Category: Uncategorized

A slang term for cash money is “dead presidents.” But now the very much alive President Donald Trump could appear on U.S. coins and banknotes, too.

Ever since Trump returned to power in 2025, his administration has put the president’s face and name on all sorts of things, from federal buildings to national park passes. Putting him on the almighty dollar would be the crowning achievement of these efforts. After all, the value of physical U.S. currency in circulation today stands at over US$2.46 trillion, an all-time high.

If a sitting president’s portraits start appearing on U.S. currency, what would this change say about American political culture?

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said he doesn’t “think that there’s anything untoward” about the idea, while Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley has said, “President Trump’s self-celebrating maneuvers are authoritarian actions worthy of dictators like North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.”

As a professor of international relations who has studied the global evolution of currency iconography for over 20 years, I take a worldwide perspective on this debate. The data that I have amassed shows that such a choice by the U.S. would be out of step with nearly every other currency in the world.

All about the Benjamins – or the Donalds?

The Trump administration has been incredibly active on the currency front.

In January 2026, Trump’s handpicked commissioners of the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, a federal agency that advises on design and aesthetics, recommended designs for a circulating $1 coin featuring Trump’s head. The commission later also recommended a different portrayal of Trump for a 24-karat gold commemorative coin that it suggested making “as large as possible.” These coins were supposed to be ready for July 4, but production delays at the U.S. Mint have pushed the release date back.

The administration is also preparing Trump-branded banknotes. In March 2026, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced a historic first: From now on, the president’s signature will be on newly printed paper dollars.

In April, the Treasury Department abruptly reassigned the director of its Bureau of Engraving and Printing, Patricia Solimene, after she had refused to advance a $250 bill with Trump’s face on it, according to The Washington Post.

“The buck stopped here,” Solimene wrote in a goodbye email to colleagues. But after her reassignment, the buck started again. In May, Bessent publicly displayed a $250 bill design featuring Trump – even while acknowledging that the new bills cannot be printed until Congress changes the 160-year-old law against depicting living persons on U.S. paper currency.

The Donald J. Trump $250 Bill Act, a measure to amend the law, is awaiting further congressional action in the House Committee on Financial Services. Treasury claims it already has the legal authority to mint its Trump coins.

Examining the world’s coins

Putting the sitting president’s face on coins would be a dramatic departure from U.S. tradition. The only previous such instance in the country’s history was a 1926 commemorative half-dollar showing then-President Calvin Coolidge alongside George Washington.

But what about other countries in the contemporary world? How normal is it for their sitting leaders to appear on their coins?

Using the most recent edition of Coin & Mint News’ Directory of Circulating Coins – a standard reference for coin professionals working at national mints and central banks – I counted the images of sitting state leaders on the circulating coins of the world as of 2024. (Note: This data has not yet gone through rigorous peer review.)

Analyzing nearly 1,000 coins from 165 independent countries, I counted only 22 countries – about 13% of the total – whose circulating coins feature their sitting head of state. This number includes coins depicting heads of state who were in office when the coin was originally issued, whether or not they were still there in 2024.

Almost all the sitting heads of state who appear on the circulating coins that I analyzed are hereditary monarchs.

If a country is a hereditary monarchy – whether its political system is democratic, like the United Kingdom, or authoritarian, like Brunei – there is a high chance that its reigning king or queen is on its circulating coins. This is the case for about 62% of the monarchies in my database, or 21 out of 34.

On the other hand, if a country is not a hereditary monarchy, its sitting head of state is almost certainly not on its circulating coins. This is the case for 99% of the nonmonarchy countries in my database, or 130 out of 131.

The lone exception is Samoa, a parliamentary democracy whose circulating coins all feature the country’s head of state as of 2011, the coins’ original year of issuance. However, even Samoa is hardly an exception, as its political culture has many of the trappings of a monarchy: Its head of state is called “His Highness,” and he is traditionally chosen from among the country’s four paramount chieftains.

Examining the world’s banknotes

A similar story emerges from my data on banknotes.

Using Bank Note Museum – a free online catalog crowdsourced from a network of banknote collectors – and supplementing that data with information from Greysheet publications’ paywalled catalog The Banknote Book, I created a database of all the circulating banknotes in the world that were newly designed and issued between 2019 and 2024.

According to my data, 84 independent countries issued 340 new regular circulating banknotes during the chosen time frame. Yet only 13 of those countries – about 15% – issued new banknotes depicting their sitting head of state. All but one of the 13 countries that did so are hereditary monarchies.

The lone exception to the rule is Botswana, a democratic republic that has traditionally featured the sitting president’s portrait on its 10 pula banknote denomination. However, Duma Boko, Botswana’s president since late 2024, is still waiting for his 10 pula note.

US currency: Fit for a king?

Today, almost every country that isn’t a hereditary monarchy is declining to issue currency that features its sitting head of state. Since the U.S. isn’t a hereditary monarchy, putting Trump’s face on U.S. currency while he is still in office would be highly abnormal.

The nationwide “No Kings” protest movement has mobilized millions of Americans to march the streets in opposition to what they perceive as Trump’s monarchical ambitions. The global patterns of currency iconography suggest that they might have a point.

University of Southern California undergraduate student Anyi Tan contributed to this research.

Jacques Hymans 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

Hazel Brannon Smith was almost certainly the most unpopular woman in Mississippi when she wrote an editorial in 1963 lambasting the racist White Citizens Councils in the Lexington Advertiser, a newspaper she owned.

“The hierarchy of rulers in this totalitarian-like organization permit no deviation from its official line – and those who believe in and stand for the traditional American concepts of human liberty, dignity, and decency, do so at their own peril,” she wrote in an editorial that was both poetic and dangerous.

The councils constituted a network of white supremacy groups throughout the South, often with deep ties to prominent local citizens. They had already been targeting Smith with economic pressure, not for being a full-throated integrationist – she wasn’t – but for editorials in which she insisted on adherence to the rule of law, demanded fairness for all and encouraged peaceful race relations.

Smith paid a steep price for her courage.

Death threats, arson in her
pressroom, boycotts and even the firing of her husband as a hospital administrator did not temper her fight for liberty and justice. She became the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing, in 1964.

Smith’s story is inspiring, yet by no means an isolated instance. But the long history of newspaper editorials may now be about to end, a casualty of both changing news values and economic pressure.

From calls for reform to partisan attacks

Since the birth of this nation, newspapers large and small have published their own opinion pieces challenging the powerful, calling for reform and demanding accountability. The editorials weren’t always constructive. There were plenty of editorials criticizing Smith, and others were partisan attacks. But many reflected care for the community and calls for a better future.

Editorials – in their ideal form – are essentially letters from the newspaper itself to its readers explaining a problem, outlining the facts and then concluding what would be in the best interests of the community. You can agree or disagree, but the end result is that you gave it some thought, which is what the editorial writer intended anyway. Typically, the opinion is written by one journalist in consultation with the publisher, editor and knowledgeable colleagues, and relies in good part on the newspaper’s own reporting.

In 1841, publisher Horace Greeley pioneered the stand-alone editorial page in the New York Tribune. The innovation, which separated the newspaper’s views from news articles, was widely adopted by other publishers.

Over the past 185 years, newspaper editorials have played a role in virtually every important social and justice movement in American history. William Lloyd Garrison’s call for the abolition of slavery in the Boston-based Liberator and the battle for women’s suffrage spearheaded by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in The Revolution in New York City presaged and helped inspire similar calls for justice in the pages of local papers across America.

And when President Franklin Roosevelt ordered the internment of American citizens of Japanese descent in 1942, just one newspaper – The Bainbridge Review, on Bainbridge Island, Washington – called it out as the unconstitutional act it was. The paper saw the rounding up of citizens in its own community and would not stand silent.

Losing the newspaper’s soul

During my career as editor-in-chief of USA Today and daily newspapers in Wisconsin, Florida and New York, I’ve reviewed thousands of editorials. I can tell you that on the local level, newspaper editorials tend to be about more mundane and yet essential topics like supporting local schools, monitoring the use of taxpayer dollars and calling out ineffective government processes.

In his book “Outrage, Passion & Common Sense” on historic editorials, journalist Michael Gartner began by quoting legendary journalist William Allen White on their importance:

“The editorial is the soul of the newspaper. Maybe the heart and the soul. And on a good newspaper that knows and understands and loves its hometown, or its home country, the editorial is the heart of the town, or nation as well.”

Unfortunately, in a trend that began four years ago, editorials are quickly disappearing. Nominations for the Pulitzer Prize for editorials peaked in 1995 with 101 entries, but declined to just 25 this year, according to Pulitzer Prizes administrator Marjorie Miller. This led to combining editorials with other opinion pieces into a single category moving forward.

Major news companies have backed away

Some news companies have concluded that local editorials aren’t in their interests. Editorials and endorsements have largely been jettisoned, along with the men and women who used their institutional knowledge to look out for their communities.

Gannett, now USA Today Co. Inc. and the largest newspaper company in the U.S., and Lee Enterprises, the third largest, led the scaling back of local editorials beginning in 2022.

“In their place, the (Lee) company distributed to its papers standardized editorial pages consisting of commentary from national columnists and its editorial board, wrote Paul Farhi for Nieman Reports when the change was made. “The change might have been a boon for those seeking yet another opinion about presidential politics, Congress, and international affairs, but it did little for commentary about events occurring down the street from Lee’s 77 daily newspapers.”

Gannett was candid about its reasons, saying that editorials were “frequently cited” by readers as a reason for canceling their subscriptions. Speaking truth to power was affecting the bottom line.

A group of Gannett editors were also quoted as saying, “Readers don’t want us to tell them what to think,” according to The Washington Post.

In my experience, that’s a straw man. Good editorials don’t dictate. They’re actually a balancing of ideas, looking out for a community with the perspective of a longtime and loyal resident who has seen it all. In fact, USA Today pioneered dual editorials, one offering its view, the other a differing perspective.

The public wants accountability

Granted, local editorials will yield fewer online clicks than major news or sports stories. But recent research indicates that readers remain hungry for the public accountability of government officials.

“As they have for the past four decades, most Americans say criticism from news organizations keeps political leaders from doing things they shouldn’t,” a Pew Research study found in 2024.

Despite the steady decline in daily newspaper editorials, I believe there remain ways for news organizations to restore the spirit of editorials in an economical and high-impact model. Some suggestions for today’s newsrooms:

1. Publish editorials on an as-needed basis. They don’t have to appear daily, but if published only when something absolutely needs to be addressed, the community will take notice. Give them the authoritative local take that no one else can.

2. Create a community editorial board composed of civic-minded residents with distinct and diverse viewpoints and open minds. Identify the most important issues facing your community and ask the board members to explore them, looking for consensus, but acknowledging legitimate points from all sides. Publish an editorial at least once a month and promote it heavily.

3. Collaborate with any other news outlets in your town to reinstate endorsement interviews. In a decades-long tradition, newspapers routinely invited incumbents and those running against them to discuss why they would best serve the community. Ask the tough questions and leave it to each outlet how to use the end product. That could lead to differing endorsements by different outlets or simply a comprehensive Q&A that the entire community sees. Public officials would be hard-pressed to skip the interview if their opponents’ views are getting broad local exposure.

Any one of these approaches would help reinstate the accountability of public officials at a fraction of the costs once incurred by legacy news media.

In 1791, the first generation of Americans demanded that freedom of the press be part of the Constitution, counting on journalists to serve as a check on corruption and the abuse of power. Some debts are never fully paid.

I have no ties to research institutions, foundations or news sources cited in this article. There are two companies cited as leading the phase-out of editorials. I edited USA Today and other Gannett properties, as noted in the column.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

President Donald Trump’s obsession with unfounded claims of election fraud has defined his second term in office. But in recent months his fixation has moved from executive nominee litmus tests and executive orders reinforcing proof of citizenship to vote into legislation – dragging Congress into the fray.

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or the SAVE America Act, featured heavily in Trump’s primetime speech on July 16, 2026.

It’s become the focus of the administration in recent months, eclipsing prior legislative efforts by proposing stringent and widespread voting changes. The proposed law, which would federalize elections, require additional documentation in order to vote and curtail mail-in registration and ballots in all states, faces major logistical, legal and political hurdles.

The act, which is stuck in limbo between the U.S. House and Senate, has dominated and derailed the summer’s legislative calendar. In the House, Republican members delayed votes on major legislation in an effort to pressure the Senate to take the bill up for a vote, and it has become a sticking point in other unrelated legislation.

The controversial act has also soured the relationship between Trump and members of his party, leading him to refuse to sign a bipartisan housing bill passed by Congress. Although the bill became law without his signature, Trump’s preoccupation with the SAVE America Act ultimately denied congressional Republicans an opportunity to tout a bipartisan, popular policy win.

Yet, despite mounting political pressure, Congress hasn’t budged.

This tension between Trump’s priorities and congressional inaction is noteworthy because Republicans control both chambers. But as a political scientist who studies the evolving power of congressional leadership, I find inaction on the SAVE America Act to be more than a reflection of Trump’s waning popularity among Republican lawmakers. Rather, congressional hesitation on what would be the largest election reform in decades reflects an awareness of constituent needs and lawmakers’ own reelection risks.

What’s the latest?

House Republicans have been quick to blame the Senate – and the 60-vote filibuster threshold the legislation must overcome to receive a vote on the Senate floor – for the inaction.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has brought the legislation to the floor for at least three votes in an effort to pressure the Senate to take up the legislation. In July 2026, Johnson took a more creative approach, relenting to conservative lawmakers by including portions of the SAVE America Act in a House-passed bill to fund the State Department.

These actions are largely theatrical. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said since February 2026 that there aren’t enough votes to move the SAVE America Act through the Senate, telling Fox News in June that “the votes currently aren’t there.” Although Senate Republicans could vote to remove the filibuster, which Trump has also requested, they have not.

Even in the House, the slim margins of Republican control have made it challenging for Johnson to keep the party together on the controversial issue. And Johnson’s gambit to attach the SAVE America Act to important legislation risks not only derailing bipartisan policy but another government shutdown, too.

If Republicans were serious about electoral reform, including moderate reforms that the majority of Americans do support, their approach would be like that used for other major legislation: bipartisan. Instead, partisan passage of a controversial bill, with a known Senate blockade, presents half-hearted strategy that avoids true responsibility.

Legal and logistical hurdles

The SAVE America Act would be confusing, time-consuming and expensive, and it would not provide funding to help states implement changes.

Changing election processes warrants precision and time, too. As Republican Sen. Thom Tillis noted, “Do you honestly believe that we can have this thing up in 50 states? There’s no funding. There’s no specific implementation instructions.”

Beyond logistics, the legality of federalizing election processes is murky.

Congress does have the power to mandate election requirements. But under Article 1, Section 4, of the Constitution, while Congress can outline parameters, states are responsible for election administration.

For example, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 reinforced citizenship as a requirement, but states maintained responsibility for creating their own form and enrollment process. The SAVE America Act attempts to circumvent this by requiring federal possession of voter rolls.

Uncertainty for American citizens

Beyond legal challenges, the SAVE America Act introduces very real implications for American voters – and the members of Congress who represent them.

While the act’s stated goal is to ensure only citizens vote, citizenship requirements for voting are already federal law. In practice, many scholars believe the bill would make it more difficult for eligible voters to engage in the democratic process.

For rural Americans, most of whom are represented by Republican members of Congress, the act would sharply restrict mail-in registration and mail-in voting. More than 5 million Americans would need to drive an hour or more to register to vote, with some voters facing drives as long as eight hours.

For women who changed their name after marriage, a trait more likely to be associated with Republican women, voting would require marriage certificates in addition to birth certificates.

First-time voters, young voters on college campuses and voters who have recently moved could also face the hurdle of finding and presenting this documentation in person.

Members of Congress, particularly those who represent rural areas, are likely aware of this reality. Disenfranchising or, at best, confusing their voters risks their own electoral success, too.

Safety and security of upcoming elections

One of Trump’s first acts following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. Slaughter in June 2026, which allowed the president to remove executive branch officials without cause, was to fire the remaining members of the bipartisan, Senate-confirmed Election Assistance Commission.

The agency is the point of contact for states regarding election administration processes, offering resources, guidance and expertise on voting logistics. If the SAVE America Act were to pass, this office would be integral to ensuring changes are unbiased and fair across all 50 states.

Coupled with warnings that Trump may invoke emergency powers over election administration, aggressive actions by the Department of Justice to control voter rolls, partisan redistricting, and now a vacated election commission, the SAVE America Act risks further disrupting elections. All while these elections have already been secure and overwhelmingly free of fraud.

As Tillis noted to reporters, “They’re being disingenuous to suggest to the American people they could possibly be operational by this election. And so then it begins to make me wonder … if we’re just beginning to undermine the underlying integrity of any of our elections. And I think that’s dangerous, and I think it’s wrong.”

Trump’s grip on Republicans

Does Congress’ hesitation to pass the SAVE America Act reflect a weakened Trump grip on the Republican party? Possibly. The president is more unpopular than he has been at any point during his second term. Ignoring Trump on the SAVE America Act may be a risk worth taking to some members.

But for most Republican members of Congress, appeasing Trump remains key to primary and electoral success. The president’s record on primary endorsements – even for Senate incumbents – remains strong, as he continues to define the party. Among constituents, some provisions of the SAVE America Act are popular among MAGA-aligned voters, making it an important electoral issue for members representing deep-red districts.

By publicly supporting the act, but relying on the Senate to serve as a doorstop to House-passed legislation, Congress falls into a familiar pattern that allows conservative members to appeal to the president while using procedure to block legislation that would make major changes to voting, mere months from Election Day.

Congress’ hesitance to pass the SAVE America Act is more than a test of its relationship with Trump. It’s an example of Congress doing what it was intended to do: represent its constituents.

SoRelle Wyckoff Gaynor 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

A little-noticed presidential national security directive is now the legal engine behind a wave of terrorism prosecutions against left-wing protesters.

That domestic campaign now has an international dimension, one that American officials had been planning for months, culminating on July 16, 2026, when Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism drew representatives from more than 65 countries to Washington. The gathering was informally called the “Antifa summit.”

Rubio described antifa-aligned networks as sharing infrastructure across borders and accused Iran and Cuba of helping bankroll the movement, without offering evidence. The White House declared the summit the start of an “unprecedented global offensive” against what it calls “radical left terrorism.”

This offensive is built on the same domestic legal architecture that has now sent American activists to prison for decades.

That architecture is National Security Presidential Memorandum/NSPM-7, issued on Sept. 25, 2025, which for the first time appeared to authorize preemptive law enforcement measures against Americans based not on whether they are planning to commit violence but for their political or ideological beliefs.

Nearly a year later, that blueprint has moved from paper into practice.

The Justice Department has built task forces staffed by counterterrorism prosecutors. The FBI has set up its own NSPM-7 mission center to oversee investigations into left-wing movements, including a joint effort with the IRS to investigate nonprofit groups.

The Justice Department has used this machinery to convict activists and send some of them to prison for decades.

NSPM-7 was not passed by Congress. It’s a lesser-known tool of executive power: a presidential memorandum.

As an international relations scholar who has studied U.S. foreign policy decision-making and national security legislation, I recognize that presidents can take several types of executive actions without legislative involvement: executive orders, memoranda and proclamations.

This structure allows the president to direct law enforcement and national security agencies, with little opportunity for congressional oversight.

Presidential national security powers

Executive memorandums direct agencies to prepare reports, implement policies or align programs with the administration’s priorities. Unlike executive orders, they aren’t required to be published. When they relate to national security, like NSPM-7, they’re called national security directives – many of which stay classified and may not be declassified for years or decades.

The stated purpose of NSPM-7 is to counter domestic terrorism and organized political violence, focusing mainly on perceived threats from the political left. The memorandum identifies “anti-Christian,” “anti-capitalism” or “anti-American” views as potential indicators that a group or person will commit domestic terrorism.

The memorandum claims that political violence originates with “anti-fascist” groups that hold the following views: “support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”

The strategy includes preemptive measures to disrupt groups before they engage in violent political acts, empowering multiagency task forces to investigate potential federal crimes related to radicalization and the groups’ funders. Former Attorney General Pam Bondi’s December 2025 implementation memo went further, ordering a five-year review of agency files on antifa. A task force staffed with counterterrorism and organized-crime prosecutors is carrying out these investigations.

‘Domestic terrorist organizations’

The memorandum directs the Department of Justice to focus FBI resources from approximately 200 Joint Terrorism Task Forces on investigating “acts of recruiting or radicalizing persons” for the purpose of “political violence, terrorism, or conspiracy against rights; and the violent deprivation of any citizen’s rights.”

NSPM-7 also allows the attorney general to propose groups for designation as “domestic terrorist organizations.” That includes groups that engage in “organized doxxing campaigns, swatting, rioting, looting, trespass, assault, destruction of property, threats of violence, and civil disorder.”

Existing laws allow the secretary of state to designate groups as “foreign terrorist organizations” that are then subject to financial sanctions.

But these laws do not permit the president to label domestic groups this way.

That gap hasn’t stopped prosecutions. In Texas, eight defendants tied to a “North Texas Antifa Cell” were sentenced in June 2026 for a 2025 armed confrontation at the Prairieland immigration detention center. One man received 100 years, and others who never fired a weapon still drew decades in prison under terrorism sentencing guidelines.

In Minnesota, 15 members and associates of a group called Direct Action Minnesota were indicted in June 2026 on conspiracy and assault charges. A 94-page indictment cited behavior such as wearing an “I’m Antifa!” sweatshirt, possessing a bullhorn or including a devil emoji in a Signal message.

Defining terrorism

NSPM-7 marks a major conceptual shift in U.S. counterterrorism policy, departing from approaches that primarily targeted foreign threats.

Earlier directives, dating to Ronald Reagan’s presidency, treated terrorism as a global menace countered through military power and diplomacy. In the 1990s, the Clinton administration reframed it as a domestic challenge after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

After 9/11, the Bush administration fused counterterrorism with national defense through the global war on terrorism. The Obama administration later tried to narrow those powers, asking whether targeted individuals “pose a continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons” — a standard focused on tactics and capture feasibility, not ideology.

The first Trump administration used a “travel ban” against several “terror-prone” countries, while President Joe Biden redirected focus toward weapons of mass destruction.

Notably, the “domestic terrorist” label itself has rarely produced actual charges. The State Department designated four antifa-aligned groups as foreign terrorist organizations. But antifa is a decentralized movement, not a formal group with a roster.

This designation lacks any real legal weight because U.S. law has no formal domestic terrorist organization category. Creating one risks infringing on First Amendment protected speech. Domestic terrorism itself is not a chargeable offense.

Prosecutors have instead leaned on older statutes such as material support for terrorism and conspiracy laws, tools originally built for cases like the ones above, not protest movements.

First Amendment rights at risk

There is no single official definition of terrorism in U.S. law; definitions vary by purpose – criminal law, intelligence collection, civil liability.

Definitions in all those areas typically focus on identifying violent or dangerous acts done with the intent to intimidate or coerce civilians or influence government policy.

But more than redefining terrorism, NSPM-7 reorients the machinery of national security toward the policing of belief.

The First Amendment generally prevents the government from punishing people for unpopular opinions. It also protects the ability for people to associate to advance public and private ideas in pursuit of political, economic, religious or cultural goals.

The directive’s emphasis on ideological orientations – “anti-Christianity,” “anti-capitalism” and “anti-American” views – as indicators of domestic terrorism potentially jeopardizes First Amendment rights.

Thirty-one members of Congress sent a letter to Trump in October 2025 expressing “serious concerns” about NSPM-7, warning that it poses “serious constitutional, statutory and civil liberties risks, especially if used to target political dissent, protest or ideological speech.”

As the ACLU warns, any definition of terrorism that includes ideological components risks criminalizing people or groups based on belief rather than based on violence or other criminal conduct.

Congress has declined to create a domestic complement to the foreign terrorist designation in large part because of the potential for impinging on First Amendment–protected association and speech.

But I fear that chilling speech may be the point.

Silencing dissent

NSPM-7 does not criminalize previously legal conduct.

Rather, it states that the Trump administration will focus investigations around the identity and ideology of supposed perpetrators. Prioritizing investigations into this broad swath of ideologies serves to instill fear, silencing anti-fascist and other messages in opposition to the Trump administration.

Law professor Steve Vladeck frames this chill as “obeying in advance,” in which organizations self-censor rather than risk investigation, prosecution or defending against the “domestic terrorist” label. Federal judges in the Prairieland case have shown little sympathy for that distinction: One judge described the protest itself as “an assault on democracy,” even for defendants who never touched a weapon.

Although left-wing violence has risen in the past decade, empirical evidence shows it remains far below historical levels of right-wing or jihadist violence.

Most domestic terrorists in the U.S. are politically on the right, accounting for the vast majority of domestic terrorism fatalities.

Yet NSPM-7 focuses disproportionately on left-wing ideologies. NSPM-7 departs from prior U.S. counterterrorism frameworks by prioritizing the suppression of ideologically motivated dissent, even where, as in Minnesota, judges have already dismissed roughly half of similar federal cases for lack of evidence.

This is an updated version of a story originally published December 3, 2025.

Melinda Haas 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 Trump administration has decided that destroying the habitat of endangered species is not harmful.

Think about that.

Habitat loss is the No. 1 reason species become endangered. Red-cockaded woodpeckers need mature long-leaf pine forests to reproduce. Endangered western monarch butterflies depend on pesticide-free milkweed for food. Pacific salmon must have clean, cool rivers for spawning. If coastal water becomes too polluted, manatees will starve.

Yet, on July 14, 2026, the U.S. Department of Interior formally rescinded the so-called harm rule under the Endangered Species Act, removing language that has protected species from losing millions of acres of habitat.

As a law professor who has followed these issues for over five decades and litigated early cases under the Endangered Species Act, I believe this effort to gut the nation’s premier wildlife conservation law is unjustified and unlawful.

I see several reasons the rule change is not likely to survive the legal challenges that have already begun.

Origins of the Endangered Species Act

Enacted in 1973 at the behest of President Richard Nixon and passed overwhelmingly by both houses of Congress, the Endangered Species Act’s stated purpose is to “provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved.”

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1978 described the act’s role more plainly: to “halt and reverse the trend of species extinctions whatever the cost.”

The act requires federal agencies to designate habitat for species as critical if it is deemed “essential to the conservation and recovery” of that species. Once habitat is designated, federal agencies are required to “insure” that their actions are not likely to result in the “destruction or adverse modification” of such habitat. All of this is spelled out in the text of the law itself.

The ‘take’ prohibition

The Endangered Species Act prohibits the unauthorized “take” of protected species. It broadly defines “take” to include deliberate actions such as hunting and trapping, but also those that “harm or harass” individual members of the protected species.

The prohibition applies to everyone: individuals, corporations, states and municipalities, tribes and others. The act is by far the most important federal law protecting habitat on nonfederal land.

“Take” is a term of art in wildlife law with deep roots in Anglo-American jurisprudence. It has always included requirements to conserve habitat. The earliest wildlife laws in England also required landowners to retain adequate forage and cover for wildlife, in addition to regulating hunting and fishing.

In 1975, shortly after Congress passed the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Department of Interior created the rule defining harm to include “acts or omissions that actually injures or kills wildlife,” including habitat degradation that “significantly disrupts essential behavioral patterns, which include, but are not limited to, breeding, feeding or sheltering.”

The rule was revised somewhat in 1981 to clarify that harm “may include significant habitat modification or degradation where it actually kills or injures wildlife by significantly impairing essential behavioral patterns, including breeding, feeding or sheltering.”

The 1982 Endangered Species Act amendments

In 1981, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that habitat destruction qualifies as an unlawful take under the Endangered Species Act, ruling in a case brought on behalf of an endangered bird called the palila.

Congress reacted to that ruling by amending the act to create the incidental take program. I testified in favor of this provision during the hearings.

The incidental take program provides a way to reduce conflicts between protected species and commercial development by authorizing only those takes that meet strict rules to minimize and mitigate the impact on the species in question. Over the years, hundreds of incidental take permits have been issued covering over 47 million acres of habitat.

If Congress didn’t believe habitat destruction and degradation constitute “harm” under the statute, why would it require permits and plans to offset habitat loss?

This will factor into the litigation to come challenging the move to rescind the harm rule.

The Sweet Home decision

The controversy over the harm rule reached the Supreme Court in 1995 in a case brought by the timber industry in Oregon. In Sweet Home Communities for a Greater Oregon v. Babbitt, the court upheld the harm rule by a vote of 6-3.

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the court’s majority opinion. He cited multiple reasons for upholding the rule as a “reasonable interpretation” of congressional intent under the then-prevailing Chevron Doctrine:

• First, Stevens wrote that the ordinary meaning of “harm” naturally encompasses habitat modification that results in actual injury or death to members of an endangered or threatened species.

• Second, under relevant Supreme Court precedent, every word in a statute must be given effect. Thus the word “harm” must encompass indirect as well as direct injuries or it would have no meaning that does not duplicate the other words in the definition of “take.”

• Third, the fact that Congress amended the act to authorize incidental take permits with habitat conservation plans strongly suggests that Congress intended for the law to prohibit both direct and indirect causes of death or injury.

Justice Antonin Scalia dissented in that case, arguing that the word “harm” applies only to an action “directed immediately and intentionally against a particular animal.” Or as he put it, “A strikes B.”

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor disagreed, arguing in a sharp exchange with Scalia: “… to make it impossible for an animal to reproduce is to impair its most essential physical functions and to render that animal, and its genetic material, biologically obsolete. This, in my view, is actual injury.”

The Loper Bright ruling’s impact

Fast-forward to 2024, when the Supreme Court, in deciding Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, formally abandoned the Chevron Doctrine. In doing so, it ruled that the courts must decide what the “best reading” of statutory text is without deferring to agency interpretations.

The Trump administration argues that the Loper Bright ruling means that the court’s decision in Sweet Home is no longer good law because Stevens’ majority opinion relied on the Chevron doctrine.

Instead, the Trump administration argues that Scalia’s dissent is actually the best reading of “harm” and is now the law of the land.

However, in the majority opinion in Loper Bright, Chief Justice John Roberts cautioned: “We do not call into question prior cases that relied on the Chevron framework.” In short, it is not enough to say a precedent relied on Chevron and suggest it is no longer valid.

The Trump administration will have to overcome the presumption that the Sweet Home ruling remains the law unless the current Supreme Court overturns it.

Where we go from here

Environmental groups and tribes have already filed multiple lawsuits challenging the repeal of the harm rule.

In addition to defending the validity of the Sweet Home decision as the best reading of the law, the cases allege a number of procedural flaws in how the Department of Interior changed the rule.

Those include alleged violations of the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to prepare an environmental impact statement; violations of the Endangered Species Act by failing to engage in consultation regarding the impacts of the rescinding of the harm rule; and failure to comply with the Administrative Procedure Act to justify and explain the basis for wholesale repeal of the harm rule without proposing an alternative.

While the administration is likely counting on getting the case to the Supreme Court before its time in office runs out, I expect the strategy of the challengers will be to delay the litigation by filing lawsuits in multiple courts and asking the courts for preliminary injunctions to block the rule change pending the cases’ outcome. That would allow a future administration to reinstate the rule.

The stakes are huge for the nation’s most imperiled species. Over two-thirds of listed species depend on nonfederal land for their survival and recovery. The harm rule is the single most important reason they are still alive and have a chance of recovery.

Patrick Parenteau 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 parades, reenactments and fireworks are over. And in the aftermath of Americans’ celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it is important to recognize that the declaration was only the first step in making a unified country.

Many of the founders argued that the country needed a remodeled government. They asked whether it was possible to design a government for the new country that ensured liberty in the face of the inherent flaws of human nature.

Revolution’s aftermath

In the aftermath of the American Revolutionary War, the national government remained a loose confederation of state governments. While effective in winning the war, the new government faced social and political fissures in the postwar period.

The war left the new republic with extensive debts shared unevenly between the states. Common farmers, including many Revolutionary War veterans, rebelled in opposition to postwar taxation policies. Rather than a cohesive national unit, Americans faced a loose, tense and combative set of state and local interests.

The Second Continental Congress in 1777 produced the first constitution of the United States, the Articles of Confederation. However, differing interests between state governments, including the management of western territory and public finance, slowed ratification. Only in 1781, as the Revolutionary War was entering its final stage, did all of the states finally agree to ratify the articles.

Both the terms of ratification and the text of the Articles of Confederation reflected a suspicion between the state governments, each of which wanted to protect their own local interests rather than cede authority to the national government.

Lumbering system

The limited powers that the articles granted to the national government reflected the lack of consensus between states. The government designed in the articles lacked any strong executive authority and did not have a national judiciary.

Additionally, the national legislature, which the articles referred to as a “league of friendship,” functioned less like a representative organ of the people at large than a council of state governments.

The articles created a single-chamber Congress in which each state cast one vote. Major legislation required a supermajority, and amendments required unanimity.

To many, such a slow-moving, restrictive system was preferable, particularly with the memory of the abuses of the British government still in recent memory.

However, the 1780s saw a series of contentious events – a barely thwarted uprising of frustrated soldiers called the Newburgh Conspiracy, interstate trade disputes, an economic depression and a rural tax rebellion that prompted many American leaders to reconceptualize the role and structure of American government around a more unified, national and interventionist model.

Competing visions

The nationalists were members of the Constitutional Convention that met in Philadelphia in the Summer of 1787 to draft the successor to the articles, the United States Constitution. This group included Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay. These three men sought to convey that the proper role of government is to protect people from themselves.

The nationalists believed in a more centralized national union that balanced competing interests in the new republic. They sought to eliminate friction between the states by eliminating interstate trade barriers, consolidating state debts and creating a stronger central administrative body under a strong executive.

Furthermore, they sought to create a balance of power by creating a three-part federal government consisting of a two-chamber legislature, an executive branch and a national judiciary. Each would have expanded powers.

In contrast to the articles, the proposed Constitution included uniform national commercial regulation, monetary controls such as the exclusive right of the national government to issue legal tender, augmented executive powers to determine foreign policy and an overarching federal court structure. It also included an explicit national power to suppress uprisings.

The representatives to the convention, which also included prominent figures such as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, considered the federal government’s ability to deal with uprisings and fiscal policy to be particularly important. It was also topical: A tax imposed on cash-poor farmers to pay down the public war debt had just prompted a rebellion in western Massachusetts led by Revolutionary veteran Daniel Shays.

Many rebels believed the burden of repaying the public debt fell disproportionately on common people while benefiting elites. Nationalist political theorists such as Hamilton, Madison and Jay saw such revolts against national authority as the product of demagogues instigating unrestrained urges into social movements they referred to as “factions.”

Initially, the terms of the new Constitution received substantial opposition from prominent political writers later known as the Anti-Federalists. These often anonymous authors began publishing criticisms of the yet unratified Constitution as an unwarranted accumulation of federal power that would endanger the hard-won liberties secured by the Revolutionary War.

This is where the document that has become known as the Federalist Papers comes in.

‘If men were angels …’

Hamilton, Madison and Jay responded to these criticisms as a group. Adopting the pen name Publius, they published 85 essays in New York newspapers supporting ratification. In defense of the Constitution’s proposal to increase the powers of the proposed national government, these authors turned to some of the most basic philosophical questions about humanity.

Each argued that the inherent flaws of human nature necessitated a strong government to check political abuse, self-interest and even violence that they saw as inherent in the fabric of human society. They rallied around the position reflected in Madison’s famous statement in the essay known as Federalist 51 that “if men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

The Federalist Papers include proposals for institutional solutions that sought to redirect the destructive drives of individuals toward positive social ends. To the authors, a new constitutional government that controlled both the impulses of the masses and the abuses of their leaders would serve as the means through which the new United States government could accomplish this task.

Each saw human nature as susceptible to corruption by base impulses and self-interest.

In Federalist 10, Madison argued that faction is “sown in the nature of man.”

Similarly, in Federalist 6, Hamilton rejected the commonly held idea that republics were automatically peaceful. Instead, he argued, political leaders and states were driven by ambitions and jealousies, which he saw as a characteristic shortcoming of the government under the Articles of Confederation as well as a law of nature governing relations between nations.

Hamilton wrote that if the states remained disunited, then “the subdivisions into which they might be thrown would have frequent and violent contests with each other.” To argue otherwise, he wrote, would be “to forget that men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious.”

Consequently, as Hamilton asserted in Federalist 15, governments must have effective coercive authority to enforce laws because they cannot rely solely on the goodwill and civic virtue of their citizens: “If there be no penalty annexed to disobedience, the resolutions or commands which pretend to be laws will, in fact, amount to nothing more than advice or recommendation.”

Ultimately, the defense of the Constitution provided by the Federalist Papers sought to frame the new government in terms of a skeptical view of humanity that recognized what Madison called “a degree of depravity in mankind.”

They also asserted that constitutional design and balanced government could control these dangerous impulses. As Madison added, “There are other qualities in human nature which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence.”

Donovan Fifield receives funding from the European Research Council.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

The artificial intelligence boom in the United States is being matched by a data center building boom. There are more than 3,000 data centers in the U.S. and another 1,500 in development, according to a Pew Research Center analysis.

While President Donald Trump has promoted AI advancement, calling it crucial to economic and national security, polling shows that 7 in 10 Americans oppose the construction of AI data centers in their communities, citing higher utility bills, pollution, noise and the loss of green space. These centers, which hold computer servers that process words, images and lines of code for large language models such as ChatGPT, also use high amounts of water and electricity.

There is growing opposition to the infrastructure surrounding them, too, particularly the transmission lines needed to power them, which often must cross land belonging to private citizens.

Where private citizens refuse to sell their land, companies are turning to eminent domain, the government’s inherent power to seize private property without a landowner’s consent. But does a line built to serve a private data center qualify?

I’m a legal scholar who studies eminent domain issues, and I interpret today’s disputes over seizure of property for the benefit of AI infrastructure as the latest incarnation of a long-standing debate about the limits of taking private property for public use.

Why is expansion needed?

Data centers have massive power needs that can stress electrical grids and threaten their reliability. In 2024 they accounted for more than 4% of the nation’s total electricity use. Demand will grow as more are built. To meet this demand, power companies must build more transmission lines – and acquire land to put them on.

Across the U.S. – in states such as Georgia and Pennsylvania – power companies have looked to eminent domain to facilitate these goals.

What is eminent domain?

Power companies can approach landowners to purchase easements for transmission lines; if landowners refuse, the government might force a sale.

The government may take private land without consent if the seizure is for “public use” and if the landowner is given “just compensation,” according to the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

While the federal government has the power to initiate eminent domain actions – also called condemnations – most are done by state and local governments.

Governments can also delegate this power to private entities or “common carriers,” such as power and water companies, though every state has its own rules for whether and how these utilities can exercise eminent domain. In Texas, for example, the state Supreme Court has held that a project must “serve the public” and “cannot be built only for the builder’s exclusive use” in order to qualify as a common carrier.

What is the ‘public use’ standard?

While property may be taken only for “public use,” the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted that requirement permissively. In its 2005 Kelo v. City of New London decision, the court held that economic development qualified, allowing New London, Connecticut, to seize homes for private development around a Pfizer facility. That redevelopment, however, never happened, and Pfizer eventually left New London.

In response to that decision – and the public backlash that followed – 45 states enacted eminent domain reform laws.

In addition to reform laws, some state supreme courts interpret the eminent domain provisions of their own state constitutions more restrictively. The supreme courts of Michigan, Ohio and Oklahoma have all prohibited seizing private property to give it to another private party purely for economic development.

This means private landowners may have more success challenging condemnation actions under their state constitutions than in federal court. Still, courts typically permit exercise of eminent domain by utilities such as power companies.

What does this mean for data center expansion?

Suits challenging the seizure of property for transmission lines on the grounds of public use have mixed results.

For example, the supreme courts of South Dakota and Vermont have each affirmed seizures by power companies, determining that providing at least some energy and improved power grid reliability to in-state customers were valid public uses.

But this argument changes if transmission lines, some of which cross state lines, don’t benefit anyone in the state.

In 1984, for example, the Mississippi Supreme Court rejected a power company’s condemnation action because the transmission line in question would have run from Mississippi into Louisiana without benefiting any Mississippi customers.

These decisions suggest that as data centers increase energy demand and stress current infrastructure, seizing land to improve power grid reliability will likely qualify as public use, especially if the intention is to secure reliability for in-state customers.

Still, arguments around whether additional transmission lines actually serve in-state customers may give landowners grounds for a challenge.

Aaron Walayat 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

Since South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham’s death on June 11, 2026, much of the commentary has focused on his evolution from Donald Trump critic to Trump ally.

But focusing on that transformation misses the broader pattern that defined his political career. For more than three decades, Graham repeatedly positioned himself where Republican politics in the South were headed rather than where they had been.

As scholars of elections and Southern politics, we believe that instinct helps explain not only his embrace of Trump but also nearly every major political decision he made.

That includes everything from running as a Republican in South Carolina when Republicans were still an ascendant minority in the state to joining the “Republican Revolution,” when Republicans took control of both houses of Congress in the 1994 midterms, to adapting to the tea party era, when insurgent Republicans rode a wave to an abrupt electoral shift, and ultimately becoming one of Trump’s closest allies.

Reading the political tea leaves

One of Graham’s early bets was that South Carolina’s political future belonged to the Republican Party. Although Republicans remained a minority in the early 1990s, demographic change, evangelical mobilization and suburban realignment were steadily improving their prospects.

In 1992, Graham challenged South Carolina Rep. Lowell Ross, a Democrat, for the 2nd District seat in the state’s legislature. Graham won 60% of the vote and became one of the first Republicans to represent upstate South Carolina since Reconstruction. Republicans gained control of the South Carolina House during the next cycle in 1994 and took control of the South Carolina Senate in 2000.

While many ambitious South Carolina politicians remained in the Democratic Party through the early 1990s, Graham understood that the state’s political future belonged to Republicans.

The ‘Republican Revolution’

Just as he had anticipated the changing political landscape in South Carolina, Graham’s entry into national politics displayed a keen ability to read the political moment.

He ran for an open seat in the U.S. House of Representatives after Democrat Butler Derrick, a 20-year incumbent, announced his retirement. Graham recognized that South Carolina’s 3rd District had become part of a broader Southern realignment that was increasingly favoring Republican congressional candidates.

In addition to these trends, there was a growing backlash against healthcare reform and other policies championed by Democratic President Bill Clinton. Graham joined a group of Republican candidates who united behind the “Contract with America,” a series of promises – tax cuts, welfare reform, a balanced budget – from the Republican leadership to the American people. The resulting GOP surge concluded with a takeover in the House for the first time in 40 years.

Graham and his newly elected colleagues helped propel Newt Gingrich to the House speakership. Graham entered Congress just as the Republican Party was transforming itself from a congressional minority into a governing majority.

Adapting to a changing GOP

Graham again showed his knack for political timing when he decided to run for the open seat vacated by longtime Sen. Strom Thurmond in 2002.

Though midterm contests had historically been difficult for candidates from the president’s party, President George W. Bush was riding record approval ratings following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Graham had amassed a political war chest during his time in Washington and did not face a primary challenger in 2002. His general election opponent was Alex Sanders, the former chief judge of the South Carolina Court of Appeals and president of the College of Charleston. Graham won handily, by a 54% to 44% margin.

Graham’s Senate career also displayed his political acumen and ability to respond to changes within the Republican electorate.

During the pre-Trump era, Graham frequently reached across the aisle, most famously as one of the “Three Amigos” – a term for the hawkish national security views of Sens. Graham, Joe Lieberman, a Democrat, and Republican John McCain that riffed off a popular movie by the same name starring Steve Martin, Martin Short and Chevy Chase.

He also worked on other high-profile bipartisan legislation, including a climate change measure in 2009 with Democratic Sens. John Kerry and Lieberman. And he supported some judicial nominees from Democratic presidents.

These bipartisan efforts reflected a Republican Party that still rewarded cross-party cooperation on national security, judicial appointments and some major policy issues. This was also an era when McCain-style conservatism – marked by a softer rhetorical style and less ideological fervor – still held considerable influence among Republicans.

South Carolina’s increasing conservatism

Even before Trump arrived, Graham already had shown an ability to read the political moment by adapting after the tea party movement focusing on lower taxes and a smaller government reshaped Republican incentives.

During this era, Graham’s rhetoric became increasingly conservative. He emphasized immigration enforcement and became more combative with Democrats.

Graham’s role in the 2013 bipartisan “Gang of Eight” immigration reform efforts is a good example. He initially advocated a pathway to citizenship as part of comprehensive reform. But after the effort collapsed and immigration became a defining issue in Republican politics, he increasingly emphasized border security and criticized Democratic approaches to immigration.

Graham recognized that compromise had become a political liability among Republican primary voters. Political scientist Sean Theriault labeled Graham one of the “Gingrich Senators,” a group that fundamentally altered norms in the Senate, driving it toward more obstructionist and conservative policies.

The culmination of a pattern

Graham’s decision to ally himself with Trump, therefore, represented less of a sudden reversal than the culmination of a pattern that had defined his career. By 2016, Republican primary voters had largely embraced Trump, and Graham recognized that reality more quickly than many Republicans.

When asked about his increasing conservatism, Graham acknowledged the change in political math that had altered South Carolina politics and reordered his incentives.

“Most of us have one thing to worry about, and that’s the primary. Most of us are not in swing states,” Graham said.

Whether viewed as principled adaptation or political opportunism, Graham repeatedly aligned himself toward the direction South Carolina, Southern and Republican politics were moving. That instinct – not simply his alliance with Trump – helps explain how he remained politically relevant for more than three decades while many contemporaries faded from the scene.

As the Gingrich Senators age out of office and are replaced by newer senators who have experienced political life only in the Trump era, Graham may come to be seen as one of the last Republicans whose career spanned two distinct political worlds.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

The Trump administration has planned a series of commemorative events as part of its Freedom 250 initiative to celebrate America’s 250th birthday. These commemorations, according to Chief of Protocol Monica Crowley, were intended to “bring the country back together” through a renewed sense of patriotism, national unity and civic pride.

The Great American State Fair – a 16-day event on the National Mall designed to showcase all 56 U.S. states and territories – was at the center of the plans. But the effort to commemorate the nation’s semiquincentennial has been mired in political controversy.

Several musical artists withdrew from the fair in May, arguing that what was presented as a nonpartisan celebration had become politicized. Eight states – including Pennsylvania and North Carolina, both won by President Donald Trump in 2024 – declined official participation.

Fair attendance was reportedly lackluster, and the event experienced several technical issues that included frequent power outages and a display of the Confederate flag. Additionally, House Democrats have accused Trump and Freedom 250 of turning the festivities into a “hotbed of corruption and self-enrichment.”

To cap off the 250th anniversary on July Fourth, Trump announced ahead of the celebration that he would hold a political rally at the White House that he billed as “the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all.” During the speech, he nodded to his intention to pass the SAVE Act – or the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act – to combat alleged electoral fraud, and his military interventions in Iran and Venezuela.

Lost in the controversy surrounding the celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary are the views of everyday Americans. What do they think about the historic milestone?

Our latest UMass poll suggests that while there is division over the meaning of the 250th anniversary, there is nevertheless strong evidence that Americans are less divided than the politics surrounding the anniversary would suggest.

‘A proud national milestone’

In March 2026, we asked a nationally representative sample of 1,000 Americans about their views of the 250th anniversary. We asked them whether the ideals of the Declaration of Independence – that people possess unalienable rights, that governments exist to protect these rights, and the assertion that “all men are created equal” – still resonate today. We also asked whether Americans still share things in common.

When we asked respondents to select one statement that best captures what the 250th anniversary means to them, we found limited excitement for the celebrations. Only 37% selected “a proud national milestone,” while 24% said the celebration was “not something I think much about.” Eighteen percent categorized it as “mostly symbolic and ceremonial.”

Unsurprisingly, we found partisan differences on this question. Sixty-two percent of Republicans believe the anniversary is a “proud national milestone,” compared with only 20% of Democrats. The 250th anniversary, according to 29% of Democrats, is “not something I think much about.” Only 11% of Republicans express that same viewpoint.

Finally, 25% of Democrats thought the milestone was a “chance to reflect on our unfinished work,” with 4% of Republicans holding a similar opinion.

Legacy of the declaration

Despite the division over America 250, our survey found a number of areas of strong agreement across partisan lines concerning the legacy of the Declaration of Independence and the future of the nation.

When asked how much the U.S. has succeeded in achieving its founding ideals, 57% responded “a moderate amount” or “a great deal.” Only 33% said “not at all” or “not very much.”

Republicans were more likely to declare success, with 80% responding “a moderate amount” or “a great deal,” yet a majority of Democrats, 52%, also agreed.

Close to 6 in 10 Americans, or 59%, indicated that the founding ideals of the declaration still guide the country. This view was shared by majorities of Democrats, 51%, and Republicans, 75%.

Almost 3 in 4 Americans, 74%, endorsed the statement that “Americans have far more in common than things that divide us.” This sentiment cuts across Democrats, 79%, and Republicans, 76%.

Lastly, 63% agreed that “The U.S. is one nation with a shared history and common future, and should never be divided,” including strong majorities from both parties.

In the midst of serious challenges at home and abroad – including the Iran war, a weak economy and the conflict over immigration – we found that Americans strongly believe there is more that unites Americans than divides them.

Despite the actions of Trump, there remains a desire to celebrate how the values at the heart of the founding continue to shape a more inclusive and egalitarian nation.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

As I consider the dire economic and political turning point my home country of Cuba is facing today, the words of Cuban singer Willy Chirino’s “Nuestro día ya viene llegando (Our day is coming)” come to mind like they did in the 1990s:

“Hoy que mi pueblo vive ilusionado, yo me siento inspirado y un Son estoy cantando anunciándole a todos mis hermanos, que nuestro día viene llegando.” This translates to, “Now that my people live filled with hope, I feel inspired and a Son I am singing, telling all my brothers, that our day is coming.”

Many Cubans in the diaspora of nearly 3 million in the U.S., including some of my own friends and family members, believe the days of the Cuban failed political system on the island are almost over.

As a Cuban American and a senior lecturer in global and intercultural studies, I am curious and concerned about what the country’s next chapter will be.

Memories of Havana

Growing up in Havana’s Chinatown neighborhood, I witnessed firsthand Cuba’s economic transformation in the early 1990s, during the euphemistically named “Special Period in a Time of Peace” following the collapse of the USSR.

At the time, I was completing my compulsory military service. I saw how the supplies provided by the Eastern Bloc to the Cuban military started to dwindle. Little by little, basic supplies, such as boots and uniforms, were no longer being replaced when they got worn out.

Back home during my weekends off, I started to see changes in my neighborhood. Privatization and commercialization were taking over my old street. The building across from our apartment was being remodeled into a three-story Chinese restaurant called El Pacífico. The many Cuban and Chinese families who had lived there were relocated to apartments on the outskirts of Havana.

Chinatown was open for business. This was the first of many neighborhoods in Havana that started to be commodified for tourism in the 1990s. Nevertheless, Cuba’s government maintained its socialist messaging to the Cuban people: Collective ownership and equality can be provided and guaranteed only by the socialist state.

But at the same time, it was making agreements with international capitalist enterprises, such as the hotel chain then called Sol Meliá, or other projects, including Fidel Castro’s international promotion of Cohiba cigars. And these contradictions were becoming harder to hide from the people in changing neighborhoods like Chinatown.

A nuanced authoritarianism

In the early years after the revolution that brought Fidel Castro’s government to power in 1959, the government held popular tribunals in which those perceived as standing in the way of socialist ideals were put on trial. Most of the accused were found guilty without due process and either endured long prison sentences or faced execution squads.

This dogmatic approach to revolutionary citizenship led to the horrible treatment of any perceived as nonconformist, such as LGBTQ people, hippies or punks. These dissidents were sent to labor camps designed to transform “questionable” people into Che Guevara’s ideological concept of the “hombre nuevo” – the new revolutionary man.

But in the past 20 years, Cuba’s more progressive social policies have helped to redeem the authoritarian excesses of the revolution’s early years. This has helped to guarantee the government’s survival.

One of the few Latin American countries to legalize gay marriage, Cuba has also gained a global reputation in its many advances toward gender equity. In fact, Mariela Castro, Raúl Castro’s daughter, is now the leading voice of the LGBTQ+ movement in Cuba.

Those most affected by the U.S. sanctions and Cuban government antipathy are “los cubanos de a pie,” that is, “Cubans on foot.” This is a large majority of the population that has very little income, no connection to the government and no access to the new private-public partnership business model in Cuba known as “mipymes” and no remittances from relatives living abroad. Today, they are crying out for a change – any change.

What has – and hasn’t – happened in Venezuela

The tactics used by President Donald Trump’s administration on Jan. 3, 2026, to capture Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro set the road map for what many in the diaspora expected would follow in Cuba.

Many Latinos, including Cubans and Cuban Americans living in the United States, were in favor of this action, especially the old generation of Miami Cuban and Venezuelan exiles who have long supported the Republican Party.

On the island, many Cubans are willing to accept a U.S. invasion if it means things will change. They feel that if Cubans are not going to have access to any of their country’s resources, it might as well be in the hands of the United States.

What very few have discussed publicly, however, both in the Cuban community and outside of it, is what has – or has not – happened in Venezuela since the U.S. took Maduro. Few are asking: Has the political system really changed? Is Venezuela better off now than under Maduro?

Trump has yet to publicly state his aims for the future of Venezuela, outside of taking over its oil industry. The U.S. appointed acting President Delcy Rodriguez on Jan. 5, 2026, but it’s not clear what this bodes for Latin American sovereignty.

A U.S. military capture of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and even the aged Raúl Castro, who has been indicted by the U.S. judicial system, might have symbolic power but, in my opinion, is not likely to repopulate Havana’s Palacio de Gobierno with fresh political perspectives.

In Cuba, the trappings of the old regime remain deeply rooted in the country’s political infrastructure, and the threat of U.S. military intervention is nothing new for the Cuban government that has outlasted many U.S. administrations.

The Cuban government also knows it can create chaos in the Caribbean by unleashing another migratory crisis. This leverage, of course, comes at the expense of “los cubanos de a pie.”

What’s next for Cuba

The Cuban economy, heavily reliant on tourism, faces unprecedented pressures.

With the specter of U.S. intervention looming, many foreign companies operating on the island have decided to leave. The abrupt departure of companies such as mining company Sherritt International and the SOL by Meliá hotel chain has undermined mining, tourism and energy in Cuba.

And in June 2026, Trump further hardened sanctions with an executive order that punishes companies doing business with Cuban companies. This additional economic pressure seems to be creating some momentum and fragmentation to force the Cuban government into a dialogue that favors the U.S. agenda.

Add to this the fact that oil imports from Venezuela and other countries, including Mexico and Russia, have dissipated, causing a major energy crisis, and it’s clear that change is urgently needed – but in which direction?

Uncertainty and hope remain

As days pass, the uncertainty remains, and the voice of the Cuban people is obscured behind the political clamor between the Cuban and U.S. governments.

Like Willy Chirino, I long for a day when I can come back to Cuba with my now-teenage children to show them where I was born and introduce them to their relatives still living on the island, with the hope of building a real future together.

In the meantime, as I sip a cortado in a Midwestern college town, another 1990s popular song comes to mind. It comes from Los Van Van, a Cuban band formed during the exciting early revolutionary years, beloved by Cubans inside and outside the island: “Orula, para todos los Cubanos, Ashé yo te pediré,” which translates to, “Orumila, Yoruba deity, blessings for all the Cubans is what I am asking for.”

Juan Carlos Albarran 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