Philippa Kaur

Small local organizations called Active Clubs have spread widely across the U.S. and internationally, using fitness as a cover for a much more alarming mission. These groups are a new and harder-to-detect form of white supremacist organizing that merges extremist ideology with fitness and combat sports culture.

Active Clubs frame themselves as innocuous workout groups on digital platforms and decentralized networks to recruit, radicalize and prepare members for racist violence. The clubs commonly use encrypted messaging apps such as Telegram, Wire and Matrix to coordinate internally.

For broader propaganda and outreach they rely on alternative social media platforms such as Gab, Odysee, VK and sometimes BitChute. They also selectively use mainstream sites such as Instagram, Facebook, X and TikTok, until those sites ban the clubs.

Active Club members have been implicated in orchestrating and distributing neo-Nazi recruitment videos and manifestos. In late 2023, for instance, two Ontario men, Kristoffer Nippak and Matthew Althorpe, were arrested and charged with distributing materials for the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen Division and the transnational terrorist group Terrorgram.

Following their arrests, Active Club Canada’s public network went dark, Telegram pages were deleted or rebranded, and the club went virtually silent. Nippak was granted bail under strict conditions, while Althorpe remains in custody.

As a sociologist studying extremism and white supremacy since 1993, I have watched the movement shift from formal organizations to small, decentralized cells – a change embodied most clearly by Active Clubs.

An investigation by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation tracks down two Ontario-based Active Clubs that recruit and train young men to fight.

White nationalism 3.0

According to private analysts who track far-right extremist activities, the Active Club network has a core membership of 400 to 1,200 white men globally, plus sympathizers, online supporters and passive members. The clubs mainly target young white men in their late teens and twenties.

Since 2020, Active Clubs have expanded rapidly across the United States, Canada and Europe, including the U.K., France, Sweden and Finland. Precise numbers are hard to verify, but the clubs appear to be spreading, according to The Counter Extremism Project, the Anti-Defamation League, the Southern Poverty Law Center and my own research.

The clubs reportedly operate in at least 25 U.S. states, and potentially as many as 34. Active U.S. chapters reportedly increased from 49 in 2023 to 78 in 2025.

The clubs’ rise reflects a broader shift in white supremacist strategy, away from formal organizations and social movements. In 2020, American neo-Nazi Robert Rundo introduced the concept of “White Nationalism 3.0” – a decentralized, branded and fitness-based approach to extremist organizing.

Rundo previously founded the Rise Above Movement, which was a violent, far-right extremist group in the U.S. known for promoting white nationalist ideology, organizing street fights and coordinating through social media. The organization carried out attacks at protests and rallies from 2016 through 2018.

Active Clubs embed their ideology within apolitical activities such as martial arts and weightlifting. This model allows them to blend in with mainstream fitness communities. However, their deeper purpose is to prepare members for racial conflict.

An actor reconstructs how British broadcaster ITV News infiltrated and secretly filmed inside Active Club England, documenting its recruiting process, activities and goals.

‘You need to learn how to fight’

Active Club messaging glorifies discipline, masculinity and strength – a “warrior identity” designed to attract young men.

“The active club is not so much a structural organization as it is a lifestyle for those willing to work, risk and sweat to embody our ideals for themselves and to promote them to others,” Rundo explained via his Telegram channel.

“They never were like, ‘You need to learn how to fight so you can beat up people of color.’ It was like, ‘You need to learn how to fight because people want to kill you in the future,’” a former Active Club member told Vice News in 2023.

These cells are deliberately small – often under a dozen members – and self-contained, which gives them greater operational security and flexibility. Each club operates semi-autonomously while remaining connected to the broader ideology and digital network.

Expanding globally and deepening ties

Active Clubs maintain strategic and ideological connections with formal white supremacist groups, including Patriot Front, a white nationalist and neofascist group founded in 2017 by Thomas Rousseau after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Active Clubs share extremist beliefs with these organizations, including racial hierarchy and the “Great Replacement” theory, which claims white populations are being deliberately replaced by nonwhite immigrants. While publicly presenting as fitness groups, they may collaborate with white supremacist groups on recruitment, training, propaganda or public events.

Figures connected to accelerationist groups – organizations that seek to create social chaos and societal collapse that they believe will lead to a race war and the destruction of liberal democracy – played a role in founding the Active Club network. Along with the Rise Above Movement, they include Atomwaffen Division and another neo-Nazi group, The Base – organizations that repackage violent fascism to appeal to disaffected young white men in the U.S.

Brotherhood as a cover

By downplaying explicit hate symbols and emphasizing strength and preparedness, Active Clubs appeal to a new generation of recruits who may not initially identify with overt racism but are drawn to a culture of hypermasculinity and self-improvement.

Anyone can start a local Active Club chapter with minimal oversight. This autonomy makes it hard for law enforcement agencies to monitor the groups and helps the network grow rapidly.

Shared branding and digital propaganda maintain ideological consistency. Through this approach, Active Clubs have built a transnational network of echo chambers, recruitment pipelines and paramilitary-style training in parks and gyms.

Club members engage in activities such as combat sports training, propaganda dissemination and ideological conditioning. Fight sessions are often recorded and shared online as recruitment tools.

Members distribute flyers, stickers and online content to spread white supremacist messages. Active Clubs embed themselves in local communities by hosting events, promoting physical fitness, staging public actions and sharing propaganda.

Potential members first see propaganda on encrypted apps such as Telegram or on social media. The clubs recruit in person at gyms, protests and local events, vetting new members to ensure they share the group’s beliefs and can be trusted to maintain secrecy.

From fringe to functioning network

Based on current information from the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, there are 187 active chapters within the Active Club Network across 27 countries – a 25% increase from late 2023. The Crowd Counting Consortium documented 27 protest events involving Active Clubs in 2022-2023.

However, precise membership numbers remain difficult to ascertain. Some groups call themselves “youth clubs” but share similar ideas and aesthetics and engage in similar activities.

Active Club members view themselves as defenders of Western civilization and masculine virtue. From their perspective, their activities represent noble resistance rather than hate. Members are encouraged to stay secretive, prepare for societal collapse and build a network of committed, fit men ready to act through infiltration, activism or violence.

Hiding in plain sight

Law enforcement agencies, researchers and civil society now face a new kind of domestic threat that wears workout clothes instead of uniforms.

Active Clubs work across international borders, bound by shared ideas and tactics and a common purpose. This is the new white nationalism: decentralized, modernized, more agile and disguised as self-improvement. What appears to be a harmless workout group may be a gateway to violent extremism, one pushup at a time. More

In early August, US President Donald Trump signed a not-so-secretive order to make plans for the use of US military force against specific Latin American criminal organisations.

The plans were acted upon this week. The US deployed three guided-missile destroyers to the waters off Venezuela, with the authority to interdict drug shipments.

This was not exactly a surprise move. During his inauguration in January, Trump signed an executive order designating some criminal groups as foreign terrorist organisations. At the time, he told a journalist this could lead to US special forces conducting operations in Mexico.

Weeks later, six Mexican cartels were added to the foreign terrorist list, as were two other organisations: MS-13, an El Salvadoran gang and particular focus during Trump’s first presidency, and Tren De Aragua, a Venezuelan gang and frequent target during Trump’s presidential campaign in 2024.

Read more:
What is Tren de Aragua? How the Venezuelan gang started − and why US policies may only make it stronger

In May, two Haitian groups were added to the list. Then, in July, another Venezuelan organisation known as the Cartel of the Suns was added to a similar list because of its support for other criminal groups.

Fentanyl brings a new focus on organised crime

Illicit substances have flown across the US-Mexican border for more than a century. But the emergence of the synthetic opioid fentanyl has shaken up US responses to the illicit drug trade.

Highly addictive and potent, fentanyl has caused a sharp increase in overdose deaths in the US since 2013.

Successive US governments have had little success at curbing fentanyl overdoses.

Instead, an emerging political consensus portrays fentanyl as an external problem and therefore a border problem.

When the Biden administration captured Ismael Zambada – one of Mexico’s most elusive drug barons who trafficked tonnes of cocaine into the US for 40 years – he was charged with conspiracy to distribute fentanyl. Even progressive independent Bernie Sanders has pivoted to claiming border security was the solution to the fentanyl crisis.

But focusing on border security will do little to improve or save lives within the US.

Tougher border measures have never effectively curtailed the supply of other illicit substances such as cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamine.

These measures do little to reduce harm or dependency within the US, where a largely unaccountable pharmaceutical industry first pushed synthetic opioids.

The question remains just what can be achieved by US military operations.

How to spot a cartel

While the chemical emissions from fentanyl labs are easily spotted by drones, cartels and their operatives are decidedly more difficult to identify.

Criminal organisations in Mexico tend to be loose networks of smaller factions. They don’t operate in strict hierarchies like corporations or armies.

The decentralised nature of these networks makes them extremely resilient. If one part of the chain is disrupted, the network adapts, sourcing materials from different places or pushing goods along different trafficking routes.

But US and Mexican security agencies often act as though cartels follow rigid hierarchies. The so-called “kingpin strategy” focuses on killing or arresting the leadership of criminal organisations, expecting it to render them unable to operate.

However, this strategy often exacerbates violence, as rival factions compete to take over the turf of fallen kingpins.

Combating criminal groups with the military has already been a spectacular failure in Mexico.

Former President Felipe Calderón declared war on the cartels in 2006, but his government lost credibility for leading Mexico into a war it could not win or escape.

Tens of thousands of people are now killed every year, a dramatic increase from the historically low homicide rates in the years leading up to 2006. More than 100,000 have disappeared since the beginning of the war.

Outside interventions also run the risk of increasing support for criminal groups.

In my research, I’ve found cartels sometimes market themselves as guardians of local people, successfully positioning themselves as more in touch with local people than the distant Mexican state.

Cartels can also certainly make the most of deep antipathy towards US intervention in Mexico.

All cartels are not equal

Deploying warships off the coast of Venezuela will have minimal impact on the fentanyl trade.

Fentanyl enters the US from Mexico and even from Canada – but Venezuela doesn’t feature in US threat assessments for fentanyl.

Military action against the Cartel of the Suns will also be largely ineffectual, as this group exists in name only.

Research has found this isn’t an actual cartel – rather, the name describes a loose network of competing drug-trafficking networks within the Venezuelan state. Figures in the government certainly have ties to the illicit drug trade, but they are not organised in a cartel.

In Mexico, however, the cartels do exist – albeit not as imagined by the US government.

Given the US has invaded and seized territory from Mexico in the past, US military intervention has minimal prospect of support from Mexican governments.

Current President Claudia Sheinbaum has shown a willingness to accommodate the Trump government on matters of fentanyl trafficking. She has deployed thousands of members of the National Guard to police the border and major trafficking centres, such as the state of Sinaloa.

The Mexican government has also made two mass extraditions of captured crime bosses to the US. As with the capture of Zambada by the Biden government, this is likely to be used as evidence the US is winning the battle against fentanyl.

Then again, these crime bosses could be put to other uses.

The US government recently returned an imprisoned leader of MS-13 to El Salvador, even though he was indicted for terrorism in the US.

This move was part of the deal-making between the US government and President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador.

The US government may be eager to take the fight to organised crime, but sometimes political expediency is a bigger priority. More

Congressional redistricting – the process of drawing electoral districts to account for population changes – was conceived by the Founding Fathers as a once-per-decade redrawing of district lines following the decennial U.S. census. Today it has devolved into a near-constant feature of American politics – often in response to litigation, and frequently with the intent of maintaining or gaining partisan advantage.

Polls show widespread public disapproval of manipulating political boundaries to favor certain groups, a process known as gerrymandering. However, we currently see little hope of preventing a race to the bottom, where numerous states redraw their maps to benefit one party in response to other states drawing their maps to benefit another party.

The most recent round of tit-for-tat gerrymandering began in Texas. After drawing their post-census congressional maps in 2021, Republicans in the Texas Legislature, at President Donald Trump’s behest, are advancing a new set of maps designed to increase the number of Republican congressional seats in their state. The goal is to help Republicans retain control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2026 midterm elections by converting five Democratic seats to ones that will likely result in a Republican victory.

In response, California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is pushing to redraw his state’s map. Under Newsom’s plan, Democrats could gain five House seats in California, offsetting Republican gains in Texas. The California Legislature approved the new maps on Aug. 21 and Gov. Newsom signed the bills that day. Next, the maps will be presented to California voters on the November 2025 ballot for approval.

Newsom vows that he isn’t trying to disband the independent redistricting process that California enacted in 2021. Rather, he proposes to shift to these partisan gerrymandered maps temporarily, then return to independent, nonpartisan redistricting in 2031.

Democrats in Illinois and New York, and Republicans in Indiana, Missouri and South Carolina, have signaled that they may follow Texas and California’s leads. Based on our research on politics and elections, we don’t expect that the wave will stop there.

Gerrymandering dates back to struggles over U.S. foreign policy in the early 1800s and is named for a signer of the Declaration of Independence, Elbridge Gerry.

Rules for mapmakers

Redistricting has always been an inherently political process. But the advent of widespread, easily accessible computer technology, increasingly predictable voting patterns and tight partisan margins in Congress have turbocharged the process.

There are ways to tweak this gerrymandering run amok and perhaps block a bad map or two. But none of these approaches are likely to stop partisan actors entirely from drawing maps to benefit themselves and their parties.

The most obvious strategy would be to create guardrails for the legislators and commissions who draw the maps. Such guidelines often specify the types of data that could be used to draw the maps – for example, limiting partisan data.

Anti-gerrymandering rules could also limit the number of political boundaries, such as city or county lines, that would be split by new districts. And they could prioritize compactness, rather than allowing bizarrely-shaped districts that link far-flung communities.

These proposals certainly won’t do any harm, and might even move the process in a more positive direction, but they are unlikely to end gerrymandering.

For example, North Carolina had an explicit limitation on using partisan data in its 2021 mapmaking process, as well as a requirement that lawmakers could only draw maps in the North Carolina State Legislative Building. It was later revealed that a legislator had used “concept maps” drawn by an aide outside of the normal mapmaking process.

In a world where anyone with an internet connection can log onto free websites like Dave’s Redistricting to draw maps using partisan data, it’s hard to prevent states from incorporating nonofficial proposals into their maps.

Courts and commissions

A second way to police gerrymandering is to use the courts aggressively to combat unfair or discriminatory maps. Some courts, particularly at the state level, have reined in egregious gerrymanders like Pennsylvania’s 2011 map, which was overturned in 2018.

At the national level, however, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Rucho v. Common Cause in 2019 that partisan gerrymandering claims presented “political questions beyond the reach of the federal courts” and ultimately were better suited to state courts. There are still likely to be claims in federal courts about racial dilution and other Voting Rights Act violations in gerrymanders, but the door to the federal courthouse for partisanship claims appears to be closed for the time being.

A third option is for states to hand map-drawing power to an independent body. Recent studies show that independent redistricting commissions produce maps that are more competitive and fairer. For example, a nonpartisan scholarly review of the 2021-2022 congressional and state legislative maps found that commissions “generally produce less biased and more competitive plans than when one party controls the process.”

Commissions are popular with the public. In a 2024 study with political scientists Seth McKee and Scott Huffmon, we found that both Democrats and Republicans in South Carolina preferred to assign redistricting to an independent commission rather than the state Legislature, which has been in Republican control since 2000.

Studies using national polling data have also found evidence that redistricting commissions are popular, and that people who live in states that use commissions view the redistricting process more positively than residents of states where legislators draw congressional lines.

A national solution or bust

While redistricting commissions are popular and effective in states that have adopted them, current actions in California show that this strategy can fail if it is embraced by some states but not others.

Unfortunately, there is no simple solution for tit-for-tat gerrymandering. Litigation can help at the margins, and independent redistricting can make a difference, but even the best intentions can fail under political pressure.

The only wholesale solution is national reform. But even here, we are not optimistic.

A proportional representation system, in which seats are divided by the portion of the vote that goes to each party, could solve the problem. However, removing single-member districts and successfully implementing proportional representation in the United States is about as likely as finding a hockey puck on Mars.

A national ban on gerrymandering might be more politically palatable. Even here, though, the odds of success are fairly low. After all, the people who benefit from the current system would have to vote to change it, and the filibuster rule in the Senate requires not just majority but supermajority support.

So, brace for what’s about to come. As James Madison famously observed, forming factions – groups of people united by a common interest that threatens the rights of others – is “sown in the nature of man.”

Gerrymandering helps factions acquire and retain power. If U.S. leaders aren’t willing to consider a national solution, it won’t disappear anytime soon. More

Two big assumptions underlie President Donald Trump’s attack on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. The first is that discrimination against people of color is a thing of the past. The second is that DEI policies and practices discriminate against white people – especially white men – in what’s sometimes called “reverse discrimination.”

I’m a sociologist who’s spent decades studying race and inequality, and when I read the documents and statements coming out of the Trump White House, these assumptions jump out at me again and again – usually implicitly, but always there.

The problem is that the evidence doesn’t back these assumptions up.

For one thing, if discrimination against white Americans were widespread, you might expect large numbers to report being treated unfairly. But polling data shows otherwise. A 2025 Pew survey found that 70% of white Americans think Black people face “some” or “a lot” of discrimination in general, and roughly two-thirds say the same of Asian and Hispanic people. Meanwhile, only 45% of white Americans believe that white people in general experience that degree of discrimination.

In other words, white Americans believe that people of color, as a group, face more discrimination than white people do. People of color agree – and so do Americans overall.

In a second national study, using data collected in 2023, Americans were asked if they had personally experienced discrimination within the past year. Thirty-eight percent of white people said they had, compared to 54% of Black Americans, 50% of Latinos and 42% of Asian Americans. In other words, white Americans are much less likely to say that they’ve been discriminated against than people of color.

The ‘hard’ numbers show persistent privilege

These statistics are sometimes called “soft” data because they reflect people’s perceptions rather than verified incidents. To broaden the picture, it’s worth looking at “hard” data on measures like income, education and employment outcomes. These indicators also suggest that white Americans as a group are advantaged relative to people of color.

For example, federal agencies have documented racial disparities in income for decades, with white Americans, as a group, generally outearning Black and Latino Americans. This is true even when you control for education. When the Census Bureau looked at median annual earnings for Americans between 25 and 64 with at least a bachelor’s degree, it found that Black Americans received only 81% of what comparably educated white Americans earned, while Latinos earned only 80%. Asian Americans, on the other hand, earned 119% of what white people earned.

These gaps persist even when you hold college major constant. In the highest-paying major, electrical engineering, Black Americans earned only 71% of what white people did, while Latinos earned just 73%. Asian Americans, in contrast, earned 104% of what white people earned. In the lowest-paid major, family and consumer sciences, African Americans earned 97% of what white people did, and Latinos earned 94%. Asian Americans earned 117% of what white people earned. The same general pattern of white income advantage existed in all majors with two exceptions: Black people earned more in elementary education and nursing.

Remember, this is comparing individuals with a bachelor’s degree or higher to people with the same college major. Again, white Americans are still advantaged in most career paths over Black Americans and Latinos.

Disparities persist in the job market

Unemployment data show similar patterns. The July 2025 figures for workers at all education levels show that Black people were 1.9 times more likely to be unemployed than white Americans. Latinos were 1.4 times more likely to be unemployed, and Asian Americans, 1.1 times.

This same white advantage still occurs when looking only at workers who have earned a bachelor’s degree or more. Black Americans who have earned bachelor’s degrees or higher were 1.3 times more likely to be unemployed than similarly educated white Americans as of 2021, the last year for which data is available. Latinos with college degrees were 1.4 times more likely to be unemployed than similar white Americans. The white advantage was even higher for those with only a high school degree or less. Unfortunately, data for Asian Americans weren’t available.

In another study, researchers sent 80,000 fake resumes in response to 10,000 job listings posted by 97 of the largest employers in the country. The credentials on the resumes were essentially the same, but the names signaled race: Some had Black-sounding names, like Lakisha or Leroy, while others had more “white-sounding” names like Todd or Allison. This method is known as an “audit study.”

This research, which was conducted between 2019 and 2021, found that employers were 9.5% more likely to contact the Todds and Allisons than the Lakishas and Leroys within 30 days of receiving a resume. Of the 28 audit studies that have been conducted since 1989, each one showed that applicants with Black- or Latino-sounding names were less likely to be contacted that those with white-sounding or racially neutral names.

Finally, a 2025 study analyzed 600,000 letters of recommendation for college-bound students who used the Common App form during the 2018-19 and 2019-20 academic years. Only students who applied to at least one selective college were included. The study found that letters for Black and Latino students were shorter and said less about their intellectual promise.

Similarly, letters in support of first-generation students – that is, whose parents hadn’t graduated from a four-year college, and who are disproportionately likely to be Black and Latino – had fewer sentences dedicated to their scientific, athletic and artistic abilities, or their overall academic potential.

These and other studies don’t provide evidence of massive anti-white discrimination. Although scattered cases of white people being discriminated against undoubtedly exist, the data suggest that white people are still advantaged relative to non-Asian people of color. White Americans may be less advantaged than they were, but they’re still advantaged.

While it’s true that many working-class white Americans are having a tough time in the current economy, it’s not because of their race. It’s because of their class. It’s because of automation and overseas outsourcing taking away good jobs. It’s because of high health care costs and cuts in the safety nets.

In other words, while many working-class white people are struggling now, there’s little evidence race is the problem. More

The Liberals won 14 of the 35 lower house seats at the July 19 Tasmanian state election, Labor ten, the Greens five, independents five and the Shooters, Fishers and Farmers one.

Liberal Jeremy Rockliff was the premier before this election, and he was reappointed on August 6 pending next Tuesday’s sitting of the Tasmanian parliament. Labor will move a vote of no-confidence when parliament sits. If this motion succeeds and a motion of confidence is then passed in Labor, Labor will govern Tasmania for the first time since 2014.

On Tuesday, Greens leader Rosalie Woodruff said the Greens would not support Labor in the confidence vote “at this stage”, saying Labor leader Dean Winter had not shown any intention to compromise on issues the Greens said they’d fight for.

To get a majority, 18 votes are required. Analyst Kevin Bonham said the Greens have ruled out abstaining on the no-confidence motion. If Labor can’t win over the Greens, the Liberals will retain government as the 14 Liberals and five Greens add to 19 votes.

To win government, Labor will need support from the Greens and at least three of the six others. I wrote on August 4 that, with five of the six others being left-leaning, it was easier for Labor to form government than the Liberals.

None of the six others have firmly committed to backing either Labor or the Liberals in the no-confidence motion. After the election, the Liberals proposed phasing out greyhound racing. According to Bonham, this has not pleased the one Shooter, who says he won’t support the Liberals unless they reverse this policy.

Labor was last in power in Tasmania from 1998 to 2014, governing in majority from 1998 to 2010 and with the Greens from 2010 to 2014. The Liberals heavily defeated Labor at the 2014 election, and Labor has been reluctant to deal with the Greens since.

Labor probably hopes that the Greens are bluffing, and that they will reluctantly back Labor in the no-confidence motion rather than prop up the Liberals. At the 2025 federal election, nearly 90% of Tasmanian Greens’ preferences went to Labor over the Coalition. If the Tasmanian Liberals retained government on Greens votes, the Greens’ supporters may be angry.

Federally and in most mainland states, single-member systems are used for lower house elections and proportional systems for upper house elections (Queensland has no upper house), but Tasmania uses a proportional system for its lower house elections.

At this election, the Liberals defeated Labor by 40–26 on statewide vote shares. Although Labor can take power with support from the Greens and left-leaning independents, I believe Labor needs to negotiate more with them and possibly make deals to get a workable government that can last a significant portion of a four-year term.

NSW: MP resigns ahead of expulsion vote

Gareth Ward was the New South Wales state Liberal MP for Kiama from 2011 to 2019. At the 2023 state election, he retained Kiama as an independent despite allegations of sexual assault on two young men. Ward was convicted of these allegations by a jury in July and he resigned on August 8 ahead of an expulsion motion that was certain to succeed.

Read more:
Why Gareth Ward’s challenge to the power to expel him from the NSW parliament failed

Labor expects to contest the ensuing September 13 byelection in Kiama. ABC election analyst Antony Green said at the 2023 election, Ward defeated Labor by 50.8–49.2 from primary votes of 38.8% Ward, 34.4% Labor, 12.0% Liberals and 11.1% Greens. On upper house votes in that seat, Labor would have beaten the Liberals, so Labor is the favourite to win the byelection.

Labor won 45 of the 93 NSW lower house seats at the March 2023 election, two short of a majority. It was able to form a minority government. A win in Kiama would put Labor just one seat short of majority.

Federal polls

A national Wolf+Smith poll for The Financial Review, conducted July 18–30 from a sample of 5,000, gave Labor a 57–43 lead, from primary votes of 36% Labor and 30% Coalition with no other party’s primary vote given.

Albanese led Ley as preferred PM by 45–35. By 47–18, respondents opposed increasing the GST rate or broadening the GST base. On income tax cuts, 56% thought they should be paid for by higher company taxes.

A national DemosAU poll, conducted July 31 from a sample of 1,079, had 45% supporting Australia formally recognising a Palestinian state with 23% opposed (35–22 support in May 2024).

US gerrymandering

I wrote for The Poll Bludger last Saturday about attempts by Republicans to grab five extra United States federal House of Representatives seats by gerrymandering Texas, and about retaliatory attempts by Democrats to gerrymander California. I also covered Donald Trump’s US ratings and the July 20 Japanese upper house election. More

By the time the next US election takes place in 2028, millennial and gen Z voters – who already watch over six hours of media content a day – will make up the majority of the electorate. As gen alpha (people born between 2010 and 2024) also comes of voting age, social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram or their future equivalents can play a role in political success – if political actors can capitalise on it.

On these platforms, politics mixes with entertainment, creating fertile ground for memes and viral content that shape public opinion in real time – particularly in the US. But going viral isn’t simple, as my new research shows, and political actors have so far have struggled to make the most of it. If content doesn’t feel authentic, isn’t accompanied by clear messaging, or adapted to different platforms, then it’s unlikely to be successful.

Also, viral content spreads quickly, sometimes unpredictably, and across platforms that all behave differently. The algorithms behind viral spread are specific to each platform – and not transparent. This makes the impact of viral activity difficult to measure and hard to track. This presents a challenge to politicians and campaigns looking to capitalise on it.

My recently published research investigated this. I mapped and visualised the “Kamala IS brat” phenomenon as it moved across X, Instagram and TikTok in the run-up to the 2024 US election. The aim of the research was to investigate the anatomy of a viral movement: what made it spread on each platform, how long did it last, and who was driving it.

I found that viral political content that emerges on X spreads by a mix of strategic communication, and letting the audience do the rest. It often spreads to TikTok through catchy adaptations, and moves slightly slower on Instagram, but “explainer” content with images, for instance – often from a mix of everyday users and mainstream media outlets keeps – it visible.

Viral content moves between platforms, adapting to the environment of each as it is transformed into audio and visual forms. My research found that using audio was particularly powerful: turning quotes into soundbites and superimposing dance trends onto political backgrounds made for hugely shareable combinations, and the more surreal, the better.

Most people think that going viral is short-lived, but this study – and other research – has found that digital content has a “long tail”: it pops up, resurges and re-emerges, days, weeks, or even months later, offering new chances to reconnect with audiences.

This was particularly apparent on X, where content was re-used and re-contextualised in satirical and humorous ways. This wasn’t always positive. In the data I analysed, Republican supporters used the phrase “Kamala IS brat” to try and switch the narrative into something negative but it’s likely that this increased visibility as views are driven by influential public figures and shared by meme accounts.

Kamala Harris used social media in her 2024 campaign, but she didn’t win.

For politicians, this potential for re-emergence means that successful social media engagement is not just about strategic planning, it’s more about understanding how audiences remix and repost content in ways that can be hard to predict.

It’s not about rigidly tailoring content to each platform either, but about adapting to their styles. Effective digital strategists work with, not for, their audience, and make the most of moments that can’t always be planned in advance. Canada’s prime ministerial candidate, Mark Carney, for instance, embraced the hashtag #elbowsupCanada during his successful 2025 campaign.

The research also found that posting the right type of content is important – and short-form content works best. Social media platforms use a mix of recommender and social algorithms, that are politically intuitive. A high number of followers can still help to increase visibility, but getting the content right can extend viral reach, regardless of how many followers an account has.

Donald Trump regularly posts his decisions on Truth Social social media network.

TikTok’s algorithm in particular is set up for exploration, and Instagram’s Threads already pushes political content to users, not necessarily from accounts that they follow. Research suggests that users of any platform expect to see political content, whether they’re looking for it or not.

Given the potential for viral activity to reach a huge – and increasingly politically significant – audience, the challenge remains for political actors to turn social media engagement into electoral gain.

Many are trying, with varying levels of success. Harris’s digital-first strategy took an innovative approach – giving creative licence to a rapid response team of 25-year-olds. The digital campaign itself was considered a blueprint for PR success, but it ultimately failed to translate into votes. This was probably because it wasn’t accompanied by clear, concise messaging.

Other political hopefuls, such as Arizonan activist Deja Foxx and Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, are also capitalising on social media engagement. While Foxx recently lost in her bid to become the first gen Z woman to be elected to Congress, her approach, based on catchy content and influencer tactics, turned a long-shot candidacy into a very competitive campaign.

Mamdani has had more tangible success. His effective use of social media visuals, and multilingual engagement expanded his reach, and were credited with helping him win New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary in June.

So, if politicians can get it right, there is growing evidence that capitalising on going viral can influence political success.

Social media won’t win an election on its own, but looking ahead to 2028, it’s increasingly likely to be a part of a winning campaign. Young voters are far from a monolith, but what they do have in common is where they spend their time: on social media. TikTok remains the fastest-growing platform among this age group. Far from just providing entertainment, many use it to get their news, and engage in politics. Campaigns can’t afford to ignore it. More

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It feels as if things are moving at completely different speeds in Gaza and in the outside world. From the embattled Gaza Strip the narrative is depressingly familiar. Dozens more Palestinian civilians have been killed in the past 24 hours as they try to get hold of scarce supplies of food.

Aid agencies report that despite air drops of supplies and “humanitarian pauses” in the fighting, the amount of food getting through to the starving people of Gaza remains pitifully insufficient.

Two more children are reported to have died of starvation, bringing the total number of hunger-related deaths to 159, according to Palestinian sources quoted by al-Jazeera.

US envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Jerusalem for more talks as the US president Donald Trump posted his latest bout of social media diplomacy on his TruthSocial site, a message which appears pretty faithful to the Netanyahu government’s position: “The fastest way to end the Humanitarian Crises in Gaza is for Hamas to SURRENDER AND RELEASE THE HOSTAGES!!”

Both sides continue to reject the other side’s demands, bringing ceasefire negotiations to an effective standstill.

In the outside world, meanwhile, events seem to be gathering pace. A “high-level conference” at the United Nations in New York brought together representatives of 17 states, the European Union and the Arab League, resulting in “a comprehensive and actionable framework for the implementation of the two-state solution and the achievement of peace and security for all”.

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What first catches the eye about this proposal, which was signed by Saudi Arabia,
Qatar, Egypt and Jordan, is that it links a peace deal with the disarming and disbanding of Hamas. It also condemns the militant group’s savage attack on southern Israel on October 23 2023, which was the catalyst for the latest and arguably most grievous chapter of this eight-decade conflict. It’s the first time the Arab League has taken either of these positions.

The New York declaration, as it has been dubbed, envisages the complete withdrawal of Israeli security forces from Gaza and an end to the displacement of Palestinians. Government will be the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority (PA), and a conference to be scheduled in Egypt will design a plan for the reconstruction of Gaza, much of which has been destroyed in the 20-month assault by the Israel Defense Forces.

It is, writes Scott Lucas, a “bold initiative” which, “in theory could end the Israeli mass killing in Gaza, remove Hamas from power and begin the implementation of a process for a state of Palestine. The question is whether it has any chance of success.”

Lucas, an expert in US and Middle East politics at the Clinton Institute of University College Dublin, is not particularly sanguine about the short-term prospects for a ceasefire and the alleviation of the desperate conditions for the people of Gaza. But what it represents more than anything else, is “yet another marker of Israel’s increasing isolation”.

He points to recent announcements that France, the UK (subject to conditions) and Canada will recognise the state of Palestine at the UN general assembly in September. The prospect of normalisation between Israel and Arab states, at the top of the agenda a few short years ago, is now very unlikely. And in the US, which remains Israel’s staunchest ally, a Gallup poll recently found that public opinion is turning against Israel and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Read more:
New peace plan increases pressure on Israel and US as momentum grows for Palestinian statehood

But how important are the declarations by France, the UK and Canada of intent to potentially recognise Palestinian statehood, asks Malak Benslama-Dabdoub. As expert in international law at Royal Holloway University of London, who has focused on the question of Palestinian statelessness, Benslama-Dabdoub thinks that the French and British pledges bear closer examination.

Meanwhle airstrikes continue in northern Gaza.
EPA/Atef Safadi

The French declaration was made on July 24 on Twitter by the president, Emmanuel Macron. Macron envisages a “demilitarised” state, something Benslama-Dabdoub sees as a serious problem, as it effectively denies the fundamental right of states to self-determination and would rob a future Palestinian state of the necessary right to self-defence.

The declaration by the UK prime minister that Britain may also recognise Palestinian statehood in September is framed as a threat rather than a pledge. Unless Israel agrees to a ceasefire, allows the UN to recommence humanitarian efforts and engages in a long-term sustainable peace process, the UK will go ahead with recognising Palestine at the UN.

You have to consider that the UK government’s statement said that the position has always been that “Palestinian statehood is the inalienable right of the Palestinian people”. So to frame this as a threat rather than a demand is arguably to deny that “inalienable right”.

Read more:
UK to recognise Palestinian statehood unless Israel agrees to ceasefire – here’s what that would mean

Paul Rogers also sees serious problems with the pledges to recognise Palestinian statehood. Demands for Hamas to disarm and play no further role in Palestinian government he sees as a non-starter as is the thought of a demilitarised Palestine. “Neither plan has the slightest chance of getting off the ground.”

Rogers, who has researched and written on the Middle East for more than 30 years, also thinks that without the full backing of the US there is very little chance that a peace plan could succeed.

Rogers finds it hard to believe that Washington will change tack on the Palestinian question, “unless the US president somehow gets the idea that his own reputation is being damaged”. There’s always a chance of this. News from the Gaza Strip is relentlessly horrifying and the aforementioned polls suggest many voters are reassessing their views of the conflict. But Trump is heavily indebted for his re-election to the far-right Christian Zionist movement, who wield a great deal of power with the White House.

The killing continues in Gaza.
EPA/Mohammed Saber

The other thing that might influence the conflict is if enough of the IDF’s top brass recognise the futility of waging what has always been an unwinnable conflict. This, writes Rogers, is whispered about in Israel’s military circles and one eminent retired general, Itzhak Brik, has come out and said: “Hamas has defeated us.”

These, writes Rogers, are currently the only routes to an end to the conflict.

Read more:
UK and France pledges won’t stop Netanyahu bombing Gaza – but Donald Trump or Israel’s military could

Inside Trumpian diplomacy

We mentioned earlier that the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, has also pledged to recognise the state of Palestine in September. This was immediately greeted by Trump with the threat that he does so it will derail a trade deal with the US. Whether this will cut any ice with Carney, who had to make concessions to get the trade deal done in the first place, remains to be seen.

But there’s a broader point here, writes Stefan Wolff. As Wolff reports, this week the foreign ministers of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda got together in Washington to sign a ceasefire deal, brokered by the US. Trump also claims to have successfully ended a conflict between India and Pakistan at the end of May and hostilities between Thailand and Cambodia earlier this month.

Meanwhile his efforts to secure peace deals, or even a lasting ceasefire, in Gaza or Ukraine have been unsuccessful.

Wolff considers why some countries respond to Trump’s diplomatic efforts while others don’t. There are a number of reasons, principally the US president’s ability to apply leverage through trade deals or sanctions and the differing complexity of the conflicts.

He also points to the depleted resources of the US state department, Trump’s use of personal envoys with little foreign affairs experience and the US president’s insistence on making all the important decisions himself. He concludes: “The White House simply may not have the bandwidth for the level of engagement that would be necessary to get to a deal in Ukraine and the Middle East.”

Read more:
Why Donald Trump has stopped some conflicts but is failing with Ukraine and Gaza

One US government department whose resources haven’t been depleted under Donald Trump is the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, known as Ice. Part of the Department of Homeland Security, Ice has been responsible for identifying and detaining non-citizens and undocumented migrants.

Ice agents: the enforcers of Donald Trump’s new migration policy.
John Garry/Alamy

Their agents carry guns, wear masks and typically operate in plain clothes, although they often wear military kit. The agency received massive funding via Trump’s One Bzig Beautiful Bill Act earlier this month, which will allow the agency to recruit hundreds, if not thousands, of new agents. The number of arrests is increasing steadily, as is the disquiet their operations are prompting in many American cities, where opposition protests are also growing.

Dafydd Townley, an expert in US politics at the University of Portsmouth, explains how Ice operates and where it sits in Donald Trump’s plan to deport millions of illegal migrants from the US.

Read more:
Masked and armed agents are arresting people on US streets as aggressive immigration enforcement ramps up

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Labor is well-placed to win three seats in the electorate of Bass at the Tasmanian election, although its party totals imply it deserves only two. This would give left-leaning MPs a total of 20 of 35 seats. Interstate, New South Wales Labor has surged to a large lead in a Resolve poll.

The postal receipt deadline for the July 19 Tasmanian state election passed at 10am Tuesday. Final statewide vote shares
were 39.9% Liberals (up 3.2% since the March 2024 election), 25.9% Labor (down 3.2%), 14.4% Greens (up 0.5%), 2.9% Shooters, Fishers and Farmers (up 0.6%), 1.6% Nationals (new) and 15.3% independents (up 5.7%).

Tasmania uses the proportional Hare-Clark system to elect its lower house. There are five electorates corresponding to Tasmania’s five federal seats, and each electorate returns seven members, for a total of 35 lower house MPs.

Under this system, a quota for election is one-eighth of the vote or 12.5%, but half of this (6.2%) is usually enough to give a reasonable chance of election. There’s no above the line section like for the federal Senate. Instead, people vote for candidates not parties, with at least seven preferences required for a formal vote.

Robson rotation means that candidates for each party are randomised across ballot papers for that electorate, so that on some ballot papers a candidate will appear at the top of their party’s ticket and on others at the bottom.

This means parties can’t control the ordering of their candidates. Independents can be listed in single-candidate columns.

Leakage occurs when party candidates with more than one quota are elected and their surplus distributed, or when minor candidates are excluded and their preferences distributed. In the federal Senate, the large majority of votes are cast above the line, and these votes cannot leak from the party that received a first preference vote.

The consequence of leakage is that parties will lose votes from their totals during the distribution of preferences when their own candidates are elected or excluded. Single-candidate tickets can’t lose votes, and will only gain as other candidates are excluded.

Unlike other states and federally, the Tasmanian distribution of preferences is done manually. Before the distributions, analyst Kevin Bonham had called 14 of the 35 seats for the Liberals, ten for Labor, five for the Greens and four for left-leaning independents, leaving two undecided (the final seats in Bass and Lyons).

Labor well-placed to win three seats in Bass

Final primary votes in Bass gave the Liberals 3.34 quotas, Labor 2.20, the Greens 1.32, the Shooters 0.32 and independent George Razay 0.27. The Shooters and Razay had single-candidate tickets that can’t leak votes.

After three days of preference distributions, vote shares in Bass are 3.30 quotas for the Liberals, 2.25 for Labor, 1.31 for the Greens, 0.40 for the Shooters and 0.37 for Razay.

On quota fractions, the final seat in Bass looks as if it should go to the Shooters or Razay. However, with one Labor candidate already elected, the two leading Labor candidates (Jess Greene and Geoff Lyons) each have about 0.37 quotas with two Labor candidates still to be excluded.

If the remaining Labor votes divide roughly evenly between Greene and Lyons, they would each have about 0.62 quotas. Greens preferences will then favour Labor whether their final opponent is the Shooters or the Liberals. So Labor is well-placed to win three seats in Bass despite their party total implying they only deserve two.

If Labor wins the final Bass seat, Labor, the Greens and left-leaning independents would have a total of 20 of the 35 seats, making any Labor attempt to form government easier.

In Lyons, final primary votes gave the Liberals 3.36 quotas, Labor 2.27, the Greens 1.08, the Shooters 0.53 and the Nationals 0.33. The Shooters had a single-candidate ticket.

The Liberals now have 3.36 quotas, Labor 2.44, the Greens one, the Shooters 0.68 and the Nationals 0.34. Neither Labor nor the Liberals have any chance of pulling off an even split across candidates, so the Shooters will win the final Lyons seat.

NSW Resolve poll: Labor surges to large lead

A New South Wales state Resolve poll for The Sydney Morning Herald, conducted July 13–18 from a sample of 1,054, gave Labor 38% of the primary vote (up five since April), the Coalition 32% (down four), the Greens 13% (up two), independents 8% (down six) and others 10% (up four).

Resolve does not usually give a two-party estimate for its state polls, but The Poll Bludger estimated a Labor lead by 57–43. Despite the strong voting intentions for Labor, Labor incumbent Chris Minns’ lead over Liberal Mark Speakman as preferred premier narrowed from 40–15 to 35–16. This indicates that Labor’s surge is due to the federal election result.

NSW Premier Chris Minns remains ahead in the polls.
Dean Lewins/AAP

Resolve polls taken well before an election have overstated the independent vote as they give independent as an option in all seats, when many seats don’t have viable independents. The six-point drop for independents in this poll suggests a different method is now being used.

By 32–25, respondents expected their personal outlook in the next year to get better rather than worse, but by 25–21 they expected the NSW state outlook to get worse.

Additional questions from federal Resolve poll

I previously covered a national Resolve poll for Nine newspapers that gave Labor a 56–44 lead. On reforms, 36% thought the government should take the opportunity from its landslide re-election to undertake reforms, while 32% thought it should restrict itself to policies put forward at the election.

By 47–20, respondents opposed raising the GST rate even if it would reduce other taxes. By 31–26, they supported reducing or ditching negative gearing concessions. By 36–27, they supported reducing or ditching capital gains tax concessions on properties.

By 57–18, respondents thought the opposition should work with the government to negotiate changes, rather than just oppose major reforms.

By 53–18, respondents thought Donald Trump’s election as United States president last November a bad outcome for Australia (68–11 bad in April, after Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs).

By 46–22, they thought Australia becoming more independent from the US on foreign policy and national security would be good. By 38–26, voters blamed Trump more than Albanese for the lack of a meeting. More