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      We can still have progress under Trump. We just need to focus on our mission | Aaron Glantz

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      Welcome to Fighting Back, the Guardian’s new pop-up newsletter from our opinion desk. From now until the inauguration, you will hear from big thinkers on what we can all do to protect civil liberties and fundamental freedoms in a Trump presidency. If you aren’t already a subscriber, you can sign up here.***Take a deep breath. Go on a walk. Meditate if it’s your practice. Talk with your family, friends and longtime collaborators. And then, when you are ready, sit down and write a personal mission statement rooted in an issue that’s important to you.Think about all the levers of power – local, state, federal, corporate and in the broader civil society. Sketch how each of them relate to the problem you hope to tackle. Most likely, Donald Trump and his administration will have a lot of say on this issue, but they won’t be the only players. Move forward with the intention to confront that issue, rather than attack the US president-elect, and you may find unexpected allies. By doing so, you will give yourself a chance to make a meaningful difference.
      It struck me, in 2016, that many in the media were overlooking the fact that the US had elected a real estate developer president
      As an investigative reporter, I spent the first Trump term focused on housing and economic equity. It struck me, after Trump’s surprise win over Hillary Clinton in 2016, that many in the media were overlooking the fact that the US had elected a real estate developer president – one who had been forced to settle a federal discrimination suit, at that.Housing is central to the American dream. It is nearly every family’s largest expense and the single most important source of wealth for homeowners. But on Barack Obama’s watch, homeownership slipped to a 50-year low. Black and brown families bore the brunt of the decline. I and my colleagues at Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting set out out not to confront Trump per se, but to attack the following problem:Fifty years after President Lyndon Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act, which banned discrimination in mortgage lending, the homeownership gap between Black and white families is larger than during the Jim Crow era. What can we do to ensure equal access to credit and a fair shake at the American dream?Confronting Trump directly seemed like a fool’s errand. His treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin, was a Wall Street executive who personally profited off the foreclosure crisis. The man Trump appointed as the country’s top bank regulator, the comptroller of the currency Joseph Otting, was former chief executive of Mnuchin’s OneWest Bank. From 2010 to 2015, the years Otting was in charge, OneWest made just 1% of its home loans to Black families and 3% to Latinos, despite being headquartered in southern California. But Trump, Mnuchin and Otting were not the only people with power over mortgages. State, local and corporate officials could also be held accountable.In February 2018, my colleague Emmanuel Martinez and I published an investigation, Kept Out, which used an analysis of 31m mortgage records to expose modern-day redlining in 61 US cities. In Atlanta, Detroit, Philadelphia, San Antonio, Washington DC and dozens of others, we found people of color were far more likely to be denied a home loan even when they made the same amount of money, sought the same size loan and wanted to buy in the same neighborhood.This was a year into Trump’s first term. Republicans also controlled both houses of Congress. But our approach, simultaneously sweeping and local in scope, gave communities the tools they needed to hold public officials and corporations accountable.Six state attorneys general launched investigations. In Philadelphia, where we conducted our field reporting, the city created a $100m revolving loan fund to help first-time homebuyers. Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, the country’s largest bank, visited the city and promised a major expansion in community lending. After Trump left office, three states and the justice department reached a $20m settlement with one of Warren Buffett’s mortgage companies, which had been the largest home purchase lender in Philadelphia.That inquiry, launched by then Pennsylvania attorney general Josh Shapiro, found loan officers and mortgage brokers at Buffett’s companies shared pictures of Black people holding wheelbarrows filled with watermelons. One sent a message that read “PROUD TO BE WHITE!” Another complained: “When I call you N****r, K*ke, Towel head, Sandn***r, Camel Jockey, Beaner, Gook, or Chink … You call me a racist.” A top company official posted a picture with the Confederate flag. In addition to settling the case, the company shut down.
      We, the public, would be well-served to step back from this partisan tit-for-tat and focus on whether political leaders get stuff done
      This history is worth revisiting as Trump returns to power and once again stacks his administration with cronies. Some blue-state governors, including California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, and Illinois’s governor, JB Pritzker, have positioned themselves to lead the resistance, with Newsom convening a special legislative session to “Trump-proof” the state.But we, the public, would be well-served to step back from this partisan tit-for-tat and focus on whether political leaders “get stuff done”, as Shapiro said in his post-election statement.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHousing is a major concern for Americans of all political perspectives. A recent Pew Research survey found 69% percent of respondents were “very concerned” about housing costs – with overwhelming majorities of both Republicans and Democrats worried. On this metric, the blue states are failing.California and New York have the lowest homeownership rates and the highest rents, according to the US Census Bureau. In California, a family must make $221,000 a year to qualify for a loan on a “mid-tier” home, according to an October report from the state legislative analyst office. If you’re a working-class person of any race, it’s no wonder Trump’s outrage is attractive. Democratic politicians aren’t solving the problems most important to you.Homelessness is also on the rise – especially in blue states and especially in California. According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, California accounted for 49% of all unsheltered people in the United States last year (123,423 people) – nearly eight times the number of unsheltered people in second-place Florida.None of this is Trump’s fault. California is the fourth-largest economy in the world with a state budget approaching $300bn. The Golden state has poured $24bn into solving its homelessness crisis over the last five years, but a state audit found it didn’t adequately track whether all that money was spent effectively. In San Francisco, where residents voted to oust their mayor in favor of the heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, the city spends nearly a billion dollars a year fighting homelessness – and likewise has little to show for it.
      Center an issue you care about, ask who is responsible for solving it, find allies and move forward with intention
      So where does this leave us? Back where we started. It sounds basic, but it’s true. People want a government that works for them. Center an issue you care about, ask who is responsible for solving it, find allies and move forward with intention. Not only will this approach bring results for you and those you care about, it will also provide an opportunity to dull the political polarization that feeds Trump’s power. You may not be able to lessen Trump’s rage or his desire for retribution, but you will be able to get something done – and that’s the most important step to creating the world you want to live in.What gives me hopeI derive hope and strength from the community around me. I know that all of us, pushing together, can weave a tapestry of strength that propels impact. In this time, consider supporting organizations that provide space to mission-driven journalists to find common cause together, including the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education, the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting and the Carter Center, home of the Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism.***Aaron Glantz, a two-time Peabody award winner and Pulitzer prize finalist, is a fellow at Stanford University’s Center for the Advanced Study of Behavioral Sciences. His books include Homewreckers: How a Gang of Wall Street Kingpins, Hedge Fund Magnates, Crooked Banks and Vulture Capitalists Suckered Millions Out of Their Homes and Demolished the American Dream (HarperCollins). More

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      Love him or loathe him, Elon Musk is a champion of efficiency and could save the US government a fortune

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      Donald Trump and Elon Musk have apparently become great friends over recent months. Musk poured millions of dollars into Trump’s successful election campaign, and has been a vocal and visible supporter of the president-elect.

      In return he’s been given a new job, in joint charge of the new Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), where he will be tasked with streamlining government operations and reducing bureaucracy.

      This “department” – actually an advisory group – will aim to cut unnecessary spending and make the general functioning of the US government more efficient. The idea is that within a federal budget of over US$6 trillion, there are opportunities to make some big savings.

      Musk’s appointment – like many things he’s involved with – has sparked controversy. The richest man in the world has already said he wants to cut spending by US$2 trillion (£1.6 trillion), and mentioned setting up a “leaderboard for most insanely dumb spending of your tax dollars”.

      Some are concerned about the impact he could have on public services. Others fear he will use his position to promote his own business interests.

      On the positive side, Musk has a very impressive CV when it comes to big organisations. He has created (or co-created) multi-billion-dollar businesses including Paypal, Tesla and SpaceX. He has founded startups involved in AI (xAI), tunnelling (the Boring Company), and medicine (Neuralink).

      And research suggests that much of Musk’s success comes down to a relentless focus on efficiency. He has also been praised for the depth of his analytical thinking and innovative problem solving.

      Tesla’s factory in California went from being the least productive car manufacturing plant in the US when it was owned by General Motors, to the most productive under Musk’s ownership. SpaceX has vastly reduced costs in the space cargo business.

      So he has form. And Musk is not the first American business leader to offer private sector expertise to the world of politics.

      Back in the 1960s, Robert McNamara, former president of the Ford Motor Company, served as secretary of defence under presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. McNamara brought significant innovations to government efficiency which drew on his corporate experience.

      He championed cost-benefit analysis and a data-driven approach to decision making, and was keen on reducing bureaucracy and promoting accountability in complex governmental processes. To achieve this, McNamara recruited a team of experts from the worlds of academia and business. Known as the “Whizz Kids”, they brought new perspectives to the White House.

      In the UK now, the Labour government’s minister of state for investment is Poppy Gustafsson, a former venture capitalist and tech founder. Its minister for prisons is James Timpson, former CEO of the Timpson Group, a family firm renowned for hiring ex-offenders.

      These people – and there are many other examples around the world – were brought into the political sphere because of the knowledge and vision they have demonstrated in the private sector. The hope is their talent and leadership will improve policy and practice.

      Data-driven reform

      The same must be hoped for Musk: that with his co-leader, Vivek Ramaswamy – a bio-tech entrepreneur and former Republican leadership candidate – he will bring expertise in cost-cutting and innovative strategies. This will probably include comprehensive audits and data-driven approaches to reform.

      Critics refer to prior examples of Musk’s approach, such as the mass layoffs and aggressive cost-cutting measures at Twitter (now X), with concerns that there could be similarly drastic reductions in the federal workforce and public services.

      But big job cuts were happening across the tech sector at that time. They came in the wake of reduced revenues and a need to reduce bloated workforces and ineffective functions – not unlike the challenges faced by the US government.

      Nevertheless, while proponents see Musk as an experienced leader capable of streamlining bureaucracy, sceptics fear the advent of harmful austerity measures that risk disruption to essential public programmes.

      Concerns have also been raised about potential conflicts of interest, as Musk’s business empire benefits from government contracts. However, since Doge will operate as an advisory body, concerns over him gaining advantage through any self-dealing seem overblown.

      Besides, two of Musk’s companies (SpaceX and Tesla) have been awarded US$15.4 billion (£12.3bn) in federal contracts in the last decade. Perhaps then, success precedes influence rather than the reverse?

      Making space travel more economically viable?
      Evgeniyqw/Shutterstock

      Doge will also be governed by the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which maintains legal and ethical guardrails. And Congress will have the final say over any decisions.

      Fears of the worst possible outcome to Musk’s appointment are a natural human response in the face of uncertainty. It is part of the reason that negative headlines get more clicks than positive ones.

      It is also true that Musk has aligned himself with a politician who divides opinion like few others. By leveraging his billions of dollars and 200 million followers on X to help Trump to victory, he made it clear which side he was on. And in a highly polarised US political landscape, the anguish about his governmental role may be little more than a knee-jerk reaction from the millions of people whose side he did not choose. More

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      Five actions Biden can take to protect civil liberties before Trump’s presidency

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      In less than two months, Donald Trump will take office, threatening several areas of American life and international policy. The president-elect has pledged to take aim at LGBTQ+ rights, specifically for transgender and gender-non-conforming people. He has promised to conduct mass deportations and raids as a part of a far-right approach to US immigration. And he is expected to roll back data collection practices on police misconduct and stifle any hope of passing police reform in Congress – specifically the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.Trump will largely be able to roll out his agenda, outlined in the 900-plus-page Project 2025 document, as Republicans took control of Congress during the 2024 general election. Joe Biden’s actions in his remaining time in office could be a crucial buttress against the expected impacts of the next four years.Six experts spoke with the Guardian about what the US president could do in his remaining time to protect the most vulnerable people:1. LGBTQ+ rights: fulfill executive order initiatives and confirm judgesAmong Trump’s collection of anti-LGBTQ+ initiatives, his administration’s plans to redefine sex are of particular concern, said Elana Redfield, the federal policy director at the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy.  Sex would be redefined “in such a manner that actually eradicates trans people”, said Redfield, and would not allow for “self-identification”. “The definition of sex that they would propose is that sex is defined based on anatomical characteristics at birth and is unchangeable.” The definition of sex is “at the core of some of the biggest civil rights conversations we’re having in the LGBTQ+ context”, said Redfield. The Biden administration has interpreted the definition of “sex” to include sexual orientation and gender identity. But with Trump, redefining sex could rollback protections and cause issues for transgender people attempting to access federal programs such as social security benefits, especially as many programs ask for participants to enroll with a gender identification. A redefinition of sex could also result in people being investigated for fraud if their gender doesn’t match across all federal identification documents, said Redfield. Many of these questions around the federal government’s ability to define sex will face legal challenges. So Biden, in tandem with Democrats, should continue to confirm federal judges who will probably hear legal cases about gender, Redfield said. Congressional Democrats have managed to confirm several and are only 15 short of the 234 judicial confirmations needed to match the record set by Trump during his first term. Biden should also complete everything outlined in his Executive Order 14075, including checking in with federal agencies to make sure they are well equipped to handle increased needs from LGBTQ+ people amid Trump’s presidency. “For example,” Redfield said, “if everyone’s changing their passports right now, they need to make sure they have enough staffing for that.”2. Police reform: make sure data on policing is publicly availableThrough executive orders, Biden largely increased data collection on patterns and practices of police departments, said Patrice Willoughby, the chief of policy and legislative affairs at the NAACP. But such data, which tracks police actions including traffic stops, arrests and use of force, will probably come to a “complete stop” under Trump’s administration, likely to boost “the narrative of Black violence” cited by conservatives. Willoughby added that Trump will not provide an opportunity to continue reform efforts seen under Biden, especially given past comments supporting a “violent day” of policing to end perceived increases in crime. With his remaining term, Biden must make sure that data on policing is “available publicly for advocacy organizations, state and local governments” and disseminated so it does not “disappear during a second Trump presidency”. Additionally, the Biden administration should ensure that the “methodology of collecting data” is available to state and local municipalities so it can be “replicated across different ecosystems”, said Willoughby. “States and localities that are interested in police reform [can] have the path forward in order to continue to collect data and apply it in their individual communities.”It’s also important for Biden to direct federal agencies to use funding that has already been earmarked by Congress to address police reform, especially, she said, as conservatives will probably “claw back” funding allocated towards equity and communities of color.3. Immigration: close detention centers and slow rate of detentions Biden should close the estimated 200 US detention sites that will be used by Trump to carry out mass deportation and slow down the current rate of detention for undocumented people, said Naureen Shah, deputy director of government affairs at the ACLU.“When I think about the Trump presidency, I’m anticipating an avalanche of anti-immigrant action from day one, from within hours of inauguration,” said Shah. She added that Ice will probably conduct raids using state and local law enforcement, targeting of undocumented students and attacks on birthright citizenship. The biggest issue is that the Biden administration has left “intact the infrastructure for abuse”, Shah said, including the US detention sites that will be used during Trump’s mass deportation. “We urged the Biden administration early on to close detention facilities across the country,” she said. “We argued that they needed to close the facilities so that another administration couldn’t come in and fill them up.”But instead, the number of detentions has increased throughout the Biden administration, now reaching approximately 37,000 a day, said Shah, with Trump planning to increase that amount. Shah warned that Trump would now have “the empty beds to fill” because “the Biden administration left it all there”. Biden also left in place 287(g) agreements, which allow Ice to tap local law enforcement to identify and place immigrants in the deportation pipeline. Requests for the Biden administration to end said agreements have gone unfulfilled, said Shah.“At this point, we’re calling on the Biden administration to at least slow down the expansion that is planned of Ice detention and to close facilities run by abusive sheriffs and private prison companies,” Shah said, naming the Baker county detention center as a site that advocates have been flagging for years.4. Gaza: end arms sales to Israel Biden could withdraw US military assistance and arms sales as well as allowing for an “honest assessment of Israel’s conduct”, said Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch. “It’s not too late for Biden to invoke that leverage as US law requires and even in recognizing that Trump would probably reverse it, it still would be an extremely important statement,” Roth said. Allowing for a review of Israel’s actions, including the restriction of humanitarian aid and bombing shelters housing civilians, would make clear that such conduct “[are] war crimes”. “It would be more than just an important rebuke of how the Israeli government is fighting this war. It would help to lay the groundwork for potential international criminal charges,” Roth said, adding that Trump could later face charges for “aiding and abetting war crimes” if the war is still conducted in this manner. But such actions are unlikely. The Biden administration could have allowed the United Nations security council to insist on a ceasefire with “no political cost”, Roth said, comparing the moment to when Barack Obama allowed a security council resolution on the illegality of Israel’s West Bank settlements to go through before Trump’s inauguration in 2016. “[But] Biden wouldn’t do it. He vetoed it … [He] would not do the comparable thing, even though the stakes are much higher. “Biden has said all the right things. He’s pressed for a ceasefire, he’s urged greater attention to civilian casualties, he’s pressed for food and humanitarian aid to come into Gaza,” Roth said. “He’s done nothing to use his leverage to back up those pleas.”5. Education: broadly expand DEI effortsTrump’s plans to rescind diversity, inclusion and equity (DEI) efforts from the Biden administration could embolden states that are already targeting such initiatives in education, through anti-CRT (critical race theory) laws, which often restrict classroom material and curriculum on topics including race, sexual orientation and gender identity, said Jordan Nellums, a higher education senior policy associate at the Century Foundation, a progressive thinktank. “The problem that we’ve seen in some states like Texas is that now faculty are looking at their syllabi for classes and realizing that they can’t even use the word ‘race’ or any type of word that may indicate that there’s going to be a discussion on race in certain classes,” he said.With the Department of Education potentially being dismantled, it could also pause its work at making sure that students facing discrimination have a means of reporting it, specifically through the Office of Civil Rights within the education department. Education is largely a “state issue”, said Nellums, but the Biden administration could sign executive actions to mandate that agencies protect DEI efforts more broadly. In terms of student debt, an issue disproportionately affecting people of color and low-income people, Biden could also make sure that those who are eligible for student loan forgiveness, specifically with public servant loan forgiveness and individuals who were defrauded by their college, said Aissa Canchola-Bañez, policy director for the Student Borrower Protection Center. “The Biden-Harris administration has done so much great work in trying to  fix some of the programs that were broken under the last Trump administration, fixing the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program and fixing Income Driven Repayment program,” said Canchola-Bañez. But many people are still waiting to get debt relief due to bureaucratic backlogs, said Canchola-Bañez. “The Biden administration can also work to make sure that all those folks who were promised relief actually see it happen.” More

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      How millions of US children would be hurt by Trump’s mass deportation plan: ‘Deep harm is intentional’

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      Donald Trump confirmed on Monday his intentions to make mass deportations a hallmark of his second term.That such measures would drastically upend the lives of the US’s immigrant communities is widely understood. But sweeping anti-immigrant policies would also be detrimental to American citizens – most notably the nearly 20 million US-born children of immigrant parents.“Mass deportations will be profoundly harmful to US citizen children,” said Andrew Craycroft, staff attorney at the Immigrant Legal Resource Center in San Francisco.In 2022, one in four US children had at least one immigrant parent, and more than 4 million US citizens under age 18 lived with an undocumented parent.“These are millions of US citizen children who were born here, who have grown up going to your elementary schools and playing on your little league baseball teams, who are facing a very real danger of losing their parents,” said Kelly Albinak Kribs, co-director of the Technical Assistance Program at the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights.And while the mechanics by which the president-elect would actually execute his sweeping anti-immigrant agenda remain murky, there is little doubt that creating a climate of fear for immigrant communities is one of his administration’s top priorities – and one that will cause irreparable psychological damage to millions of US citizens.Deporting the parents of US-citizen children didn’t begin with Trump. However, past administrations took precautions to limit the trauma it caused, advocates and legal experts say.The Obama administration barred Ice raids from taking place in schools, childcare centers, hospitals and places of worship. Before that, the Bush administration required Ice to notify schools and child protective services in advance of a large-scale raid.Trump’s policies, on the other hand, appear to traumatize children by design to curb unwanted immigration. “Under Trump, previously and in the future, deep harm to children is absolutely intentional and in many ways is the entire point,” said Wendy Cervantes, director of immigration and immigrant families at the Center for Law and Social Policy.Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy at the southern border separated at least 5,000 foreign-born children and hundreds of US citizen children from their parents. He also ramped-up interior enforcement measures, such as targeted worksite raids. In 2019, Cervantes visited towns in central Mississippi where Ice agents had arrested nearly 700 undocumented poultry plant workers, many of whom had US-born children attending nearby public schools.View image in fullscreen“The kids could see their parents being marched into white vans, handcuffed, as they were leaving school,” Cervantes said. “It was like a nightmare. And those kids, to this day, are still requiring a lot of mental health support.”Come January, Americans should anticipate a return to “draconian measures” such as family separation, said Kribs. Trump has also indicated desires to go after immigrants with legal status, expand the circumstances that allow for denaturalization and pursue unlawful measures that explicitly target the US-born children of immigrants like ending birthright citizenship.But how Trump would execute his more radical ambitions, including militarized mass deportations, is unclear.Such an operation would take a high degree of coordination, both between US agencies and with foreign governments, to pull off. A country like Mexico may accommodate receiving a few hundred people, “but it’s a completely different issue to talk about hundreds of thousands of people being sent back”, said Nando Sigona, professor of international migration and forced displacement at the University of Birmingham.It would also be expensive. According to Debu Gandhi, senior director for immigration policy at the Center for American Progress, deporting workers would accelerate inflation, shrink the food supply, slow efforts to build affordable housing and squander taxpayer dollars in efforts to “deport mothers of US citizen children who [pose] no security threat”, Gandhi said.And then there’s the question of public opinion.Backlash again Trump’s 2018 family separation policies was widespread across the political spectrum, explained Lee Gelernt, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union who led the lawsuit against “zero tolerance”. “If a second Trump administration does extreme things, we hope and expect the public will push back,” he said. “In his first term, I think they believed they had dehumanized the immigrant population to such an extent that the public would not push back even when little babies were torn away, but there was enormous pushback across the political and ideological spectrum.”Whether or not mass deportations occur, citizen children of immigrants will be adversely impacted by living in a constant state of fear.Research shows that the threat of parental separation alone can cause PTSD and toxic stress in young children. Under the coming administration, that stress will be especially pronounced in mixed-status families, where one or more parent lacks legal status. “It’s easiest to start with people who are wholly unprotected,” said Kribs.Anti-immigrant policies can also have a chilling effect by which immigrant parents, fearing arrest and separation, keep their citizen children home from school, refrain from signing up for benefits such as food stamps or health insurance, and avoid taking their citizen children to the doctor, said Sigona.View image in fullscreenMisinformation exacerbates immigrant parents’ fears that engaging with public services could jeopardize their status or their chances of acquiring permanent residency. The repercussions can be dangerous. “There were parents telling us about how they were making decisions about whether or not to take their kids to the emergency room in the middle of the night,” Cervantes said.Other citizen children may lose contact with the US entirely. If a parent facing deportation chooses to keep their family together, a citizen child will have to leave the US and resettle elsewhere – often in an unfamiliar country that their parent fled for reasons of safety or security.Existing guidance urges Ice agents to detain the parents of citizen children near their children’s residence, arrange for visitation rights, and give them time to make childcare arrangements – but this isn’t binding. “Broadly speaking, these citizen children don’t have the right to have their parent remain with them,” Craycroft said.“Children simply don’t have the same rights as adults,” echoed Cervantes, describing the discrepancy as one of the immigrant system’s biggest flaws.Knowing this, immigrant and child welfare advocates are prepared to have all hands on deck to combat what they see as an imminent crisis for millions of citizen children.“We are facing these next four years clear-eyed and ready to meet the challenge,” said the Young Center’s Kribs. “But there’s going to be a lot of heartbreak along the way.” More

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      Project 2025: the Trump picks with ties to ultra-rightwing policy manifesto

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      On the campaign trail, Donald Trump repeatedly disavowed Project 2025, saying he had “nothing to do” with the blueprint for a conservative presidency and didn’t know the people behind it. But as he starts to assemble his cabinet and White House staff, it seems likely he’ll get to know the people involved very well soon.Trump’s attempts to disavow the project before winning re-election seemed improbable, given that it was written by various members of his first administration and aligned on policy goals with his own proposed second term agenda.His transition team claimed it would not hire any people associated with Project 2025 because it was “radioactive”.But, in his selections for key roles, he has already tapped people with direct ties to the rightwing manifesto.Brendan CarrView image in fullscreenTrump’s nominee to chair the Federal Communications Commission wrote the chapter on the FCC in Project 2025. In the chapter, Carr advocates for “reining in big tech”, in part by limiting the immunity tech platforms have from content posted by third parties. He specifically mentions abuses by Google, Meta and YouTube as examples of platforms requiring such reining in.Tom HomanView image in fullscreenHoman, chosen as Trump’s “border czar”, is listed as a contributor to Project 2025, though his name is not listed on any specific chapter or policy ideas.He also worked as a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation. He penned op-eds, promoted by Heritage, that attacked the Biden administration over immigration and panned the bipartisan immigration deal. He wrote in one op-ed that “race-baiting Democrats” had called him names when he led Ice.Mike HuckabeeView image in fullscreenMike Huckabee, named by Trump to be his ambassador to Israel, interviewed the Heritage president and Project 2025 architect, Kevin Roberts, on his show in October 2024 as part of an effort to counter the negative press about the project.Karoline Leavitt View image in fullscreenThe incoming White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, appeared in training videos for Project 2025. In addition to the policy manifesto, the project’s four pillars involved amassing a database of potential employees and creating a training program for conservatives who wanted positions in a rightwing presidency. In a video called “The Art of Professionalism”, obtained by ProPublica and Documented, Leavitt talks about her advice for people who would serve as staff. While she was the national press secretary for Trump’s campaign, she claimed the project had nothing to do with Trump. She also appears in a promotional video for the project.Stephen MillerView image in fullscreenStephen Miller will be back in the White House, this time as deputy chief of staff for policy. He is the president of the America First Legal Foundation, a legal attack dog non-profit for rightwing causes.America First Legal was listed as a supporter of Project 2025 and appeared as a member of the project’s advisory board, though the group then asked to be removed from it. Miller also appeared in a promotional video for the project, which is still posted on the project’s website.John RatcliffeView image in fullscreenRatcliffe, offered the role of CIA director by Trump, was a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, where he was tasked with chairing a project to hold China accountable for Covid-19 and “helping Project 2025 build out policy recommendations for intelligence reform in the next presidential administration”, according to the Heritage website.Ratcliffe is listed as a contributor to Project 2025. He also is interviewed for the project, and excerpts of the interview went into a chapter on the intelligence community. In the chapter, Ratcliffe is quoted multiple times, on issues such as making sure the intelligence community is accountable to the director of national intelligence and on countering China.“I had an $85bn combined annual budget for both the national intelligence program and military intelligence program,” he is quoted in Project 2025. “My perspective was, ‘Whatever we’re spending on countering China, it isn’t enough.’”JD VanceView image in fullscreenTrump’s vice-president has close ties with Roberts, the Heritage president. Vance wrote the foreword for Roberts’ book, which was released after the election.Roberts “is somebody I rely on a lot who has very good advice, very good political instincts”, Vance told news outlet Notus in January 2024. In the foreword, Vance praises Roberts’ ideas and boldness, saying the book advances a “fundamentally Christian view of culture and economics” and a “surprising – even jarring” path forward for conservatives. More

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      Americans agree politics is broken − here are 5 ideas for fixing key problems

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      Now that the elections are over, you might be left feeling exhausted, despondent and disillusioned – whether your preferred candidate won or not. You are not alone.

      Survey after survey has found that Americans agree that the political system is not serving them.

      Americans say they are angry at the political dysfunction, disgusted with the divisive rhetoric, weary from the lack of options, and feel unheard and unrepresented. I am a mathematician who studies quantitative aspects of democracy, and in my view, the reason for this widespread dissatisfaction is evident: The mechanisms of American democracy are broken at a fundamental level.

      Research shows that there are clear mathematical fixes for these malfunctions that would implement sound democratic practices supported by evidence. They won’t solve every ailment of American democracy: For example, Altering Supreme Court rulings or expanding voting access are more political or administrative than they are based in math. Nevertheless, each of these changes – especially in combination with one another – could make American democracy more responsive to its citizens.

      Problem: Plurality voting

      Plurality voting, or the winner-take-all method, is how all but a handful of the nation’s 520,000 elected officials are chosen. It is also mathematically the worst, because it can give victory to a candidate who does not have majority support. This method is rife with mathematical problems, such as vote-splitting and the spoiler effect, which both deliver victory to less popular candidates.

      Solution: Ranked-choice voting

      Ranked-choice voting allows voters to put their preferences in order, rather than just registering their top selection.

      This system, used in Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere around the world, as well is in over 50 jurisdictions in the U.S., including Alaska, New York City and Minneapolis, elects a candidate that has broad support. Because voters are not worried about wasting their votes, this method allows people to show support for third-party candidates even if they don’t win. This method also punishes negative campaigning because candidates can win even if they are some voters’ second or third choices, not just their first choice.

      Using mathematical principles and methods, it’s possible to rebalance democracy.
      Andrii Yalanskyi/iStock / Getty Images Plus

      Problem: Electoral College

      The Electoral College is a unique and uniquely archaic mechanism that no other country in the world wants anything to do with. Its legacy of slavery and the Constitution’s framers’ skepticism about the populace being smart enough to make good decisions for themselves is only exacerbated by its many mathematical problems, which give some states’ voters more power than others when electing a president.

      Solution: Popular vote

      The evidence shows that switching to a popular vote would eliminate those biases. But even if 63% of Americans support getting rid of the Electoral College, history shows that the constitutional amendment required is not likely to happen.

      A way to avoid a need for a constitutional change could be the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, currently supported by 17 states, including California and Illinois, and Washington, D.C. It would require the electors from the states in the compact to vote for the winner of the national popular vote. But it does not take effect until enough states join that their combined electoral votes reach the winning threshold of 270. Right now, states with a total of 209 electoral votes back the measure.

      Problem: Single-winner districts

      Because of winner-take-all voting, congressional and state officeholders don’t necessarily reflect the district’s partisan makeup, giving disproportionate representation to one party.

      Solution: Multi-winner districts

      Most democracies around the world have geographically larger districts that elect multiple candidates at the same time. Multi-winner districts are designed to achieve proportional representation. Right now, all nine Massachusetts representatives in the U.S. House are Democrats, even though one-third of the state’s voters typically opt for Republican candidates. But if Massachusetts had three congressional districts instead of nine, and each elected three House members, one-third of the seats would go to Republicans, commensurate with the proportion of the state’s Republican voters. Multi-winner districts also effectively eliminate gerrymandering.

      South Carolina state Sen. Dick Harpootlian, D-Columbia, questions his Republican colleagues’ new map of congressional districts on Jan. 20, 2022.
      Jeffrey Collins/AP

      Problem: Party primaries

      About 10% of eligible voters cast ballots in congressional primaries. Those voters often represent a fired-up base that can elevate fringe or extreme candidates who go on to run in general races that are often not competitive due to a confluence of factors such as plurality voting and single-winner districts.

      The final figures are not yet available for 2024, but this one-tenth fraction of voters effectively decided 83% of congressional seats in 2020. Representatives mold their politics to pander to the demands of that base and can keep their jobs for decades with little effort.

      Presidential primaries have their own mathematical flaws that distort the preferences of the voters and reward polarizing candidates who can turn out the base.

      Solution: Open primaries, or none at all

      A system of open, nonpartisan primaries is employed in California, Colorado and Nevada. Three or four top candidates advance to the general election, which is then conducted using ranked-choice voting. This structure increases voter participation and delivers more representative outcomes.

      A simpler solution could be to eliminate primary elections and hold a single, open general election with ranked-choice voting.

      A 1913 postcard shows the U.S. House of Representatives in the year its membership was fixed by law at 435.
      vintagehalloweencollector via Flickr, CC BY-ND

      Problem: Size of the House of Representatives

      The very first amendment the framers of the Constitution proposed was one that would have required the size of the House of Representatives to grow as the nation’s population increased. For close contact between officeholders and constituents, they liked a ratio of 30,000 to 50,000 people per House member. Their amendment was never ratified.

      The ratio today is 760,000 people per representative. The size of the House is set by law and has been fixed at 435 members since 1913. It is hard to imagine that a representative can speak knowledgeably about so many constituents or understand their collective needs and preferences.

      Solution: Make it bigger

      To reduce the ratio, the House would need to be bigger. With a national population over 337 million, James Madison’s preference would require more than 6,700 House members. That’s unwieldy. Most democracies either intentionally follow or seem to have naturally settled on a different formula, in which the size of the legislature is about equal to the cube root of the country’s population.

      For the U.S., that number is currently nearly 700, which would put the population-to-representative ratio at 475,000-to-1. This would still upset Madison, but it’s considerably more representative than the current state of affairs.

      Could the Capitol handle such an expansion? Architectural studies show that won’t be a problem. More

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      in US Politics

      Graduate students explore America’s polarized landscape via train in this course

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      Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.

      Title of course:

      Crossing the Divide

      What prompted the idea for the course?

      I developed the idea for this course in 2016 during an Amtrak writing residency program. I spent over two weeks crisscrossing the United States via train while working on my 2021 book about the French National Railways and World War II. After binge-watching the country and gabbing with strangers, I knew the train would be the coolest classroom. I wrote some articles about its value for Smithsonian magazine.

      The increasing polarization and the then-upcoming U.S. presidential election made May 2024 the perfect time to invite graduate students studying peace, conflict and justice to join me.

      Students visited the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala.
      John Coletti

      What does the course explore?

      Students met two times at the Kroc School of Peace Studies within the University of San Diego to discuss our forthcoming two-week trip’s scheduled stops and assignments, which would include talking with strangers, different readings, keeping a journal and producing individual blogs.

      We rode Amtrak trains between states and rented vans to move about within states. We departed from San Diego’s Old Town Transit Center, heading first to Los Angeles to visit Homeboy Industries, the largest gang rehabilitation program. Then, over the course of two weeks, we stopped in Arizona, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and Washington D.C., visiting places that cut across various divides: red and blue, eco-friendly and pro-fossil fuel, as well as urban and rural populations. On the train, we got to know each other, made new friends, watched the passing landscape, read, and wrote in our journals.

      We then visited Patagonia, Arizona, a 900-person town that has the gift of being one of the most biologically diverse ecosystems in the USA and the curse of resting atop critical minerals about to be extracted for national security. Ecologists say the mining extraction project, known as the Hermosa project, will likely have a significant negative impact on the area’s water supply and endangered species in the region, as well as residents living near the manganese processing plant.

      After 26 hours on the train, we arrived in Houston. There we visited the Houston Museum of Natural Science to understand how the petroleum industry explains – or does not discuss – its role in climate change. In New Orleans, we visited the Whitney Plantation, a nonprofit museum on the site of a former slave plantation. This museum tries to educate visitors about the South’s history from the perspective of the enslaved. We also studied the prison conditions at Louisiana State Penitentiary, where incarcerated persons engage in physically harmful forced labor.

      In Birmingham, Alabama, we attended a church service at the 16th Street Baptist Church, made famous by the 1963 bombing by white supremacists that killed four girls. In Montgomery, Alabama, we visited the Legacy of Slavery Museum and a lynching memorial.

      We ended in Washington, D.C., where we visited the National Archives, which houses the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.

      In between our stops, we spent time on the train talking to strangers and getting a sense of the country’s vast landscape – both politically and geographically. We also made a short video about the trip.

      The class stops in Houston along its two-week, cross-country tour.
      Tony Campos, CC BY

      Why is this course relevant now?

      According to the Pew Research Center, the American public remains more deeply and bitterly politically polarized than at any time in the past two decades. There has been an increase in both “ideological polarization,” meaning political disagreement, as well as “affective polarization,” an increased antipathy and animosity toward others with whom we disagree. Some people fear that these divides can lead the country into civil war and eventually cause democracy to fail.

      I wanted to explore with students just how polarized the country felt. I also wanted us to react to this polarization by reaching out to others, rather than recoiling.

      What’s a critical lesson from the course?

      When we rely on our smartphones and televisions to tell us about our country, it’s easy to become afraid and withdraw from public life and to avoid strangers. We did the opposite and found many wonderful people as well as many challenges, such as torturous, forced prison labor, resistance within the fossil fuel industry to acknowledge or respond to its role in climate change, the difficultly of safely extracting critical minerals from fragile ecosystems, and tensions over what U.S. children will learn about the country’s historical practice of slavery.

      What materials does the course feature?

      Site visits, local newspapers and strangers. Prior to departure they read parts of Monica Guzman’s “I Never Thought of it That Way” to prepare them to be open to new ideas and people. They also read academic articles about polarization and watched a PBS clip about national divides. Students found the 2024 documentary “God and Country,” about Christian nationalism, especially powerful.

      Along the way, they read websites of the sites we planned to visit, as well as local newspapers, including the Patagonia Regional Times, Houston Chronicle and The Birmingham Times. Supplementary articles included readings about book bans in Texas.

      What will the course prepare students to do?

      I want the course to help students feel more confident engaging with strangers and exploring connection, instead of assuming difference. They also become better versed in some of the challenges of our time – including climate change, mining impacts, racial divides, legacies of slavery – as well as approaches to addressing these conflicts. They learned how to seek out different perspectives and embrace complexity without becoming immobilized. Several students dedicated their final capstone project to exploring more deeply the mining impacts in Patagonia, Arizona, and meeting with stakeholders to find ways to lessen the environmental impact of this mining work. More

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      in US Politics

      The US needs more working-class political candidates | Dustin Guastella and Bhaskar Sunkara

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      Dan Osborn’s performance this month was a bright spot in an otherwise bleak election cycle for progressives. Although he ultimately lost, the independent US Senate candidate outperformed Kamala Harris in Nebraska by 14 percentage points while running an assertively anti-establishment, pro-union platform. His formula was simple: connect with people about their economic problems, tell them who to blame for them, and tell them what he would do about it.Now he’s starting a new political action committee, Working Class Heroes Fund, to support working-class candidates, something our national politics direly needs.Throughout 2024, Osborn’s ideas shaped what should have been an uneventful race in a deep red state. He ran on a pro-union agenda that would have passed the Pro Act to aid organizing efforts, raised the minimum wage, and provided mandatory bereavement leave for all workers. His statement to ABC News’ Jonathan Karl – “I want to challenge the system because the system has to be challenged” – captured a common campaign theme.Osborn’s egalitarianism was profoundly connected to his personal experiences. “Thirty-thirty 16-hour shifts on Sundays,” he recalled in one of his closing campaign ads. “That’s what I had to do to provide for my family.” His story wasn’t unusual, but it wasn’t one reflected in Washington (a city he hadn’t even visited until April of this year).Osborn led a strike in 2021 at a Kellogg’s plant in Omaha and has spent most of his working life as an industrial mechanic – in fact, he’s already back working as a steamfitter. He made $48,000 last year, within a few thousand of the Nebraska median income. This background was highlighted by the Osborn campaign through the race, contrasting the candidate with a Congress where most members are wealthy: “My opponent, Deb Fischer, is … taking so much corporate cash she should wear [sponsor] patches like Nascar.”Osborn’s working-class identity isn’t just an affect; it’s something that connects him to the needs and aspirations of millions of other American workers. And the profound lack of people like him in Congress is one of the major reasons why working-class people have been treated as a political afterthought. Right now, fewer than 2% of congressmembers come from working-class backgrounds. There is virtually no one in government who speaks for, or speaks like, regular workers.But wait, isn’t advocating for more working-class candidates just another form of identity politics? That is, isn’t this just more of the same thing that hurt Democrats in the first place?It’s true that the emphasis on a person’s race, gender and sexuality as a demonstration of their moral and political rectitude has been an albatross for progressives in recent years. This has been especially true when it’s been presented as tales of personal trailblazing (think #ImWithHer and Hillary Clinton’s crusade to become the first female president) or to trumpet individuals simply because of qualities they were born with rather than the ideas they espouse. However, class is different. And, in the case of Osborn, his class background was key to his being able to deliver a credible populist appeal that challenged the rule of the wealthy.In other words, as a working-class populist, Osborn’s appeal could cut across the various divisions of race, gender, region and religion to unite working people, because to be working class, and to proudly identify as such, is not just to show voters that you “feel their pain”, as Bill Clinton once dramatized, but that you actually understand the world from their position. And that’s one reason Osborn thinks that getting more workers represented in office is such a good idea.We agree. After all, the fight for working-class political representation was part of the origin story of self-conscious workers’ movements everywhere in the world. In the United Kingdom and Australia, the battle to extend the franchise helped give rise to labor parties. In Germany, the Social Democratic party swelled under the leadership of August Bebel, a carpenter and woodturner. In Brazil, the Workers’ party, led by a metalworker with little formal education, rose to become a governing force.Even in the United States, at the height of the New Deal, the Congress of Industrial Organizations organized the first-ever political action committee with the explicit aim of getting workers into Congress.In each case, and there are many others, the simple argument that workers – their organizations, and their interests – deserved representation in government generated immense excitement. And in each case, the parties that pursued such a goal became, at least for a time, the undisputed representatives of working-class interests in government.There are similar political opportunities in the United States today. While Nebraska might have had a particularly effective worker populist, there is evidence that people want to vote for workers across the country. A study by the Center for Working-Class Politics found that among working-class voters, hypothetical candidates with elite or upper-class backgrounds performed significantly worse than candidates from humbler backgrounds.Yet, in reality, there were few working-class candidates to vote for. Only 2.3% of Democratic candidates worked exclusively in blue-collar jobs before entering politics. Even if we broaden out the category to professionals like teachers and nurses, the number is still under 6%. Why? Mainly because it’s extremely expensive to run for office. Most workers simply do not have the fundraising networks or the ability to take time away from their jobs to run for office.What’s more, as Duke University political scientist Nicholas Carnes has shown, the burdens of running for office are much higher for blue-collar workers than they are for those in white-collar professions because they also include the considerable challenges that working-class candidates have in persuading political gatekeepers to endorse their candidacies over much more familiar options in salaried professions who speak the same language and run in the same social circles. Osborn’s new effort to help ease some of these burdens is laudable for this reason.The lack of working-class representation in government is also one major factor in explaining the dysfunction in our politics and the persistence of economic policies that seem to only benefit the rich. Working-class voters have been cut adrift. Their views and voices are invisible in Washington, and they see no real champions for their interests. One reason these voters are likely to prefer working-class candidates is that these candidates are much more likely to advance an economic agenda that benefits them.Osborn’s appeal might not be so unique if we can encourage more working-class candidates to run. Here the labor movement has a role to play in recruiting talented candidates, protecting their day jobs during the campaign, providing training and working with organizations like Osborn’s to get these candidates the funds they need to win elections. It’s not a silver bullet to fixing our broken politics, but it’s a great start.During his campaign, Osborn reminded a crowd that “the Senate is a country club of millionaires that work for billionaires”. It’s high time that the people who created their wealth got a foot in the door.

      Dustin Guastella is a research associate at the Center for Working Class Politics and the director of operations for Teamsters Local 623

      Bhaskar Sunkara is the president of the Nation, founding editor of Jacobin and author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequalities More