Category: Politics

Most Americans expect political violence to keep growing in the United States and believe that it is likely a political candidate will be assassinated in the next few years.

Widespread pessimism about political violence is a rare, grim point of consensus in a country riven by political and cultural divisions.

A majority of Americans, 55 percent, expect political violence to increase, according to a new poll from POLITICO and Public First. That figure underscores just how much the spate of attacks — from the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk earlier this year to the attempts on President Donald Trump’s life in 2024 — have rattled the nation.

It’s a view held by majorities of Americans all across lines like gender, age, party affiliation and level of education, though Democrats and older voters expressed particular concern.

Perhaps most troubling, a significant minority of the population — 24 percent — believes that there are some instances where violence is justified.

There was little partisan divide in that belief, but a strong generational one: Younger Americans were significantly more likely than older ones to say violence can be justified. More than one in three Americans under the age of 45 agreed with that belief.

While political violence can take many forms, more than half of Americans say that it is very or somewhat likely that a political candidate gets assassinated in the next five years, according to the exclusive survey. That view cuts across party lines, with agreement from 51 percent of last year’s Trump voters and 53 percent of Americans who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris.

Robert Pape, a University of Chicago political science professor who has studied political violence for the last three decades, is no longer warning that the country is on the brink of a violent age, as he did as recently as five months ago.

“We’re not on the brink of it, we’re firmly in the grip of it,” Pape told POLITICO, saying the country is now in an era of “violent populism.”

The POLITICO Poll, conducted after Kirk’s assassination, suggests Americans are rattled by the environment of heightened political violence — and that most still reject it: about two thirds, 64 percent, say political violence is never justified.

Still, a small but significant portion of the population, 24 percent, say that there are some instances where violence is justified.

“What’s happening is public support for political violence is growing in the mainstream, it’s not a fringe thing, and the more it grows, the more it seems acceptable to volatile people,” Pape said.

There have been a series of high-profile attacks and threats against members of both parties, across the country and at all levels of government, in recent years.

In addition to Kirk’s killing and the attempts on Trump’s life, there was the gruesome attack targeting former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that left her husband, Paul Pelosi, with a fractured skull in 2022; the assassination plot against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh that same year; the plan to kidnap Michigan’s Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020; and the firebombing at Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro’s residence earlier this year.

In June, former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband were shot and killed in their home by a man impersonating a police officer in an attack that Gov. Tim Walz (D) called “politically motivated.” The man accused of killing Hortman and her husband was indicted on federal murder charges. His case is still pending.

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers are also increasingly concerned over the rising culture of violence. Last year, U.S. Capitol Police investigated nearly 10,000 “concerning statements” and threats against members, their families and staff. Just two weeks ago, a man was arrested and charged with making a “credible death threat” against House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

Local officials have also faced elevated attacks and hostilities — including insults, harassment and threats — according to a survey from CivicPulse and Princeton University’s Bridging Divides Initiative earlier this year.

That can have damaging effects for democracy, said Shannon Hiller, executive director of the non-partisan Princeton project: “When people aren’t willing to run because of the climate of hostility, that impacts who’s ultimately representing us.”

While most Americans believe violence will increase, the survey also found some gaps in opinion that revealed some groups hold darker views than others.

Democrats, for example, are more likely than Republicans to say that violence will increase.

That difference may reflect at least in part a broader sense of pessimism about the nation’s future among Democrats. Surveys — including The POLITICO Poll — have found that Democrats have more negative views than Republicans since Trump’s return to office, reversing the trend from when former President Joe Biden was in office.

Americans who hold negative views about major institutions, including the U.S. presidency, are particularly likely to say that violence is likely to increase. Among Americans who hold a very negative view of the presidency, for example, 76 percent believe violence will increase, while only 15 percent believe it will decrease.

The data suggest that the extreme partisanship that has come to dominate the current era of politics has in many ways shaped Americans’ feelings on violence.

Forty-one percent of Americans say they feel hesitant to share their political views in public, and they are significantly more likely than others to expect politically motivated violence to increase — 68 percent, compared with 47 percent of those who feel comfortable sharing their political views.

A Pew Research Center survey conducted in September asked an open-ended question about the reasons for political violence over the last several years, and Americans’ most common answers were grounded in partisanship. More than a quarter of Democrats, 28 percent, mentioned Trump’s rhetoric, the MAGA movement or conservatives as a reason, while 16 percent of Republicans cited the rhetoric of Democrats and liberals.

In the aftermath of Kirk’s killing, lawmakers on both sides urged Americans to engage with each other, even when they disagree.

“We can always point the finger at the other side,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) said at a press conference after authorities apprehended Kirk’s alleged killer. “At some point we have to find an off-ramp, or else it’s going to get much worse.”

But even the act of engaging with others who hold different views is difficult in a bitterly divided nation: 41 percent of Americans say they don’t have a close friend who votes for a different party than them.

​Politics

NORFOLK, Virginia — Jay Jones, the embattled Democratic nominee for attorney general in Virginia, made a surprise appearance at a major Democratic campaign rally Saturday aimed at revving up the party faithful ahead of the high-stakes statewide elections Tuesday.

Jones — whose years-old violent text messages triggered a nationwide GOP backlash and a steady drumbeat of calls for Democrats to push him off the ticket — opened the event, where headliner former President Barack Obama energized voters in support of Abigail Spanberger, the party’s gubernatorial nominee.

Speaking before Spanberger and Obama took the stage, Jones made no mention of the scandal that prompted Spanberger to distance herself from him. He instead focused his brief remarks on Jason Miyares, seeking to cast the incumbent GOP attorney general as a puppet for President Donald Trump.

“Trump has endorsed Jason. … He said ‘Jason will never let us down,’ and what that means is that he’ll never let Donald Trump down,” Jones said, with the crowd at the Chartway Arena erupting in boos in response to the mention of the current president.

He cast his opponent as being a “willing enabler” of the president, who has wreaked havoc on Virginia residents, and claimed Trump “illegally fires workers [and] levies tariffs that destroy our regional economies, including the Port of Virginia.”

The overwhelmingly Democratic crowd received Jones warmly, with cheers and applause. He reminded them he grew up in this region, which he said will help Virginia send a message to Trump on Election Day.

Republicans, including Trump, have seized on the text messages from Jones, who in 2022 sent to a colleague messages fantasizing about shooting then-House Speaker of Virginia Todd Gilbert, a Republican. Jones has apologized but refused calls, including from his opponent Miyares, to end his bid for attorney general.

Spanberger criticized those text messages, but like most other prominent Democrats in the state and nationally, did not call on him to drop out.

Speakers who appeared after Jones, including Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott, state Sen. Lamont Bagby and Sen. Tim Kaine all urged voters to vote for Jones on Tuesday.

“I met Jay Jones when he was 11 years old. I have known him for 25 years,” Kaine said, before laying into Trump, blaming him for the ongoing federal government shutdown and allowing funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to lapse. He pointed out that several states filed lawsuits against the administration — but not Virginia.

“Virginia didn’t participate,” he said, “because Jay’s opponent wouldn’t stand up and say ‘hungry people deserve the money in the contingency fund that was set for them.’ Jay would never do that.”

​Politics

PASSAIC COUNTY, New Jersey — Both candidates in the New Jersey governor’s race have something to prove here in Passaic. It’s ground zero for the inroads President Donald Trump made with Latino voters — Trump won this plurality-Latino county last year, the first GOP presidential candidate to do so in decades — and it offers the first big litmus test of whether the Latino shift toward the GOP in 2024 will stick without Trump on the ballot.

That is, if Latino voters show up.

With just days left until Election Day, there are concerns on the ground that Democrat Mikie Sherrill’s and Republican Jack Ciattarelli’s campaigns have not done enough to reach the hyperlocal and swingy communities of Latinos in this northern pocket of New Jersey. Strategists and local leaders told POLITICO they’ve witnessed a lack of enthusiasm in Passaic County, where campaign messaging and activation around Latino voters is falling flat.

“It’s not as proactive as they needed to be,” said a Democratic strategist with roots in Passaic, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.

Around Passaic, there’s a resounding recognition among Latino leaders and some organizers that this bellwether bloc of voters may not vote this year. Latino voters, like other minority groups, historically have lower levels of engagement in off-year elections.

“I’m asking you, please, do not stay home,” Passaic Mayor Hector Lora told a crowd of Sherrill voters at a campaign rally in Paterson last Sunday. “New Jersey is watching Passaic County, and the nation is watching New Jersey,” Christine Tiseo, a local councilmember, said at the same rally.

The signs of lagging enthusiasm are evident on the ground. A trip up Main Avenue, which cuts through the city of Passaic heading into Clifton and Paterson, is devoid of campaign postings or early voting signs. The main library in Clifton, which serves as an early voting site, has been under construction for months and is adorned with large black-and-white signs signaling its temporary closure. Prospective early voters have to make their way around the back of the building to find the entrance available to them.

“How the hell do you expect these people to vote!” Jeannette Mestre, a Clifton voter, told POLITICO on the sidelines of Sherrill’s event.

The most noticeable sign of life from either campaign during the past week came by way of canvassers from Make the Road New Jersey, who’ve been in the city of Passaic for months campaigning for Sherrill and speaking to thousands of residents to remind them to vote. During their third round of door-knocking Thursday in Passaic — which Trump carried with 52 percent last year — two canvassers noted the lack of visibility for either campaign in the neighborhood.

“It’s like they’re literally trying to get people not to vote,” said Lori Gonzalez, a volunteer with Make the Road. She estimated that of 60 voters her group connects with, about 40 will stay home. Knocking on doors of midsize residential buildings in Passaic on Thursday in the pouring rain, a consistent trend emerged: The decided voters — usually younger, all who have already prepared to vote — said they’re going for Sherrill. But many were unsure, and most of the others said they weren’t planning to hit the polls.

That trend is also playing out across the area: Passaic County’s early voting numbers are lagging behind, with Democratic turnout at 13.4 percent — six points below the state average, with a similar lagging trend for mail-in ballots. It’s the manifestation of anxieties ruminating within Latino strategists and local politicians that the community just hasn’t been rallied or motivated enough to vote.

“We fought a good fight for the primary, but now I see an apathy,” a local Democratic leader said about Sherrill’s campaign. “I would have wished to have seen more done in the Latino communities — you know where people are feeling like, ‘Wow, they care.’ And I believe that they care, but I think the campaign — I don’t think it’s making sure. [Sherrill’s] just out there, just going from space to space, and it’s a big state.”

Democrats’ theory of the case is that many voters in Latino strongholds like Passaic County had election fatigue in 2024; the right messaging didn’t reach them, so they chose Trump as a change agent who would help their pocketbooks or they simply stayed home. Winning Passaic back would not only chip away at Republicans’ gains, but also provide Democrats a battle-tested message to take into midterms.

Republicans are betting that their success with Latino voters last year wasn’t just a Trump effect, but rather a budding realignment of Latinos and working-class voters nationwide with whom they share values. Latinos are “waking up to the fact that the current policies have failed us, but also, the Democratic Party has been taking them for granted,” Ciattarelli told POLITICO on his tour bus after his rally in Clifton last Saturday.

Ciattarelli’s campaign has spotlighted him at practically every Latino parade in the state, connecting with Latino churches and small-business owners, said Kennith Gonzalez, who leads the campaign’s Hispanic outreach. Sherrill’s campaign has focused on connecting with local Latino leaders and groups, who can channel her message into their communities, campaign vice chair Patricia Campos-Medina said.

The problem is, with either approach, there’s people who fall through the cracks, according to Rafael Collazo, the executive director of the UnidosUS Action PAC, one of multiple groups supporting Sherrill and working to reach Latino voters across the state. “It’s hard to put a number on it, but a significant amount of Latino voters aren’t really touched by those networks on either side,” he told POLITICO.

Despite the millions of dollars in investments in Spanish ads and media outreach, the strategists and local leaders said Sherrill’s campaign has not spent enough time effectively connecting with hyperlocal Latino communities. A Democratic strategist granted anonymity to speak candidly said Sherrill’s running a suburban campaign with Latinos: “It’s like they took the strategy that you apply to the suburbs and try to take it statewide.” That comes amid general concerns in the final weeks about the enthusiasm surrounding Sherrill’s campaign, as POLITICO has previously reported.

Immigration is also bubbling as a flashpoint. Of the Passaic residents who spoke with Playbook about the election, all named immigration — ICE raids and deportations, more specifically — as their chief concern. The county is around 42 percent Latino, but cities like Passaic are up to 70 percent Latino, immigrant-dominated areas with some of the biggest concentrations of Puerto Ricans, Dominicans and Peruvians anywhere in the U.S. Ciattarelli has toed a delicate line by aligning himself with MAGA while softening on some immigration issues, but recent polling suggests that Trump’s sway with Latino voters generally is dropping.

“It’s the first meaningful temperature check since the last election,” Carlos Odio, a Latino analyst and pollster with Equis Research, told POLITICO. “And it’s fitting that it be here, because this is where you saw the biggest shifts from ’20 to ’24.”

Canvassing continues as the final days approach. Ciattarelli’s campaign is knocking doors this weekend in Paterson and nearby Woodbridge, while Make the Road said it’ll keep going for Sherrill in Passaic through Tuesday. Sherrill was scheduled for a get-out-the-vote rally in Clifton on Saturday.

But the campaigns will find out if they walked the walk with Latino voters on Tuesday. Sherrill, for her part, is talking the talk, at least. In a high school gymnasium in Paterson last Sunday, surrounded by Latinos volunteering for her campaign, Sherrill made a heartfelt plea to the community.

“Necesito su voto, familia,” she told the crowd in Spanish: I need your vote.

Like this content? Consider signing up for POLITICO’s Playbook newsletter.

​Politics

NORFOLK, Virginia and NEWARK, New Jersey — Barack Obama reprised his role as the Democrats’ closer-in-chief on Saturday, filling a void for his still leaderless party in the waning days of closely watched gubernatorial contests in Virginia and New Jersey.

The former president’s stops — his first in Norfolk, home to the nation’s largest naval installation and two historically Black colleges, and later in Newark, the Garden State’s most populous city where nearly half of residents are Black — are nods that Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic nominees in Virginia and New Jersey, respectively, see these voters as key to securing victory in the Nov. 4 election.

But Obama’s reemergence is also a reminder of the rudderlessness of the Democratic Party, which is still reeling from stinging losses in 2024 that left them completely locked out of power in the federal government. Democrats are counting on decisive victories from Spanberger and Sherrill, both of whom are favored to win on Tuesday, to help springboard them into the critical midterm elections next year.

President Donald Trump made gains in both states last year, in part due to improved performance among Black and Hispanic voters.

Democrats have worked to get these voters back on their side, with the bet that their affordability-focused messaging will demonstrate that Trump failed to deliver on his economic promises that drew in so many of them. But Republicans, too, have been courting these voters in an attempt to replicate Trump’s gains last year.

Obama underscored Spanberger and Sherrill’s focus on the economy as he sought to fire up voters.

“Abigail’s opponent does seem to care a lot about what Trump and his cronies are doing. She praised the Republican tax law that would raise the cost of health care and housing and energy in Virginia,” Obama said without mentioning Virginia’s Republican gubernatorial nominee, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, by name.

“It’s like everyday is Halloween, except it’s all tricks and not treats,” the former president said, drawing laughs from the crowd, before adding: “I did warn y’all.”

Just a couple of hours later in New Jersey, Obama told the crowd that there is “absolutely no evidence that Republican policies have made life better for the people of New Jersey.”

Obama criticized Sherrill’s opponent, Republican Jack Ciattarelli, whom he also did not mention by name, for choosing to “suck up to the Republicans in Washington” after running unsuccessful gubernatorial bids twice before. He also pointed to Trump’s endorsement of Ciattarelli, in which Trump called him “100 percent MAGA.”

“Not a great endorsement,” Obama said. 

Obama also spoke to New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani on Saturday, according to a person familiar with the call who was granted anonymity to confirm the private conversation, underscoring the former president’s involvement in trying to direct an adrift Democratic Party. The call was first reported by The New York Times.

Without a singular figure driving the Democratic Party, Democrats are searching for a message that will resonate with voters. Tuesday’s races will be the latest temperature check on the effectiveness of their rhetoric on the economy — and their blaming of Trump for voters’ unhappiness with it.

“President Obama is somebody who is widely respected across the state,” Sherrill told reporters Thursday. “He’s a pragmatic leader who I think cares deeply about rights and freedoms, but also about driving down costs. And I think at this moment, having the architect of the Affordable Care Act — as now everybody here in New Jersey, because of President Trump, is set to see their premiums go up by 175 percent — is really telling.”

Spanberger and Sherrill have sought to tie their Republican opponents to Trump. The Democrats have positioned themselves as a bulwark to the president, whom they argue has made the economy worse since he returned to power — in part pointing to the ongoing government shutdown.

Thousands of federal workers are missing paychecks, and others are out of a job due to the Department of Government Efficiency-related firings earlier this year and more recently through Trump-backed job cuts since the shutdown began a month ago — a dynamic that is particularly acute in Virginia, which has a large number of federal workers.

“You deserve a governor who will work with Democrats and Republicans to grow our economy and not stand by while Virginia’s workforce is under attack,” Spanberger said Saturday.

Saturday brought in a new round of hardship: Millions of Americans were placed at risk of losing food assistance as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program was forecast to run out of money. Sherrill said her campaign will be “collecting donations for the Community Food Bank of New Jersey as the Trump Administration is letting SNAP funding expire, forcing more families to rely on food banks for food assistance.”

In Virginia, outgoing Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin declared an emergency, blaming the “Democrat Shutdown” for the funding fight while stepping in to help SNAP beneficiaries. New Jersey also declared a state of emergency and is “accelerating” funds to food banks, term-limited Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said. Murphy on Friday said “the Trump Administration’s decision to suspend SNAP funding as the government shutdown drags on is both unethical and illegal.”

The same day, federal judges ordered the Trump administration to use emergency money to fund the program.

“I’m angry that our president is cutting everything from the Gateway tunnel funds to SNAP benefits,” Sherrill told the crowd on Saturday. “But I don’t feel afraid. As I stand here, I feel nothing but courage. New Jerseyans give me courage, and I’m sure the nation feels that way too.”

In New Jersey, which is expected to be a tighter race than Virginia, some Democrats have expressed concerns about Democrats regaining ground with Black voters. Sherrill — who called Black voters a “key part of the Democratic firewall” — is likely to win among this demographic, but as Ciattarelli also attempts to appeal to them, the margin could make a difference in the outcome of the race.

Earle-Sears, who is Black, took Obama to task for his comments chastising Black men for not supporting then-presidential nominee Kamala Harris more aggressively, yet urging Black voters a year later to support Democratic nominees who are both white.

It was unclear prior to Obama’s remarks in Virginia whether he would weigh in on the controversy surrounding Jay Jones, the Democratic nominee for attorney general.

Jones has been at the center of scandal surrounding violence-themed text messages he sent in 2022, where he fantasized about shooting and killing a Republican lawmaker, that came to light in the closing weeks of the race. It threw the party’s hopes for flipping Virginia’s top statewide offices of governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general into question and offered Republicans a rallying cry to hammer Spanberger, who condemned the messages but refused to pull her endorsement of Jones or ask him to drop out of the race.

But Jones appeared early in the rally and made no mention of the scandal that has engulfed his campaign. While other speakers mentioned Jones, including Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), neither Obama nor Spanberger did.

While Obama’s return to the campaign trail gave many Democrats a jolt of excitement — in New Jersey, attendees shouted “we miss you” when Obama said that the country and politics “are in a pretty dark place right now” — his presence has been pilloried by Republicans who suggest both nominees are incapable of leading Democrats into the future and are the reason they’re reliant on “the face of the Democrat Party from a decade ago.”

“Sherrill and Spanberger both lack a cohesive forward-looking agenda to improve the lives of voters in their states, so it comes as no surprise that they’re reliant on Democrat nostalgia despite its failed policies that let Americans down,” Courtney Alexander, communications director for the Republican Governors Association, said in a statement to POLITICO.

Obama has been a consistent presence for gubernatorial candidates in New Jersey and Virginia in recent cycles, regularly serving as the headliner even after he left office.

He, along with a swarm of Democrats — many of whom have an eye on the 2028 presidential election — have come to rally for Spanberger and Sherrill in the closing stretch of the campaign. But the party’s more recent standard-bearers, former President Joe Biden and Harris, have largely stayed off the campaign trail.

“There’s no bigger voice, a more respected voice in our party, than Barack Obama,” Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said. “And so having him come in to rally the troops in the final few days, to thank the volunteers and the people who’ve been on the ground working so hard, and to really create, help remind folks of what’s at stake in this election, it never hurts.”

Gregory Svirnovskiy, Adam Wren and Daniel Han contributed to this report.

​Politics

After two years of devastating war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas forces in the Gaza Strip, President Donald Trump declared an end to the war on Oct. 14, 2025. The peace plan includes a Hamas commitment to return all hostages and a withdrawal of Israeli forces.

In late October, both sides said they remained committed to peace, despite Israeli retaliation for the death of an Israeli soldier that killed 104 people, and despite the fact that the remains of 11 deceased hostages remain in Gaza.

Those setbacks aside, the new peace push is the most serious attempt so far to end the escalation of conflict that followed the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Palestinian militants on Israelis.

But what are the circumstances and actions that helped Trump advance such an agreement, the likes of which eluded former President Joe Biden? And what enabled Trump, working with a few close advisers and with mediators like Qatar and Egypt, to overcome the reluctance of Israel and Hamas?

The answer may have much to do with how Trump countered a phenomenon that political scientists call “spoiling.”

“Spoiling” in peace negotiations is defined by political scientist Stephen Stedman as actions employed by “leaders and parties who believe that peace emerging from negotiations threatens their power, worldview, and interests, and use violence to undermine attempts to achieve it.”

In regard to the Middle East, critics have long accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of playing this spoiler card throughout the war.

Netanyahu was seen by many observers to be not interested in reaching a peace agreement because of risks to the political survival of his governing coalition. And it’s evident in attempts to postpone the investigation of the colossal failure of Israel to defend its citizens on Oct. 7, 2023.

For two years, Netanyahu engaged in this kind of spoiling by, for example, staging high-level assassinations of Hamas leaders at a timing detrimental for any negotiation’s success.

Yet, Netanyahu also employed a more sophisticated method of spoiling, one that political science scholar Ehud Eiran and I are exploring in our research.

We argue that leaders can spoil negotiations not just by resorting to violent means, or by posing hard-line positions within the negotiation room. Additionally, spoilers can work in broad daylight and make the diplomacy less likely to succeed through a careful use of rhetoric and media. This decreases their own constituencies’ and the enemy’s likelihood of accepting This decreases the likelihood of their own constituencies or the enemy accepting a compromise. It’s what we call “public spoiling.”

Spoiling in broad daylight

Netanyahu used these public spoiling tactics again and again during ceasefire negotiations.

In early May 2024, for example, when ceasefire negotiations were getting into high gear and indications mounted that Hamas may accept the deal on the table, a statement from Netanyahu attributed to “a senior diplomatic source” – known in the Israeli media to mean the prime minister himself – stated that “the IDF will enter Rafah and destroy the Hamas battalions remaining there, whether there is a temporary truce for releasing the hostages or not,” referring to the Israel Defense Forces.

Such declarations signaled to Hamas that Israel did not intend to keep its side of a deal. And it led the Palestinian militant organization to harden its position and further insist on a formal end of the war before all hostages were released.

In September 2024, Netanyahu used the Israeli military in another spoiler tactic after pressure mounted on him to yield to protesters’ calls for a ceasefire

After Hamas operatives murdered six Israeli hostages as soldiers approached their hiding place, the Israeli public erupted in protests against its government, blaming it for sending soldiers instead of negotiating. High-level officers in the prime minister’s office then stole a document from Israeli intelligence, allegedly written by Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, forged some of it, and leaked it to the German newspaper Bild.

Netanyahu then cited the document in a speech, claiming Sinwar designed his policy to use public pressure on Netanyahu. In short, he used this false publication, leaked allegedly by his own people, to suggest that the protesters were doing Hamas’ bidding. The protests subsequently decreased dramatically, and the pressure on Netanyahu to compromise subsided.

This pattern continued into the Trump administration.

‘No daylight’

U.S. decision-makers, from the president to negotiators in the Biden and Trump administrations, were no doubt aware of these practices. So why did they allow them to continue?

The answer is complicated. What has become clear, I believe, is that at the heart of the problem stands a single phrase: “no daylight.” It’s an oft-cited position of U.S. politicians to mean that, publicly at least, Israel and the United States act as if they are in complete agreement or alignment, with no policy differences between them.

Though a longtime ally of Israel, the U.S. used to be more forceful with Israel when the latter was deemed by Washington to have crossed the line or threatened important American interests in the region. That was evident when the U.S. imposed a ceasefire in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War despite Israeli opposition. It was also clear when the U.S. prevented an Israeli response to missiles that Iraq launched at it during the Gulf War in 1991.

But in the past few decades, a perception has taken hold in U.S. foreign policy circles that pressure on Israel’s government should only be done in private and that it should never include strong public rebuke.

Thus, even when, in June 2024, the Biden administration knew full well that Netanyahu was thwarting efforts to reach a ceasefire, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken came out with a statement blaming Hamas. And when Netanyahu breached a ceasefire in March 2025 and ordered the military to return to fighting, the Trump administration blamed Hamas.

Netanyahu, with his knowledge of U.S. politics, was well aware that Washington would be unlikely to publicly blame Israel. And he took full advantage of this fact to promote his spoiling of the ceasefire negotiations in broad daylight.

No choice but to sign

So what changed in October 2025 that allowed Trump to overcome Netanyahu’s actions as a spoiler and secure a ceasefire?

In short, Trump simply decided to play the same game. He publicly announced that the deal existed and left Netanyahu no choice but to sign it to preserve the perception that there is “no daylight” between Israel and the U.S. As a former Netanyahu aide suggested, “Trump is unpredictable and will not fall in line with the Israeli position.”

Trump’s announcement of the deal, before many of the details were agreed upon, enabled the ceasefire agreement, Israel’s partial withdrawal from Gaza and Hamas’ release of the Israeli hostages.

The road to an actual end of the war, not to mention Trump’s lofty declarations of a historic peace, is still in the far distance. But the ceasefire, if it holds, is a critical step, in my view, to end this terrible chapter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Boaz Atzili is related to two Israeli citizens who were held hostage by Hamas following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Many Americans will be voting on Election Day – or have already cast votes – in races for statewide office, local positions and on ballot initiatives with major implications for democracy.

Congress is not on the ballot this November, but it will be in the 2026 midterms. A year from now, Americans in every state and district will get to vote for whom they want representing their interests in Washington.

But right now, Congress isn’t giving the American people much to go on.

As the shutdown of the federal government passes the one-month mark, the U.S. House of Representatives has been in recess for over 40 days. That’s the longest it’s ever stayed out of town outside of its typical summer recesses or the weeks leading up to their own elections.

Notably, the shutdown does not mean that Congress can’t meet. In fact, it must meet to end the shutdown legislatively. The Senate, for example, has taken votes recently on judicial nominations, a major defense authorization bill and a resolution on tariff policy.

Senators have also continued to hold bipartisan behind-the-scenes negotiations to end the shutdown impasse.

But with dwindling SNAP benefits, skyrocketing health care premiums and other major shutdown impacts beginning to set in, the House has all but abdicated its position as “The People’s Chamber.”

Long ‘path to irrelevance’

In addition to not meeting for any votes, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has refused to swear in Democratic U.S. Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva of Arizona. Despite Johnson’s assurances, the shutdown does not prevent the House from meeting in a brief session to swear in Grijalva as a member for Arizona’s 7th District, which has been without representation since March.

Along with Casey Burgat and SoRelle Wyckoff Gaynor, I am co-author of a textbook, “Congress Explained: Representation and Lawmaking in the First Branch.” In that book, it was important to us to highlight Congress’ clear role as the preeminent lawmaking body in the federal government.

But throughout the shutdown battle, Congress – particularly the House of Representatives – has been unwilling to assert itself as an equal branch of government. Beyond policymaking, Congress has been content to hand over many of its core constitutional powers to the executive branch. As a Congress expert who loves the institution and profoundly respects its constitutionally mandated role, I have found this renunciation of responsibility difficult to watch.

And yet, Congress’ path to irrelevance as a body of government did not begin during the shutdown, or even in January 2025.

It is the result of decades of erosion that created a political culture in which Congress, the first branch of government listed in the Constitution, is relegated to second-class status.

The Constitution puts Congress first

The 18th-century framers of the Constitution viewed Congress as the foundation of republican governance, deliberately placing it first in Article 1 to underscore its primacy. Congress was assigned the pivotal tasks of lawmaking and budgeting because controlling government finances was seen as essential to limiting executive power and preventing abuses that the framers associated with monarchy.

Alternatively, a weak legislature and an imperial executive were precisely what many of the founders feared. With legislative authority in the hands of Congress, power would at least be decentralized among a wide variety of elected leaders from different parts of the country, each of whom would jealously guard their own local interests.

But Trump’s first 100 days turned the founders’ original vision on its head, leaving the “first branch” to play second fiddle.

Like most recent presidents, Trump came in with his party in control of the presidency, the House and the Senate. Yet despite the lawmaking power that this governing trifecta can bring, the Republican majorities in Congress have mostly been irrelevant to Trump’s agenda.

Instead, Congress has relied on Trump and the executive branch to make changes to federal policy and in many cases to reshape the federal government completely.

Trump has signed more than 210 executive orders, a pace faster than any president since Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Republican Congress has shown little interest in pushing back on any of them. Trump has also aggressively reorganized, defunded or simply deleted entire agencies, such as the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

These actions have been carried out even though Congress has a clear constitutional authority over the executive branch’s budget. And during the shutdown, Congress has shown little to no interest in reasserting its “power of the purse,” content instead to let the president decide which individuals and agencies receive funding, regardless of what Congress has prescribed.

Many causes, no easy solutions

There’s no one culprit but instead a collection of factors that have provided the ineffectual Congress of today.

One overriding factor is a process that has unfolded over the past 50 or more years called political nationalization. American politics have become increasingly centered on national issues, parties and figures rather than more local concerns or individuals.

This shift has elevated the importance of the president as the symbolic and practical leader of a national party agenda. Simultaneously, it weakens the role of individual members of Congress, who are now more likely to toe the party line than represent local interests.

As a result, voters focus more on presidential elections and less on congressional ones, granting the president greater influence and diminishing Congress’ independent authority.

The more Congress polarizes among its members on a party-line basis, the less the public is likely to trust the legitimacy of its opposition to a president. Instead, congressional pushback − sometimes as extreme as impeachment − can thus be written off not as principled or substantive but as partisan or politically motivated to a greater extent than ever before.

Congress has also been complicit in giving away its own power. Especially when dealing with a polarized Congress, presidents increasingly steer the ship in budget negotiations, which can lead to more local priorities – the ones Congress is supposed to represent – being ignored.

But rather than Congress staking out positions for itself, as it often did through the turn of the 21st century, political science research has shown that presidential positions on domestic policy increasingly dictate – and polarize – Congress’ own positions on policy that hasn’t traditionally been divisive, such as funding support for NASA. Congress’ positions on procedural issues, such as raising the debt ceiling or eliminating the filibuster, also increasingly depend not on bedrock principles but on who occupies the White House.

In the realm of foreign policy, Congress has all but abandoned its constitutional power to declare war, settling instead for “authorizations” of military force that the president wants to assert. These give the commander in chief wide latitude over war powers, and both Democratic and Republican presidents have been happy to retain that power. They have used these congressional approvals to engage in extended conflicts such as the Gulf War in the early 1990s and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan a decade later.

What’s lost with a weak Congress

Americans lose a lot when Congress hands over such drastic power to the executive branch.

When individual members of Congress from across the country take a back seat, their districts’ distinctly local problems are less likely to be addressed with the power and resources that Congress can bring to an issue. Important local perspectives on national issues fail to be represented in Congress.

Even members of the same political party represent districts with vastly different economies, demographics and geography. Members are supposed to keep this in mind when legislating on these issues, but presidential control over the process makes that difficult or even impossible.

Maybe more importantly, a weak Congress paired with what historian Arthur Schlesinger called the “Imperial Presidency” is a recipe for an unaccountable president, running wild without the constitutionally provided oversight and checks on power that the founders provided to the people through their representation by the first branch of government.

This is an updated version of a story that first published on May 15, 2025.

Charlie Hunt does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

The finance director for Graham Platner’s Senate campaign announced his resignation on Friday, the latest in a series of personnel departures for the Maine hopeful’s high-profile bid that has been marred by controversies over old social media posts and his tattoo with Nazi connotations.

Ronald Holmes, who had served as Platner’s national finance director since August, announced in a post on LinkedIn that he’s leaving the operation. He follows campaign manager Kevin Brown, who stepped down after less than a week on the job citing family reasons, and political director Genevieve McDonald, who resigned in a fiery fashion earlier this month, saying she could not look past some of Platner’s previous Reddit posts, where he self-identified as a communist and downplayed sexual assault in the military.

“I joined this campaign because I believed in building something different — a campaign of fresh energy, integrity, and reform-minded thinking in a political system that often resists exactly those things,” said Holmes in his post on Friday. “Somewhere along the way, I began to feel that my professional standards as a campaign professional no longer fully aligned with those of the campaign.”

Holmes did not immediately respond to messages Friday morning. His previous work included the campaigns of Michigan Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Chris Swanson and Rep. Josh Riley.

Platner’s campaign was off to a hot fundraising start, raising more than $3.2 million in his first six weeks as a candidate, largely from small-dollar donors.

In a statement, a campaign spokesperson pointed to the campaign’s focus on those small donors and said fundraising efforts will continue.

“Ron helped the campaign reach out to big dollar donors, and we appreciated his efforts. But the reality is our campaign’s fundraising success has come largely from small dollar donors,” said the spokesperson. “Nearly 90 percent of what we’ve raised has come from small dollar donations and online donors, which has been and [continues] to be run by our digital fundraising director.”

Platner, who went from an unknown oysterman to a high-profile Senate candidate endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in just a few weeks, apologized for his controversial Reddit posts and covered up his tattoo, saying he only learned after launching his campaign that it could be a Nazi symbol.

He has continued to campaign in recent weeks despite the controversies, holding town halls across the state. His campaign launched an ad this week urging voters to reject a voter-identification measure on Maine’s ballot this November.

Recent polls, though wildly different from one another, have shown Platner as a strong candidate in the Democratic primary that also includes Gov. Janet Mills — who is national Democrats’ preferred candidate in the race — along with a handful of other contenders including former congressional staffer Jordan Wood.

​Politics