Philippa Kaur

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

It has happened before: an upset victory by a Democratic Socialist in an important primary election after an extraordinary grassroots campaign.

In the summer of 1934, Upton Sinclair earned the kind of headlines that greeted Zohran Mamdani’s primary victory on June 24, 2025, in the New York City mayoral election.

Mamdani’s win surprised nearly everyone. Not just because he beat the heavily favored former governor Andrew Cuomo, but because he did so by a large margin. Because he did so with a unique coalition, and because his Muslim identity and membership in the Democratic Socialists of America should have, in conventional political thinking, made victory impossible.

This sounds familiar, at least to historians like me. Upton Sinclair, the famous author and a socialist for most of his life, ran for governor in California in 1934 and won the Democratic primary election with a radical plan that he called End Poverty in California, or EPIC.

The news traveled the globe and set off intense speculation about the future of California, where Sinclair was then expected to win the general election. His primary victory also generated theories about the future of the Democratic Party, where this turn toward radicalism might complicate the policies of the Democratic administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

What happened next may concern Mamdani supporters. Business and media elites mounted a campaign of fear that put Sinclair on the defensive. Meanwhile, conservative Democrats defected, and a third candidate split progressive votes.

In the November election, Sinclair lost decisively to incumbent Gov. Frank Merriam, who would have stood less chance against a conventional Democrat.

As a historian of American radicalism, I have written extensively about Sinclair’s EPIC movement, and I direct an online project that includes detailed accounts of the campaign and copies of campaign materials.

Upton’s 1934 campaign initiated the on-again, off-again influence of radicals in the Democratic Party and illustrates some of the potential dynamics of that relationship, which, almost 100 years later, may be relevant to Mamdani in the coming months.

Upton Sinclair is seen in September 1934 in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., following a conference with President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Bettmann/Contributor/Getty Images

California, 1934

Sinclair launched his gubernatorial campaign in late 1933, hoping to make a difference but not expecting to win. California remained mired in the Great Depression. The unemployment rate had been estimated at 29% when Roosevelt took office in March and had improved only slightly since then.

Sinclair’s Socialist Party had failed badly in the 1932 presidential election as Democrat Roosevelt swept to victory. Those poor results included California, where the Democratic Party had been an afterthought for more than three decades.

Sinclair decided that it was time to see what could be accomplished by radicals working within that party.

Reregistering as a Democrat, he dashed off a 64-page pamphlet with the futuristic title I, Governor of California and How I Ended Poverty. It detailed his plan to solve California’s massive unemployment crisis by having the state take over idle farms and factories and turn them into cooperatives dedicated to “production for use” instead of “production for profit.”

Sinclair speaks to a group in his campaign headquarters in Los Angeles, Calif., in September 1934.
Bettmann/ Contributor/Getty Images

Sinclair soon found himself presiding over an explosively popular campaign, as thousands of volunteers across the state set up EPIC clubs – numbering more than 800 by election time – and sold the weekly EPIC News to raise campaign funds.

Mainstream Democrats waited too long to worry about Sinclair and then failed to unite behind an alternative candidate. But it would not have mattered. Sinclair celebrated a massive primary victory, gaining more votes than all of his opponents combined.

Newspapers around the world told the story.

“What is the matter with California?” The Boston Globe asked, according to author Greg Mitchell. “That is the farthest shift to the left ever made by voters of a major party in this country.”

Building fear

Primaries are one thing. But in 1934, the November general election turned in a different direction.

Terrified by Sinclair’s plan, business leaders mobilized to defeat EPIC, forming the kind of cross-party coalition that is rare in America except when radicals pose an electoral threat. Sinclair described the effort in a book he wrote shortly after the November election: “I, Candidate for Governor: And How I Got Licked.”

Nearly every major newspaper in the state, including the five Democratic-leaning Hearst papers, joined the effort to stop Sinclair. Meanwhile, a high-priced advertising agency set up bipartisan groups with names like California League Against Sinclairism and Democrats for Merriam, trumpeting the names of prominent Democrats who refused to support Sinclair.

Few people of any party were enthusiastic about Merriam, who had recently angered many Californians by sending the National Guard to break a Longshore strike in San Francisco, only to trigger a general strike that shut down the city.

A billboard supports Republican Frank Merriam and opposes Democrat Upton Sinclair for governor of California in January 1934.
Bettmann /Contributor/Getty Images

The campaign against Sinclair attacked him with billboards, radio and newsreel programming, and relentless newspaper stories about his radical past and supposedly dangerous plans for California.

EPIC faced another challenge, candidate Raymond Haight, running on the Progressive Party label. Haight threatened to divide left-leaning voters.

Sinclair tried to defend himself, energetically denouncing what he called the “Lie Factory” and offering revised, more moderate versions of some elements of the EPIC plan. But the Red Scare campaign worked. Merriam easily outdistanced Sinclair, winning by a plurality in the three-way race.

New York, 2025

Will a Democratic Socialist running for mayor in New York face anything similar in the months ahead?

A movement to stop Mamdani is coming together, and some of what they are saying resonates with the 1934 campaign to stop Sinclair.

The Guardian newspaper has quoted “loquacious billionaire hedge funder Bill Ackman, who said he and others in the finance industry are ready to commit ‘hundreds of millions of dollars’ into an opposing campaign.”

In 1934, newspapers publicized threats by major companies, most famously Hollywood studios, to leave California in the event of a Sinclair victory. The Wall Street Journal, Fortune magazine and other media outlets have recently warned of similar threats.

And there may be something similar about the political dynamics.

Sinclair’s opponents could offer only a weak alternative candidate. Merriam had few friends and many critics.

In 2025, New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who abandoned the primary when he was running as a Democrat and is now running as an independent, is arguably weaker still, having been rescued by President Donald Trump from a corruption indictment that might have sent him to prison. If he is the best hope to stop Mamdani, the campaign strategy will likely parallel 1934. All attack ads – little effort to promote Adams.

But there is an important difference in the way the New York contest is setting up. Andrew Cuomo remains on the ballot as an independent, and his name could draw votes that might otherwise go to Adams.

Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate, will also be on the ballot. Whereas in 1934 two candidates divided progressive votes, in 2025 three candidates are going to divide the stop-Mamdani votes.

Religion also looms large in the campaign ahead. The New York City metro area’s U.S. Muslim population is said to be at least 600,000, compared to an estimated 1.6 million Jewish residents. Adams has announced that the threat of antisemitism will be the major theme of his campaign.

The stop-Sinclair campaign also relied on religion, focusing on his professed atheism and pulling quotations from books he had written denouncing organized religion. However, a statistical analysis of voting demographics suggests that this effort proved unimportant. More

In March 2025, President Félix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) offered the country’s critical mineral reserves to the United States and Europe in exchange for security and stability.

At the time, the March 23 (M23) militia insurgency was unleashing violence: killing civilians, committing sexual violence, displacing communities and looting mineral resources. Since 1996, eastern Congo has been engulfed in wars and armed conflicts driven by regional powers and more than 120 armed groups.

The U.S.-brokered peace agreement between Rwanda and the DRC raises critical questions: Is this a genuine path to sustainable peace, or a continuation of U.S. President Donald Trump’s strategy to secure access to critical minerals through coercive diplomacy?

Read more:
4 things every peace agreement needs – and how the DRC-Rwanda deal measures up

Global arms race for critical minerals

The global shift toward renewable energy, digital infrastructure and military modernization has sparked a geopolitical scramble for critical and rare earth minerals.

In early 2025, Trump signed a series of executive orders that introduced aggressive and imperial-style tactics to secure access to mineral wealth. He threatened Canada with annexation and tariffs, demanded access to Greenland’s resources and linked U.S. support for Ukraine to access to its mineral reserves.

The DRC’s offer must be viewed through this lens of global resource competition.

Congo’s critical mineral wealth

The DRC holds some of the world’s richest deposits of critical minerals and metals. A 2012 article estimated the value of Congo’s untapped mineral wealth at US$24 trillion, a figure nearing the U.S. first-quarter 2025 GDP of $29.962 trillion.

The DRC produces 70 per cent of the world’s cobalt, ranks fourth in copper, sixth in industrial diamonds and also possesses vast reserves of nickel and lithium, including the Manono deposit expected to yield 95,170 tonnes of crude lithium.

But the struggle to control these resources has fuelled a cycle of armed violence, displacement and exploitation. Despite several peace agreements, peace and stability remain elusive.

America’s interests in Congo

U.S. involvement in Congo stretches back to the Cold War, when it played a role in the 1961 assassination of Patrice Lumumba, Congo’s first elected prime minister who sought economic sovereignty.

In 1996, the U.S. was accused of backing Rwanda and Uganda in the initial invasion of eastern Congo. A U.S. diplomat, “Mr. Hankins,” was quoted in Goma saying: “I am here …to represent American interests.”

In 2024, President Joe Biden met Tshisekedi to advance the Lobito Corridor, a strategic trade route to counter China’s dominance in the region. Chinese companies currently control around 80 per cent of Congo’s copper market.

When Trump signed the 2025 peace agreement, he openly stated the U.S. would gain “a lot of mineral rights … foreign trade and investment from the regional critical mineral supply chains.”

Miners work at the D4 Gakombe coltan mining quarry in Rubaya, Democratic Republic of Congo, in May 2025.
(AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa)

U.S.-brokered peace deal

The deal, however, prioritizes America’s access to minerals over the well-being of Congolese citizens. Historically, Congo’s mineral wealth has enriched elites and foreign powers while leaving its people impoverished and vulnerable. The new agreement could entrench existing inequalities and inflame tensions further.

The U.S. has also cut off aid for war survivors, including emergency medical kits and antiretrovirals for rape victims, undermining humanitarian efforts.

Crucially, the agreement overlooks:

The root causes and drivers of conflict at national, regional and international levels.
The role of Rwanda and Uganda, whose militaries and intelligence services have long been implicated in supporting groups like M23. Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba, son of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, has referred to M23 as “our brothers” and threatened military action in Congo.
The voices of Congolese civil society, war survivors and the public, who were excluded from the negotiation process.
State fragility and institutional collapse — major enablers of protracted violence.
The grievances of Hutu and Tutsi communities in the DRC, deeply rooted in colonial and regional politics.
The presence of more than 120 armed groups, many of them proxies for foreign powers engaging in what some scholars call “geocriminality.”

Between January and February 2025 alone, more than 7,000 people were killed in the DRC. The United Nations and several human rights organizations have documented mass atrocities, including crimes of genocidal magnitude.

A child carrying water walks past Wazalendo forces fighting M23 rebels patrolling in Sake, Democratic Republic of the Congo, in August 2024.
(AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa)

A path toward real peace

The peace agreement fails to demand justice for crimes committed against the Congolese people. Nobel Peace laureate Denis Mukwege condemned the deal for “rewarding aggression, legitimizing the plundering of Congo’s natural resources, and sacrificing justice for a fragile peace.”

It also ignores the roles of international mining corporations and external entities that have long profited from Congo’s instability.

True and lasting peace in the DRC cannot be imposed from the outside. U.S.-led mineral extraction without justice risks deepening the crisis. Since 1999, UN peacekeepers have been deployed in the Congo , yet violence continues.

Sustainable peace will require:

An end to impunity;
Thorough investigations into war crimes;
Regional truth-telling processes;
Justice and reparations for victims;
And most importantly, inclusion of Congolese voices in shaping their future.

Without these commitments, the U.S. risks replicating a long history of exploitation, trading in minerals while ignoring the human cost. More

During his 2024 US presidential election campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly said he would declassify and release the files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting his sex trafficking trial.

The so-called Epstein files are thought to contain contacts, communications and – perhaps most crucially – flight logs. Epstein’s private aircraft was the means by which to visit what has been later termed “paedophile island”, where he and his associates allegedly trafficked and abused children.

Conspiracy-minded Trump supporters, many of whom believe Epstein was murdered by powerful figures to cover up their roles in his child sex crimes, think the Epstein files will provide them with a who’s who of the supposed elites involved in child-sex exploitation.

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During his campaign, Trump hinted that the Epstein files would compromise powerful people – suggesting he knew their identities and what they had done. It was simultaneously a warning shot to these individuals and a way to energise his “Make America Great Again” (Maga) support base. It also validated part of the so-called QAnon conspiracy theory around a “deep-state” cover-up of an elite child sex abuse network.

But the justice department recently announced that its review of these papers revealed no client list of politically important men, and also that Epstein had died by suicide. This struck down two of the most important beliefs of Trump’s base. For a large section of the Maga movement, this somewhat dull set of conclusions has felt like a betrayal.

Musk smells opportunity

Trump’s former close ally, funder and adviser, Elon Musk, has used the Epstein files imbroglio to go on the attack via social media. Musk has, without offering evidence, repeatedly insinuated that Trump’s name is in the files. Trump has responded by accusing Musk of “losing his mind” and used evidence from Epstein’s former lawyer, David Schoen, to refute Musk’s accusations.

Musk’s allegations could be toxic for Trump. A good portion of the Maga movement think the QAnon conspiracy has some truth to it. So being potentially tied to a child sex exploitation ring would damage Trump’s reputation with his base on a subject they care about strongly. Musk has caused some Maga activists to wonder if Trump is part of a cover up.

Musk and Trump have been embroiled in a public fallout after the Tesla owner stepped back from his White House role in May.
Will Oliver / EPA

The Maga base largely remains loyal to Trump. But this loyalty has required considerable pragmatism since Trump was reelected. A key position supported by Maga voters, Trump’s opposition to foreign military adventures, was reversed by his attack on Iranian military sites in June.

Maga-aligned spokespeople justified these actions on the grounds they were limited and a response to exceptional provocation. They are portrayed as a counterpoint to the near open-ended commitment of former US president George Bush in Afghanistan and Iraq in the early 2000s.

Further Maga pragmatism has been required over the so-called Big Beautiful Bill Act, which will add trillions of US dollars to national debt, as well as the cuts to healthcare and food stamp funding. These latter actions have removed coverage and aid from a good portion of Maga-aligned voters.

Despite the personal financial pain, Maga loyalists have couched their support in terms of reducing waste and shrinking the size of the government. These loyalists have faith in Trump’s word that they will ultimately not be disadvantaged – though the implementation phase will be the test of this.

Trump has also stretched the patience and loyalty of corn farmers in mid-western states, a natural base for him. He has called for Coca-Cola to use cane sugar rather than corn syrup in the full-sugar version of its drink. Trump and his controversial health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, have argued that cane sugar is healthier – which is open to question – and will “make America healthy again”.

While the question of which sweetener is used in Coke is marginal, supporting something that damages mid-western farmers will be difficult for Maga loyalists to reconcile. In having to find a way of overcoming the tensions in the policy, they may begin to question Trump’s wisdom.

A Trump supporter sporting a red ‘Keep America Great’ hat at a rally in Des Moines, Iowa.
Aspects and Angles / Shutterstock

The arguments surrounding the Epstein files might be uniquely dangerous for Trump and his relationship with his Maga base. The QAnon paedophile ring conspiracy is core to a great number of Maga loyalists, and Trump was their man to reveal “the truth”.

But the justice department has now effectively rejected that part of their world view. And the response of some has been to question whether Trump is also part of a cover up.

Worse still, Trump has gone on the attack. He has said the Epstein conspiracy was never real and has described some of his supporters as “gullible weaklings” for continuing to believe in it. For some supporters this has been too much, and they have aired their frustration on Trump’s Truth Social media platform as well as on right-leaning blogs and podcasts.

Trump has begun to soften his critique of those believing in the Epstein conspiracies, saying he would want to release any credible information. He has also returned to a campaigning tactic of whataboutery, pointing at what he says is the unfair treatment he receives compared to his predecessors Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

The Epstein files episode might well pass. But the question of whether Maga is now bigger than Trump will not. For a president who once joked that his support was so strong he “could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” without losing voters, the loyalty and pragmatic flexibility of his supporters is important.

Maga is not a uniform group in belief or action. But if Trump loses either the loyalty of some or they refuse to flex their beliefs as they have done before, it will be politically dangerous for him. From beyond the grave, Epstein might have helped begin a new era in American politics. More

We’re just a few months into US president Donald Trump’s second term but his rule has already been repeatedly compared to tyranny.

This may all feel very new to Americans, and to the rest of us watching on from around the world. But the threat of tyranny is an ancient one.

We can learn much from how people in ancient Greece and China dealt with this issue.

Where does tyranny come from?

The peoples of classical Greece were separated into city-states known as the polis.

A few of these, such as Athens and Argos, were democratic.

Others, such as Rhodes or Chios, had had democratic features such as civic participation in public life.

These city-states routinely faced external enemies but also the threat of tyrannical take-over from within.

Things came to a head in 510 BCE under the rule of an oppressive tyrant known as Hippias. He was ultimately expelled, leading eventually to the establishment of democracy through reforms made under an Athenian statesmen called Cleisthenes.

According to Plato, tyranny is the most degenerate political regime and emerges out of democracy’s excesses.

He argued that as democratic citizens become accustomed to living by pleasure rather than reason or duty to the public good, society becomes fragmented.

Demagogues – populist leaders who gain power by appealing to base desires and prejudices of the masses – promise the people more liberties. They turn citizens away from virtue and toward tyranny.

Aristotle, who was Plato’s student, defines tyranny as the corrupted form of monarchy. The tyrant perverts the constitutional order to bring about self-serving rulership – the rule of one. Tyranny, he argued, destroys law and justice, eroding all public trust.

The approach of Plato and Aristotle to combating tyranny was closely tied to their conception of the polis and the importance of citizenship.

For the classical Greeks, citizenship was a binding relationship of reciprocal duties and obligations owed to all other citizens. The law, they believed, was king.

It was these conventions that constrained political power, especially the arbitrary rule of one.

Civic education by participation in daily democratic life promoted virtue, they believed. All citizens and the ruler were subservient to the law – a bond that tyranny destroyed.

Aristotle said a strong middle class that could best prevent tyranny because they indicated a less unequal, and therefore more stable, society.

Plato’s view was more inward looking. He saw tyranny as a political manifestation of a disordered “enslaved soul” governed by appetites rather than reason. For him, philosophical guidance back to harmony was required for the tyrant and for the people.

Only through wisdom, he argued, could the people recognise and reject demagogues and populists.

Protecting democracy from tyranny

Some city-states learned from their institutional failings when tyranny had taken them over.

For example, after a coup of aristocrats overtook Athenian democracy in 411 BCE, Athenians began to swear the Oath of Demophantos. This was among the first attempts at a constitutional safeguard of democracy against tyranny.

It legally and morally obliged citizens to resist any attempt to overthrow democracy by force. The undertaking was a reciprocal duty; as other scholars have argued, each citizen could count on the support of all others to protect the democracy when a tyrant tried again.

This made it far more likely for people to take action against a would-be-tyrant; they knew every other citizen had sworn an oath to have their back.

The Greek historians of the time support these views. For example, Herodotus in the 5th century documented the rise of several tyrants across Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). He blamed the political vacuum created by the decline of aristocratic rule. Here, the personal ambition and luxury of elites laid the path to tyrannical behaviour.

Another famous historian named Thucydides, writing at the same time, analysed the power and political corruption behind tyranny. He observed how times of crisis exposed vulnerabilities within Athens, leading to factionalism, instability, and the erosion of democracy.

Tyranny in classical China

In classical China we see a complementary, yet unique view of tyranny.

During the Warring States period (475–221 BCE), when the Zhou Dynasty was divided amongst several competing states, preventing tyranny was a central concern.

These states were mostly hereditary monarchies rather than democracies but they still emphasised accountability to the people.

Mencius was a Chinese philosopher and disciple of Confucius.
Pictures from History/Getty Images

Mencius, a 4th-century BCE Chinese philosopher and Confucian scholar, argued the people’s welfare was the foundation of legitimate rule.

There is, he argued, a responsibility to all under the Mandate of Heaven (天命, tiānmìng). This ancient Chinese doctrine asserted that heaven grants legitimacy to just rulers. If a ruler became despotic or failed to uphold harmony and virtue, the mandate can be withdrawn, justifying rebellion and dynastic change.

Mencius famously said a ruler who oppresses the people is not a ruler but a “mere man” who could be violently overthrown.

Xunzi, another Confucian philosopher writing in the late 4th to 3rd Centuries BCE, believed humans were inherently selfish and chaotic.

To fend off tyranny he emphasised ritual, education, and rule of law. He believed in formal ceremonies and structured practices such as court etiquette, family rites, and daily ethical conduct. These, he believed, helped cultivate virtue, regulate behaviour, and maintain social harmony.

Mozi, writing mostly in the 5th to early 4th centuries BCE, was a Chinese philosopher who opposed Confucianism and founded Mohism, offered a different view.

Opposing all hierarchies, he emphasised jiān ài(兼爱) – universal obligation or care to all others – as a core ethical and political principle.

According to Mozi, tyranny arises when rulers act selfishly – favoring their own families, states, or interests over the common good. He advocated for strong moral conduct and competence of leaders, rather than their lineage, wealth or status.

Tyranny today

Viewed together, these traditions suggest preventing tyranny requires more than just moral leadership.

Rather, it requires a notion of reciprocity – of shared obligations between citizens – and systemic safeguards against the personal ambitions of rulers.

Ethical governance, civic education, legal frameworks, and shared responsibilities are essential. More