Philippa Kaur

During his recent public spat with Donald Trump, Elon Musk tweeted a poll asking if a new political party would better represent the 80% of voters in the middle. Hundreds of thousands of people responded and more than 80% answered “yes”.

The middle is still overlooked in US politics. This is because there is a perception that Republicans and Democrats have nothing in common, and therefore no issue will win support from both centrist Republicans and Democrats.

Polarisation is problematic as it is linked to “democratic backsliding” – the use of underhand tactics in political processes. Worst of all, it poses a threat to democracy.

Many think that polarisation is fuelled by echo chambers created on social media platforms. These only expose people to beliefs similar to their own.

However, I study how narratives emerge on social media, and ways to investigate them. My work has two aims: first, to identify political issues that are likely to cross party lines, and a wider goal of exploring the role of social media in mitigating, rather than exacerbating, levels of polarisation.

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Earlier this year, for example, I sorted through 12,000 posts from Republican and Democrat voters on subreddits (online forums discussing specific topics). Using a technique I developed in my PhD research, I analysed attitudes to contested political issues around the time of Trump’s inauguration. Like other researchers, I am finding that there are things both sides often agree on, and that not every issue splits neatly across party lines.

Pew Research shows what Democrats and Republicans agree on.

Although it’s a complex topic, people from both parties are worried about levels of free speech on social media. According to my work and other sources, some Democrats accuse TikTok of censoring hashtags such as #FreeLuigi (a reference to Luigi Mangione, accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO, Brian Thompson).

Meanwhile, some Republicans are saying they are flooded with what they see as left-wing content pushed by the algorithms. Despite their differences, Republicans and Democrats agree that social media platforms need to be more transparent about the way they work.

Both sides worry about the rise of authoritarianism and the growing negative influence of artificial intelligence in shaping the US’s future. There is a sense among some members of the two parties that the real enemies aren’t each other, but powerful corporations who hold too much power.

People on both sides of the political divide can be distrustful of tech companies and big businesses, where billionaires have power regardless of who’s in charge. Divisions of “up v down” could be alternatives to seeing divisions as “left v right”.

Some people are worried about the creation of a massive database of citizens’ details, and how their details could be used, or abused. Recently Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene said she would have opposed Trump’s “big, beautiful, bill”, had she read the AI clause thoroughly. The clause stops states from passing laws to regulate AI systems for the next ten years.

What do people agree on?

On the topic of protecting democracy, there are some suggestions that many Republicans and Democrats agree this is important, and under threat. In my study, some Republican and Democrat voters object to the possibility of Trump having a third term, aligning with the findings of several recent polls on the subject, and even among Trump’s most loyal support groups.

Both Republicans and Democrats want “the best” leaders who could get things done fast and efficiently. But it would appear that people on both sides are concerned about the “slash-and-burn” way that Doge (the Department for Government Efficiency, the new agency tasked with cutting federal spending) is working.

Also, deciding who is the best leader isn’t always about agreeing with specific policies. Instead, it’s about delivering decisive, efficient action. Even Republicans who don’t back everything Trump is doing say that at least he is doing something, especially in relation to immigration.

Many Republicans criticise the left, and former Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in particular, but for unclear messaging, as much as any one policy. They (and others) put her loss down to a lack of direction and clarity on key issues (among other things). This probably resulted in failing to win votes from independents and moderate Republicans and many Democrats are frustrated that the party still hasn’t addressed this.

Research suggests that Democrat and Republican voters often agree that polarisation causes gridlock and prevents progress, but believe voices from the middle are not being heard. Some Republicans and Democrats also share a concern that both parties are more focused on fighting each other than on solving problems, with 86% of Americans believing this.

Some Republican voters in the posts I am analysing suggest that working together to get things done would be positive, supporting findings from the US and abroad. Other important factors rather than political party, such as religion or family or everyday life experiences can bring people from both sides together.

So, Americans might not be as divided as one might think. Levels of polarisation feel high but this could be skewed by the extreme views of a minority on both sides. And it isn’t helped by some sensationalist media reporting.

Lots of people get their news from social media platforms which reward and monetise engagement. Posts that fuel division are often the most visible, but they rarely tell the whole story. Divisive views are also often shared by those who are themselves the most polarised.

Like Musk’s online poll, research is starting to suggest that there is still a sizeable moderate middle in the US today who are open to compromise through clear messaging. These voters can make all the difference, especially if parties can frame issues in ways that appeal across the divide. With the 2026 midterm elections on the horizon, both sides might want to listen to them more. More

To paraphrase a very old joke, how do you make a small fortune in America? Start with a large fortune and fund a third political party. American political history is littered with the wrecks of challengers who thought they could break the two-party system and failed.

This makes Elon Musk’s tease that he may launch his own new political party as an act of defiance following his falling out with Donald Trump even more intriguing.

What do we mean by a two-party system though? Since the 1860s, the Democrats and Republicans have dominated the US political landscape, holding the presidency, Congress and the vast majority of elected positions. Attempts at third parties have usually floundered at the ballot box.

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Some have lasted only for a few electoral cycles, including the Progressive Party in the 1910s and the Citizens Party of the 1980s, while others like the Libertarian Party and Green Party have lasted decades and, in some cases, managed some electoral success at the local level.

But this is where an important distinction has to be made between third parties and third-party candidates. Because the US system is so personality-driven rather than party focused compared to Europe, quite often third parties have been built around a single person.

A good example is the previously mentioned Progressive Party. It was founded in 1912 by former president Theodore Roosevelt after he split from the Republicans. Without him it quickly faded away.

Ross Perot: stood as an independent in 1992 and as the nominee for the Reform Party in 1996.
Bob Daemmrich/Alamy Stock Photo

The Reform Party was created by billionaire Ross Perot in 1995 after he managed to get 18.9% of the vote in the 1992 presidential election. While it continued without him for some years, it was a shell of its former self. Other parties like the Socialist, Libertarian and Green parties have sprung from more organic movements and thus have been more successful at a local or state level.

When you look at recent polling though, it seems strange that the two parties continue to dominate. Public dissatisfaction with politics as usual seems at an all-time high. In a recent Pew Research poll when asked whether “I often wish there were more political parties to choose from” describes their views, 37% of respondents answered: “Very well” and 31% answered: “Somewhat well”.

In another poll, 25% of respondents said that neither of the two main parties represented their interests.

So if there is an appetite for some sort of change, why have so few challengers succeeded? The two main parties seem entrenched to the point where it resembles a cartel.

Odds stacked against third-party insurgency

The first and arguably most important reason is the electoral system. First past the post does not guarantee a two-party system (look at Britain, for instance). But political scientist Maurice Duverger argued that it does mean that the two main parties have a significant advantage. There are prizes for coming first and second, nothing for third place.

Ralph Nader leveraged his public profile, rather than his wealth, to enter politics and stood as the Green Party candidate in the 2000 election.
EPA/Shawn Thew

Equally, many of the big prizes in American politics such as the presidency and state governorships are indivisible and cannot be shared. So it has become received wisdom that voting for anyone other than Democrats or Republicans is a wasted vote.

In these cases, people either vote for what they perceive to be the lesser of two evils or stay at home, rather than voting for a candidate with no chance or that they may not support.

The other multi-billion dollar elephant in the room is money. The sheer cost of running for elections in recent years means that any third party is unlikely to be able to raise the funds to be truly competitive. At the last election, the Democrats and Republicans spent hundreds of millions of dollars (which isn’t even counting all of the super-PAC money spent on their behalf).

Whenever billionaires like Perot have attempted to self-fund a party, they have left themselves open to the accusation that it’s a vanity project, or lacks true mass appeal.

There is also the fact that to run successfully you must have media coverage. The media tends to focus almost exclusively on the two main parties. This creates a “chicken and egg” situation where you need success to help raise money and media coverage, but it’s difficult to be successful without first having money and media coverage.

The final reasons are that of the open primary and ideological flexibility of the main parties. Donald Trump briefly considered running as president for the Reform Party back in 2000. In 2016, the open primary system that both main parties use meant that he could impose himself on the Republican Party despite most of the party elite despising him.

Why bother starting your own party when you can run for one that already exists? It could now be argued that the Republicans have effectively become the Trump or Maga party, although whether this will survive his presidency is open to debate.

Money, money, money

Elon Musk has, for the moment, money to burn. Whether he’s willing to invest in the long term to turn this into more than a vanity project remains to be seen.

He also has charisma and a national platform to amplify his voice like few others. But, having been born outside America, he can’t run for president.

If he’s serious about electoral success, he’d have to find someone to run, and that would mean, effectively, they’d lead his party. Musk’s public persona suggests that he does not play well with others.

Founding a third party isn’t impossible, but unless there is a political earthquake it seems difficult to see how one could succeed. More

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Each day that has passed recently has brought another report of mass killings in Gaza. Today’s headline was as grim as any: according to reports from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, another 118 people were killed in the past 24 hours, including 12 people trying to get aid supplies. This is a particularly unpalatable feature of a wretched conflict: the number of people being killed as they queue for food.

A bulletin carried on the United Nations website bore the headline: “GAZA: Starvation or Gunfire – This is Not a Humanitarian Response.” It said that more than 500 Palestinians have been killed and almost 4,000 injured just trying to access or distribute food.

There are, however, hopes of a hiatus in the violence. Donald Trump announced on July 2 that Israel had accepted terms for a 60-day ceasefire and Hamas is reportedly reviewing the conditions. Donald Trump on his TruthSocial platform wrote: “I hope… that Hamas takes this Deal, because it will not get better – IT WILL ONLY GET WORSE.”

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For his part, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said: “There will be no Hamas [in postwar Gaza]”. This doesn’t bode well for the longevity of any deal, writes Julie M. Norman.

Norman, an expert in international security at UCL who specialises in the Middle East, says we’ve been here before. The ceasefire deal negotiated with great fanfare as the Biden presidency passed over to Trump’s second term in January, fell to bits after phase one of a mooted three-phase deal, with accusations of bad faith on both sides.

Further talk of a new deal in May never got any further than the drawing board. And the two sides’ positions seem to remain utterly irreconcilable. Hamas wants the ceasefire to end in a permanent peace deal and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. Israel wants Hamas dismantled, out of Gaza and out of the picture, full stop.

Netanyahu is due to visit Washington next week, for the third time in less than six months. Whether the US president can bring pressure to bear on Netanyahu to compromise remains to be seen.

As Norman points out after the 12-day war against Iran, which both Trump and Netanyahu have been trumpeting as a huge success, the Israeli prime minister may have the political clout to defy his more hardline colleagues in pursuit of a deal. Trump, meanwhile, having done everything he can to help Netanyahu, can call in some big favours in his quest to play dealmaker. Hamas is seriously weakened and its main ally in the region, Iran, seems unlikely to intervene after its recent conflict with Israel and the US.

So while recent history makes a cessation of violence in Gaza seem as far off as ever, there is at least some reason for hope.

Read more:
A new Gaza ceasefire deal is on the table – will this time be different?

As noted higher up, one of the more terrible features of this wretched conflict of late has been the number of people being killed as they queue to get food. The death toll at aid distribution centres has mounted steadily since Israel, with US backing, introduced a new system run by an American company: Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). This organisation replaced more than 400 aid points (previously run by a UN agency) with just four, mainly in the south of the Gaza Strip.

Most of Gaza’s population is displaced and many are starving. There are signs of disenchantment with Hamas.
EPA/Mohammed Saber

This was always going to cause problems, writes Leonie Fleischmann of City St George’s, University of London, who specialises in the conflict between Israel and Palestine. While Israel says the new system is designed to prevent Hamas taking control of aid supplies, all reports are that the scenes around the four distribution centres are descending into anarchy. According to a UN report, “Thousands [of people] released into chaotic enclosures to fight for limited food supplies … These areas have become sites of repeated massacres in blatant disregard for international humanitarian law.”

“Arguably, this chaos and violence is inbuilt in the new aid delivery system,” writes Fleischmann, who concludes that the new system should be seen as a “a mechanism of forced displacement” which is part of a plan by the Netanyahu government “relocate Palestinians to a ‘sterile zone’ in Gaza’s far south” as it continues to clear the north of the Gaza strip.

Read more:
Chaotic new aid system means getting food in Gaza has become a matter of life – and often death

The 12-day war

But if Trump and Netanyahu think the recent short war will lead to a complete reset in the region, leaving a crippled Iran licking its wounds, they way well have miscalculated. That’s the assessment of the situation by Bamo Nouri, a Middle East specialist at City St George’s, University of London. He believes that the 12-day war may prove to have been a strategic blunder by Israel and the US.

For a start, he writes, one outcome of the conflict is that Iran suspended cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), ending inspections and giving Tehran the freedom to expand its nuclear programme with no oversight. And its response to Israel’s airstrikes, involving more than 1,000 missiles and drones, breached the country’s “iron dome” defensive system, causing considerable damage and inflicting a serious psychological blow against Israel.

Tehran has also deepened its relationships with both Moscow and Beijing. And far from prompting regime change, the war appears to have prompted an upsurge in nationalist sentiment in Iran.

Nouri concludes: “Israel emerges militarily capable but politically shaken and economically strained. Iran, though damaged, stands more unified, with fewer international constraints on its nuclear ambitions.”

Read more:
The US and Israel’s attack may have left Iran stronger

It’s hard to get a clear picture of what was achieved, which isn’t surprising when you consider that there remains considerable doubt, even in this information age, what was achieved by the US bombing raid against Iran’s heavily fortified nuclear installations.

‘Completely obliterated’: Donald Trump delivers the news of the US bombing mission against Iran’s nuclear facilities.
EPA-EFE/Carlos Barria/pool

First they were “completely obliterated”. Or at least that was what Donald Trump posted on the night of the raid. Then it seemed that they may not have been as obliterated as first thought. In fact an initial assessment prepared by the US Office of Defense Intelligence thought that the damage may only have hindered Iran’s nuclear programme by a few months.

Cue outrage from the US president and his senior colleagues, amplified by their friends in the US media. There followed some new intelligence which seemed to favour Trump’s position. Then the head of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, weighed in, saying Iran could be enriching uranium again in a “matter of months”. The latest contribution was from the Pentagon which is saying that timescale is actually closer to “one to two years”. Clear as mud then.

But as Rob Dover reminds us, former US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld once pronounced: “If it was a fact it wouldn’t be called intelligence.” Dover, who is an intelligence specialist at the University of Hull, explains that intelligence almost always has a political dimension and should be viewed through that prism.

“The assessment given to the public may well be different from the one held within the administration,” writes Dover. This is not necessarily a bad thing, he concludes as “security diplomacy is best done behind closed doors”. Or at least it used to be. Now the US president seems happy to discuss sensitive information in public.

Read more:
Row over damage to Iran’s nuclear programme raises questions about intelligence

The medium is the message

But then, as Sara Polak observes, Donald Trump’s use of social media is changing the way government is conducted in the US. Polak is a specialist in US politics at Leiden University with a particular interest in the way politics and media intersect.

As she writes, for more than a century since Teddy Roosevelt cultivated print journalists, through FDR’s adept use of radio and JFK’s mastery of television, each new media platform has its master. For Trump it is social media. And he is using it to remake politics.

Read more:
How Trump plays with new media says a lot about him – as it did with FDR, Kennedy and Obama

Nowhere has Trump’s mastery of art of issuing simple messages which make for effective soundbites been displayed so clearly than in the name of his landmark tax-cutting legislation still being wrangled over in the US Congress at the time of writing: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

While undoubtedly big – it runs to 940 pages – its beauty is what the US House of Representatives has been debating fiercely for 24 hours or more, after it passed the Senate with the help of a casting vote from US president J.D. Vance when three Republican senators voted against it.

Dafydd Townley from the University of Portsmouth, who writes regularly for The Conversation about US politics, has written this incisive analysis of the politics around the legislation which appears set to continue for some time to come.

Read more:
Trump wins again as ‘big beautiful bill’ passes the Senate. What are the lessons for the Democrats?

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Each is the main political subject in their country, and one is the main political subject in the world. Each rode the populist wave in 2016, campaigning for the other. In 2024 the tandem surfers remounted on to an even greater breaker. Yet, though nothing has happened to suggest that bromance is dead, neither Donald Trump nor Nigel Farage publicly now speak of the other.

Trump’s presidential campaign shared personnel with Leave.eu, the unofficial Brexit campaign. Farage was on the stump with Trump, and his “bad boys of Brexit” made their pilgrimage to Trump Tower after its owner’s own triumph in the US election. Each exulted in the other’s success, and what it portended.

Trump duly proposed giving the UK ambassadorship to the United States to Farage. Instead, Farage became not merely MP for Clacton, but leader of the first insurgent party to potentially reset Britain’s electoral calculus since Labour broke through in 1922.

Then, Labour’s challenge was to replace the Liberals as the alternative party of government. It took two years. Reform UK could replace the Conservatives in four.

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Trump, meanwhile, has achieved what in Britain has either been thwarted (Militant and the Labour party in the 1980s) or has at most had temporary, aberrant, success (Momentum and the Labour party in the 2010s): the takeover of a party from within. Farage has been doing so – hitherto – from without.

At one of those historic forks in a road where change is a matter of chance, after Brexit finally took place, Farage considered his own personal leave – to go and break America.

The path had been trodden by Trump-friendly high-profile provocateurs before him: Steve Hilton, from David Cameron’s Downing Street, via cable news, now standing to be governor of California; Piers Morgan, off to CNN to replace the doyen of cable news Larry King, only to crash, but then to burn on, online. Liz Truss, never knowingly understated, has found her safe space – the rightwing speaking circuit.

But Farage remained stateside. He knew his domestic platform was primed more fully to exploit the voter distrust that his nationalist crusade had done so much to provoke.

The Trump effect

Genuine peacetime transatlantic affiliations are rare, usually confined to the leaders of established parties: Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. One consequence of the 2016 political shift is that the US Republicans and the British Conservatives, the latter still at least partially tethered to traditional politics, have become distanced.

During the first Trump administration, and even in the build up to the second, it was Farage who was seen as the UK’s bridge to the president. But today, at the peak of their influence, for Farage association can only be by inference, friendship with the US president is not – put mildly – of political advantage. For UK voters, Trump is the 19th most popular foreign politician, in between the King of Denmark and Benjamin Netanyahu.

There is, moreover, the “Trump effect”. Measuring this is crude – circumstances differ – but the trend is that elections may be won by openly criticising, rather than associating with, Trump. This was the case for Mark Carney in Canada, Anthony Albanese in Australia, and Nicușor Dan in Romania.

Trump’s second state visit to the UK will certainly be less awkward for Farage than it will be Starmer, the man who willed it. Farage will likely not – and has no reason to – be seen welcoming so divisive a figure.

Farage and Trump were pictured together during the latter’s visit to his golf course in South Ayrshire in 2023 but didn’t do any public events together.
Alamy

Starmer has no choice but to, and to do so ostentatiously. It is typical of Starmer’s perfect storm of an administration that he will, in the process, do nothing to appeal to the sliver of British voters partial to Trump while further shredding his reputation with Labour voters. Farage would be well served in taking one of his tactical European sojourns for the duration. Starmer may be tempted too.

Outmanoeuvring the establishment

Reflecting the historic cultural differences of their countries, Trump’s prescription is less state, Farage’s is more. The Farage of 2025 that is. He had been robustly Thatcherite, but has lately embraced socialist interventionism, albeit through a most Thatcherite analysis: “the gap in the market was enormous”.

Reform UK now appears to stand for what Labour – in the mind of many of its voters – ought to. Eyeing the opportunity of smokestack grievances, Farage called for state control of steel production even as Trump was considering quite how high a tariff to put on it. Nationalisation and economic nationalism: associated restoratives for national malaise.

Aggressively heteronormative, Trump and Farage dabble in the natalism burgeoning in both countries – as much a cultural as an economic imperative. Each has mastered – and much more than their adversaries – social media. Each has come to recognise the demerits in publicly appeasing Putin.

And Reform’s rise in a hitherto Farage-resistant Scotland can only endear him further to a president whose Hebridean mother was thought of (in desperation) as potentially his Rosebud by British officials preparing for his first administration.

Given their rhetorical selectivity, Trump and Farage’s rolling pitches are almost unanswerable for convention-confined political opponents and reporters. These two anti-elite elitists continue to confound.

Unprecedentedly, for a former president, Trump ran against the incumbent; Farage will continue to exploit anti-incumbency, despite his party now being in office. Most elementally, the pair are bound for life by their very public near-death experiences. Theirs is, by any conceivable measure, an uncommon association.

Farage’s fleetness of foot would be apparent even without comparison with the leaden steps of the leaders of the legacy parties. His is a genius of opportunism. That’s why he knows not to remind us of his confrere across the water. More

In his second term, President Donald Trump has not taken many actions that draw near-universal praise from across the political spectrum. But there is at least one of these political anomalies, and it illustrates the broad appeal of environmental protection and conservation projects – particularly when it concerns an ecosystem of vital importance to millions of Americans.

In May 2025, Trump issued a presidential memorandum supporting the construction of a physical barrier that is key to keeping invasive carp out of the Great Lakes. These fish have made their way up the Mississippi River system and could have dire ecological consequences if they enter the Great Lakes.

It was not a given that Trump would back this project, which had long been supported by environmental and conservation organizations. But two very different strategies from two Democratic governors – both potential presidential candidates in 2028 – reflected the importance of the Great Lakes to America.

As a water policy and politics scholar focused on the Great Lakes, I see this development not only as an environmental and conservation milestone, but also a potential pathway for more political unity in the U.S.

A feared invasion

Perhaps nothing alarms Great Lakes ecologists more than the potential for invasive carp from Asia to establish a breeding population in the Great Lakes. These fish were intentionally introduced in the U.S. Southeast by private fish farm and wastewater treatment operators as a means to control algae in aquaculture and sewage treatment ponds. Sometime in the 1990s, the fish escaped from those ponds and moved rapidly up the Mississippi River system, including into the Illinois River, which connects to the Great Lakes.

Sometimes said to “breed like mosquitoes and eat like hogs,” these fish can consume up to 40% of their body weight each day, outcompeting many native species and literally sucking up other species and food sources.

Studies of Lake Erie, for example, predict that if the carp enter and thrive, they could make up approximately one-third of the fish biomass of the entire lake within 20 years, replacing popular sportfishing species such as walleye and other ecologically and economically important species.

Invasive carp are generally not eaten in the U.S. and are not desirable for sportfishing. In fact, silver carp have a propensity to jump up to 10 feet out of the water when startled by a boat motor. That can make parts of the Illinois River, which is packed with the invasive fish, almost impossible to fish or even maneuver a boat.

Look out! Silver carp fly out of the water, obstructing boats and hitting people trying to enjoy a river in Indiana.

The Brandon Road Lock and Dam solution

Originally, the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River were not connected to each other. But in 1900, the city of Chicago connected them to avoid sending its sewage into Lake Michigan, from which the city draws its drinking water.

The most complete way to block the carp from invading the Great Lakes would be to undo that connection – but that would recreate sewage and flooding issues for Chicago, or require other expensive infrastructure upgrades. The more practical, short-term alternative is to modify the historic Brandon Road Lock and Dam in Joliet, Illinois, by adding several obstacles that together would block the carp from swimming farther upriver toward the Great Lakes.

The barrier, estimated to cost US$1.15 billion, was authorized by Congress in 2020 and 2022 after many years of intense planning and negotiations. For the first phase of construction, the project received $226 million in federal money from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to complement $114 million in state funding – $64 million from Michigan and $50 million from Illinois.

On the first day of Trump’s second term, however, he paused a wide swath of federal funding, including funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. And that’s when two different political strategies emerged.

A brief documentary explains the construction of a connection between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River basin.

Pritzker vs. Whitmer vs. Trump

Illinois, a state that has voted for the Democratic candidate in every presidential election since 1992, has the most financially at stake in the Brandon Road project because the project requires the state to acquire land and operate the barrier. When Trump issued his order, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, postponed the purchase of a key piece of land, blaming the “Trump Administration’s lack of clarity and commitment” to the project. Pritzker essentially dared Trump to be the reason for the collapse of the Great Lakes ecosystem and fisheries.

Another Democrat, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, a swing state with the most at stake economically and ecologically if these carp species enter the Great Lakes, took a very different approach. She went to the White House to talk with Trump about invasive carp and other issues. She defended her nonconfrontational approach to critics, though she also hid her face from cameras when Trump surprised her with an Oval Office press conference. When Trump visited Michigan, she stood beside him as they praised each other.

When Trump released the federal funding in early May, Pritzker kept up his adversarial language, saying he was “glad that the Trump administration heard our calls … and decided to finally meet their obligation.” Whitmer stayed more conciliatory, calling the funding decision a “huge win that will protect our Great Lakes and secure our economy.” She said she was “grateful to the president for his commitment.”

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer greets President Donald Trump as he arrives in her state in late April 2025.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon

Why unity on carp?

Whether coordinated or not, the net result of Pritzker’s and Whitmer’s actions drew praise from both sides of the aisle but was little noticed nationally.

Trump’s support for the project was a rare moment of political unity and an extremely unusual example of leading Democrats being on the same page as Trump. I attribute this surprising outcome to two key factors.

First, the Great Lakes region holds disproportionate power in presidential elections. Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have backed the eventual winner in every presidential race for the past 20 years. This swing state power has been used by advocates and state political leaders to drive funding for Great Lakes protection for many years.

Second, Great Lakes are the uniting force in the region. According to polling from the International Joint Commission, the binational body charged with overseeing waterways that cross the U.S.-Canada border, there is “nearly unanimous support (96%) for the importance of government investment in Great Lakes protections” from residents of the region.

There aren’t any other issues with such high voter resonance, so politicians want to be sure Great Lakes voters are happy. For example, Vice President JD Vance has been particularly vocal about the Great Lakes. And Great Lakes restoration funding was one of the few things in the presidential budget that Democrats and Republicans agreed on.

Both Pritzker and Whitmer likely had state-based and national motivations in mind and big aspirations at stake.

Their combined effort has put the project back on track: As of May 12, 2025, Pritzker authorized Illinois to sign the land-purchase agreement he had paused back in February.

And perhaps the governors have identified a new area for unity in a divided United States: Conservation and environmental issues have broad public support, particularly when they involve iconic natural resources, shared values and popular outdoor pursuits such as fishing and boating. Even when political strategies diverge, the results can bring bipartisan satisfaction. More

Minor party preference flows for the federal election have been released, with Labor winning Greens preferences by 88.2–11.8, while the Coalition won One Nation preferences by 74.5–24.5. I also cover a SA state poll that gave Labor a massive 67–33 lead.

The Australian Electoral Commission’s results for the May 3 federal election now show how minor parties’ preferences flowed between Labor and the Coalition. The Greens won 12.2% of the national primary vote, and their preferences favoured Labor over the Coalition by 88.2–11.8. That’s a 2.5% preference flow gain for Labor since the 2022 election.

One Nation had 6.4% of primary votes. Their preferences favoured the Coalition over Labor by 74.5–25.5, a 10.2% preference flow gain for the Coalition. Independents made up 7.3% of primary votes, and their preferences favoured Labor by 67.2–32.8, a 3.4% gain for Labor.

Including Trumpet of Patriots (1.9% of primary votes) with others, others made up 7.7% of primary votes and their preferences favoured the Coalition by 57.3–42.7, a 0.6% gain for the Coalition since 2022 if United Australia Party (4.1% in 2022) is included with others then.

The AEC formally declared the poll by returning the writs on June 12. Results can be legally challenged within 40 days of this declaration, so by July 22.

In Bradfield, Teal Nicolette Boele only won by 26 votes against the Liberals, and this result could be challenged.

As the AEC does not want to disturb the ballot papers until any challenge is resolved by the courts, it is for now using an estimated two-party result in Bradfield (55.0–45.0 to the Liberals against Labor). Analyst Ben Raue believes this estimate is understating Labor in Bradfield by 4.4%.

If Raue is right, the current national two-party vote (55.22–44.78 to Labor) is very slightly understating Labor.

While One Nation’s preference shift helped the Coalition, there were compensatory shifts to Labor from Greens and independent voters. The combined primary vote for One Nation and Trumpet of Patriots was down 0.8% from 2022 to 8.3%, while independents were up 2.0%.

Applying 2022 election flows to primary votes at this election only overstates Labor by 0.1% compared to their actual two-party vote.

In my poll review article on June 5, I said respondent allocated preferences in final polls did not show a large gap in the Coalition’s favour from using 2022 election flows that had occurred in polls earlier in the year.

It’s likely that Labor’s share of preferences from Greens and Teal-type independents rose close to the election. People who voted for these candidates may have been disappointed with Labor’s environmental record, but both Peter Dutton and Donald Trump helped Labor with these people.

In the last term, the Greens were economically left-wing as well as pro-environment. Voters who supported the Greens because of their economic agenda are probably less likely to prefer the Coalition to Labor than environmental voters.

The Poll Bludger has a graph that shows that, in federal elections since 2004, Labor’s share of Greens preferences was at a record high this election, but their share of One Nation preferences was at a record low.

Weak Labor flows to Boele

In Bradfield, Labor preferences favoured Boele by 68.6–31.4 against the Liberals.There were 16 other seats where Labor preferences were distributed between the Coalition and a non-Coalition candidate. The Labor flow to Boele was the second weakest in such seats. This weak flow almost cost Boele Bradfield.

Independent Nicolette Boele’s win in the seat of Bradfield could yet be challenged.
Dean Lewins/AAP

The only seat that had a weaker Labor preference flow to a non-Coalition candidate was Maranoa, where the non-Coalition candidate was One Nation. Labor preferences in Maranoa split 57.9–42.1 to the Liberal National Party against One Nation. In 13 of the 17 seats, Labor preferences flowed at over 75% rates to the non-Coalition candidate.

In early April, the ABC reported Boele had made a crude sexual remark to a 19-year-old employee at a hair salon after receiving a haircut and was banned from that salon. This may explain the weaker preference flow from Labor voters.

Weak Greens flows to Teals in Teal vs Labor contests

There were three seats where the final two were Labor and a Teal independent: Bean, Franklin and Fremantle. In Bean and Fremantle, the Liberals recommended preferences to the Teal on their how to vote material, but not in Franklin.

Labor held all three seats, but only by 50.3–49.7 in Bean and 50.7–49.3 in Fremantle. Labor won much more easily in Franklin, by 57.8–42.2, where they benefited from Liberal how to vote cards.

In Bean, Greens preferences only favoured Teal Jessie Price by 50.6–49.4 over Labor, while Liberal preferences favoured her by 80.0–20.0. In Fremantle, Greens preferences favoured Teal Kate Hulett by 52.9–47.1, while Liberal preferences favoured her by 76.5–23.5. In Franklin, Greens preferences favoured Teal Peter George by 53.8–46.2.

In the ACT seat of Bean, Greens preferences favoured the Teal candidate, but only just.
Lukas Coch/AAP

In Bean and Fremantle, had Greens preferences been stronger for the Teal, Labor would have lost to a more pro-environment candidate. Perhaps Labor benefited on Greens preferences owing to the Greens’ more economic left-wing agenda.

And a national Morgan poll, conducted June 2–22 from a sample of 3,957, gave Labor a 58–42 lead, unchanged from the previous Morgan poll in May. Primary votes were 37.5% Labor (up 0.5), 31% Coalition (steady), 12% Greens (up 0.5), 6% One Nation (steady) and 13.5% for all Others (down one).

By 43–41.5, voters thought the country was headed in the right direction, the first time right direction has led since February 2023. The overall net +1.5 rating is +48 with Labor voters, +11.5 with Greens, -43 with Coalition voters, -80.5 with One Nation voters and -17.5 with all Others.

Labor holds massive lead in SA

The next South Australian state election will be held in March 2026. A YouGov poll for The Adelaide Advertiser, conducted May 15–28 from a sample of 903, gave Labor a massive 67–33 lead over the Liberals (54.6–45.4 to Labor at the March 2022 election). Primary votes were 48% Labor, 21% Liberals, 14% Greens, 7% One Nation, 8% independents and 2% others.

If the results at next March’s election reflect this poll, the Liberals would hold just two of the 47 lower house seats on a uniform swing. It would be easily their worst result in SA state history.

In Australian electoral history, there has only been one bigger landslide: when Western Australian Labor defeated the Liberals and Nationals by 69.7–30.3 at the March 2021 state election.

Socialist likely to be next New York City mayor

I covered today’s AEST New York City Democratic mayoral primary election for The Poll Bludger. While preferences won’t be tabulated until next Tuesday, the socialist Zohran Mamdani leads former New York governor Andrew Cuomo by 43.5–36.4 on primary votes, and is virtually certain to win. As the Democratic nominee, Mamdani is likely to win the November general election.

The article also covers Donald Trump’s ratings and polls in Israel. More

On June 21, the United States launched airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities – Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan – pounding deeply buried centrifuge sites with bunker-busting bombs.

Conducted jointly with Israel, the operation took place without formal congressional authorisation, drawing sharp criticism from lawmakers that it was unconstitutional and “unlawful”.

Read more:
Why the US strikes on Iran are illegal and can set a troubling precedent

Much of the political debate has centred on whether the US is being pulled into “another Middle East war”.

The New York Times’ Nick Kristof weighed in on the uncertainties following the US’ surprise bombing of Iran and Tehran’s retaliation.

Even US Vice President JD Vance understood the unease, stating:

People are right to be worried about foreign entanglement after the last 25 years of idiotic foreign policy.

These reactions have revived comparisons with George W. Bush’s 2003 invasion of Iraq: a Republican president launching military action on the basis of flimsy weapons of mass destruction (WMD) evidence.

Hauntingly familiar?

While the surface similarity is tempting, the comparison may in fact obscure more about President Donald Trump than it reveals.

Comparisons to the Iraq War

In 2003, Bush ordered a full-scale invasion of Iraq based on flawed intelligence, claiming Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein possessed WMDs. And while the war was extremely unpopular across the world, it did have bipartisan congressional support.

The invasion toppled Iraq’s regime in just a few weeks.

What followed was a brutal conflict and almost a decade of US occupation. The war triggered the rise of militant jihadism and a horrific sectarian conflict that reverberates today.

So far, Trump’s one-off strikes on Iran bear little resemblance to the 2003 Iraq intervention.

These were precision strikes within the context of a broader Iran-Israel war, designed to target Iran’s nuclear program.

And, so far, there appears to be little appetite for a full-scale military invasion or “boots on the ground”, and regime change seems unlikely despite some rumblings from both Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Yet the comparison to Iraq persists, especially among audiences suspicious of repeated US military interventions in the Middle East. But poorly considered analogies carry costs.

For one, the Iraq comparison sheds little light on Trump’s foreign policy.

Read more:
The US has entered the Israel-Iran war. Here are 3 scenarios for what might happen next

Trump’s foreign policy

To better understand the recent strikes on Iran, we need to look at Trump’s broader foreign policy.

Much has been made of his “America first” mantra, a complex mix of prioritising domestic interests, questioning international agreements, and challenging traditional alliances.

Others, including Trump himself, have often touted his “no war” approach, pointing to large-scale military withdrawals from Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq,and the fact he had not started a new war.

But beyond this, Trump has increased US military spending and frequently used his office to conduct targeted strikes on adversaries – especially across the Middle East.

For example, in 2017 and 2018, Trump ordered airstrikes on a Syrian airbase and chemical weapons facilities. In both instances, he bypassed Congress and used precision air power to target weapons infrastructure without pursuing regime change.

Also, from 2017 to 2021, Trump authorised US support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen, enabling airstrikes that targeted militant cells but also led to mass civilian casualties.

Trump’s policy was the subject of intense bipartisan opposition, culminating in the first successful congressional invocation of the War Powers Resolution – though it was ultimately vetoed by Trump.

And in 2020, Trump launched a sequence of attacks on Iranian assets in Iraq. This included a drone strike that killed senior Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani.

Again, these attacks were conducted without congressional support. The decision triggered intense bipartisan backlash and concerns about escalation without oversight.

While such attacks are not without precedent – think back to former US President Barack Obama’s intervention in Libya or Joe Biden’s targeting of terrorist assets – the scale and veracity of Trump’s attacks on the Middle East are much more useful as a framework to understanding the recent attacks on Iran than any reference to the 2003 Iraq war.

What this reveals about Trump

It is crucial to scrutinise any use of force. But while comparing the 2025 Iran strikes to Iraq in 2003 may be rhetorically powerful, it is analytically weak.

A better path is to situate these events within Trump’s broader political style.

He acts unilaterally and with near-complete impunity, disregarding traditional constraints and operating outside established norms and oversight.

This is just as true for attacks on foreign adversaries as it is for the domestic policy arena.

For example, Trump recently empowered agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to operate with sweeping discretion in immigration enforcement, bypassing legal and judicial oversight.

Trump also uses policy as spectacle, designed to send shockwaves through the domestic or foreign arenas and project dominance to both friend and foe.

In this way, Trump’s dramatic attacks on Iran have some parallels to his unilateral imposition of tariffs on international trade. Both are abrupt, disruptive and framed as a demonstration of strength rather than a way to create a mutually beneficial solution.

Finally, Trump is more than willing to use force as an instrument of power rather than as a last resort. This is just as true for Iran as it is for the US people.

The recent deployment of US Marines to quell protests in Los Angeles reveals a similar impulse: military intervention as a first instinct in the absence of a broader strategy to foster peace.

To truly understand and respond to Trump’s Iran strikes, we need to move beyond sensationalist analogies and recognise a more dangerous reality. This is not the start of another Iraq; it’s the continuation of a presidency defined by impulsive power, unchecked force and a growing disdain for democratic constraint. More

President Donald Trump’s second term as president will surely go down in history, though of course, just six months into his four-year term, much of this story has yet to be written.

But it is already clear that most Americans will not be able to read exactly what Trump has said, as they have with previous presidents, during his current term in the White House.

The White House has removed the official transcripts of Trump’s public remarks from its government website, NBC News reported in May 2025, replacing the written transcripts with select videos and audio of Trump’s public appearances.

White House officials told NBC News that this switch should help people get a fuller, more consistent and accurate sense of Trump by watching and listening to him, rather than reading what he says verbatim at official events.

Government stenographers are also still recording and transcribing all of Trump’s remarks, though these are no longer being published on the White House’s website or elsewhere. It is not clear where or how those transcriptions are being saved.

For years, translators, reporters, students, historians and presidential scholars like me have used official presidential transcripts to understand a president’s exact words and track government decisions. Without these written transcripts, it becomes harder to get the full story of exactly what the president has done or said.

President Donald Trump, joined by members of his cabinet, delivers a statement on natural disaster preparedness in the Oval Office at the White House on June 10, 2025.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

A partial history

A nation’s history is etched in its records. The preservation of official proceedings provides the bedrock for understanding a country’s past and navigating its future.

A growing chorus of historians, public officials and transparency advocates is raising alarms about how the Trump administration is curating and potentially manipulating the government’s records and actions.

The White House’s recent decision to not share official, written transcripts of what the president has said is not the first time this issue has emerged under Trump.

As I wrote in 2021, the first Trump administration did not consistently submit the transcripts of the president’s political rally speeches to the National Archives, as was the custom with previous presidents. The National Archives is an independent government agency within the executive branch that preserves the nation’s historical records.

This official recordkeeping is important, and it’s more than a tradition – it’s a legal obligation. A law called the Presidential Records Act of 1978 says that everything a president does in office – from making speeches to writing emails – belongs to the public.

This includes not just formal speeches, but also public remarks and oral exchanges, which are traditionally included in a compilation of presidential documents.

My examination of this compilation for 2025 appears to show a gap in such records from mid-April 2025 onward. While the transcript of Trump’s full remarks when speaking with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was published on this government site on April 18, for example, publicly available documents from May only include a checklist of White House press releases, a digest of White House announcements and a list of acts that the president signed into law.

In the absence of complete official records from government sources, external, independent organizations that also monitor the presidency, like The American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara, have become crucial repositories.

The American Presidency Project diligently logs and, when transcripts are unavailable, provides video of public presidential messaging, striving to create as complete a record as possible for all curious viewers and readers.

Workers secure scaffolding on the side of the National Archives building in Washington on April 2, 2025.
Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images

Washington’s letters up in flames

The fight over keeping an honest record of presidents is a problem that comes up again and again in American history.

Perhaps the most powerful example of losing historical records comes from the country’s very first president, George Washington. He knew he was setting an example for all future presidents and kept very careful records. He wanted to leave a complete story of his life and his work for the future.

But there is very little of it left.

After Washington died, his wife, Martha, burned most of the letters they wrote to each other to keep their lives private.

Washington left his official papers to his nephew, Supreme Court Justice Bushrod Washington. But Bushrod gave many of them to Chief Justice John Marshall, who was writing a book about the president. The papers were not treated carefully, and many were damaged. To make matters worse, Bushrod would often tear off scraps of Washington’s writings and give them to people as souvenirs.

The result is that Americans have an incomplete picture of their first president. What now exists is a weaker version of the real story, created more by what other people did than by what Washington himself had planned.

Memories fade, and people are not around forever.

The main way that the U.S. can preserve its story is through accurate records. The current arguments over saving transcripts and official papers are about more than just rules. They are about the future. The records that Trump and other presidents leave behind will decide if people in the future see them as they really were, or just how they wanted others to view them. More