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If you follow the Trump administration’s social media posts, you might spot its new mascot: a cartoon lump of coal with big eyes and babylike features. “Coalie” sparked a backlash almost as soon as Interior Secretary Doug Burgum debuted it for the Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation Enforcement in early 2026.

Coalie’s design draws on a type of Japanese anime called Kawaii, a word meaning “cute” or “adorable.” It’s the latest in the White House’s efforts to pass off coal as harmless, despite the well-established environmental and human health harms of mining and burning the fossil fuel.

As a scholar of American literature and culture, I write about media portrayals of coal, beginning in the 19th century with its rise to become the leading fuel in the United States. Coal use grew until the early 2000s, when other sources became cheaper and its health and environmental damage became unacceptable to more of the public.

While “Coalie” might be new, the logic behind it is not. For centuries, coal’s promoters have worked hard to show coal as harmless – as well as “clean” and “beautiful,” to use President Donald Trump’s words.

‘An agreeable heat’

Humans living with the effects of burning coal have disliked it for as long as they have burned it.

In 1578, Queen Elizabeth complained that she was “greatly grieved and annoyed with [its] taste and smoke” in the air. In 1661, John Evelyne’s treatise Fumifugium outlined negative health effects of breathing coal smoke.

English settlers were drawn to North America in part because of the continent’s abundant supply of timber, a substitute for coal that deforestation had made prohibitively expensive in England.

But by the 19th century, the price of timber had risen in America as well. When, in the 1820s, news spread of Pennsylvania’s rich veins of anthracite coal, urban consumers were eager for a cheaper source of fuel.

In addition to its lower price, anthracite coal grew desirable because of its high carbon, low-sulfur content, which produced less visible smoke when it was burned. An enthusiastic 1815 letter to the editor of the American Daily Advertiser captured increasingly common attitudes toward anthracite as “affor[ding] a very regular and agreeable heat.”

‘A healthful home’

The spread of anthracite also shored up tolerance for smokier but cheaper bituminous coal.

To help people, housekeeping manuals aimed at the fossil fuel’s mostly female users tried to invent workarounds for its smoke. In 1869, Harriet Beecher Stowe, best known as the author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” and her sister Catharine Beecher wrote one of many 19th-century articles to acknowledge the “evils” of coal smoke, while outlining “modes of making a healthful home,” in the housekeeping manual American Woman’s Home.

Consumers provided temporary solutions for maintaining indoor air quality while burning coal by sending in suggestions that were published in housekeeping manuals, magazines and newspapers.

At the same time, as the century progressed, coal and coal-stove companies began to suggest that burning coal was healthy, that it could improve indoor air as well as domestic aesthetics. One 1892 newspaper advertisement claimed that stoves were “necessary to heat, cheer, and beautify the home and preserve its health.”

To keep the children clean and bright …

In the 20th century, marketers churned out more colorful claims about the benefits of coal: One magazine advertisement showed a mother and child pointing at the crackling stove aflame with the company’s coal, saying it “cannot be excelled in purity, cleanliness, and free-burning qualities.”

Similarly, the Lackawanna Railroad Company came up with the classy, often rhyming, character of Phoebe Snow. In one ad, she points to the importance of comfort, suggesting that not only could anthracite fuel faster travel, but it could also make your travel – and your life – more comfortable.

Coal marketing often used children to suggest safety and reach parents. Another iteration of the Phoebe Snow series promised that anthracite-powered railway travel could keep children “clean and bright.”

A 1930s advertisement went so far as to position a piece of anthracite coal next to a child in a bathtub, a visual proximity implying that coal was as good as soap.

In fact, soap made of “coal tar” – a liquid byproduct of producing coke, a fuel made from bituminous coal used in industrial blast furnaces – did (and does) exist. The British company Wright’s, also popular in the U.S., generated a slew of advertisements praising its soap as having antiseptic properties for children.

Each of these advertisements tried to capitalize on a mother’s desire for healthy children. And they pushed back against the image of the tyrannical “King Coal” that had come about amid strikes by miners protesting dangerous, degraded working and living conditions as well as the rise of black lung disease.

‘Clean coal’

By the mid-20th century, petroleum took coal’s place as America’s main energy source. The U.S. environmental movement continued to grow, and people got interested in natural gas as an alternative to coal.

In response, coal companies doubled down on the fantasy of “clean” coal.

A 1979 advertisement for American Electric Power, for example, flew in the face of Clean Air Act mandates that coal corporations employ “scrubbing” technology to remove sulfur dioxide from smoke – the ad depicted someone cleaning coal by hand.

The myth continues

Today, coal generates only 16.2% of America’s electricity, down from generating more than half of the U.S. power supply in the 1990s. But the country isn’t done with it. Even though coal production today is far below its peak, as companies try to shut down old uneconomic plants, Trump has promised to “reinvigorate” the coal industry.

In addition to ordering some coal plants to continue operating, the Trump administration has pulled out old coal promotion tactics from the past, including repeatedly referring to coal as “clean and beautiful.” One image inserts Coalie next to a coal-mining family that otherwise looks like an ad that could have appeared a century ago.

And, like its predecessors, this picture tries to present an innocent image of a product that harms human health and the environment.

A 2018 study found that black lung disease was on the rise in Appalachia, where about 40% of America’s coal is mined today. Living near a fossil-fuel power plant exposes residents to pollutants that contribute to premature deaths, asthma and lung cancer, including tiny particulate matter known at PM 2.5, sulfur dioxide and mercury. Even when it’s just sitting in piles waiting to be used at a power plant, coal can harm human health as the wind blows across it and carries coal dust into the air and people’s lungs.

The myth of coal as healthy and family friendly has been around for centuries – but coal has never been clean, or cute.

Annie Persons 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

On the eve of the American Revolution, Matthias Aspden made a decision that would change the trajectory of his life. A wealthy merchant from Philadelphia, Aspden carefully prepared to leave his home in March 1776 as rumors of revolution circulated. He drafted a will and appointed trusted friends to manage his property while he traveled to England.

As a loyalist, someone who wanted to remain loyal to the crown and the British empire, Aspden believed the war would be brief. Historians estimate that at the beginning of the war as many as one-third of all American colonists identified as loyalists. Aspden believed his departure would be temporary. Order, he assumed, would soon be restored, and he would permanently return within a few years.

But that wasn’t the case.

The American Revolution is often told as a triumphant story of democracy and freedom. But this narrative leaves out a significant group: the loyalist men and women who remained faithful to Britain and, as a result, lost their homes, property and sometimes their sense of belonging.

As a historian of the American Revolution who studies Philadelphia loyalists, I believe Aspden’s story offers a glimpse into an overlooked experience of the war.

A wealthy Philly merchant exiled in England

Born and raised in Philadelphia, Aspden was not a marginal figure. He was a Quaker merchant with extensive property holdings, including a home on Water Street, in what is now the Old City neighborhood, and land in Chester County outside Philadelphia.

When he left in 1776, he abandoned nearly everything he owned, believing he would return. As others celebrated independence that summer, Aspden quietly slipped away to London.

In England, reality set in. Exile was not just physical; it was deeply social and emotional. In Philadelphia, Aspden had been established. In London, he was one of tens of thousands of displaced loyalists trying to rebuild a life. He gravitated toward communities of fellow exiles. These networks offered some stability, but they could not replace what he had left behind.

Aspden’s letters to friends and family from this period reveal a man caught between hope and anxiety. He followed news from Philadelphia obsessively, requesting newspapers and updates from friends and business contacts. At one point, he described himself as “an idle man until I can return to America.” His words suggest both longing and uncertainty, as if his life were on pause.

By 1780, that uncertainty turned into fear.

A ‘traitor’ trying to come back home

Aspden began hearing about laws in Pennsylvania aimed at confiscating loyalist property. These laws required individuals accused of treason to appear in court and defend themselves. Aspden, still in England, could not do so. As a result, he was tried in absentia, declared a traitor and subjected to the state’s harshest penalties.

The consequences were devastating. In 1782, Aspden learned that all of his property had been confiscated and would be sold to aid the patriots in the American Revolution. An official commissioner of confiscation seized his Philadelphia home and wharf, which were worth thousands of pounds, along with his land in Chester County. Aspden, facing financial ruin, decided to return to Philadelphia to defend his name and his property.

In 1785, after nearly a decade abroad and with the war over, he crossed the Atlantic, hoping the new United States would restore his property under the terms of the peace treaty with Britain. Instead, he was met with rejection.

Pennsylvania officials informed him that individuals in his position were not protected. He had no legal claim to his property and, more shockingly, no rights as a citizen. While the peace treaty prevented further confiscation of loyalist property, his property was not restored.

The message was clear: Philadelphia was no longer his home.

One last trip to Philadelphia

Aspden left again, traveling through New Jersey and New York before securing passage back to England. Reflecting on his departure, he wrote of the pain of being forced from his “native country.” His brief return confirmed what he had feared. He had no home.

In the years that followed, Aspden sought compensation wherever he could. The American government offered nothing, so he turned to Britain. The Loyalist Claims Commission, established to reimburse those who had lost property during the war, eventually awarded him just over 1,100 pounds, a fraction of his estimated losses.

Aspden made one final visit to America in the early 1790s. By then, he had received a legal pardon and could travel without fear of arrest. But he still could not recover his property or successfully pursue compensation in American courts. Once again, he left – this time for good.

Heirs recover his fortune

Aspden died in England in 1824, having spent nearly 50 years in exile from the city he always considered home.

Decades after his death, his heirs pursued a legal claim in the United States against Pennsylvania, arguing that his estate had been unjustly seized. After years of litigation, the court ruled in their favor in 1848, awarding them over a half-million dollars – approximately US$20 million today. It was a remarkable reversal, but Aspden never saw justice.

His life raises difficult questions about loyalty, identity and belonging. Aspden did not see himself as disloyal to Philadelphia. To him, loyalty to the British Crown and loyalty to home were not opposites.

His story reminds us that the Revolution was not just a fight for independence. It was also a civil conflict that divided communities and reshaped lives. For every celebrated patriot, there were loyalists like Aspden and others who lost so much during the American Revolution.

Read more of our stories about Philadelphia, or sign up for our Philadelphia newsletter on Substack.

Kimberly Nath 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 United States is experiencing one of the steepest declines in violent crime in modern history, including a murder rate at its lowest point in more than a century.

Homicides across 35 major American cities fell 21% in 2025, amounting to 922 fewer people killed. Robberies dropped 23%. Gun assaults declined 22%. Carjackings plummeted 43%.

Yet the Trump administration has yanked hundreds of millions of dollars from the programs that helped make those numbers possible.

As a scholar focused on how policy decisions and structural conditions shape crime in marginalized communities, I see a pattern forming that could put these historic gains at serious risk.

‘Wasteful grants’

In April 2025, the Department of Justice terminated 365 previously awarded grants. About US$500 million in promised funds evaporated, affecting more than 550 organizations across 48 states.

The cuts stretched across the public safety landscape: community violence intervention, victim services, law enforcement training, juvenile justice, offender reentry and criminal justice research.

Then-Attorney General Pam Bondi described the cancellations as eliminating “wasteful grants.” The White House argued that the grant programs had been “funding DEI and cultural Marxism” rather than helping to keep Americans safe.

The DOJ’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposal reduces the pool of funds for public safety and justice programs by an additional $850 million – about a 15% decrease from the prior year.

Bipartisan programs

On the ground, the effects of the cancellations were immediate.

Initiatives implementing a federal law to support ex-inmates with temporary housing, job training and healthcare lost $40 million in funding, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York Unversity.

Many of the terminated programs had deep bipartisan roots.

Project Safe Neighborhoods, a crime-reduction initiative launched in 2001 under President George W. Bush, lost its training funds, the Council on Criminal Justice found. Also axed was an anti-terrorism program that had trained more than 430,000 state and local law enforcement officers and other partners since 1996.

More modest programs were targeted as well.

In rural Oregon, a DOJ grant had allowed the Union County district attorney to hire an investigator who, after a few years of probing a 43-year-old cold case involving the killing of a 21-year-old woman, finally developed some leads. When the money was cut, the investigation stopped.

Funding cliffs

The funding cuts couldn’t have come at a worse time. States and local jurisdictions were already facing looming cuts, as billions of dollars provided by President Joe Biden’s COVID recovery plan run out on Dec. 31, 2026.

Many local governments had used that money to build violence prevention programs from the ground up: employing community-based mediators, launching youth employment initiatives and expanding behavioral health teams.

And now? A double funding cliff with the sudden cancellation of DOJ grants, paired with the expiration of COVID recovery money.

In Chicago, this cliff has already forced a 43% cut to the city’s domestic violence prevention budget for 2026 – even as its share of domestic-related homicides rose 13% over the previous year.

Larger and more targeted

Criminology research helps explain the particular risks of abrupt disinvestment. Emory sociology professor Robert Agnew’s General Strain Theory identifies a direct relationship between increased strain – economic pressure, blocked opportunities, the withdrawal of institutional support – and higher risks of criminal behavior.

Historical precedent reinforces the concern. In 2013, federal across-the-board spending cuts eliminated services for more than 955,000 crime victims in a single year. The capacity of the FBI and related agencies was slashed by the equivalent of more than 1,000 agents.

Between 2014 and 2016, the violent crime rate climbed 7%.

The 2025 cuts are substantially larger and more targeted, and have devastated some groups.

Equal Justice USA, a national organization working to end the death penalty and reduce violence through community-based interventions, shut down in August 2025 after losing more than $3 million in DOJ grants.

Local programs like Baltimore’s LifeBridge Health’s Center for Hope lost $1.2 million to provide therapy for gun violence survivors.

“What shocked me the most … was what feels like the utter cruelty of it,” said Adam Rosenberg, who runs the center, referring to the cancellation of the funds.

As of April 2026, the DOJ has not paid out $200 million in approved grants to assist victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking.

This comes after the department last year allowed more than 100 grants for human trafficking survivors to expire, affecting more than 5,000 victims, despite Congress allocating $88 million for these services.

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania warn that cuts to violence prevention programs are likely to lead to increases in gun crime.

What happens next

The initiatives now losing funding are the ones that helped drive crime down in many American cities.

Community members trained in conflict mediation help extinguish tensions before they turn lethal. Youth programs provide alternatives to street economies. Forensic labs process the evidence that solves cases. Reentry programs keep people from cycling back through the system. With each serving a distinct function, together they form the infrastructure of public safety.

As funding for crime prevention from two main sources runs out, whether progress continues depends on what happens next.

Andrea Hagan 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 35-year-old Kentucky woman was arrested in late 2025, accused of taking abortion pills that she ordered online.

The gestational age and status of the pregnancy is unknown. But Kentucky, like the majority of Southern states that contain Appalachian counties, has a complete abortion ban.

Mifepristone is a medication approved by the Food and Drug Administration for self-administered abortion care through 10 weeks’ gestation, and research suggests it is safe and effective up to 16 weeks. Mifepristone can still be ordered into states with abortion bans after the Supreme Court weighed in on the matter on May 4, 2026.

Abortion is illegal in Kentucky, however, and the police viewed the woman’s actions as criminal. A grand jury supported bringing charges, including fetal homicide, “abuse of a corpse” and tampering with physical evidence. Her distressed mugshot was plastered all over regional news sites.

As a social work researcher who studies access to reproductive healthcare in underserved Appalachian communities, I have worked with clients in similar circumstances. I have observed that many decisions to end pregnancies are motivated by intense barriers to accessing healthcare – not by criminal intent.

It can be extremely difficult for women in this region to get healthcare, and these access burdens affect quality of life in the region. For example, research suggests that Appalachian women are more likely to die at younger ages when compared to women living in other regions of the United States.

Here are six factors I consider when a case like this appears in the news.

1. Abortion bans do not stop abortion

Data clearly shows that outlawing abortion care does not stop abortions from happening.

According to data from the Society of Family Planning’s #WeCount project, U.S. abortion rates have actually increased since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, ending federal abortion protections.

What state abortion bans do is change how people try to get care.

2. Abortion bans isolate patients from doctors

For people living in most of rural Appalachia, brick-and-mortar abortion facilities are currently only available in another state, often a great distance away.

The only way many people can get care, then, is to order pills and self-manage their own abortion.

When someone orders abortion pills without medical consultation, however, there is more room for error in assessing relevant medical information, such as how far along their pregnancy is. When abortion care is legal and accessible, like other forms of healthcare, such estimates are made in consultation with a health provider.

Multiple clinics, community groups and pharmacies will send abortion pills to Kentucky for self-managing abortions up to about 13 weeks into pregnancy, according to the abortion access resource Plan C. These places may offer medical support, peer support or no additional support at all.

Patients who do involve a telehealth provider report satisfaction with that experience.

Yet patients in abortion-ban states may avoid using sites that are connected to support services because they fear being discovered and prosecuted. Abortion bans may therefore compel patients to make critical reproductive health decisions without consulting an expert.

This may have occurred in the Kentucky case, according to what the law enforcement officers reported to the Lexington Herald-Leader newspaper.

3. Ending Roe worsened healthcare deserts

Another factor to consider is how abortion bans contribute to existing healthcare deserts in rural Appalachian communities.

Even before the repeal of Roe, people living in Appalachian communities were not getting adequate healthcare. Communities in central and southern Appalachia face significant health disparities: These regions have higher illness and death rates and increased risk of cancer and diabetes compared to non-Appalachian areas of the United States.

In part, that has to do with inadequate healthcare infrastructure endemic in rural parts of the country. Geographic isolation, limited financial incentives and lack of infrastructure decrease the number of available health providers, meaning that only about 9% of U.S. physicians practice in rural areas.

Appalachia has lost regional obstetric services in recent years and seen numerous hospital closures, further discouraging providers from working there. One study found that of 53 rural hospitals that closed between 2005 and 2016, 66% of them were in Southern states, 21% in Appalachia.

This has reduced access to specialty care, including reproductive healthcare.

Abortion bans have compounded all these problems. They make it difficult, if not impossible, for providers to practice within established standards of care when treating conditions such as miscarriage, which can discourage ER physicians and OB-GYNs from remaining in red states.

The shortage of medical professionals makes it increasingly challenging to obtain reproductive healthcare in the region – except by mail.

4. Poverty influences reproductive decisions

Money is another important factor in people’s reproductive choices.

Research indicates that financial distress is a main reason that people seek abortions. Those who are denied abortion access are more likely to be in poverty four years after they give birth than those who were able to access it.

Appalachia’s history of resource extraction has left it impoverished. In Central Appalachia – in Kentucky – up to 21% of residents live in poverty.

The median household income in adjusted 2023 dollars in Wolfe County, Kentucky, where the woman was arrested, is just over US$29,000, compared to about $79,000 in the rest of the country. It costs approximately $232,000 to raise a child in Kentucky from birth to age 18, the mortgage broker LendingTree calculated in April 2026.

Facing the daunting cost of another mouth to feed, families confronting an unintended pregnancy may see abortion as a financial necessity. Appalachian residents in these circumstances are figuring out how to get the abortion care they need against steep odds.

5. In rural Appalachia, abortion can carry stigma

In rural Appalachian communities where most residents know each other, abortion and reproductive health stigma – some of which, research suggests, is rooted in religiosity – can present a significant barrier to care.

My own research has found that stigma may dissuade Appalachians from seeking healthcare and discussing sexual health topics with providers due to fear of judgment. Many Appalachians have reported to me their negative reproductive health visits with regional medical providers, including attempts to coerce patients into using or not using contraception.

Because abortion is stigmatized in Appalachian communities, healthcare workers may be inclined to inform police on their patients.

One news report indicates that in cases where abortions were reported to police, 39% of reports were made by health professionals and another 6% by social workers. In 412 cases of pregnancy criminalization analyzed by the advocacy group Pregnancy Justice, 264 involved information that had been disclosed in a medical setting.

That is what happened in the Kentucky case: People working in a clinic allegedly told the police that the woman had disclosed her abortion.

Abortion medication shipped directly to one’s home, by contrast, offers privacy.

The prosecutor eventually dismissed the homicide charge, because Kentucky law exempts pregnant people from being prosecuted for getting abortion care. But other charges were added, including concealing the birth of an infant. The woman may still be facing legal consequences.

6. Sex education is important – and lacking

One final factor I consider relevant in understanding this case is sex education – or rather, the lack of it in most Appalachian states.

Kentucky requires some sexual health education in public schools, but each county can dictate much of the content. Sex education in the state is not required to be comprehensive, and it must promote abstinence.

As NPR reported in 2023, there are parts of rural Appalachia without comprehensive sex education, where contraception is unaffordable and abortion is also banned. Those trying to provide better sex education have faced harassment and threats of violence.

When people do not receive the sexual health education needed to know their bodies and how they function, they are more vulnerable to negative health outcomes such as unintended pregnancy. And they may not know their bodies well enough to know how long they’ve been pregnant when they make reproductive health choices.

Bad policies, impossible situations

All of the factors listed above could potentially affect people in any community. But rural Appalachian communities are disproportionately affected by a confluence of these factors.

In my analysis, the Kentucky case elucidates how poor health infrastructure and bad health policies – such as abortion bans – place one barrier after another in front of people who are just trying to do the best they can to cope with an unintended pregnancy.

This story was produced in collaboration with Rewire News Group, an independent newsroom dedicated to covering reproductive health in the United States. Read their version here.

Gretchen E. Ely has previously received funding for her research from the Society of Family Planning.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, is experimenting with a policy that has drawn national attention and local skepticism: providing cash compensation to people confined in the Allegheny County Jail in the city of Pittsburgh. The funds include monthly disbursements to all those incarcerated and additional pay tied to work assignments and participation in educational programming.

At first glance, the policy may sound counterintuitive. Why pay people who are in jail, especially when many law‑abiding residents are struggling to afford housing, food and transportation? That reaction is understandable. But it often reflects a misunderstanding about who is held in the Allegheny County Jail, the amount of the disbursements and what the county is trying to accomplish.

Over the course of two decades, I have partnered with Allegheny County on policy relevant to justice research and served on the advisory board of the Allegheny County Jail Collaborative, a nationally recognized initiative launched in 2000 to better coordinate jail, health and community-based services. Long before many places began using data to rethink criminal justice, Allegheny County was already analyzing data from multiple sources to develop and test new approaches. With that history in mind, this policy may come as less of a surprise – though it still deserves scrutiny.

Most people in jail haven’t been convicted

Understanding the county’s rationale for compensating people in jail begins with understanding the jail population itself. Jail confinement is primarily about custody and court processing, not punishment after being convicted of wrongdoing.

According to county data, only about 8% of people housed in the jail have been convicted and sentenced to jail time. These individuals are serving a maximum incarceration term of less than two years for misdemeanor or lower-level felony convictions. Roughly half of those incarcerated at the Allegheny County Jail, or 46%, are awaiting trial and have not been convicted of a crime. Another 36% are detained based on an alleged probation violation. The remaining 10% are either on a legal hold placed by an outside agency – such as federal authorities or a correctional facility in another state – are awaiting transfer to a different facility or are ordered to be incarcerated for allegedly violating family court orders.

While jails provide food, clothing and basic hygiene items, those provisions often fall short of what people actually need. Commissary purchases make up the gap, yet many people in jail have little to no money. When even basic necessities, such as ramen noodles, toothpaste and tampons, become scarce, bartering can take place. Commissary items become currency. Debt, theft, intimidation and power imbalances emerge, leading to conflicts that can cause serious or fatal injury. Staff must manage these threats, sometimes at risk to their personal safety.

The county’s compensation policy addresses this reality in concrete ways. Since 2022, the Allegheny County Jail Oversight Board has approved monthly payments of about US$100 to every person housed in the jail through the Incarcerated Individuals Welfare Fund. The fund is financed by proceeds from jail commissary, phone and tablet contracts. These funds can be used for commissary items, phone access, fees, or to accrue savings for post-release needs.

$5 a day – and the research behind it

In addition, in March 2026 the county began compensating people confined in jail approximately $5 per day for voluntary work assignments, as well as for participation in some types of vocational and educational programming. Some of this compensated work is labor that keeps the jail running – including cooking, cleaning and maintenance – and benefits the institution directly. Some of it includes education and vocational training. Paying for it signals some level of fairness and respect. It is also pragmatic: When people perceive systems as legitimate, they are more likely to follow rules and less likely to engage in misconduct.

Offering compensation for education may also boost enrollment, much like how earned credits toward early release encourage participation in federal programs through the First Step Act. This may better prepare them for reentry into society while also reducing idle time, which is linked to misconduct.

Another reason for compensation comes at the point of release. People often leave jail with no cash and limited access to transportation. Providing even limited financial resources can help people make better choices during a well-documented critical transition period that can make or break successful reentry intro society.

Still experimenting

None of this means the policy will work as intended. Increased access to resources could shift, rather than eliminate, forms of conflict among those incarcerated. And the financial incentives may not meaningfully change behavior for everyone.

This makes rigorous, transparent evaluation essential. Research should measure both intended and unintended effects of this policy, including on institutional safety, program participation, reentry outcomes and overall cost effectiveness.

Paying people in jail is not about rewarding crime. In Allegheny County, it is a pragmatic experiment grounded in local data, institutional realities and a clear-eyed commitment to public safety. Whether it ultimately improves safety inside the jail or stability after release remains to be seen. But asking the question and measuring the answer is exactly what evidence-based justice policy should look like.

Nancy La Vigne 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 nation observes its 250th birthday, historians can help settle one present-day dispute: Is the United States a democracy or a republic?

For years, advocates have argued the point.

Yet the question itself is misleading. It assumes that the categories constructed by political theorists neatly describe actual practice.

As a historian of early America, I know this nation has always been unwieldy, its institutions hammered out from conflicting ideals and the pragmatic lessons of lived experience. Just as Britain today is both a monarchy and a democracy, so the U.S. has always been a hybrid.

Ideals of both republicanism and democracy have shaped the nation. To understand how requires a history lesson.

No purity

Let’s start with a famous definition. Here is the often-quoted “Father of the Constitution,” James Madison, urging Americans to ratify the new frame of government proposed by the Constitutional Convention in 1787.

In Federalist essay No. 10, Madison distinguished two sorts of governments for his readers.

One was a “pure democracy,” which he described as “a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person.” A New England town meeting might qualify for this definition, where voters assembled to choose town officers and approve local bylaws.

The other type of government was a “republic,” defined as “a government in which the scheme of representation takes place”
– meaning where the people’s chosen representatives made governing decisions for them.

That seems cut and dried. Surely no one thought the entire population of 13 states could work like a town meeting.

But Madison here was saying only that the possibility of a “pure” democracy was impractical. He was by no means banishing all democratic ideas and institutions.

As the French theorist Montesquieu had noted, republics were of varying sorts. Some republics were aristocratic, controlled by a relative few who were set above the rest. Other republics were democratic, engaging many more in the ongoing affairs of government.

What was at stake in the U.S. in 1787 wasn’t a “pure” democracy nor a “pure” republic. The issue was how aristocratic – and how democratic – the American scheme of representation would be.

Who would be represented – the many or the few?

‘Actual’ representation

America had never been the home of an aristocracy in the British sense. Besides, the Revolution had discredited the very idea of hereditary power. There would be no House of Lords, filled with titled men born into political power and a special set of legal privileges denied to ordinary people. The people alone would be sovereign, and all authority to govern derived, directly or indirectly, from them.

Even so, the problem of aristocracy remained. After all, it had been the lower house of Parliament – the House of Commons, not of Lords – that had sparked the imperial debate when it tried to tax and legislate for the Colonists.

Not nobility, members of the Commons still formed a remote and ambitious elite. None was elected by American voters or even necessarily informed about the Colonists’ lives. Apologists for Parliament claimed that the Commons “virtually” represented the Colonies anyway.

But the Colonists watched the Commons ignore American grievances while favoring private interests – East India Company shareholders, for example – that served wealthy British gentlemen such as themselves.

Many concluded that the members of the House of Commons did not “actually” represent either the poor of Britain or the growing population of the continental Colonies.

In contrast, “patriot” Americans pointed to the legislative assemblies established in each colony soon after its founding.

Needing to attract British settlers, and following the British model, each colony established an elected house of the legislature to provide a check to governors and upper houses that were appointed by the king or a wealthy Colonial proprietor.

Law and custom required that delegates to these assemblies live among their constituents. Although they were men of some fortune and standing in their districts, assemblymen might plausibly “actually represent” their lesser neighbors.

In the lead-up to the Revolution, patriots used new measures to ensure their representatives’ fidelity: They called for vigilant popular oversight of government decision, publicized those decisions in the press, wrote constituent instructions for legislators and winnowed out noncompliant officeholders at election time.

Individual and collective liberties

With independence, Americans created a patchwork of new, representative state governments. South Carolina empowered its wealthy planter elite by setting a high property-holding requirement for voters and a higher one for officeholders. Pennsylvania and Vermont adopted unprecedentedly democratic systems that allowed a large proportion of the white male population to participate in government.

By 1787, some Americans thought there was too much popular democracy – too much power given to nonelite members of society, especially within state governments.

The Constitution adopted restraints on democracy – a Senate appointed by state legislatures, an electoral college that put the choice of president at a remove from the people, a supremacy clause that allowed national laws to supersede, or contravene, state laws.

At the same time, a commitment to democracy was also evident in the U.S. frame of government.

The Constitution set no property requirements for federal officeholders. It left suffrage requirements up to individual states, some of which already extended the vote to all male taxpayers.

Equally important, the ratification process produced a consensus that a bill of rights was necessary to protect ordinary people’s rights and liberties from government overreach.

These first 10 amendments would defend individual rights but also collective rights of the people, such as their right to assemble, to petition the government or even to change it.

The Bill of Rights also protected a free press. It ensured that ordinary free men would still serve in armed militias when their state needed protection. And they would still sit on grand and petit juries to enforce the law or prevent its overreach.

These were the sorts of institutions that the lawyer John Adams called “democratical.”

More and better democracy

Within a few decades, the common phrase for the American system became “democracy.”

Madison had been inconsistent in how he used the term. In the 1790s and 1800s he called himself a “Democratic Republican,” in opposition to the allegedly aristocratic party, the Federalists.
Decades later, Madison was frustrated when pushed to define the U.S. government more precisely. Ordinary “political vocabulary” fell short, he wrote. The American system was “so unexampled in its origin, so complex in its structure, and so peculiar in some of its features” that it was best understood as something new.

How aristocratic? How democratic? The question of 1787 has returned repeatedly to face Americans.

Elites with aristocratic aspirations have repeatedly tried to build permanent governing hierarchies. American history is partly the story of these contests – Free-Soilers against a slaveholding elite, reformers against wealthy “barons” of the Gilded Age, critics of inequality against billionaires who shape government policies today. In such cases, Americans have often turned to more and better democracy, their necessary resource for pressing their political leaders to actually represent the people.

Following Madison’s advice, Americans today can refuse to be misled into describing the U.S. in a single, inadequate term.

They might prize both of these historic commitments: to a republic that insists on the people’s right to be represented rather than ruled, and to a democracy that ensures that ordinary people might collectively make it so.

Barbara Clark Smith 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

May 1, 2026, marks the 60th day of Operation Epic Fury in Iran – a symbolically significant date designating when a president who has mounted unilateral military operations must receive Congressional approval or wind it down.

However, the complex history of the War Powers Resolution clock demonstrates it is a toothless milestone.

The Trump administration signaled on April 30, 2026, that it would ignore that deadline, set by the War Powers Resolution. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that “we are in a cease-fire right now, which my understanding is that the 60-day clock pauses or stops in a cease-fire. That’s our understanding, so you know.”

Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, a Democrat, responded that the 60-day threshold poses a “legal question” and “constitutional concerns.”

This is not the first time presidents and members of Congress have sparred on the meaning of the War Powers Resolution. What happens next will play out through regular politics, because the conflict is not a matter of simple legal interpretation.

War: Collective judgment

In the U.S. Constitution, Congress and the president share war powers.

In the shadow of political struggles in the final years of the Vietnam War, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution in 1973 to “insure that the collective judgment of both the Congress and the President will apply to the introduction of United States Armed Forces into hostilities.”

A crucial section of the resolution reasserts legislators’ role, and makes clear that the constitutional power of the president to make war is subject to, or exercised with, the following conditions: a Congressional declaration of war; specific statutory authorization; or a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions or its armed forces.

For new military campaigns that do not meet these criteria, the resolution included a 60-day clock that begins when a president reports the action to congressional leadership within 48 hours of the action beginning.

The clock can be expanded to up to 90 days upon presidential determination and certification of “unavoidable military necessity respecting the safety of United States Armed Forces” related to removal of troops.

After 60 to 90 days, the resolution originally said this type of unilateral military action would be terminated automatically unless both chambers of Congress approved some form of legislative authorization.

Congress could also choose to terminate an unauthorized military operation any time before the 60 days with a concurrent resolution, which doesn’t require a president’s signature – essentially, a “legislative veto.”

And to make sure the president couldn’t stretch the definition of congressional approval, the resolution said neither existing treaties nor new budget appropriations could substitute for legislative authorization of a military action.

Since 1973, actions by all three branches across a variety of political and policy landscapes have undermined its intents and procedures.

Veto vetoed

In 1983, the Supreme Court declared various kinds of legislative vetoes unconstitutional, which led Congress to reinterpret its War Powers Resolution procedures and powers and effectively amend its processes to expedite any joint resolution or bill that “requires the removal of U.S. armed forces from hostilities outside the United States.”

Now, if members want to stop a presidential military campaign already in progress, they must act affirmatively and pass a disapproval resolution, which a president could veto like any other bill. Congress has sent only one such disapproval – to President Donald Trump in his first term – which he vetoed. Congress did not have the two-thirds required in the Constitution to override.

Both chambers of Congress now have to vote twice, once to disapprove a military action and then again to overcome a likely veto, to stop something it never approved in the first place.

The 60-day mark for the current Iran operation has therefore loomed as more of a politically charged symbol of this longstanding imbalance on war powers than a real deadline for action by either branch.

Parallels to Kosovo and Libya

The House and Senate have tried to pass legislation to stop military operations against Iran six times since operations began. All attempts have failed, including the most recent vote on April 30. Democrats are considering filing suit against President Trump if operations go beyond 60 days without authorization.

Yet federal courts have long expressed disinterest in getting involved in constitutional questions related to the War Powers Resolution, especially if members of Congress are the plaintiffs.

Although most presidents from Richard Nixon onward have claimed that the War Powers Resolution is an unconstitutional check on their institutional powers, they usually filed the required reports on new military actions 48 hours after they began.

While the current Iran conflict is different in many ways, presidential unilateralism, inconclusive chamber actions and even member lawsuits all echo controversies over U.S. military action in Kosovo in 1999 and Libya in 2011.

Where Trump administration may lean on Clinton

Operation Epic Fury against Iran began Feb. 28, 2026, and President Trump sent the required report to Congress on March 2, 2026.

After detailing the rationale for military action, Trump added “Although the United States desires a quick and enduring peace, it is not possible at this time to know the full scope and duration of military operations that may be necessary.”

He concluded the memo with his interpretation of constitutional power to act unilaterally.

“I directed this military action consistent with my
responsibility to protect Americans and United States interests both at home and abroad and in furtherance of United States national security and foreign policy interests,” the president wrote. He acted, he said, “pursuant to my constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive to conduct United States foreign relations.” He said he made the report “consistent with the War Powers Resolution. I appreciate the support of the Congress in these actions.”

Similarly, on March 26, 1999, President Bill Clinton sent a War Powers Resolution letter explaining his decision two days earlier to take part in a NATO-led operation against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, known as FRY.

Clinton wrote to Congress using mostly the same words and phrases Trump did in his 2026 letter. Clinton also said that he took the action “in response to the FRY government’s continued campaign of violence and repression against the ethnic Albanian population of Kosovo.”

Clinton explained his authority in virtually the same language as Trump and, like Trump, said it was hard to predict how long the operations would continue.

The House and Senate repeatedly failed to either approve or disapprove of Clinton’s actions through a series of votes across March and April 1999. But lawmakers did send him supplemental appropriations for the operations in May.

NATO suspended the operation after 78 days. Almost a year later, a federal appellate court upheld a district court’s decision rejecting a lawsuit led by Rep. Tom Campbell, a California Republican, alleging Clinton violated the War Powers Resolution. Rather than deciding on the merits, the decision rejected the lawmakers’ claims of injury as not reviewable by the court.

Obama did it, too

In a very different context, a similar rhythm played out during President Barack Obama’s presidency.

During the “Arab Spring” revolts of 2010-2011, the U.N. Security Council passed two resolutions condemning violence against Libyan civilians by security forces under the direction of Colonel Moammar Gadhafi.

On March 21, 2011, two days after NATO operations began against Gadhafi’s forces, which included American air support, Obama sent his War Powers Resolution letter to the Republican House and Democratic Senate. Obama had not received prior legislative authority from Congress.

Obama’s letter included language almost identical to Clinton’s earlier letter and Trump’s later one.

As with Kosovo, the House and Senate did not ultimately agree to either approve or disapprove of the president’s actions in support of the UN and NATO over the operation’s 222 days. In addition, Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio led a group of mostly Republican House members in a failed War Powers Resolution lawsuit to stop the president.

Unilateral action endures

The Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice has published legal opinions that explain and defend presidential war powers, including with Kosovo and Libya. In December 2025, that office published a memo defending the imminent January 2026 capture of Nicolás Maduro. On April 21, 2026, the State Department published a defense of ongoing U.S. actions in Iran.

Within the current dynamics of the War Powers Resolution, until Congress musters bipartisan supermajorities to connect its own institutional ambition with constitutional power, presidents from either party will decide alone if, and when, the country goes to war. Instead of Congress, presidents may heed public opinion and economic indicators, especially in election years.

Jasmine Farrier is affiliated with the American Political Science Association.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

The phrase “concentration camp” is freighted with dark historical meaning. Most people hear it and instinctively think of concentration camps used by the Nazis to exterminate Jews and other minority populations during the Holocaust.

But the use and name of concentration camps originated far earlier. In the late 1800s, Spanish military officials used concentration camps – reconcentrados – during their 1896–97 Cuban campaign to isolate civilians from rebels, resulting in widespread death and disease.

We are scholars whose research into international relations and conflict includes studying historical and modern uses of these systems of camps as a form of repression.

In recent peer-reviewed research, we identified four characteristics that define what qualifies as a concentration camp system: targeting groups of civilians for imprisonment; enclosed spaces where the state controls who enters and exits; departure from standard detention practices; and abuse and neglect. We then created a dataset detailing 150 systems of camps used globally since 1896 that fit this criteria. This includes the U.S. internment of more than 125,000 Japanese immigrants and Japanese American citizens during World War II, the Argentine military junta’s use of camps in their mid-1970s campaign to reorganize society, and Vladimir Putin’s use of so-called filtration camps in Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Our use of the term “concentration camp” is not meant to sensationalize or diminish its historical meaning, particularly as it relates to the Holocaust.

Rather, identifying such systems early is how the concept of “never again” – the promise to prevent mass atrocities, such as genocide, and combat extremism – can be translated into meaningful policy action from the public and policymakers.

Based on our criteria, we believe the network of detention facilities maintained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement fits into this broader definition of a system of concentration camps.

The evolution of concentration camps

After the use of concentration camps by the Spanish in Cuba, British officials adopted the practice in southern Africa during their counterinsurgency campaign against the Boer population – descendants of Dutch, French and German Protestant settlers – at the turn of the 20th century. The British detained 110,000 Boers and 37,000 indigenous Blacks in their network of 120 camps. At least 27,000 Boers and 14,000 Blacks died as a result of rampant disease and insufficient food supplies.

By the time major German military operations in Eastern Europe began in 1939, states around the world had erected more than 30 systems of concentration camps, according to our research.

Yet the term soon took on an even darker meaning. Concentration camps were employed most infamously as part of the Nazi regime’s brutal genocide in the 1930s and ’40s. In its 12 years in power, the Nazi government opened more than 1,000 concentration camps in which it detained millions of individuals. In addition to facilitating the Nazi Holocaust and other group-targeted violence against minoritized and non-German populations, Nazi security forces used the camps to repress political opposition and provide labor to the German civilian and military economies.

Though few camp systems have reached the severity or scale of those used during the Holocaust, modern camps often pursue similar goals of ethnic cleansing and forced displacement, practices such as torture and an absence of due process.

In our study, we found 93 examples of systems of concentration camps used since the conclusion of World War II. This includes more than 1,200 camps erected by Chinese authorities in Xinjiang province as part of an expansive policy of discrimination against the Uyghur population there. The Chinese government has detained more than 1 million Muslim Uyghurs since at least 2017, stripping them of their traditions, cultures and languages.

Our 4 criteria further explained

Our research confirms that the word “concentration” is critical to describing these camps. Two key criteria of the camps are the concentration of large numbers of targeted civilians into spaces, which are then secured by small numbers of captors who control who enters and exits the camps.

A third criteria we examined identifies concentration camps as “irregular” insofar as they operate outside of legal frameworks that regulate prisons, refugee camps and immigration detention centers. Concentration camps are run by separate authorities that deny detainees due process, such as formal criminal charges, legal representation or a fair trial.

The last criteria we used as we evaluated camps was the presence of squalor and routine violence. Specifically, we looked for evidence that detainees regularly experienced at least two forms of abuse, including but not limited to torture, beatings, mass killing, sexual violence, psychological abuse, lack of food, lack of water, lack of shelter, lack of healthcare, overcrowding and spread of disease.

ICE detention centers

As of April 2026, there are more than 240 active ICE detention facilities across the U.S.

Migrants held in these camps are not free to leave, though some are given a choice: self-deport − agreeing to leave the country immediately − or remain in custody. Since the beginning of Trump’s second term, migrants have filed more than 34,000 habeas corpus petitions challenging their confinement without trial, exercising a constitutional right.

Based on the criteria we developed, ICE detention camps fit in the spectrum of a system of concentration camps.

Starting with the first criteria, groups of civilians are being targeted by ICE, often based on their perceived ethnicity.

Though ICE’s stated mission is to detain those without documented legal status, many arrests have been based on physical appearance and location rather than evidence of unlawful presence in the United States.

More than 272,000 people arrested by ICE in the first six months of Trump’s second term were booked into ICE detention facilities. While deportations are increasing at a rapid rate, at least 60,000 people remain in detention facilities as of April 2026 – neither released nor deported. These numbers easily exceed counts of individuals held in immigrant detention centers in earlier years.

Hundreds of U.S. citizens have been detained, without justification and against their will, by ICE. The number of individuals arrested in homes and communities, often without an arrest warrant signed by a judge, reached more than 400 people per day in October 2025.

In terms of the second part of our definition, these people are being concentrated in spaces where the Trump administration controls who, when and under what conditions people may enter or exit these facilities. Access has been restricted for lawyers, family members of migrants, journalists and members of Congress.

As for the third criteria, the ICE detention centers also operate separately from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons. ICE detention is managed by the Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations under the Department of Homeland Security, in collaboration with private prison companies.

As of April 2026, more than 70% of migrants had no criminal conviction, while many of the remainder were held for minor offenses, such as traffic violations. Failure to provide trials for migrants, particularly those who do not pose these risks, is a departure from established norms.

Our framework’s final criterion is purposeful abuse or neglect. This includes the practice of inflicting direct physical harm or the failure to provide basic necessities – food, water, shelter, healthcare.

Numerous reports have highlighted cutoffs in payments to third-party medical providers who gave care to detainees and a 36% decline in mandated detention facility inspections by ICE’s internal Office of Detention Oversight. These actions have resulted in unsanitary conditions and medical neglect in these facilities. Twenty-three deaths were reported between October 2025 and March 2026, putting the current fiscal year on pace to be the deadliest in over 20 years.

As scholars, we argue that ICE detention centers meet the criteria for concentration camps. We do so not to be provocative but to provide precise language, rather than euphemisms, so people can heed the warnings of atrocities committed in the past.

As journalist Andrea Pitzer argues in her writing about concentration camps, the longer camps exist, the more they shift from a transient emergency measure to a permanent pillar of state function.

Malia Hirasa and Sydney Horton, undergraduate students at the University of Arizona, contributed to this story.

Alex Braithwaite received funding from the US National Science Foundation (NSF) through grant award 2213615.

Rachel D. Van Nostrand 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 Sunshine State has joined Texas, California and a handful of other states in the battle of mid-decade redistricting.

On April 29, 2026, in a near party-line vote, the Florida Legislature adopted new congressional maps drawn by a staffer of Gov. Ron DeSantis. The GOP-led effort could lead to four more of Florida’s 28 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives turning Republican. Florida redrew its maps with the same underlying population data just four years ago.

Mid-decade redistricting in Florida was all but inevitable once Donald Trump made partisan map-drawing a national priority. Florida’s Republican legislators had little incentive – or political cover – to resist.

I’m a political scientist, and my research focuses on voting and elections. I’ve served as an expert in redistricting cases in Florida, and I’ve been tracking Florida voters’ opinions on DeSantis’ 2026 redistricting efforts.

What Florida voters think about gerrymandering overall

University of Florida Ph.D. student Rolland Grady and I conducted a representative survey of more than 2,300 Florida registered voters drawn randomly from the publicly available Florida voter file.

Participants had one week, from April 6-13, 2026, to fill out our web-based survey linked to an email invitation. We did not offer any incentives to respondents providing us with their opinions.

The results show broad, principled opposition to partisan gerrymandering in Florida. Roughly two-thirds of Florida voters we contacted said they oppose redrawing district lines to advantage a political party.

What they think about their own party gerrymandering

But beyond gauging how Florida voters feel about gerrymandering in theory, we wanted to see how they responded to actual scenarios of mid-decade redistricting, and whether it mattered to them which party was leading the redistricting.

So we designed an experimental survey: Before respondents were asked how they felt about mid-decade redistricting, each participant was randomly shown one of five different statements.

The control version of this statement read, “The redrawing of congressional district boundaries typically occurs every 10 years, immediately following the U.S. Census.”

The other versions gave that control statement, and then added information about a particular state – California, Texas or Florida – that was redrawing its maps, and which party was endorsing that gerrymandering.

Finally, there was a version of the statement that included the control statement, told voters that Republican Ron DeSantis was endorsing the redistricting in Florida, and then added a third line of text: “As you might know, in 2010 citizens in Florida passed the Fair Districts Amendment with bipartisan support of more than 60% of the vote.”

According to our survey results, Florida Democrats are intensely opposed to gerrymandering for partisan purposes when it is framed as benefiting Republicans. This strong opposition may increase the focus of big donors on Florida, helping to drive fundraising for Democratic candidates. It may also mobilize some Democrats to come out to the polls in November. But when it comes to persuasion, most Democrats who plan to vote in the midterm elections are already highly engaged and unlikely to support GOP candidates anyway.

Florida Republicans also oppose mid-decade redistricting in the abstract. Not surprisingly, support for drawing lines to help the GOP increases when framed as something DeSantis is pursuing, but only by 15 percentage points.

This suggests some latent, principled discomfort among GOP voters. On the other hand, strong messaging from Republican leaders, particularly Trump, in the run-up to the election may override concerns about fairness. Partisanship and leader-motivated behavior will drive many Republican voters to rationalize the GOP’s effort to increase their congressional margins by four seats.

Where independent voters fall

Finally, our poll finds that Florida independent voters have strong and consistently principled opposition to partisan gerrymandering; their support rarely exceeds 15% under any condition. But in Florida, independent voters, who are often registered with no party affiliation, are less politically organized or active than registered Republicans and Democrats. And it’s likely that these voters redrawn into a new congressional district will be even less knowledgeable about who represents them when it’s time to pick candidates.

It is possible that Democrats will be able to use GOP gerrymandering in November to get independent voters to the polls and oppose Republican candidates. But opposition to gaming the system is just one of many factors that will shape how independents vote. Other issues, such as concerns over the rising cost of living, immigration, foreign policy and presidential approval, usually play a much greater role in determining candidate choice in midterm elections.

The Florida GOP’s mid-decade redistricting gambit reveals a troubling truth about American democracy: Voters oppose partisan gerrymandering in principle but tolerate it in practice when their side benefits.

So even though a majority of Florida voters disapprove of the GOP’s effort to tilt the state’s map even further toward electing Republicans, I’m not expecting widespread punishment of Republican incumbents due to these redistricting efforts.

DeSantis is betting that Trump’s influence will paper over GOP voters’ discomfort, that Democrats will stay demoralized, and that independents will stay home in November.

How GOP gerrymandering could backfire

But just because the GOP’s gerrymandering won’t sway voters away from their party doesn’t mean it won’t end up hurting them at the polls.

DeSantis’ map crams Democrats into just four of 28 districts – a high-stakes gamble that requires lightning to strike twice. To succeed for the GOP, the map requires both 2024’s Democratic and independent voter apathy and 2022’s swing to the right by independents.

But midterms tend to bring lower turnout, and today’s economic squeeze plus Trump’s dismal approval ratings make another 2022-style GOP surge highly unlikely.

The worst case for the GOP would be a 2018-style blue wave. It would destroy DeSantis’ gerrymander and could potentially flip three South Florida GOP seats and two in Central Florida to Democrats. Aggressive redistricting may meet unintended consequences come November.

See you in court

Florida Democrats and other groups will likely sue under the state constitution’s Fair Districts amendments, which were adopted in 2010 by Florida voters of all political stripes. These amendments to the Florida Constitution expressly prohibit redrawing districts with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent.

But DeSantis and his lawyers are setting the stage to defend the mid-decade partisan gerrymander. They fully expect that the Florida Supreme Court will strike down the Fair Districts amendments’ ban on partisan redistricting. The odds are stacked against the citizens of Florida who support fair districts.

In my view, the real losers here are the Florida voters, particularly those who approved the state’s Fair Districts amendments in 2010, which were a bipartisan triumph.

Daniel A. Smith is an Advisory Board Member of Common Cause Florida and President of ElectionSmith.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

President Donald Trump sparked immediate outcry on April 12, 2026, when he posted an image of himself as a Jesus-like figure. The post, which Trump later said was supposed to depict him as a doctor, came shortly after the president criticized Pope Leo XIV as “weak” and “terrible.”

Three days later, Trump posted an image depicting Jesus with his left hand on the president’s shoulder. Referring to that post, Trump observed, “Radical Left Lunatics might not like this, but I think it is quite nice!!!”

These posts help illustrate the political messianism that Trump has brought to the Oval Office.

Political messianism is a style of leadership that places great faith in a single leader who is endowed with godlike attributes. It does not welcome dissent, and it portrays politics as a struggle between good and evil.

Eric Voegelin, a 20th-century political thinker, warned that political messianism often fuels authoritarian rule. It divides society, with a messianic leader’s supporters seeing him as a savior who will deliver their country into a golden age, while opponents foresee a coming apocalypse.

Democratic politics thrive when leaders and followers act with modesty and humility, when no one sees themselves as infallible or indispensable. As someone who teaches and writes about U.S. democracy, I don’t think it can thrive, or even survive, when its leaders see themselves as godlike and when the citizenry is divided into true believers and heretics.

Trump’s messianic vision

The image depicting Trump as a Jesus-like figure is the latest evidence of the president’s messiah complex.

At the Republican National Convention in 2016, he boasted that “I alone can fix it,” referring to a system that was responsible for what he would later call “American carnage.”

In a 2019 speech, Trump referred to himself as “the chosen one.”

In 2023, he described what he had done in his first term this way: “I think you would have a nuclear war if I weren’t elected.” As president, “I was very busy. I consider this the most important job in the world, saving millions of lives.”

And in a Jan. 8, 2026, interview with The New York Times, Trump said, “I don’t need international law,” since his actions as commander in chief were guided only by “my own morality. My own mind.”

The president is not alone in believing in his messiah status, or in comparing himself to Christ. On April 2, 2026, at a White House Easter celebration, Paula White-Cain, one of his spiritual advisers, used Jesus’ death and resurrection to explain what had happened to Trump.

“Jesus taught so many lessons through his death, burial, and resurrection,” she said. “He showed us great leadership, great transformation requires great sacrifice. And Mr. President … you were betrayed and arrested and falsely accused. It’s a familiar pattern that our lord and savior showed us.”

Democracy and humility

In a democracy, it’s dangerous for leaders to see themselves as better than or morally superior to the people they serve. President Joe Biden captured that insight when, after he was elected, he recalled a family mantra instilled in him by his mother: “‘Joey, no one is better than you. Everyone is your equal, and everyone is equal to you.’”

The political philosophy scholar Michael Sandel, whose book “The Tyranny of Merit” seeks to explain what happens to democracy when people, not just leaders, think that they are better than others, argues that such a view breeds “meritocratic hubris.” Such hubris has “a corrosive effect … on the social bonds that constitute our common life,” he writes.

“Humility is a civic virtue essential to this moment,” he adds. “It’s a necessary antidote to the meritocratic hubris that has driven us apart. It points … toward a less rancorous, more generous public life.”

Michael Walzer, another political theorist, explained the dangers of messianic politics this way: It “poses dangers to social order and national survival.” When it takes hold, he writes, “compromise is preempted by command; moral absolutism leaves no room – or all too little – for maneuver in times of crisis and emergency.”

Presidential fallibility

Even the greatest American presidents have not seen themselves as American saviors. They embraced at least some of the humility Sandel describes.

George Washington described the kind of person who would succeed him in office as just “a citizen,” not a savior or a person of extraordinary gifts. Their task, he thought, would not be grand. They would be chosen “to administer the executive government of the United States.”

Washington acknowledged that his judgment was “fallible” and that he’d made numerous errors during his time in office. “Whatever they may be,” he said, “I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend.”

He resisted the idea advanced by John Adams, who wanted the first U.S. chief executive to be called “His Elective Majesty,” “His Mightiness” and even “His Highness, the President of the United States of America and the Protector of their Liberties.” Washington turned down the pompous titles and accepted instead the simple title adopted by the House: “The President of the United States.”

Not a trace of a messiah complex in someone who could understandably have seen himself that way.

Or take Abraham Lincoln.

In his Gettysburg Address, considered one of the greatest speeches in American history, Lincoln did not toot his own horn or exaggerate the significance of his own words. Just the opposite.

As Rabbi Menachem Genack observes, Lincoln asserted during the dedication of the cemetery for fallen soldiers at Gettysburg that “’the world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here.’ (T)hat phrase was not an expression of false modesty nor just a poor prediction of how that tribute would be recorded. It was a symbol of deep-seated humility.”

And in an 1860 letter to an admirer who wanted to inscribe a book to him during his first presidential campaign, Lincoln responded that “begging only that the inscription may be in modest terms, not representing me as a man of great learning, or a very extraordinary one in any respect.”

Almost 100 years later, President Harry Truman referred to himself as nothing more than an “old man who by accident became president of the United States.”

‘If men were angels’

Writing in 1788, Alexander Hamilton reminded Americans of a key maxim of life in a constitutional democracy. Government, he said, is “the greatest of all reflections on human nature. If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

“If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary,” Hamilton said. “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

Democracy is a mode of government built on the idea that none of us is infallible, including those who assume positions of leadership. Elections give the people the chance to change course and correct mistakes.

Presidential scholar Stephen Hess captured the essence of democratic leadership in a 2009 interview with Reuters. He said: “It’s more important to admit mistakes than to make them.”

In the end, as Walzer observes, there can be no messiahs in a democracy. The leader cannot “cast aside” the people. In a democracy, they must be “chastised, defended, argued with, educated” by those who lead.

Those “activities,” Walzer insists, “undercut and defeat” any pretense that it is only the leader who knows the way.

Austin Sarat 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