembed?url=https%3A//youtu.be/oIASmJ3ZO70&max_width=0&max_height=0&hash=Sadl1eN7tbOr37C7SenWNH-Hx34YmVOAuIc7CHYyQyQ

Categories Academic Freedom, Billionaires, Budget Cuts, Democracy, Education Reform, Equity, Ethics, Extremism, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Funding, Justice, Teachers and Teaching, Unions

Trump Administration Admitted in Court That It Cancelled Major Grants for Political Reasons

By dianeravitch

July 25, 2026 //

The person who is elected President usually says on election night that he will govern on behalf of the American people. He makes a point of obligation to be respectful for all Governors, to send FEMA to any state that has suffered from natural disasters, regardless of whether they vote for him or his rival.

Trump has said frankly that he hates his enemies. He sometimes doesn’t pretend to care about states that did not vote for him.

Aaron Parnas of the Parnas Perspective points out that the Trump administrative made decisions about environmental grants based solely on whether the states supported him in the 2024 elections. This involved billions of dollars in grants.

Parnas wrote:

A major constitutional violation, confirmed in court. The Trump administration admitted in court filings this month that it canceled 284 Biden era clean energy grants worth billions of dollars based solely on whether the recipient state voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 and had two Democratic senators. A lawyer for the Energy Department conceded that none of the terminations were based on any programmatic, statutory, cost reduction, or performance related factor, directly contradicting Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s June congressional testimony that no decisions were made on politics. The Energy Department disputes any contradiction, saying Wright was distinguishing between the review process and the timing of the cancellations, but hundreds of additional grants the department had itself recommended for cancellation were left untouched simply because they sat in states that backed Trump.

Real projects and real money were caught in the fallout. The politically targeted cancellations halted funding for hundreds of energy projects, including electrical grid upgrades in California and Oregon, methane leak reduction efforts in Colorado, and clean hydrogen fuel hubs in California and the Pacific Northwest. The cuts came in October alongside a broader White House push to pressure Democratic lawmakers during a government funding standoff, with Trump publicly threatening to slash what he called Democrat agencies. Some grant recipients have since sued to try to recover their funding, and this is not the first time the Energy Department has admitted politics played a role, since a federal judge already ruled in two earlier cases that more than a dozen grants were improperly canceled for political reasons, though this latest admission is far broader and more detailed.

Democrats say it exposes a dangerous pattern with more to come. Senator Patty Murray and Representative Marcy Kaptur called the cancellations an outright un-American weaponization of government and accused the administration of corruptly abusing its power to punish states over how they voted. The controversy lands as the administration finalizes new rules, expected by October, that would give Trump’s political appointees direct control to review, block, or revoke federal grants across the entire government, worth more than a trillion dollars annually. Budget office director Russell Vought has defended the changes as necessary to ensure democratic control of spending, but critics, including antipoverty groups, scientists, and city leaders, have flooded the government with comments warning the rules would let the administration extend this kind of political targeting far beyond energy grants. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities fellow Devin O’Connor said the willingness to be this blatant in court should be taken as a serious warning about what the new framework could enable nationwide.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Disruption, Environment, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Politics, Trump

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Trump Administration Admitted in Court That It Cancelled Major Grants for Political Reasons

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What’s giving us hope now

Red States Will Likely Embrace the Letter

Political Retaliation Is Not Hypothetical

The president did something yesterday that almost no one noticed. He signed an order that will allow him to fully hijack (and politicize) the federal government, like never before.

Watch the full speech

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