Category: Uncategorized

Representational government rests on a simple idea: that the laws the nation lives under generally reflect what the public wants. In the United States, few issues test that idea more than abortion.

In 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that the Constitution does not guarantee a right to an abortion. The decision effectively overturned nearly 50 years of federally protected access to the procedure and returned primary authority over abortion policy to states.

Individual states now have the authority to enact permissive or restrictive abortion laws. These vary substantially, from near-total bans on the procedure – such as in Florida or Texas, where abortion is banned except in very limited circumstances – to guarantees of abortion access that are enshrined in state constitutions, including in California and Vermont.

Abortion serves as a clear example of how difficult it can be to translate public opinion into law. It is an issue where public views have remained relatively consistent over time, with the majority of the public supporting abortion rights according to polls. Still, laws have shifted dramatically from state to state and year to year.

As a researcher who studies the relationship between public opinion and state-level policy, I examine whether laws reflect the preferences of the American public. The dichotomy between abortion protections and restrictions suggests that this dynamic is often more complicated than many people might assume.

State legislatures, courts and election methods – and the interplay between them – all influence how public preferences are translated into law. Additionally, lobbying by well-connected interest groups that may represent a minority viewpoint can exert significant pressure on lawmakers, sometimes outweighing the desires of the broader public.

As a result, there is not always a direct line between what a majority of voters might want and the policies that are enacted.

Where public opinion stands

Despite these broad policy differences, public opinion has remained relatively stable around the abortion issue since the 1970s. Sixty-three percent of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared with 36% who say it should be illegal in all or most cases, according to the Pew Research Center. In 34 states and the District of Columbia, more people say abortion should be legal than say it should be illegal.

Even in states with restrictive policies, opinion is often closely divided. In Utah, where abortion is banned after 18 weeks of pregnancy, public opinion is split nearly down the middle.

Support for abortion does vary by religion, age, education level, political views and gender. Eighty-six percent of religiously unaffiliated Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared with 25% of white evangelical Protestants, for example.

Similar divides appear across other partisan or demographic groups. About 85% of those who lean Democratic say abortion should be legal in most cases, according to Pew, compared with about 41% of those who lean Republican. Differences also emerge by education, with college graduates more likely to support legal abortion than those without a college degree. More women than men support abortion access, although the difference is relatively minor – 64% of women, 61% of men.

Abortion on the ballot

In response to the 2022 Dobbs decision, voters in multiple states turned to ballot initiatives, mostly to restore or affirm abortion rights. In 2024, voters in 10 states decided on abortion-related measures. Seven states passed measures to protect abortion rights: Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, Missouri,
Montana, Nevada and New York. Measures to enact protections failed in Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota.

Ballot initiatives are one of the few ways Americans can directly shape policy, though the rules for their passage vary by state. Citizen-generated initiatives are only available in about half the states.

In states such as Arizona and California, simple majorities were able to approve their 2024 measures affirming abortion protections. That same year, 57% of Florida voters supported a similar measure to protect abortion access up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, but that did not meet the state’s 60% threshold for passage of initiatives.

Even in states where ballot initiatives have passed, translating voter preferences into policy is not always a straight line. In Missouri, for example, the state Supreme Court in May 2025 allowed preexisting restrictions to remain in effect while legal challenges to a 2024 abortion rights amendment continued. Because that amendment remains part of the state constitution, legislators have placed a new measure on the November 2026 ballot specifically to repeal those protections and reinstate a nearly total ban.

Seen in this context, the abortion issue represents not only a debate about access. It also offers a clear example of how representation works in practice.

The relationship between public opinion and policy is not always direct or immediate, but is shaped by the institutions and processes that define American democracy.

Marlo Rossi 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

Amid growing demands by Democrats to overhaul U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after federal immigration officials killed two U.S. citizens in Minnesota, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said in early February 2026 that agents in Minneapolis will be issued body-worn cameras.

But can body cameras on federal officials provide the transparency and accountability the public is demanding from agents with ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection?

As a public policy scholar, I have analyzed the existing body-worn camera policy for ICE agents. And I’ve compared this policy to dozens of other state and local body camera policies, in an effort to investigate the rationales for their use.

Whether ICE’s body camera policy can provide transparency and accountability depends, I believe, on the policy itself and the enforcement of that policy. ICE’s use of body cameras could improve the agency’s legitimacy in the eyes of the public.

But as I’ve seen with other police body camera policies, there’s a risk that camera footage may obscure actual events. It’s also possible that the strategic release of footage may undermine transparency.

Various body camera policies

Police body cameras were first used in the United States in 2012 by the Rialto Police Department in California. By 2020, their use had expanded to over 62% of local law enforcement agencies, covering 79% of local police officers nationwide.

That expansion was, in part, a response to growing criticism over stop-and-frisk tactics – in which police temporarily detain people for weapons searches when a crime is suspected – and police-involved shootings of people of color.

Body camera policies vary greatly between municipalities. Some policies make body cameras useful accountability tools, like those of Parker, Colorado, which uses cameras for evidence collection and ensuring officer adherence to policy rather than as surveillance technology.

Others, meanwhile, provide broad discretion for officers to choose when to activate their body cameras, such as Colorado Springs’ policy. Allowing officers to decide when to use their cameras can limit the availability of evidence.

I believe there are four crucial elements of a body camera policy that can ensure that ICE agents properly use the technology.

Activation requirements

Body camera quality has improved over the past decade. But the battery life of many models prevents continuous recording throughout a 10-hour shift.

Instead, law enforcement officials often manually activate their body cameras. Thus, to effectively promote accountability, a strong policy would require ICE agents to activate their body cameras before they interact with the public.

A 2016 study found that, without mandatory camera-activation policies, officers often fail to activate their cameras.

The current ICE body-worn camera policy, issued in February 2025, lists enforcement activities that require recording. They include executing arrest warrants, frisks of individuals and “responding to public, unlawful/violent disturbances at ICE facilities.”

But the list does not include mandatory activation during vehicle pursuits or the transportation of people to detention facilities. Recording inside detention facilities is strictly prohibited by the policy.

Deactivation requirements

As proposed by the Police Executive Research Forum, a nonprofit that promotes policing professionalism, body cameras must continue to record until an encounter with a member of the public has concluded and agents have left the scene.

The current ICE body-worn camera policy states that agents “should only deactivate the BWC when the scene is secure as determined by the supervisor or team leader.”

While robust policies, such as that of the Chicago Police Department, require continued recording during the transportation of detained people, the ICE body camera policy does not. This creates the potential for critical moments to go unrecorded.

Facial recognition

Many body camera models come equipped with facial recognition technology. But many local police department policies prohibit its use due to privacy and surveillance concerns.

ICE uses facial recognition technology during immigration enforcement operations, but in 2020 lawmakers raised concerns that body camera facial recognition could dissuade citizens from protesting out of fear of retribution.

As protests against ICE immigration enforcement continue, it’s known that the agency uses facial recognition technology on peaceful protesters and observers. Existing ICE policy prevents the use of facial recognition on “live BWC recordings,” meaning while the interaction is taking place. Facial recognition is permitted on body camera footage after the interaction has concluded.

In early February 2026, Democratic lawmakers introduced a measure that would prohibit the use of facial recognition by ICE and CBP agents. That ban would extend to facial recognition features on body cameras.

Policy compliance

Policy is only as strong as its enforcement.

Policymakers could consider strengthening submission forms for ICE use-of-force and civil rights violation complaints.

Thorough investigation of complaints and reviews of body camera footage could be handled by an external review board. The Office of the Inspector General, responsible for investigating allegations of excessive force by ICE agents, could also conduct reviews.

Body cameras will not deter violence committed by ICE agents unless policies clearly dictate their use. For body cameras to function as transparency and accountability tools, I believe wrongdoing would have to be swiftly and consistently penalized. This would highlight the consequences of noncompliance with body-worn camera policies.

Stephanie Lessing 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

For the past eight years, the Colorado Springs City Council has issued proclamations and recognitions paying homage to the achievements of its African American citizens.

In 2005, the Colorado Springs City Council and Mayor Yemi Mobolade jointly issued a Black History Month proclamation.

This year, the mayor’s office issued its own statement alluding to Mobolade’s identity as the city’s first Black and first immigrant mayor. It also praises the positive effects of past and present African American achievement in Colorado Springs.

The City Council was slower to act, finally succumbing to pressure to approve their own proclamation two weeks later.

Why did a routine symbolic gesture — one performed by public and private institutions across the nation — become questionable in Colorado Springs?

I’m a Black Studies scholar. I’ve been personally and professionally affected over the years by the changing attitudes and policies surrounding the preservation and sharing of African American history.

Currently, I serve on the State Historian’s Council with History Colorado. I also sit on the Black Coloradan Racial Equity Study Committee, which oversees research required by SB-24-053. This bill seeks to examine how state and local policies in areas such as education, health, housing, the criminal justice system and business have affected Black Coloradans past and present.

I wondered if this local controversy was symptomatic of recent pressure from the current White House administration to erase, misrepresent or repurpose the experiences of Black Americans. What I found behind the controversy is more complicated.

The Colorado Springs City Council controversy

The controversy was sparked when City Councilman Dave Donelson walked out of the City Council meeting. He did so after several local faith leaders made critical comments about Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions across the country on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Rev. Josh Rumple, who leads the First Congregational Church in Colorado Springs, was one of the speakers. He said King’s messages have been whitewashed over time to appease people who disagree with him, according to public radio station KRCC.

Donelson refused to participate in the rest of the proclamation program because he was “offended” by criticism of ICE. “I find what was said here offensive” he said.

Angela Stevens, president of the Colorado Springs chapter of the NAACP, the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, was angry that the proclamation could not get enough support at that meeting.

“We see you as a body playing it safe,” she said. She added that the inaction of City Council was part of a “national pattern of de-emphasizing Black history.”

Rev. Candace Woods organized the anti-ICE comments at the meeting. She saw the comments as consistent with King’s values and constitutional issues regarding civil rights. “I don’t know how you cannot see the connections,” she said. “Dr. King called us to stand up for our neighbors in the face of incorrect, immoral laws.”

Local opinion columnist Rachel Stovall regarded the protest as “hijacking” a “special moment.” She believes that the protest drew attention away from Black history.

She claims: “There is a difference between principled protest that seeks to highlight injustice and disruptive antics that undermine the very institutions meant to serve the community. The line between the two is always clear.” However, the tactics of the civil rights protests of the 1960s often received the same criticism.

For me, this local controversy highlights a central question: What is the meaning of Black history to broader communities? What good is sharing knowledge about what African Americans have accomplished against the odds?

Colorado’s Black history

Living in a state where Black people have been a small minority with only a few concentrations in a handful of cities and towns, Black history at first glance may seem a simple acknowledgment of barrier-breakers and proof that democratic values — though won with much suffering and blood — can ultimately come to fruition.

Taking the time to learn more about the different perspectives expressed by this seemingly simple action by Colorado Springs City Council reminded me to think about the history of Black Coloradans with more nuance.

This year, as the United States marks its 250th birthday, Colorado is marking 150 years as the “Centennial State.”

The Centennial State’s birthday programming and activities, such as the America 250 – Colorado 150 Commission, offer an opportunity to examine how Colorado’s Black history relates to other debates about freedom, harm, rights and social justice.

One of the commission’s goals for Colorado’s birthday year is to create and share a more inclusive history of the state through the Heritage for All program. The program will add 150 new historic signs and markers representing the histories of usually underrepresented groups.

Phillip Gover III of History Colorado took on legislatively mandated work to research and assess the harm done by Indian boarding schools in Colorado. He has asserted that the most fundamental question of the project is to clarify “who owns the story” of minority communities’ oppression and resistance.

A story about all of us

Knowledge must be centered on the affected groups’ experiences, perspectives and histories, but these are shaped by and entangled with larger stories and conflicting perspectives. Ultimately, these stories are about all of us, not just the oppressed groups.

Colorado’s own Black history is full of examples of the influence of Black Coloradans in making the state what it is today in ways that are more interesting than simple narratives of oppression and triumph. The stories are as individual as the people and the Colorado communities that experienced them.

Consider the case of Black frontiersman John Taylor, who was dubbed “the first white man in Pine River Valley.” A formerly enslaved man who served in the Union Army, Taylor settled in the Ute Borderlands, which is where he married an Indigenous woman. According to the scholar Louis Gregory McAllister, in this area of southern Colorado at the time, the only racial categories were “white” or “Indian,” so Taylor was accepted and treated as white by both communities.

The Buffalo Soldiers were among the first African Americans to have their stories included in Colorado history. They have been honored as heroes for their military service at Fort Garland and as proof of Black presence in the familiar mythologizing of Western expansion. Established in 1866, they were commissioned to patrol federal lands.

Recent scholarship has complicated the heroic picture, showing how they were underpaid and mistreated by the army they served. They themselves played a troubling role in the suppression and inhumane treatment of Colorado’s Native peoples.

An anniversary reckoning

So what does Black Colorado history have to say to all Coloradans – and the nation?

Increasing our knowledge of Colorado’s Black history involves confronting complicated truths, dismantling easy binaries between the oppressors and the oppressed, and understanding how the experiences and suffering of particular communities are meaningful to us all.

Coloradans can celebrate hard-won achievements and contributions to the betterment of Colorado society, but we must also acknowledge and commemorate the inhumane, shameful and ambiguous parts of our shared stories.

Is Black Colorado history useful for recognizing and addressing current injustices and what some see as similar moral dilemmas? Or is the recognition of Black History Month more appropriately seen as a “thank you” card from institutions and organizations?

Claire Oberon Garcia 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

In 2024, spending on federal elections totaled almost US$15 billion in the United States. The United Kingdom, in contrast, spent approximately $129 million on its 2024 parliamentary elections – less than 1% of 2024 U.S. spending – despite having a population one-fifth the size of the U.S.

Indeed, most other democratic countries spend only a fraction of what the U.S. does on their respective elections.

Why do U.S. elections cost so much?

Many people may attribute the blame to Citizens United v. FEC, the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court case that struck down corporate spending limits in elections.

Yet the source runs much deeper, to a case that marked its 50th anniversary in early 2026: Buckley v. Valeo, a landmark case that established the modern framework for U.S. campaign finance regulation.

Big money’s political influence

For most of U.S. history, political spending was an unregulated practice. In turn, big-moneyed interests wielded major influence over elections without any legal impediments.

In the early 20th century, however, Congress began implementing small measures to rein in unfettered campaign finance. In 1907, for instance, Congress passed the Tillman Act, which banned corporations from donating directly to candidates. By 1971, Congress had implemented the modern Federal Election Campaign Act, or FECA, which initially just included disclosure and disclaimer requirements for candidates.

Nevertheless, following the Watergate scandal – which included bags of cash and campaign dirty tricks – Congress enacted the more comprehensive 1974 FECA Amendments to more effectively restrain big money in American politics.

The FECA Amendments instituted, among other things, dollar limits on the amount of money individuals and political committees could contribute to federal candidates. Similarly, it limited the amount of money individuals could independently expend to support the election or defeat of a federal candidate.

Almost immediately, a number of politicians and other parties filed suit – including U.S. Sen. James Buckley, a New York conservative; former U.S. senator and 1968 presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy, a Minnesota Democrat; and the New York Civil Liberties Union – to challenge the amendments’ constitutionality.

They argued that the new laws restricted First Amendment freedoms of political speech and expression. Their argument was straightforward: If I can’t spend as much as I want to support a candidate, I am unable to fully express my political views. The lawsuit ultimately ended up before the U.S. Supreme Court.

On Jan. 30, 1976, the Supreme Court issued its opinion. One of the lengthiest in U.S. history – 294 pages in total – the opinion took an axe to the FECA and effectively reduced federal campaign finance law to a patchwork of laws and rules resembling regulatory Swiss cheese.

In doing so, the court laid the groundwork for the development of the modern campaign finance system in the U.S.

Money is speech

What did Buckley v. Valeo do?

For one, the court declared that limits on political contributions and expenditures, in fact, affect First Amendment interests. The court found limits on contributions to indirectly impact donors’ right of expression, the idea being that a contribution to a candidate acts as an expression of support for them.

Contribution limits can furthermore directly infringe on candidates’ speech rights if they are so low as to prevent the candidate from effectively campaigning, the court decided.

The court, meanwhile, found limits on political expenditures, such as spending money on a TV ad, to impose an even more direct constraint on speech rights. In the court’s words, such limits reduce “the quantity of expression by restricting the number of issues discussed, the depth of their exploration, and the size of the audience reached.” With this, the court embraced what its critics have dubbed the “money is speech” principle.

So whenever a law constrains political speech, the government must justify it via a “compelling” state interest. Thus came the court’s second major move via the Buckley decision: narrowly defining the government’s interest in regulating money in politics.

Specifically, the court recognized only one compelling state interest in restricting political spending: preventing quid pro quo corruption – the exchange of money for political favors. With this, the court outright rejected that the government had a serious, broader interest in promoting political equality, one of the driving forces behind the passage of the 1974 FECA Amendments.

Applying this framework, the court upheld federal limits on contributions to candidates because directly giving money to politicians carries a risk of quid pro quo.

In contrast, the court invalidated FECA’s limits on independently made political expenditures – expenditures made on a candidate’s behalf but not in coordination with the candidate. In the court’s view, if somebody spends money to support a candidate without coordinating with that candidate, no corruption concern exists – an assumption that remains widely disputed. Thus, Congress had no compelling interest to limit political advocacy via expenditures.

Unlimited sums

While a product of 1970s lawmaking, the Buckley decision has played a major role in shaping modern U.S. politics. Its impact on how lawmakers can – and cannot – regulate money in politics endures today.

The most pronounced effect of Buckley has been the proliferation of spending by outside groups making those independent expenditures.

Buckley’s invalidation of independent-expenditure limits applied only to limits on individuals. But the Supreme Court has since extended Buckley’s logic to spending by organizations. In Citizens United in 2010, the court held that the government had no compelling interest in limiting independent expenditures made by entities such as corporations, unions or political action committees – PACs – that do not coordinate with candidates, known today as super PACs.

Shortly following the Citizens United decision, a federal appellate court applied Citizens United to strike down limits on contributions to super PACs, the idea being they could not engage in corruption if they were not coordinating with candidates.

Donors were now free to give unlimited sums of money to super PACs, which were free to spend unlimited sums of money to influence elections. Each passing election since then has seen untold super PAC spending, peaking at over $2.6 billion in 2024.

Enter dark money

Super PACs are only one part of the modern political landscape, though.

Following Citizens United, donors realized that if they were to donate money to a super PAC, federal law would mandate the disclosure of that donation. Yet, federal law contained a loophole: shell companies – companies formed purely to preserve the anonymity of their makers – and 501(c)(4) nonprofits could donate money to super PACs without having to disclose who their money came from. Collectively, these became known as “dark money” groups.

Wealthy donors thus started giving money to these dark money groups as a vehicle to fund super PACs without detection. These groups have become a major force in election spending, accounting for an estimated $1.9 billion in 2024.

The Buckley decision has also led to the proliferation of self-funded candidates. The Supreme Court held that the government cannot limit self-funding because the risk of quid pro quo is nonexistent – again, a disputed assumption.

U.S. campaigns now feature multimillionaires and billionaires propelling themselves into electoral contention each election cycle simply by virtue of having a well-funded bank account. In 2024, 65 federal candidates spent at least $1 million of their own dollars on their campaign.

Small limits, big spending

One area that still remains open to regulation post-Buckley is contributions to candidates, political parties or PACs.

Thus, contribution limits exist federally and in most states in some form.

Still, the government’s authority to cap contributions is not infinite. The Supreme Court has occasionally struck down certain states’ limits when they are deemed “too low.”

The court, moreover, invalidated in 2014 an aggregate limit on the amount a donor could contribute overall to candidates per election, reasoning that Buckley’s anti-corruption rationale could apply only to direct, one-to-one exchanges. Wealthy donors were thus free to donate to hundreds of candidates in an election cycle.

In 2025, the court heard a challenge to a federal law limiting how much political parties can spend in coordination with their nominees. Intended to prevent individuals from using parties as a means of circumventing individual-to-candidate contribution limits, the law has been on shaky ground for decades.

The court will issue a ruling on that challenge in the coming months. Whether the law is upheld or struck down, Buckley is guaranteed to play a major role in the decision.

John J. Martin 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

Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two white Minneapolis residents killed in January 2026 by federal agents while protesting the Trump administration’s immigration policy, have become household names. National media outlets continue to focus on their deaths and the circumstances around them.

Neither of them was the first person to be shot and killed by immigration enforcement officials over the past year. There have been numerous shootings and some deaths.

In September 2025, Silverio Villegas González was killed in Chicago under circumstances similar to Good’s death. Ruben Ray Martinez was shot multiple times by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Texas in March 2025, but their involvement was not revealed until nearly a year later. Neither Martinez nor Villegas González has become a household name, and their deadly encounters with federal agents have not drawn nearly the same level of media attention as Good’s or Pretti’s.

As a media historian, I’ve been struck by the similarities between the media’s coverage of Minneapolis and its coverage of Selma, Alabama, in 1965, when voting rights protests led to violence that left three people dead, including two white victims.

I’ve written about the Selma campaign, as well as the media’s treatment of white female activists killed during racial justice protests, in my books “Equal Time: Television and the Civil Rights Movement” and “Making #Charlottesville: Media from Civil Rights to Unite the Right.”

These two events reveal that the deaths of white activists often draw and sustain far more attention than the deaths of Black or Latino people in similar contexts. But the Selma and Minneapolis events also show that male and female white activist victims aren’t necessarily treated the same way.

Remembering Selma

Video footage of law enforcement beating and gassing marchers on Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge remains an iconic visual document of the Civil Rights Movement. John Lewis, who later became a congressman, was an activist at the head of the march on March 7, 1965, and was beaten in the head at the base of the bridge by Alabama state troopers. But he was not a household name in 1965, and media coverage at the time did not identify him.

Reporters also didn’t pay much attention to what had motivated the march: the killing of Black voting rights activist Jimmie Lee Jackson by an Alabama state trooper during a nighttime march a week earlier.

Still, the prime-time television broadcast of footage from “Bloody Sunday” at the Pettus Bridge shocked Americans, just as footage from Minneapolis has similarly distressed and disturbed many people today.

In 1965, a small number of white Americans from around the country, including numerous members of the clergy, descended on Selma to stand with the brutalized voting rights activists. They included James Reeb, a Unitarian minister from Massachusetts, and Viola Liuzzo, a wife and mother of five from Michigan.

Reeb, following a second aborted march across the Pettus Bridge two days after Bloody Sunday, was viciously beaten by a group of white racists and left lying on the ground, mortally wounded. His beating and subsequent death received plentiful media attention.

President Lyndon B. Johnson contacted Reeb’s widow. She gave media interviews about her husband. Johnson also extolled Reeb at the beginning of his joint address to Congress calling for robust voting rights legislation, four days after Reeb’s death. Johnson never mentioned Jackson’s death.

Liuzzo was ferrying people back to Selma from Montgomery on March 25 after the conclusion of the final, successful march to the state capital when a carload of Ku Klux Klansmen, one an FBI informant, chased her down and shot her through her car window. Her death received even more coverage than Reeb’s, keeping Selma in the news.

The Voting Rights Act passed five months later.

Smearing the victim

So how does coverage of Reeb and Liuzzo echo the portrayals of Pretti and Good? And why does it matter?

Initial media treatment of Liuzzo focused on her status as a wife and mother. She was characterized as brave, putting the rights of others above her own. “Mrs. Liuzzo ‘Felt She Had to Help,’” was the headline of a New York Times profile.

Good’s status as a devoted mother and wife also characterized initial media reporting following her death. This kind of framing can often shield “nice white ladies,” as scholar Jessie Daniels has termed them, from the derogatory treatment that women of color have often endured in the public arena.

But in both cases, although separated by six decades, condemnation, disparagement and misogyny soon followed. Government officials, commentators and far-right forces framed these women and their activism in darker terms. Liuzzo was smeared by a KKK grand wizard who blamed her for her own death, saying, “If this woman was at home with her children where she belonged she wouldn’t have been in any jeopardy.” Liuzzo was falsely accused of having sexual relations with a Black man, thereby being characterized as a traitor to the white race.

This kind of racist vitriol might have stayed on the fringes, but FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover amplified the stories, while a Detroit police officer’s file on Liuzzo, which included highly personal information and speculation about her mental health, was shared with segregationist Sheriff Jim Clark of Selma.

The material ended up in The New York Times, and Liuzzo’s posthumous reputation was marred. When Ladies’ Home Journal polled its readers about Liuzzo, 55% responded that she should have stayed home with her children.

Echoes of the past

Official government and law enforcement responses to Good’s death echo the Liuzzo case; in fact, the responses have arguably been magnified. Vice President JD Vance blamed Good for her own death, claiming it was a “tragedy of her own making.” President Donald Trump characterized her as “disorderly” and vicious. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other administration officials labeled Good a domestic terrorist.

This attempt to influence the media’s framing of Renee Good clearly had an impact, since much of the early media coverage focused on questions about her actions and motives, with the New York Post derisively labeling her an “‘ICE Watch’ ‘warrior’ who trained to resist feds before shooting,” before attention shifted to Pretti’s killing.

Good, like Liuzzo, was also derided as a race traitor, somehow betraying white Americans by supporting nonwhites. Podcaster Matt Walsh disparaged her for giving her life “to protect 68 IQ Somali scammers,” a smear that made its way into mainstream media, including its appearance in an opinion piece by The New York Times’ columnist David French that criticized inflammatory MAGA rhetoric.

Walsh and other right-wing commentators, along with comedian Ben Bankas, underscored Good’s sexuality to further demean her.

It’s different for men

Men have been treated differently in both press coverage and political response. Reeb, a father of four, never faced the level of condemnation heaped on Liuzzo. Southern white segregationists certainly questioned the motives of the many clergy members who descended on Selma. Those sentiments, however, did not circulate much outside of segregationist press. Reeb’s status as a minister, along with being a white man, may have shielded his reputation.

Here’s where there are some similarities to the response to Pretti’s death. Initially, Trump administration officials brought out the same playbook they’d used with Good. Noem and Stephen Miller, the White House homeland security adviser, called Pretti a domestic terrorist. Greg Bovino, the leader of Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis, along with a Homeland Security spokeswoman, claimed Pretti intended to “massacre law enforcement.”

Such charges quickly unraveled as media outlets questioned them. It helped that the video footage of Pretti’s killing was clearer than that of Good’s.

Like Good, Pretti became the target of vitriol in far-right media platforms. But little of that has gotten much purchase in mainstream media, just as the segregationist contempt for activist clergy members in Selma was not amplified.

Pretti’s status as a licensed gun owner who was exercising his Second Amendment right to bear arms, as well as his First Amendment rights to protest, may also have assisted his posthumous reputation. Right-wing critics who condemned a lesbian who was not adhering to a set of standards regarding femininity had a much harder time condemning a man licensed to carry a gun.

Liuzzo, Reeb, Good and Pretti all put their bodies on the line and made the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of vulnerable nonwhite people. Liuzzo and Good suffered significant character assassination that their male partners-in-protest avoided.

Whiteness may help bring massive media attention, but being a dead white woman doesn’t necessarily bring respectful treatment. For some, especially those who put their bodies on the line for nonwhite communities, they are just “AWFL,” the current right-wing acronym for “affluent, white, liberal women” who step out of bounds.

Aniko Bodroghkozy 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 death of a major cartel boss in Mexico has unleashed a violent backlash in which members of the criminal group have paralyzed some cities through blockades and attacks on property and security forces.

At least 73 people have died as a result of the operation to capture Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, or “El Mencho.” The head of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel was seriously wounded during a firefight with authorities on Feb. 22, 2026. He later died in custody.

As an expert in criminal groups and drug trafficking in Latin America who has been studying Mexico’s cartels for two decades, I see the violent aftermath of the operation as part of a pattern in which Mexican governments have opted for high-profile hits that often lead only to more violence without addressing the broader security problems that plague huge swaths of the country.

Who was ‘El Mencho’?

Like many other figures involved in Mexico’s drug trafficking, Oseguera Cervantes started at the bottom and made his way up the ranks. He spent some time in prison in the U.S., where he may have forged alliances with criminal gangs before being deported back to Mexico in 1997. There, he connected with the Milenio Cartel, an organization that first allied, and then fought with, the powerful Sinaloa Cartel.

Most of the information available points to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel forming under El Mencho around 2010, following the killing of Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel Villarreal, a Sinaloa Cartel leader and main link with the Milenio Cartel.

Since 2015, Jalisco New Generation Cartel has been known for its blatant attacks against security forces in Mexico – such as gunning down a helicopter in that year. And it has expanded its presence both across Mexico and internationally.

In Mexico, it is said to have a presence in all states. In some, the cartel has a direct presence and very strong local networks. In others, it has cultivated alliances with other trafficking organizations.

Besides drug trafficking, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel is also engaged in oil theft, people smuggling and extortion. As a result, it has become one of the most powerful cartels in Mexico.

What impact will his death have on the cartel?

There are a few potential scenarios, and a lot will depend on what succession plans Jalisco New Generation had in the event of Oseguera Cervantes’ capture or killing.

In general, these types of operations – in which security forces take out a cartel leader – lead to more violence, for a variety of reasons.

Mexicans have already experienced the immediate aftermath of Oseguera Cervantes’ death: retaliation attacks, blockades and official attempts to prevent civilians from going out. This is similar to what occurred after the capture of drug lord Ovidio Guzmán López in Sinaloa in 2019 and his second capture in 2023.

Violence flares in two ways following such high-profile captures and killings of cartel leaders.

In the short term, there is retaliation. At the moment, members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel are seeking revenge against Mexico’s security forces and are also trying to assert their regional authority despite El Mencho’s death.

These retaliatory campaigns tend to be violent and flashy. They include blockades as well as attacks against security forces and civilians.

Then there is the longer-term violence associated with any succession. This can take the form of those who are below Oseguera Cervantes in rank fighting for control. But it can also result from rival groups trying to take advantage of any leadership vacuum.

The level and duration of violence depend on a few factors, such as whether there was a succession plan and what kind of alliances are in place with other cartels. But generally, operations in which a cartel boss is removed lead to more violence and fragmentation of criminal groups.

Of course, people like Oseguera Cervantes who have violated laws and engaged in violence need to be captured. But in the long run, that doesn’t do anything to dismantle networks of criminality or reduce the size of their operations.

What is the current state of security in Mexico?

The upsurge in violence after Oseguera Cervantes’ killing occurs as some indicators in Mexico’s security situation seemed to be improving.

For example, homicide rates declined in 2025 – which is an important indicator of security.

But other measures are appalling. Disappearances are still unsettlingly high. The reality that many Mexicans experience on the ground is one where criminal organizations remain powerful and embedded in the local ecosystems that connect state agents, politicians and criminals in complex networks.

Criminal organizations are engaged in what we academics call “criminal governance.” They engage in a wide range of activities and regulate life in communities – sometimes coercively, but sometimes also with some degree of legitimacy from the population.

In some states like Sinaloa, despite the operations to take out cartel’s leaders, the illicit economies are still extensive and profitable. But what’s more important is that levels of violence remain high and the population is still suffering deeply.

The day-to-day reality for people in some of these regions is still one of fear.

And in the greater scheme of things, criminal networks are still very powerful – they are embedded in the country’s economy and politics, and connect to communities in complex ways.

How does the El Mencho operation fit Mexico’s strategy on cartels?

The past two governments vowed to reduce the militarization of security forces. But the power of the military in Mexico has actually expanded.

The government of President Claudia Sheinbaum wanted a big, visible hit at a time when the U.S. is pushing for more militarized policies to counter Mexico’s trafficking organizations.

But this dynamic is not new. Most U.S. and Mexican policy regarding drug trafficking organizations has historically emphasized these high-profile captures – even if it is just for short-term gains.

It’s easier to say “we captured a drug lord” than address broader issues of corruption or impunity. Most of the time when these cartel leaders are captured or killed, there is generally no broader justice. It isn’t accompanied with authorities investigating disappearances, murders, corruption or even necessarily halting the flow of drugs.

Captures and killings of cartel leaders serve a strategic purpose of showing that something is being done, but the effectiveness of such policies in the long run is very limited.

Of course, taking out a drug lord is not a bad thing. But if it does not come with a broader dismantling of criminal networks and an accompanying focus on justice, then the main crimes that these groups commit – homicides, disappearances and extortion – will continue to affect the daily life of people. And the effect on illicit flows is, at best, meager.

Angélica Durán-Martínez has received funding from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, the Social Science Research Funding and the United States Institute of Peace.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

When a coupon suddenly appears on your phone as you approach a store, you might find it convenient and even helpful. But the same AI systems that know where you are and try to influence your purchases can be used to infer what you fear, what you trust and which stories you are likely to believe. AI-fueled marketing algorithms are becoming increasingly good at influencing human behavior.

That raises concern about what various governments might do with these tools to influence citizens’ views about warfare. A clear-eyed look at how administrations are exploiting these systems may help people and their nations navigate an uncertain future.

I am a security researcher who studies ways to explore and characterize the risk technology poses to individuals and society. The rise of AI-mediated influence has raised questions about the erosion of people’s capacity to exercise free will and, by extension, society’s ability to distinguish a just war from an unjust war.

AI-powered marketing

The integration of AI with location-based services is pushing the marketing frontier. Location-based services use geographic data from indoor sensors, cellphone towers and satellites to promote goods and services that are tailored to your location, a capability called geofencing.

When marketing firms couple massive amounts of data about individuals’ behaviors – including information that people voluntarily or unknowingly share through mobile device applications – the firms can group, or segment, potential customers based on what they like, what they do and what they say.

Once an AI-powered marketing system knows where a user is and can make an informed guess about that person’s likes and dislikes, it can design targeted coupons and advertisements to influence the behavior of each person in a group, and possibly the group as a whole. This combination of AI with geofencing and segmentation makes hyperpersonalized marketing content possible at an unprecedented scale.

Real-time propaganda

What might this advance have to do with warfare? The use of psychology to win battles or obviate the need for war is as old as armed conflict itself. Sun Tzu, the Chinese military general and philosopher who died in 496 B.C., wrote: “Therefore the skillful leader subdues the enemy’s troops without any fighting; he captures their cities without laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations in the field.”

From Sun Tzu’s era until today, skilled practitioners of military strategy have sought to reduce the risk in fighting through reflexive control: getting opponents to willingly perform actions that are best for the strategist’s empire or nation.

Today’s strategists increasingly rely on paid social media advertisements, influencers, AI-generated content and even fake social media accounts to sway popular opinion toward their goals. This power, and controversy surrounding it, has been implicated in recent national elections, domestic unrest and negotiations to end the conflict in Ukraine.

Unlike propaganda during the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, modern influencers don’t rely on a single message broadcast to the masses. Strategists test and deploy thousands of narrative variations simultaneously, monitor how different groups respond and refine their approach in near-real time. The purveyors don’t need to convince everyone. They just need to nudge enough people at the right moment to change election outcomes, pressure domestic policies or even trigger ethnic violence.

How much deception is tolerable?

As online influence becomes more automated and personalized, it is harder to determine where persuasion ends and coercion begins. If groups of people, or even a nation’s citizenry, can be guided toward certain beliefs or behaviors without overt force, democratic societies face a new problem: how to distinguish traditional attempts at influence from manipulation – especially during conflict.

Recent studies show that Americans trust local news sources more than national ones, although trust in both local and national news media has declined across all age groups in the U.S. Ironically, this trust deficit is being exploited by unscrupulous media in various ways, such as AI-generated, pink-slime news – online news stories that only appear to be from authentic local news outlets. The stories are often technically accurate but presented with veiled political bias.

AI-driven propaganda directly challenges how people typically evaluate claims that their nation has been wronged – that it is the “good guy” standing up for what is right. Just war theory assumes that citizens can reasonably consent to war. Legitimate political authority requires an informed public that can decide violence is both necessary and proportional to the offense. However, when influence operations sway people’s views without them being aware of it, these systems threaten to undermine the moral preconditions that make war just.

The question citizens have to answer is how they will allow their information environments to evolve. Do they assume that deception is ubiquitous and therefore governments must control information and even preempt the truth by weaponizing AI-driven narratives? Or should the public accept the risk of AI-generated influence as a regrettable but necessary part of openness, pluralism and the belief that truth emerges through transparent debate and not under tight controls?

The same systems that decide which coupon reaches your phone are starting to shape which narratives reach you, your community and a nation’s entire population during a crisis. Recognizing this connection is the first step toward deciding how much influence people are willing to accept from such algorithms and the propagandists who control them.

Justin Pelletier is affiliated with the United States Army Reserve. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U.S. Army, Department of War, or the U.S. Government.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is reportedly issuing administrative subpoenas to identify anonymous social media accounts that criticize U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Google, Meta and Reddit have complied with at least some of those requests, according to The New York Times.

These subpoenas appear alongside other recent steps by the Trump administration aimed at clamping down on its critics.

In Minneapolis and Chicago, ICE agents told protesters their faces were being recorded and identified using facial recognition technology. Tom Homan, the White House border czar, has also spoken publicly about creating a database of people arrested during protests against immigration enforcement operations.

One way to understand these government moves is by focusing on law enforcement and compliance. Some people may wonder about what legal authority DHS is using to demand identities and compile lists, how many accounts are involved, and whether prosecutions will follow. Those questions matter.

But they are not the most important ones.

To me, a professor of public service and vice chair of the National Communication Association’s Communication and Law Division, the more revealing question is why the government wants the names of critics in the first place, and what that choice signals about how dissent is being understood.

Legality is wrong measure

The DHS subpoenas that target social media accounts may be perfectly legal.

Administrative subpoenas are authorized by statute and do not require a judge’s approval before issuance. The government’s use of facial recognition technology has survived constitutional challenge in certain investigative contexts. A president’s executive memoranda routinely set enforcement priorities.

But constitutionality does not turn on whether a tool exists. It turns on how that tool is used.

Power can be lawful in the abstract and antidemocratic in its application. The fundamental question in a democracy isn’t whether the government possesses investigative authority. Instead, the question to ask is what happens when that authority begins to focus on critics of a particular policy.

National Security Presidential Memorandum-7, issued in September 2025, makes the stakes even more stark. It directs agencies to prioritize efforts to counter what it calls “domestic terrorism” and organized political violence. It emphasizes threat assessment and intelligence sharing across departments. It frames certain forms of political conflict in security terms.

When protest and online criticism are characterized using a national security vocabulary, they begin to look less like disagreement and more like destabilization. And once dissent is understood as a potential threat, the gathering of names and data can feel ordinary rather than exceptional.

Same rules for everyone

The First Amendment draws its strongest protections around speech that challenges the state. Criticism of immigration enforcement concerns federal authority, borders and human rights. It is core political speech.

Viewpoint discrimination is among the borders the Supreme Court has guarded most carefully. A viewpoint-neutral law is one that applies to everyone, regardless of opinion. Racists have the same right to speech as do Catholic nuns.

Government may regulate conduct, and it may punish true threats and incitement. It may even enforce neutral laws that incidentally restrict speech.

What government may not do is single out one side of a political debate because officials disapprove of its perspective.

If opposition to immigration enforcement triggers subpoenas by the government to businesses to provide the identity of dissenters, that is a problem for the Constitution. The government would need to demonstrate a compelling and viewpoint-neutral justification for the requests. Broad appeals to public safety are rarely sufficient when the speech at issue lies at the center of public debate.

Anonymous speech makes the stakes clearer

In the 1958 case NAACP v. Alabama, the Supreme Court refused to allow the state to compel disclosure of civil rights membership lists because exposure invited retaliation. In McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, in 1995, the court protected anonymous pamphleteering.

The reasoning in both cases was grounded in experience rather than theory. People speak differently when they believe their names may be recorded and stored by the state.

The risk in the present moment to the kind of dissent democracy needs and the Constitution protects may not lie in mass arrests. It may lie in narrowing – a narrowing of who feels safe criticizing federal policy. A narrowing of how sharply people speak. A narrowing of what feels worth the risk.

The First Amendment guards the right to express unpopular views. Chilling speech does not require prosecution. It requires uncertainty and asymmetry – a power imbalance. A person who believes online criticism could land them in a federal database may decide silence is the rational choice.

Supporters of the subpoenas will point to genuine safety concerns. Sharing agents’ locations can create real danger. True threats and incitement fall outside constitutional protection. Under the Supreme Court’s Brandenburg standard, advocacy loses protection when it is directed at and likely to produce imminent lawless action.

The Constitution leaves room to address such genuine danger. The harder question is what happens when tools designed for protecting against tangible harm migrate into ordinary political conflict.

American history offers reminders of how this unfolds. During the Red Scare, loyalty investigations reached into universities and civic organizations. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, surveillance authorities expanded under the Patriot Act. Early provisions allowed the government to seek library borrowing records. Even limited use or constraints on how government could apply its powers for obtaining information may have chilled inquiry. The harm did not depend on mass prosecutions. It depended on normalization.

Measuring what is lost

It is easy to identify the harms that speech can cause. Hate speech can silence its targets. Dishonest rhetoric from public officials can erode trust in institutions. Marketing campaigns can deceive elderly citizens into surrendering their savings. We can see those injuries. We can name their harm. We can point to the damage.

The benefits of free speech are harder to make tangible.

It is difficult to measure what is lost when an opinion is never voiced. It is impossible to catalog the arguments that never quite form because a speaker calculates the risk and decides silence is safer. There is no headline announcing that a citizen chose not to post, not to protest, not to dissent.

Yet the Supreme Court has long understood that the value of free speech lies precisely in that unseen space.

In New York Times v. Sullivan in 1964, the court wrote that “the theory of our Constitution is that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.” That theory assumes something demanding. It assumes that criticism of government will be sharp, uncomfortable and, at times, unfair. It assumes that the cure for bad speech is more speech, not surveillance.

When the government begins collecting the names of its critics, even through tools that are lawful in isolation, the question is not simply whether a statute permits it. The question is whether the conditions for uninhibited and robust debate are quietly narrowing.

Free speech rarely disappears in a dramatic moment. It erodes at the margins. It shrinks in the spaces where people decide the risk feels too high.

And by the time someone tries to measure what has been lost, the silence may already feel normal.

Stephanie A. (Sam) Martin 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

Talk show host Stephen Colbert made headlines on Feb. 17, 2026, when he wrapped a network statement in a dog-waste bag and tossed it in the trash.

He did it live, while on air.

The move came after CBS lawyers reportedly told him he could not broadcast a scheduled interview with Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico on his show, Late Night with Stephen Colbert. According to Colbert, the network warned him that broadcasting the interview could trigger the Federal Communications Commission’s equal time rule, which requires broadcasters to allow political candidates equal access to the nation’s airwaves.

CBS said it gave Colbert “legal guidance” that airing the segment could raise equal time concerns and suggested other options.

Colbert countered that in decades of late-night television, he could not find a single example of the rule being enforced against a talk show interview. He ultimately posted his Talarico interview on YouTube instead, where broadcasting rules don’t apply.

As a media scholar, I believe Colbert is right about the law. Congress has deliberately protected editorial discretion to prevent equal time rules from chilling political speech. And the FCC has extended this privilege to shows like his.

To understand why, you have to go back to 1959 and to a forgotten fight over the role of broadcasting in a democratic society.

Amending ‘equal time’

Because the airwaves have been viewed as a scarce public resource, radio and television broadcasting have been regulated to balance the First Amendment rights of the press with public interest obligations. That includes the need to provide reasonable access to the airwaves for candidates for office – so citizens can hear what they have to say, whether in the form of paid advertising or unpaid news coverage.

After first appearing in the Radio Act of 1927, the equal time provision was codified in Section 315 of the Communications Act of 1934.

That law created the FCC and still governs the use of the nation’s airwaves today. It requires broadcast licensees to provide “equal opportunities” to legally qualified candidates in a given election if they allow one candidate to “use” their facilities. The requirement was intended to prevent broadcasters from favoring one candidate over another and to foster robust political debate that would serve the public interest.

But the statute did not clearly define what counted as a “use.”

That ambiguity was a known issue, but it came to a head in 1959, when Lar Daly, a fringe Chicago mayoral candidate, filed a complaint with the FCC. He argued that if stations aired news clips of his opponents – including the incumbent mayor – as part of their routine coverage, he was entitled to equal time on air.

The FCC agreed. And it created a ruling that meant even routine news coverage of a candidate could trigger equal time obligations.

Broadcasters immediately warned that the decision would make political journalism nearly impossible. If every news interview or campaign clip required providing comparable time to every rival – including minor or fringe candidates – stations would either have to book everyone or drastically scale back political coverage.

NBC president Robert Sarnoff issued a thinly veiled threat in a message that was not lost on politicians who would be affected by the change: “Unless the gag is lifted during the current session of the Congress, a major curtailment of television and radio political coverage in 1960 is inevitable.”

Later that year, Congress stepped in and amended Section 315 to create explicit exemptions for “bona fide” newscasts, news interviews, news documentaries and on-the-spot coverage of news events. As my colleague Tim P. Vos and I note in our research on the history of the amendment, Congress rejected calls to repeal equal time altogether.

Instead, lawmakers preserved the rule for candidate-sponsored advertising while shielding news programming. Persuaded by broadcasters, lawmakers determined that professional journalism, guided by norms of balance and fairness, would best serve democratic discourse.

In signing the 1959 legislation, President Dwight D. Eisenhower highlighted the “continuing obligation of broadcasters to operate in the public interest and to afford reasonable opportunity for the discussion of conflicting views on important public issues.”

Eisenhower concluded by appealing to the good intentions of the nation’s broadcasters: “There is no doubt in my mind that the American radio and television stations can be relied upon to carry out fairly and honestly the provisions of this Act without abuse or partiality to any individual, group, or party.”

The talk show exemption

Over the decades, the FCC has interpreted the 1959 exemptions broadly.

Programs ranging from Meet the Press to The Jerry Springer Show to The Tonight Show and other interview-based broadcasts have been treated as “bona fide news interviews,” even when hosted by comedians. That’s why Colbert’s claim that there is no enforcement history against late-night talk shows is accurate.

It’s important to remember that equal time still applies in other contexts. If a candidate purchases or receives airtime for an advertisement, opponents are entitled to comparable access.

Equal time also applies to non-exempt entertainment programming, such as Saturday Night Live. Donald Trump’s hosting gig on SNL in November 2015 triggered an equal time request from four opposing primary candidates. And NBC obliged by providing a comparable amount of airtime for their campaign messages.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr recently signaled he was considering eliminating the talk-show exemption, arguing that some programs are “motivated by partisan purposes.”

As of now, no legal change has occurred. And it seems to me that CBS has acted out of caution, responding to political and regulatory pressure rather than to an actual rule change. That makes this episode unusual: The equal time rule was perhaps applied indirectly, through corporate self-censorship, not through direct FCC enforcement.

Why this moment matters

Either way, the Colbert incident highlights the growing restrictions on editorial independence during the second Trump administration – either imposed by government threat or corporate fear.

Whether through direct regulatory intervention or indirect corporate influence, this incident and others like it show an increased willingness to interfere with the editorial independence of media producers.

The dispute is part of what some critics view as an ongoing effort by the Trump administration to silence criticism. Trump is no fan of Colbert and has targeted comedians before.

CBS already announced in 2025 that Colbert’s show will be canceled in May 2026, leading many to suggest CBS was trying to appease Trump and his FCC, particularly ahead of a then-pending merger that required FCC approval.

The 1959 amendment that created the equal time exemption aimed to preserve editorial independence and protect free expression by limiting equal time claims and ensuring vibrant political discourse. The decision reflected a judgment that professional editorial discretion, not mandatory equivalence, best served citizens.

If the FCC alters the exemption, it would represent a major shift in U.S. media policy and would almost certainly face legal challenges. The government has an important role to play in promoting free expression and protecting free speech, but this is a good time to be wary of efforts to alter regulations to control content.

Seth Ashley 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

As the actions of agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement come under intense scrutiny, it’s worth noting that a little more than 100 years ago, another expansion of federal policing – to enforce national Prohibition – also sparked nationwide concern.

As a U.S. history scholar, I know both the government agencies charged with enforcing national Prohibition in the early 20th century and with mass deportation in the early 21st century were hastily expanded. They were asked to achieve difficult objectives and were staffed by sometimes poorly trained people who at times resorted to violence.

National prohibition enforcement

When Congress approved the Volstead Act in 1919 that outlawed the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcoholic liquors, it purposely limited the number of Prohibition enforcement officials due to pressure from powerful dry lobbying groups, which supported the prohibition of alcohol sales and consumption. These groups thought the majority of the Prohibition policing would be done by states.

The Volstead Act also exempted Prohibition agents from civil service laws, which would have required job applicants to pass certain minimum standards. The exemption was written into the law because the prohibitionist lobby only trusted committed “drys” – people resolutely dedicated to maintaining an alcohol-free society – to do the enforcing, and they thought that they would control the appointments.

For the first years of Prohibition, the Bureau of Prohibition belonged to a division of the Bureau of Internal Revenue – some were converted alcohol tax collectors. Then they became part of the Bureau of Prohibition in the Treasury Department. And in 1930, they moved to the Department of Justice.

These moves to various bureaus and departments reflected attempts to curtail corruption, reduce the influence of the prohibitionists on staffing, and increase effectiveness. Despite the moves, funding and training for Prohibition agents never improved. Additionally, in an effort to cut government spending during the Great Depression, the Herbert Hoover administration cut Prohibition agents’ per diem pay from US$6 to $5.

The initial group of Prohibition agents were either committed prohibitionists or “political hacks with little law enforcement experience,” according to author W. J. Rorabaugh. The hacks, Rorabaugh wrote, soon outnumbered the prohibitionists.

In 1927, Federal Circuit Judge William S. Keynon said that “three-fourths of the 2,500 dry agents are ward heelers and sycophants named by the politicians.” The assistant attorney general in charge of Prohibition enforcement, Mabel Walker Willebrandt, said that Prohibition agents were “as devoid of honesty and integrity” as those who violated Prohibition laws.

When Prohibition agents were placed under the civil service, 60% of them failed their civil service tests. In a six-year period beginning in 1920, 752 Prohibition officials lost their jobs for delinquency or misconduct. Drunkenness and bribery were the two main reasons for dismissal.

In 1930, the 1,450 front-line Prohibition agents dwarfed the 350 FBI field agents across the country. They were the largest federal law enforcement body, and they were busy.

From 1921 to 1930, they averaged over a half-million arrests per year. They seized over 45,000 automobiles, and by their own account, Prohibition agents killed 89 people.

However, the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment calculated that about 1,000 people were killed in enforcing Prohibition.

Endemic violence

Federal officials authorized Prohibition agents’ use of violence. One official told U.S. Sen. Wesley Jones, a strong prohibitionist, that some bootleggers “deserve a good killing, and I am not losing any sleep if now and then a bootlegger is killed.”

But Prohibition agents did not just shoot criminals. The Washington Herald detailed in 1929 a pattern of reckless use of force, with prohibition agents shooting at the tires of escaping cars and accidentally firing weapons. In 1924, within blocks of the U.S. Capitol, a Prohibition agent who was firing at a fleeing car carrying a bootlegger accidentally shot Sen. Frank L. Greene of Vermont. Greene, wounded in the head, never fully recovered the use of one arm.

The author Daniel Okrent illustrated the link between trigger-happy officers and shoddy recruitment and training when he detailed the case of “the first agent to kill a suspect bootlegger in the line of duty.” The Prohibition agent had been accepted into service under a false name. He was not a stranger to killing, as he had killed a man when he was 14. He had also served multiple prison terms. Indeed, he was given his badge when “still incarcerated at Dannemora State Prison,” according to Okrent.

The parallels between Prohibition and the Trump administration’s mass deportation tactics are not identical. Prohibition was more unpopular in much of the country compared with mass deportation. And Congress was not willing to adequately pay for Prohibition enforcement, while it has generously funded ICE.

Several reports detail ICE’s recent massive expansion. In early January 2026, the agency announced it grew by 120%, adding 12,000 agents to the existing force of 10,000, which raised concerns among lawmakers about lowered training standards to meet recruitment targets. Other accounts reveal lax vetting, insufficient training and past officer misconduct.

But both efforts share important similarities. They were hastily built, with agents who were asked to do something very difficult, and staffed by sometimes poorly trained people who were authorized to use force.

Richard F. Hamm 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