Philippa Kaur

A series of recent events has sparked alarm about rising levels of political violence in the U.S. These episodes include the assassination of political activist Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10, 2025; the murder of a Democratic Minnesota state legislator and her husband in June 2025; and two attempts to kill Donald Trump during the 2024 presidential campaign.

Some surveys have reported that a large number of Americans are willing to support the use of force for political ends, or they believe that political violence may sometimes be justified.

My research is in political science and data analytics. I have conducted surveys for almost 25 years. For the past three years, I have studied new techniques that leverage artificial intelligence to conduct and analyze interviews.

My own recent surveys, which use AI to ask people about why they give their answers, show that the surprisingly high level of support in response to these questions is likely the result of confusion about what these questions are asking, not actual support for political violence.

Law enforcement officials lead a procession as pallbearers carry caskets after a funeral ceremony for Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, on June 28, 2025, in Minneapolis.
Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

A failure to communicate

Why would multiple surveys get the answers to this important question wrong? I believe the cause is an issue called response error. It means that respondents don’t interpret a question in the way the researcher thinks they will.

As a result, the answers people provide don’t really reflect what the researcher thinks the answers show.

For example, asking whether someone would support the use of force to achieve a political goal raises the question of what the respondent thinks “use of force” means in this context. It could be interpreted as violence, but it could also be interpreted as using legal means to “force” someone to do something.

Such response errors have been a concern for pollsters ever since survey research began. They can affect even seemingly straightforward questions.

What did you mean by that?

To avoid this problem, I used an AI interviewing system developed by CloudResearch, a well-known survey research company, to ask respondents some of the same questions about political violence from previous surveys. Then I used it to ask what they were thinking when they answered those questions. This process is called cognitive interviewing.

I then used AI to go through these interviews and categorize them. Two short reports that summarize this process as applied to both polls are available online. These analyses have not been peer-reviewed, and the results should be considered very preliminary.

Nonetheless, the results clearly demonstrate that respondents interpret these questions in very different ways.

Nuance matters

For example, in my survey, about 33% of Democrats agreed with the statement that “use of force is justified to remove President Trump from office.” However, when asked why they agreed, more than 57% gave responses like this: “I was not thinking physically but more in the sense that he – the president – might need to be ‘fired’ or forced out of office due to rules or laws.” Still others were envisioning future scenarios where a president illegally seizes power in a coup.

Once you account for these different interpretations of the question, the AI only coded about 8% of Democrats as supporting use of force in violent terms under current conditions.

Even here, there was substantial ambiguity – for example, this type of response was not unusual: “The language ‘use of force’ was a bit too broad for me. I could not justify killing Trump, for example, but less extreme uses of force were valid in my eyes.”

Similarly, 29% of Republicans agreed that “use of the military is justified to stop protests against President Trump’s agenda.” However, almost all of the respondents who agreed with this statement envisioned the National Guard interceding nonviolently to stop violent protests and riots. Only about 2.6% of Republicans gave comments supporting use of the military against nonviolent protests.

Almost all those who agreed that use of the military was justified expressed thoughts like this: “I see the military coming and acting as a police force to stop or prevent the demonstrations that become violent. Peaceful protesters must be allowed to exercise their right to free speech.”

People prepare to march in a ‘No Kings’ protest against Trump administration policies in New York City on June 14, 2025.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

When is political violence justified?

Even questions that explicitly ask about political violence are open to wide interpretation. Take, for example, this question: “Do you think it is ever justified for citizens to resort to violence in order to achieve political goals?”

The lack of a specific scenario or location in this question invites respondents to engage in all kinds of philosophical and historical speculation.

In my survey, almost 15% of respondents said violence could sometimes be justified. When asked about the examples they were thinking of, respondents cited the American Revolution, the anti-Nazi French Resistance and many other incidents as a reason for their responses. Only about 3% of respondents said they were thinking about actions in the U.S. at the current time.

Moreover, almost all respondents stated that violence should be a last resort when all other peaceful and legal methods fail.

One respondent illustrated both problems with one sentence: “The (American) colonists tried petitions and negotiations first, but, when those efforts failed, they resorted to armed conflict to gain independence.”

A call for understanding

Even these numbers likely overestimate Americans’ support for political violence. I read the interviews, checking the AI system’s labeling, and concluded that, if anything, it was overestimating support for violence.

Other factors may also be distorting reports of public support for political violence. Many surveys are conducted primarily online. One study estimated that anywhere from 4% to 7% of respondents in online surveys are “bogus respondents” who are selecting arbitrary responses. Another study reported that such respondents dramatically increase positive responses on questions about political violence.

Respondents may also be willing to espouse attitudes anonymously online that they would never say or do in real life. Studies have suggested that “online disinhibition effects” or “survey trolling” can impact survey results.

In sum, my preliminary research suggests that response error is a substantial problem in surveys about political violence.

Americans almost universally condemn the recent political violence they have witnessed. The recent poll results showing otherwise more likely stem from confusion about what the questions are asking than actual support for political violence. More

It’s been eight days since a partial US government shutdown began on October 1, owing to a failure by Congress to agree to a new budget by the September 30 deadline.

Democrats are refusing to help to pass a budget unless health insurance subsidies are extended, while Republicans and President Donald Trump want a budget passed without these subsidies. There does not appear to be any progress towards ending the shutdown.

Analyst G. Elliott Morris has reported polls that have Republicans and Trump blamed for the shutdown by six to 17 points more than Democrats. In a YouGov poll for CBS News, by 40–28 respondents said the Democratic positions were not worth the shutdown, and by 45–23 they said the same of the Republican positions.

In analyst Nate Silver’s US national poll aggregate, Trump has a net approval of -9.4, with 52.7% disapproving and 43.3% approving. His net approval dropped two points in late September, but the shutdown hasn’t changed it yet.

Trump’s net approval on the four issues tracked by Silver are -4.7 on immigration, -15.3 on the economy, -15.6 on trade and -27.4 on inflation. His net approval on trade and inflation has risen in the last two weeks.

In November 2026 all of the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate will be up for election at midterm elections. Morris’ generic ballot average has Democrats leading Republicans by 44.9–42.1. Democrats have led narrowly since April.

In polling conducted before the shutdown started, Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer averaged a net favourability of -20.5 according to Silver, making him the least popular of the six party leaders (Trump, Vice President JD Vance and the Democratic and Republican House and Senate leaders).

Schumer’s poor ratings are due to weak ratings from Democratic-aligned voters. A Pew poll gave him an overall 50–21 unfavourable rating, including 39–35 unfavourable with Democrats. There’s pressure on Schumer from his own party to fight Trump harder. If Democrats are perceived to have caved to Republicans, Schumer is likely to be blamed by other Democrats.

How do shutdowns affect the US economy?

There have been 11 US government shutdowns since 1980, with seven of them lasting five days or less. The longest shutdown (35 days) occurred during Trump’s first term after Democrats gained control of the House in November 2018 elections.

Shutdowns are economically damaging, but past shutdowns haven’t lasted long enough to do great damage, and the economy rebounds once the shutdown is over.

Shutdowns result in far less government economic data. The September jobs report was to be released last Friday, but this won’t happen until after the shutdown finishes.

Despite the shutdown, the benchmark US S&P 500 stock index surged to a new record high in Wednesday’s session, and is up 4% in the last month. The stock market has been supporting Trump since it rebounded from April lows.

Why is there a shutdown when Republicans control both chambers?

Republicans won the House of Representatives by 220–215 over Democrats at the November 2024 elections and currently hold it by 219–213, with two special elections to occur later this year. A Democrat who won a September 23 special election has not yet been formally certified the winner.

Republicans also hold a 53–47 majority in the Senate.

In the Senate, legislation usually needs to clear a 60-vote “filibuster” threshold. The filibuster allows at least 41 senators to indefinitely delay legislation they disagree with. To reach 60 votes, Republicans need at least seven Democratic senators to vote with them.

The filibuster is not part of the US Constitution, and the majority party could eliminate it. But some Republican senators are probably worried about what Democrats would do if they won the presidency and majorities in both chambers of Congress.

The filibuster cannot be applied to all legislation. Trump’s “big beautiful bill” passed the Senate using “reconciliation” by 51–50 on Vance’s tie-breaking vote. But reconciliation is a cumbersome process that isn’t appropriate for a normal budget bill.

Ipsos poll on Trump’s troop deployments

Trump has deployed national guard troops on home soil in Chicago, Illinois, and attempted to also do this in Portland, Oregon. The national guard has assisted before, during environmental disasters and protests, but Trump’s deployments are against the wishes of the affected states’ governors.

In an Ipsos US national poll for Reuters, respondents thought by 58–25 that the president should only deploy troops to areas with external threats. By 48–37, they did not think the president should be able to send troops into a state if its governor objects. More

The United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform recently released a 238-page album, compiled by Ghislaine Maxwell in 2003 for Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday. On Oct. 6, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Maxwell’s appeal of her 2022 conviction for sex trafficking girls with Epstein.

The release of the partially redacted album is part of a larger investigation of the federal government’s handling of Epstein and Maxwell and “possible mismanagement.”

Read more:
Trump’s Epstein problem is real: New poll shows many in his base disapprove of his handling of the files, and some supporters are having second thoughts about electing him

The album is in the spotlight due to an entry allegedly penned by U.S. President Donald Trump, though the White House has denied he wrote it. Entitled The First Fifty Years, the book overflows with handwritten letters, campy sketches and images fixated on women’s bodies.

The book was bound by Weitz & Coleman, an esteemed bookbinder in New York City since 1909, as indicated by a note within the album itself.

Its “vegetable tanned” leather covers, table of contents and sections titled “Family,” “Friends” and “Business” signal an intent to elevate casual notes into a permanent record.

As book historian D.F. McKenzie contends, a book’s physical form shapes its social role. Here, the elaborate binding and careful organization transform private, ephemeral notes into a social gesture, something shared in a legacy format.

In this sense, Epstein’s album sits alongside a tradition of bound tribute books — scrapbooks pressed into leather for golden anniversaries, glossy volumes marking a CEO’s retirement or academic festschrifts that canonize a career. What unites them is the transformation of passing moments into artifacts meant to endure.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., talks to reporters about the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 19, 2025.
(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Charm, codes, clichés

Maxwell’s prologue describes the book as a retrospective to “jog your memory of places and people and different events.”

In the birthday book, one redacted former “assistant” recalls how working for Epstein transformed her life: she went from being “a 22-year-old divorcée working as a hotel hostess” to rubbing shoulders with royalty, presidents, financiers and celebrities.

One letter from a childhood friend who recently said Maxwell instructed him to write something “raunchy” spins a sexually explicit fantasy about Epstein’s conception before drifting into nostalgic tales of their four-boy Brooklyn clique.

In one vignette, Epstein is praised for flaunting a “beautiful British babe” at his family’s home, his indifference to her feelings reframed as charm. The anecdote turns callousness toward women into a badge of confidence and belonging. The letter concludes: “That shows a lot. It really does … Yes, your charisma and persuasive ways came very early on … you’re my kid’s role model.”

Epstein’s sex life and treatment of women are recurring themes.

A note apparently from private equity investor Leon Black, who was earlier found to have paid millions in fees to Epstein, cast Epstein as Ernest Hemingway’s hero in The Old Man and the Sea, swapping fish for “Blonde, Red or Brunette” women.

Officials speak during a news conference to announce charges against Ghislaine Maxwell in 2020, in New York. Maxwell is now in federal prison for conspiring with Epstein to sexually abuse minors.
(AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Philosophers and scholars of rhetoric have long noted that ready-made clichés can replace inner reflection, forming a “code of expression” that insulates people from moral reckoning.

Laughter as defence

If language conveys loyalty, humour compounds it. Composed in 2003, as Epstein’s notoriety grew, today — amid the knowledge of Epstein’s sex crimes — the birthday book’s laughter seems knowingly defensive.

There are bawdy jokes and mocking nicknames: Epstein is dubbed “Degenerate One” and teased or taunted with “so many girls, so little time.”

As French philosopher Henri Bergson argued, laughter functions as a social corrective: a “kind of social ragging” that polices behaviour by ridiculing deviation under the guise of amusement.

One birthday book contributor quips that Epstein had “avoided the penitentiary.” The comment implies knowledge of punishable behaviour, yet also suggests Epstein is an affable rogue.

Figures of authority

The book’s inclusion of entries from public office and science figures could suggest Maxwell and Epstein sought to keep or commemorate connections with figures of authority as a form of perceived legitimacy.

The Wall Street Journal reported that former U.S. president Bill Clinton, whose name appears in the album’s “Friends” section, gave Epstein a handwritten note praising his “childlike curiosity” and drive to “make a difference.” In 2019, a spokesperson for Clinton said he severed ties with Epstein prior to his 2019 arrest and he was not aware of Epstein’s alleged crimes.

Peter Mandelson, recently forced out as the United Kingdom’s ambassador to the U.S. after the Epstein birthday book’s release, penned a note saying Epstein was an “intelligent, sharp-witted man.” Mandelson has said he felt tremendous regret over his Epstein friendship and sympathy for Epstein’s victims.

The birthday book’s “Science” section, with letters from leading scientists, shows that Epstein’s reach extended beyond business and politics into elite academic networks.

Read more:
How higher ed can deal with ethical questions over its disgraced donors

Eroticized power and dominance

While some entries strike a mundane or playful tone, others veer into vulgarity.

The former CEO of Victoria’s Secret, Leslie Wexner, contributed a sketch resembling a woman’s breasts with the words “I wanted to get you what you want… so here it is” — framing it as a present. Wexner has said before he severed ties with Epstein in 2007 and declined to comment about the book.

The note allegedly written by Trump features a drawing of a naked woman alongside typewritten text imagining a conversation between them. It calls Epstein “a pal” and ends with the wish that “every day be another wonderful secret.”

Former Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold contributed a series of African wildlife photographs, claiming they spoke more vividly than words. The images — of copulating lions and a zebra with an erect penis — foreground predatory and sexualized behaviour, and may be interpreted as reflecting a fascination with dominance and raw biological impulse.

The Seattle Times reports that a spokesperson for Myhrvold said Myhrvold knew Epstein “from TED conferences and as a donor to basic scientific research” and “regrets that he ever met him.” The representative did not address the letter.

This image posted Sept. 8, 2025, on the X account of the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, shows a sexually suggestive birthday note to Jeffrey Epstein alluding to a ‘wonderful secret’ and purportedly signed by U.S. President Donald Trump, who has denied sending the note.
(@OversightDems/X via AP)

The legacy of small gestures

While journalists have long documented that Epstein’s networks stretched from political leaders and Wall Street financiers to influential figures in science and culture, it remains to be seen how the carefully curated and gifted birthday book fits into the larger investigation.

The book’s most insidious achievement is its ordinariness. It suggests the ways that power is fortified and legitimized not only with contracts and institutions but through gestures of social life, including commemorative books. More

Not long after U.S. housing prices reached a record high this summer – the median existing home went for US$435,000 in June – President Donald Trump said that he was considering a plan to make home sales tax-free.

Supporters of the idea, introduced by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene as the No Tax on Home Sales Act in July, say it would benefit working families by eliminating all taxes on the sales of family homes.

But most Americans who sell their homes already do so tax-free. And the households that would gain most under Trump’s proposals are those with the most valuable real estate.

As a legal scholar who studies how taxes affect racial and economic inequality, I see this proposal as part of a familiar pattern: measures advertised as relief for ordinary families that mostly benefit the well-off.

Most families already sell their homes tax-free

Right now, according to the Internal Revenue Code, a single person pays no tax on the first $250,000 in gain from a home sale, while married people can exclude $500,000. All told, about 90% of home sales generate less than $500,000 in gains, so the overwhelming majority of sellers already owe no tax.

The minority who would see new benefits from the proposed tax change are those with more than $500,000 in appreciation – typically owners of high-priced homes in hot real estate markets. Yale’s Budget Lab estimated the average benefit for these tax-free sales was $100,000 per qualifying seller.

Homeownership itself isn’t equally distributed across the U.S. population. About 44% of Black Americans are homeowners, compared with 74% of white Americans. That racial gap has only widened over the past 10 years. Similarly, single women – particularly but not exclusively women of color – face additional barriers.

A broader trend of upward wealth transference

Though still just a proposal, the tax-free home sales bill is part of a broader set of Republican tax plans that would have regressive effects – that is, where the vast majority of benefits go to high-income people and very few to low-income people – under a pro-worker banner.

Trump floated the tax-free home sales idea less than three weeks after he signed a large package of tax and spending measures in July 2025. That bill generated strong public criticism because of its emphasis on tax savings for the rich at the expense of almost a trillion dollars in cuts for federally funded health care for the poor and disabled.

The home sales idea follows the same script – and echoes the distributional pattern established by his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. That tax reform increased racial wealth and income disparities and provided 80% of its benefits to corporations and high-income individuals. In fact, my research shows that white households received more than twice as many tax cuts as Black households from that law.

The same dynamic plays out in this new tax-fueled housing policy. Eliminating capital gains taxes on home sales would primarily benefit the 29 million homeowners who already have substantial equity – a group that skews heavily white, male and upper middle class. Meanwhile, America’s millions of renters, disproportionately people of color and women, would receive no benefit while potentially losing access to social programs Congress must cut to fund these tax breaks. More

US President Donald Trump’s net approval in analyst Nate Silver’s aggregate of US national polls slid two points in the last week to -9.4, after his ratings had been stable since late July. Currently, 53.1% disapprove of his performance, compared to 43.7% who approve.

Trump’s net approval was worse last Wednesday at -10.0 before recovering. This is only slightly better than his worst net approval of this term, -10.3 on July 22.

In Silver’s historic approval data, Trump’s ratings are worse than any other president after Harry Truman – they only top his own ratings at this stage of his first term.

Trump’s ratings may have slid over his administration’s controversial attempts to cancel the late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel. Analyst G. Elliott Morris cited a YouGov poll this week in which 68% of Americans said it was unacceptable for the government to pressure broadcasters to remove shows it disagrees with, compared to just 12% who said it was acceptable.

An alternative explanation for the slide in Trump’s ratings is inflation. Silver tracks Trump’s ratings on four issues: immigration, the economy, trade and inflation. Trump’s net approval on immigration (-5.3), the economy (-15.6) and trade (-17.3) have held up in the last month, but his net approval on inflation (-30.0) has dropped six points since the end of August.

The benchmark US S&P 500 stock index peaked last Monday at nearly 6,700 points, an increase of 2.8% in the last month.

I believe Trump’s ratings are unlikely to become very poor unless something goes badly wrong with either the stock market or the broader US economy.

US and UK elections and polls

Last Tuesday, Democrats held Arizona’s seventh House district in a US special election, with a substantial swing in their favour.

Other US state and local elections will happen on November 4, covered here in The Poll Bludger.

There will also be a deputy Labour leadership election in the United Kingdom in late October. The far-right Reform party is leading Labour by about ten points in national polls and would probably win a majority in the House of Commons on current voting intentions, given the UK’s first-past-the-post system.

Victorian polls are contradictory

A Victorian state Redbridge poll for The Herald Sun, conducted September 3–11 from a sample of 2,005 voters, gave Labor a 52–48% lead over the Coalition, a 0.5-point gain for Labor since July.

Primary votes were 37% Coalition (down one point), 32% Labor (down one), 13% Greens (down one) and 18% for all others (up three). The next Victorian election is in November 2026.

A Victorian state DemosAU poll, conducted September 2–9 from a sample of 1,327 voters, however, gave the Coalition a 51–49% lead. Primary votes were 38% Coalition, 26% Labor, 15% Greens and 21% for all others.

Liberal Brad Battin led Labor incumbent Jacinta Allan by 37–32% as preferred premier. Respondents thought Victoria was headed in the wrong direction by a wide margine, 58–25%. A quarter of respondents thought crime was the most important issue, while 24% said cost of living was.

Federal Labor led the Coalition in Victoria by a 55–45% margin. Primary votes were 32% Labor, 29% Coalition, 13% Greens, 12% One Nation and 14% for all others. One Nation’s vote in this poll is six points above its 2025 election result.

NSW Resolve poll has big Labor lead

A NSW state Resolve poll for The Sydney Morning Herald, conducted with the federal August and September Resolve polls from a sample of over 1,000 voters, gave Labor 38% of the primary vote (steady since July), the Coalition 28% (down four), the Greens 10% (down three), independents 11% (up three) and others 12% (up two).

Resolve doesn’t usually give a two-party estimate for its state polls, but The Poll Bludger estimated a Labor lead by 59–41%. Labor incumbent Chris Minns led Liberal Mark Speakman as preferred premier by 37–16% (compared to 35–16% in July).

This poll was released shortly after Labor gained the seat of Kiama that had been held by convicted sex offender Gareth Ward at a September 13 byelection.

Labor’s Katelin McInerney defeated the Liberals’ Serena Copley at the byelection by a 60.2–39.8% margin. (Ward had beaten McInerney by 50.8–49.2% as an independent at the March 2023 election).

The next NSW election is in March 2027.

Labor holds large lead in federal Morgan poll

A national Morgan poll, conducted August 25 to September 21 from a sample of 5,084 voters, gave Labor a 55.5–44.5% lead by headline respondent preferences, a one-point gain for the Coalition since the August Morgan poll.

Primary votes were 34% Labor (steady), 30% Coalition (steady), 12% Greens (steady), 9.5% One Nation (up 0.5) and 14.5% for all others (down 0.5). By 2025 election preference flows, Labor led by an unchanged 55.5–44.5%.

The Coalition has taken the lead in Queensland, leading by 51.5–48.5%, but Labor is well ahead in all other states. Queensland was the only state the Coalition won at the 2025 federal election (by 50.6–49.4%).

Labor had a commanding 69–31% lead among those aged 18–34, a 59–41% lead with those aged 35–49 and a 50.5–49.5% lead with those aged 50–64. The Coalition had a 56–44% lead with those aged 65 and older.

Newspoll aggregate data for July to September

On September 21, the Australian released aggregate data
for the three Newspolls taken from July 14 to September 11. The overall sample size was 3,811 people, and Labor led by 57–43% across all three polls.

The Poll Bludger reported that Labor led by 60–40% in New South Wales, 58–42% in Victoria, 51–49% in Queensland, 54–46% in Western Australia and 55–45% in South Australia. Morgan had Labor ahead by 56.5–43.5% in NSW, with the election result there at 55.3–44.7% to Labor.

Labor led with university-educated people by a 60–40% margin. Labor also led by 57–43% among those with a TAFE/technical education, but only by 53–47% among those with no tertiary education.

Additional federal Resolve questions

I covered the national Resolve poll for Nine newspapers that gave Labor a 55–45% lead over the Coalition.

In additional questions, 52% of respondents thought it was important for Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to meet Trump, although 58% had a negative view of Trump.

By 58–18%, voters also supported or accepted the adoption of nuclear-powered submarines by Australia (compared to 57–20% in November 2021).

There was a 29–29% tie on whether Australia should recognise Palestine as a state this month. On the Israel-Gaza war, 39% wanted an immediate end without preconditions, 22% only supported ending the war if Hamas is removed from power and 13% only when the remaining hostages are returned to Israel.

Liberals abandon Bradfield legal challenge

Last Thursday, the Liberals abandoned their legal challenge to teal Nicolette Boele’s 26-vote win in Bradfield at the May federal election.

The electoral commission had declared Boele the winner in June and she was seated pending the outcome of legal challenges. She will now serve a full term as the member for Bradfield. More

United States President Donald Trump is well advanced in his systematic campaign to undermine the American media and eviscerate its function of holding him and others in power to account.

Since the late 18th century this function has often been called the fourth estate. It’s the idea the media is a watchdog over the other three estates which, in modern democracies, are parliament, the executive government and the judiciary.

In the US, Trump has had considerable success in weakening the other three.

His Republican Party controls both Houses of Congress, and they have shown no sign of wishing to restrain him.

He has stacked the executive government with cronies and ideological fellow travellers, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr (and his anti-vaccination agenda) as secretary of health, a brief stint by Elon Musk as head of the Department of Government Efficiency, and former Fox News host Pete Hegseth as defence secretary.

He has secured the support of the Republican Party to stack the Supreme Court with politically aligned judges who have routinely struck down lower court decisions against Trump, most notably in the matter of deporting migrants to countries other than their homelands.

Pulling funding, applying pressure

The fourth estate’s turn started in March, when Trump stripped federal funding from Voice of America, a public broadcasting service with a global reach, because it was “anti-Trump” and “radical”.

These cuts also hit two other projections of American soft power, Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia.

In July, he cut funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) in a move that ended all federal support for National Public Radio, the Public Broadcasting service and their member stations.

Now he has turned to the private sector media. He does not have the power to cut their funding, so he is taking a different approach: financial shake-downs and threats to the foundations of their business.

In October 2024, even before he was elected, Trump sued the Paramount company for US$10 billion (about A$15 billion). He alleged an interview with Kamala Harris during the 2024 election campaign had been “deceptively edited” by the CBS television network, a Paramount subsidiary.

In February 2025, after he had been sworn in as president, Trump upped the ante to US$20 billion (A$30 billion).

The case was considered by lawyers to have no legal merit, but at that time, Paramount was anxious to merge with Skydance Media, and this was subject to regulatory approval from the Trump administration.

So Paramount was vulnerable to, how shall we say? Blackmail? Extortion? Subornation?

A busy, dangerous July

On July 2, Paramount settled with Trump for US$16 million (A$24 million), which ostensibly is to go towards funding his presidential library.

On July 17 Paramount’s CBS network announced its longtime Late Show would be cancelled from May 2026 after its presenter Stephen Colbert, an outspoken critic of Trump, condemned the corporate cave-in. The Trump administration approved the merger shortly after.

Subsequently the House of Representatives Judiciary and Energy and Commerce committees announced an investigation into whether the $16 million settlement constituted a bribe.

Also in July, Trump sued Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal for defamation arising from an article linking Trump to the sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. He claimed the now-familiar amount of US$10 billion (A$15 billion) in damages.

Legal experts in the US say Trump has next to no chance of winning. In the US, public figures who sue for defamation have to prove that the publisher was motivated by malice, which means they published either knowing the material to be untrue, or not caring whether it was true or not.

This case is never likely to end up in court, nor is it likely that Trump will see a red cent of Murdoch’s money. The two men need each other too much. To borrow a phrase from the Cold War, they are in a MAD relationship: Mutually Assured Destruction.

Coming to heel, one by one

Rupert Murdoch was a guest at Windsor Castle at the recent banquet given for Trump by King Charles.

Considering Murdoch’s bitter history with the Royal Family, it is difficult to imagine Buckingham Palace inviting him without Trump’s urging. It may have been a sign of rapprochement between the two men.

Meanwhile Trump has set his sights on The New York Times, suing it for defamation and claiming US$15 billion (A$27 billion).

Referring to the Times’ endorsement of Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election, he said it had become a “mouthpiece for the Radical Left Democrat Party”.

Despite lawsuit threats, the New York Times hasn’t capitulated to Trump – yet.
Mary Altaffer/AP

This case faces the same difficulties as his suit against the Wall Street Journal. The question is whether the Times will stand its ground or whether, like Paramount, it caves.

Among the big three US newspapers, the Times is the only one so far not to have been intimidated by Trump. The other two, The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, refused to endorse a candidate at the election on instructions from their owners, Jeff Bezos and Patrick Soon-Shiong respectively, both of whose wider business interests are vulnerable to Trumpian retribution.

Read more:
Two of the US’s biggest newspapers have refused to endorse a presidential candidate. This is how democracy dies

The Post’s decision was condemned as “spineless” by its celebrated former editor Marty Baron.

Now Disney is in the firing line. It owns another of the big four US television networks, ABC. On September 17, it pulled its late-night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Kimmel had responded to White House accusations that leftists were responsible for the assassination of Charlie Kirk, saying:

we hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.

In what had all the hallmarks of a preemptive buckle, ABC and two of its affiliate networks took Kimmel off air indefinitely after Brendan Carr, the Trump-appointed chair of the Federal Communications Commission, said his agency might “take action” against the network because of Kimmel’s comments.

Kimmel is returning to TV, but the damage is already done.

Read more:
Jimmy Kimmel’s cancellation is the latest sign we’re witnessing the end of US democracy

Over at cable network MSNBC, its senior political analyst Matthew Dowd was fired after he had uttered on air the blindingly obvious statement that Kirk’s own radical rhetoric may have contributed to the shooting that killed him.

This cable network is no longer part of the main NBC network, so it can’t be said that NBC itself has yet come to heel.

Within 24 hours of Brendan Carr’s veiled threat, Trump stripped the veil away and made the threat explicit. Trump said of the national networks:

All they do is hit Trump. They’re licensed, they’re not allowed to do that. They’re an arm of the Democrat party. I would think maybe their licence should be taken away.

Whether cancelling a licence would breach the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which protects freedom of speech, is a question that might ultimately come before the Supreme Court. Given the present ideological proclivities of that court, the outcome would be by no means certain.

So Trump now has two out of three national newspapers, and two out of the big four national television networks, on the run.

Only one national newspaper and two national networks to go, and one of those is Murdoch’s Fox News, Trump’s most reliable cheerleader. More

Protests are becoming a routine part of public life in the United States. Since 2017, the number of nonviolent demonstrations has almost tripled, according to researchers with the nonprofit Crowd Counting Consortium.

And more people are joining than ever. The Black Lives Matter marches in 2020, after George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis, have been described as the largest nonviolent mobilization in U.S. history. The No Kings protests against Trump administration policies on June 14, 2025, were not far behind, with between 2 million and 4.8 million Americans protesting nationwide

What explains this surge of protest activity?

My research shows that polarization – the extent to which people dislike members of the opposing party – is a key driver. Today political polarization, as reflected by the ratings Americans give to the political parties, continues to be at its highest level since political scientists began using the measure in 1964.

I am an expert on political behavior, and my work analyzes how polarization shapes public life. In a recent article published in the journal Social Forces, I analyzed surveys conducted between 2014 and 2021 that asked Americans whether they had joined protests connected to Black Lives Matter, the climate movement or the tea party, the small-government movement that was active in the early 2010s.

These surveys, which include over 14,000 respondents, make it possible to see what separates people who protest from those who stay home.

The data points to a clear pattern: Anger at the other side motivates protest. People who rated the opposing party more negatively at one point in time were much more likely to take part in demonstrations in the years that followed.

Dislike for the other side spurs action

Importantly, I found that partisan animosity was a strong motivator for taking part in protests, even after taking people’s feelings about the issues into account. In the surveys, respondents were asked detailed questions about their views on the movements’ topics: for example, whether white Americans enjoyed advantages that Black Americans did not, or how serious a problem they thought climate change was and whether it was caused by human activity.

This allowed me to calculate how much protest activity was due to partisan anger and how much was simply a result of policy concerns. The results surprised me.

For the two higher-profile movements – Black Lives Matter and the tea party – partisan animosity mattered for protest a little more than half as much as people’s feelings about racial inequality or government spending, respectively. For climate protests, the effect of partisan anger was even greater. How people felt toward the “other side” mattered 2½ times more for their decision to protest than did concern about climate change.

This finding matters because it shows that polarization is not just about what people think. It also changes how they participate in politics.

What’s known as “affective polarization,” or the tendency for partisans to dislike and distrust each other, has already been shown to affect how people view U.S. political parties and their willingness to be friends across party lines. My study showed that this kind of division also increases people’s real-world engagement with politics.

When partisans feel threatened or angry at the opposing side, they don’t just complain about it. They organize, hit the streets and march.

More division, more marches

The polarized nature of protest also helps explain why some of today’s protests address multiple issues. The No Kings protests in June 2025, for instance, challenged a number of actions, including funding cuts to social programs, ICE deportations and the deployment of troops in Los Angeles.

But the “King” in question was always clear: President Donald Trump. Protesters may not have shared identical or extreme views on every issue, but they were united by their opposition to Trump.

Protest has long been an infrequent activity, but that’s changing. In the 2020 American National Election Study, nearly 1 in 10 Americans said they had joined a protest in the past year, the highest figure recorded on that survey since the question was first asked in 1976.

That level of participation makes protest one of the most visible ways Americans now engage in politics. As polarization remains high, there is every reason to expect it will continue – starting with another nationwide No Kings protest planned for Oct. 18, 2025. More

A modern-day political inquisition is unfolding in “digital town squares” across the United States. The slain far-right activist Charlie Kirk has become a focal point for a coordinated campaign of silencing critics that chillingly echoes one of the darkest chapters in American history.

Individuals who have publicly criticised Kirk or made perceived insensitive comments regarding his death are being threatened, fired or doxed.

Teachers and professors have been fired or disciplined, one for posting that Kirk was racist, misogynistic and a neo-Nazi, another for calling Kirk a “hate-spreading Nazi”.

Journalists have also lost their jobs after making comments about Kirk’s assassination, as has the late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel.

A website called “Expose Charlie’s Murderers” had been posting the names, locations and employers of people saying critical things about Kirk before it was reportedly taken down. Vice President JD Vance has pushed for this public response, urging supporters to “call them out … hell, call their employer”.

This is far-right “cancel culture”, the likes of which the US hasn’t seen since the McCarthy era in the 1950s.

A demonstration in response to the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show outside of The Walt Disney Studios in California.
Jae C. Hong/AP

The birth of McCarthyism

The McCarthy era may well have faded in our collective memory, but it’s important to understand how it unfolded and the impact it had on America. As the philosopher George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Since the 1950s, “McCarthyism” has become shorthand for the practice of making unsubstantiated accusations of disloyalty against political opponents, often through fear-mongering and public humiliation.

Joseph McCarthy.
Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons

The term gets its name from Senator Joseph McCarthy, a Republican who was the leading architect of a ruthless witch hunt in the US to root out alleged Communists and subversives across American institutions.

The campaign included both public and private persecutions from the late 1940s to early 1950s, involving hearings before the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

A hearing before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1948.
AP

Millions of federal employees had to fill out loyalty investigation forms during this time, while hundreds of employees were either fired or not hired. Hundreds of Hollywood figures were also blacklisted.

The campaign also involved the parallel targeting of the LGBTQI+ community working in government – known as the Lavender Scare.

And similar to doxing today, witnesses in government hearings were asked to provide the names of communist sympathisers, and investigators gave lists of prospective witnesses to the media. Major corporations told employees who invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify they would be fired.

The greatest toll of McCarthyism was perhaps on public discourse. A deep chill settled over US politics, with people afraid to voice any opinion that could be construed as dissenting.

When the congressional records were finally unsealed in the early 2000s, the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said the hearings “are a part of our national past that we can neither afford to forget nor permit to reoccur”.

Sen. Joseph McCarthy chats with his attorney, Roy Cohn, during a Senate subcommittee hearing in 1954.
Library of Congress/Wikimedia Commons

Another witch hunt under Trump

Today, however, a similar campaign is being waged by the Trump administration and others on the right, who are stoking fears of the “the enemy within”.

This new campaign to blacklist government critics is following a similar pattern to the McCarthy era, but is spreading much more quickly, thanks to social media, and is arguably targeting far more regular Americans.

Even before Kirk’s killing, there were worrying signs of a McCarthyist revival in the early days of the second Trump administration.

After Trump ordered the dismantling of public Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs, civil institutions, universities, corporations and law firms were pressured to do the same. Some were threatened with investigation or freezing of federal funds.

In Texas, a teacher was accused of guiding Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) squads to suspected non-citizens at a high school. A group called the Canary Mission identified pro-Palestinian green-card holders for deportation. And just this week, the University of California at Berkeley admitted to handing over the names of staff accused of antisemitism.

Supporters of the push to expose those criticising Kirk have framed their actions as protecting the country from “un-American”, woke ideologies. This narrative only deepens polarisation by simplifying everything into a Manichean world view: the “good people” versus the corrupt “leftist elite”.

The fact the political assassination of Democratic lawmaker Melissa Hortman did not garner the same reaction from the right reveals a gross double standard at play.

Another double standard: attempts to silence anyone criticising Kirk’s divisive ideology, while being permissive of his more odious claims. For example, he once called George Floyd, a Black man killed by police, a “scumbag”.

In the current climate, empathy is not a “made-up, new age term”, as Kirk once said, but appears to be highly selective.

This brings an increased danger, too. When neighbours become enemies and dialogue is shut down, the possibilities for conflict and violence are exacerbated.

Many are openly discussing the parallels with the rise of fascism in Germany, and even the possibility of another civil war.

A sense of decency?

The parallels between McCarthyism and Trumpism are stark and unsettling. In both eras, dissent has been conflated with disloyalty.

How far could this go? Like the McCarthy era, it partly depends on the public reaction to Trump’s tactics.

McCarthy’s influence began to wane when he charged the army with being soft on communism in 1954. The hearings, broadcast to the nation, did not go well. At one point, the army’s lawyer delivered a line that would become infamous:

Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness […] Have you no sense of decency?

Without concerted, collective societal pushback against this new McCarthyism and a return to democratic norms, we risk a further coarsening of public life.

The lifeblood of democracy is dialogue; its safeguard is dissent. To abandon these tenets is to pave the road towards authoritarianism. More