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      White House may seek legally binding control over Columbia through consent decree – report

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      The Trump administration is considering placing Columbia University under a consent decree, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal, a dramatic escalation in the federal government’s crackdown on the Ivy League institution.The university has already accepted a series of changes demanded by the administration as a pre-condition for restoring $400m in federal grants and contracts that the government suspended last month over allegations that the school failed to protect students from antisemitism on campus.A consent decree – a binding agreement approved by a federal judge – would be an extraordinary move by the Trump administration, which has threatened government funding as a way to force colleges and universities to comply with Donald Trump’s political objectives on a range of issues from campus protests to transgender women in sports and diversity and inclusion initiatives.As a party to the consent decree, Columbia would have to agree to enter it – and the Journal report states that it is unclear whether such a plan has been discussed by the university board.In a statement to the Guardian, the university did not directly address the report. “The University remains in active dialogue with the Federal Government to restore its critical research funding,” a spokesperson said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAccording to the Journal, the proposal comes from the administration’s antisemitism taskforce, composed in part of justice department lawyers, who have reportedly expressed skepticism that Columbia was acting in “good faith”. If Columbia resists, the justice department would need to present its case for the agreement in court, a process that could drag on for years with the university risking its federal funding in the interim.Republicans and the Trump administration have sought to make an example of Columbia University, which was at the center of a student protest movement over Israel’s war in Gaza that broke out on campuses across the country. Last month, federal immigration authorities arrested Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate and prominent Palestinian activist who participated in campus protests. He remains in detention.During a cabinet meeting on Thursday, Trump pressed his education secretary, Linda McMahon, to elaborate on the department’s efforts to withhold federal funds from universities that were “not behaving”.“You’re holding back from $400 Columbia?” he asked McMahon. She nodded and named other schools, noting that the administration had frozen nearly $1bn in funding from Cornell.“We’re getting calls from the presidents of universities who really do want to come in and sit down and come in and sit down and have discussions,” she said. “We’re investigating them but in the meantime we’re holding back the grant fund money.” More

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      US stocks fall again after rally following Trump’s shock retreat on tariffs

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      US stocks fell again on Thursday after a historic rally following Donald Trump’s shock retreat on Wednesday on the hefty tariffs he had just imposed on dozens of countries.The falls came as the president blamed “transition problems” for the market reaction and the sell-off deepened after a White House clarification noted that total tariffs on China had been raised by 145% since Trump took office.Speaking at the White House, Trump said: “We think we’re in very good shape. We think we’re doing very well. Again there will be a transition cost, transition problems, but in the end it’s going to be a beautiful thing.”The sell-off comes as Democrats continue to react with anger over the sudden retreat that rattled markets, while Republicans praised Trump’s “art of the deal” in action, referencing Trump’s 1987 book.By the end of Thursday, the Dow was down 2.5% after soaring on Wednesday afternoon. The Nasdaq Composite was down more than 4%, after posting its biggest gain in more than two decades on Wednesday, and the S&P 500 down 3.4%.The market seems to be in a state of fatigue after a rollercoaster week. Stocks were even unresponsive to news on Thursday morning that the European Union announced it will suspend 25% retaliatory tariffs against US imports and new data showed inflation in the US cooled to 2.4% in March – both would typically be cause for optimism on Wall Street.On CNN, former US treasury secretary Janet Yellen called Trump’s economic policies the “worst self-inflicted wound” an administration had ever imposed on a “well-functioning economy”.Trump said in an abrupt announcement on Wednesday that he would be implementing a 90-day pause on his tariff plan, and that goods entering the US from most countries would now face a 10% blanket tariff until July, except for Chinese exports, which he said would face tariffs totaling 145% effective immediately – 125% in “reciprocal” tariffs plus 20% already imposed for China’s alleged role in the fentanyl crisis.Republican lawmakers praised the decision to pause the tariffs, with the House speaker, Mike Johnson, stating on social media: “Behold the ‘Art of the Deal.’ President Trump has created leverage, brought MANY countries to the table, and will deliver for American workers, American manufacturers, and America’s future!”Before the pause was announced, a small but growing number of Republican lawmakers and Trump supporters in the business world expressed concerns about the risks of the president’s tariff policy.By Wednesday afternoon, many were praising Trump for the rollback as part of a purported strategy.Bill Ackman, a billionaire hedge fund manager and Trump supporter who advocated for Trump to pause his trade war over the weekend, reacted to the announcement saying that “this was brilliantly executed by @realDonaldTrump. Textbook, Art of the Deal.”The benefit of Trump’s approach, Ackman claimed, “is that we now understand who are our preferred trading partners, and who the problems are. China has shown themselves to be a bad actor. Our counterparties also have a taste of what life is like if they don’t take down their trade barriers. This is the perfect set-up for trade negotiations over the next 90 days.”But some industry leaders criticized the administration’s back-and-forth and tariff decisions.On Thursday, Amazon’s CEO, Andy Jassy, said the company was still waiting to see the impact of the tariffs but warned third-party sellers may “pass that cost on” to consumers.“The effective tariff rate is actually HIGHER with the pause than it was as announced on April 2, due to the tariffs on China,” Diane Swonk, the chief economist of the professional services firm KPMG, wrote on social media. “There will be some diversion through connector countries. However, the effective tariff rate now peaks at 30.5% during the pause. That is worse than our worst case scenarios.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhile Republicans and White House officials praised Trump’s decisions, Democratic lawmakers such as Senator Chuck Schumer pushed back. Schumer told his supporters that “this chaos is all a game to Donald Trump”.“He thinks he’s playing Red Light, Green Light with the economy,” Schumer said. “But it is very real for American families.”Some Democrats have made accusations of possible market manipulation.“These constant gyrations in policy provide dangerous opportunities for insider trading,” Senator Adam Schiff said. “Who in the administration knew about Trump’s latest tariff flip-flop ahead of time? Did anyone buy or sell stocks, and profit at the public’s expense? I’m writing to the White House – the public has a right to know.”The New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez echoed similar concerns, urging any member of Congress who purchased stocks over the last two days to disclose that.“I’ve been hearing some interesting chatter on the floor,” she said. “Disclosure deadline is May 15th. We’re about to learn a few things. It’s time to ban insider trading in Congress.”The Democratic House whip, Katherine Clark, wrote: “Two hours before announcing his tariff pause, Trump told his paid Truth Social subscribers it was ‘a great time to buy’ on the stock market. Corruption is the name of their game.”The Nevada representative Steven Horsford questioned the US trade representative, Jamieson Greer, asking the representative during a committee hearing whether the climbdown was market manipulation.“How is this not market manipulation?” Horsford asked, to which Greer responded: “No.”“If it was always a plan, how is this not market manipulation?” Horsford asked again.“Tariffs are a tool, they can be used in the appropriate way to protect US jobs and small businesses, but that’s not what this does,” Horsford said. “So if it’s not market manipulation, what is it? Who’s benefiting? What billionaire just got richer?” More

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      The Guardian view on the tariff war pause: the Trump trade shambles is not over | Editorial

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      It was Donald Trump who blinked first. Never forget that. China is unlikely to overlook its importance. A week after launching an all-out global trade war, the US president paused significant parts of it for 90 days. Having insisted that he would stick with the random tariffs he imposed on most trading nations, Mr Trump suddenly decreed that he would reduce most of them to 10%. It was a major humiliation.Yet 10% is still a significant tariff to bear for nations exporting to the US. This is also only a pause until July, not a withdrawal, so the uncertainty remains. And huge tariffs still remain on China (now hiked to 145%), Canada and Mexico (both 25%), as well as on all US imports of steel, aluminium and cars (also 25%). Mr Trump is now substituting a US-world conflict with a US-China one. The two largest economies in the world – which between them have generated around half of global economic growth in the 21st century – are, in effect, no longer doing business with each other.Even so, this was a necessary step back from the cliff edge. It was enough to trigger a temporary bounceback on stock markets around the globe, though prices slipped back on Thursday and remain much lower than at the start of April. In the week since Mr Trump’s absurd “liberation day”, more than $6tn dollars of value was wiped from stocks on the S&P 500 index. It is a shameful outcome.Mr Trump claims he made the move because more than 75 nations had been willing to negotiate or “kiss my ass”. This is nonsense. He has got nothing out of the tariff war. He has not won. No one has negotiated. Mr Trump is making his usual efforts to claim yet another triumph. The plain truth is that he backed down because he was forced to.That Mr Trump can retreat is good news, as far as it goes. Overall, however, the past week has been an indictment of the president, his policies, his instincts and his behaviour. The pause should on no account be seen as proof that rational business can be done with him. For one thing, this week’s mayhem may easily kick off again as July nears. The White House has merely given itself more time to make some very big calls.Two things appear pivotal in the decision announced on Wednesday. The first was the overheating of the US bond market, subverting the established assumption that dollar bonds will always be a safe asset, and drawing the Federal Reserve to the threshold of intervention. A similar crisis doomed Liz Truss’s economic strategy in the UK in 2022, but the destructive potential of a US bond crisis is far greater. Mr Trump’s tariffs were threatening all-out recession.The second factor was some limited elite domestic pushback. Anxious senators appeared on Fox News (which the president watches) and pressed the case for dialling down. The head of JPMorgan Chase warned about recession. So did a handful of world leaders and some Trump cabinet members in telephone calls.These realities were a brake on Mr Trump this time. It is possible the trauma has left its mark and there will now be no repeat. But there is no case for confidence, let alone for accepting that this outcome had been schemed all along. Even Mr Trump admitted that Americans were “getting yippy”. They had every right to be. So did the markets, along with the rest of the world. Trust disappeared long ago, replaced now by uncertainty. There is no way that this is over. More

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      Whatever Donald Trump does next, this chaos will soon be shaping ordinary lives for the worse | Gaby Hinsliff

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      If it’s brown, lie down. If it’s black, fight back. If it’s white, say goodnight.The rhyme we learned hiking as a family through Yellowstone national park last summer is meant as a cheery reminder of how not to get eaten, if you meet a bear. Brown bears are best appeased by playing dead; black bears need to know this will hurt them more than it hurts you; and luckily there aren’t any polar bears in Yellowstone, because nothing deters them.Until this week the world remained unsure what kind of bear Donald Trump was. Keir Starmer treated him like a brown bear, dropping to the floor when threatened with tariffs and offering up a trade deal. China saw a black bear, to be met with maximum aggression. Though one day we may have to contemplate the prospect of a polar bear president – one who actually means what he said about invading his neighbours – for now what we actually seem to be facing is a crazy bear. There’s no discernible strategy or pattern here: just untrammelled ego, dragging the global financial system to the brink of meltdown and vaporising his own supporters’ retirement savings for no obvious reason beyond the pleasure of seeing impoverished allies desperately “kissing my ass”. And though this bear has lumbered back into the woods for now, seemingly spooked by a concerted revolt in the bond markets, the damage is done.What is still for the cheerfully news-avoidant just a faintly incomprehensible story about rising and plummeting stock markets will, in coming weeks, start shaping everyday lives for the worse. British businesses who have barely been able to work out if they’re coming or going for the last few weeks will pause big decisions while they try to calculate their losses. Our car and steel industries still face job-destroying higher tariffs, while Trump has talked ominously of new tariffs on pharmaceuticals to come (British drug companies rely heavily on US export markets). Along with all countries that did not retaliate against Trump, we remain saddled with a random 10% tariff on all exports, which could presumably still change on a whim. And if the US keeps up its self-harming tariff on China – now an eye-watering 145%, according to the White House, which is adding Wednesday’s 125% to the pre-existing 20% – then before long it won’t just be a case of prices rising for American shoppers but of trade between them breaking down completely, leaving American shelves empty. All this makes nervous consumers worldwide less inclined to spend and employers less likely to hire or invest, raising the risk of recessions – one reason that on Thursday, the markets fell again. There’s no security for working people in any of this, and vanishingly little prospect of growth. For a Labour government elected to deliver both, that is an existential challenge.You can either be the disrupter or the disrupted, Starmer warned his cabinet in February, rather startlingly for someone whose watchword was caution. His chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, has however concluded that the new political divide isn’t left v right but “smash the system” v “look like the system and get smashed”. The obvious disruptive influence then was Nigel Farage’s resurgent Reform UK party, not a trade war, but one may now feed the other.Farage has gone very quiet lately about his now toxic friendship with Trump, but his local election message to England’s post-industrial heartlands is a blatantly Trumpian one about the glory days of manufacturing. This week he went to the pub with workers from British Steel’s endangered Scunthorpe plant – though it was Labour ministers who put in the unsung hours on a deal to save jobs there – before visiting a long-closed colliery to explain that he always thought the miners were betrayed. (Let’s just say that must have been an unusual view in the City, where at the time of the miners’ strike, Farage was working as a commodities trader.) It’s preposterous – Reform’s blend of tax cuts for the rich and dead-end nostalgia for everyone else would do nothing to revive former coal and steel communities – but Trump posing as the rust belt’s saviour seemed preposterous once, too. Farage knows where the electoral sweet spot is, in the seats where Reform is nipping at Labour heels: tacking right on issues such as immigration but left on economics. And while Starmer’s government is quick to compete with Reform on the former, it is more wary of the latter, even though ageing “red wall” voters now complain in focus groups of markets being rigged against them in ways that uncannily echo the disenchanted, Green-leaning southern young.But if Trump is really killing growth, meaning there will be no generous rising tide to lift public services and living standards, the only remaining options are either redistribution or accepting inexorable decline. Time, in short, to pick some enemies; to disrupt something before getting disrupted.Which markets genuinely are stacked against consumers? Who is making profits that can’t be justified? If Trump really has broken the old model, could it be built back better? This can’t mean uncosted, utopian leftwing populism but serious-minded, rigorous reforms that demonstrably put money back in ordinary pockets.What voters seem to want, the American data scientist David Shor and the writer Ezra Klein argued recently in a podcast on the confused desires underpinning American politics, is an “angry moderate”: someone who sounds as furious as they are about the state of things without seeming too frighteningly radical. There is plenty a British angry moderate could attack: from the ongoing debacle of Thames Water to the bafflingly opaque “surge pricing” now operated by everyone from concert-ticket vendors to pubs and hotels; from inequities in the tax system, or the way linking electricity prices to gas keeps them frustratingly high, to the outsourcing of social services that has left private equity firms running children’s homes and nursing homes for profit. (Not entirely alien territory to Rachel Reeves, who once told me that investigating the collapse of the outsourcing company Carillion as a backbencher changed her politics, and who has long embraced the idea of an activist state working to make life less precarious.) But whatever form it takes, offering people “shelter … from the storm”, as Starmer rightly has this week, should mean more than corporate bailouts. If not, anger with Trump could easily morph into anger with domestic governments’ inability to protect their own people from the fallout.He won’t be president for ever. But the mess he’ll leave behind, the jobs lost, the dreams smashed, the neighbourhoods spiralling downwards? That’s the polar bear, the thing that really eats governments. Fight, or say goodnight.

      Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist

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      Look on the bright side of Trump’s global tariffs | Letters

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      Although environmental considerations will not have been a motivation for Donald Trump, it is worth examining whether a comprehensive revision of global trade tariffs – notwithstanding the significant transitional economic and human costs – could generate substantial environmental benefits (Here’s one key thing you should know about Trump’s shock to the world economy: it could work, 7 April).The prevailing model of liberalised global trade facilitates the transoceanic movement of consumer goods, often to countries that possess the capacity to manufacture equivalent products domestically. The associated carbon emissions from maritime and air transport are considerable, particularly given the volume of low-cost, frequently low-durability goods entering developed markets.Restricting free trade to essential imports – goods that cannot be manufactured or grown locally – would materially reduce transport-related emissions. Additional benefits might include enhanced food system resilience, improved biosecurity and increased regulatory autonomy over quality and safety standards.Thus, albeit unintentionally, President Trump’s trade policies could contribute to environmental objectives that are traditionally pursued by other means.Patrick CosgroveChapel Lawn, Shropshire Donald Trump’s tariffs – why the fuss? As an ordinary UK citizen I see only upsides. First, it’s the Americans paying the tariffs, not us. The resulting fall in the price of oil and the value of the dollar should reduce the cost of my petrol. As Americans switch to bourbon and Californian wine, the price of my scotch whisky and French wine should come down. If other countries send more of their goods to the UK to avoid the tariffs, this will force UK producers to become more competitive to the benefit of ordinary people like me.I believe that US citizens rich enough to buy Range Rovers and the like will not balk at paying a bit more, especially as the US equivalents are so clunky. If the steel tariff forces us to nationalise British Steel, good. As for the global economic system, this is structured for the benefit of big corporations and shareholders. Perhaps it is overdue for a change.Christopher WoodageCamberley, Surrey I have long believed that the way we choose to spend our money is a political act. With an overcautious Labour government in power, spending power remains an important act of resistance. Now more than ever, I urge readers to think carefully about what they purchase and, in particular, to boycott American goods. I have lived happily without an Amazon product for over 15 years, for instance, and with the added pleasure of knowing that my spending in local shops is benefiting the local economy. If we can’t rely on our government to stand firm, let’s do it for ourselves.Prof Mark DoelSheffield “I am telling you, these countries are calling us up, kissing my ass,” Trump said during a speech at the National Republican Congressional Committee dinner in Washington on Tuesday evening. Please let the UK not be one of the countries. Surely we have more self-respect than that.Ann ClewerCanterbury Looking at recent events, it seems Donald Trump is the most successful anti-capitalist since Lenin.Keith FlettTottenham, London More

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      I’m a Jewish Israeli in the US standing up for Palestine. By Trump’s logic, I’m a terror supporter | Eran Zelnik

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      To Kash Patel, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation:Given recent patterns, the FBI might need to take a hard look at my actions over the years. If Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, Yunseo Chung, Badar Khan Suri and other recent Ice detainees are considered threats to national security, then so am I.I have committed the same acts they have committed, including publishing an article that calls the war in Gaza a genocide, participating in a protest against the genocide in Gaza, speaking and protesting in favor of BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions against Israel), participating in a sit-in at UC Davis about 10 years ago, and being vocal in general about the atrocities committed by Israel against the people of Gaza and Palestinians.Let me tell you a little more about myself and all the additional reasons you might want to investigate and perhaps arrest me. I was born in Israel and became a naturalized US citizen through my American mother. Given the administration’s recent challenges to the 14th amendment, which provides birthright citizenship, you might proceed from detaining legal residents to revoking the rights of naturalized citizens. Like other fascist regimes before you, you’ve been testing how much resistance you face in your effort to turn the United States into a fascist country. You start with the most marginalized, sending incarcerated trans women to men’s prisons, Venezuelans accused of gang affiliation to El Salvador, and detaining Arab and Muslim legal residents. But if the past is any indication, your next target might well be children of undocumented immigrants or naturalized citizens. Of course, as every student of fascism well knows, the ultimate goal is to apprehend all the supposed enemies of this administration, regardless of their legal status.Furthermore, I must confess to using academic concepts that have come under scrutiny as antisemitic by the Department of Justice taskforce for antisemitism. As a former member of the Israel Defense Forces, I have come a long way. It took me many years of soul-searching to realize that I was complicit in a settler-colonial occupation force and that my best recourse to make amends for that was to be outspoken about my country’s atrocities. As I tried to better understand the terrible tragedy of Zionism – a nationalist ideology that sought to free Jews from oppression only to end up as oppressors in Palestine – I confess to describing concepts such as apartheid, settler colonialism, ethno-nationalism and more. Perhaps even more disturbing from your perspective, I recently employed such concepts as genocide, settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing in a book I wrote about early American history.I also confess that in the past I have targeted white supremacist allies of this administration in my community of Chico, California. Clearly employing extralegal militias is part of this administration’s fascist playbook, as Trump already proved during the events of 6 January 2021. For instance, when my house was a target of antisemitic leafleting, I sought the help of a colleague and a local investigative journalist to make this very real form of antisemitism known to authorities. In the process the journalist uncovered troubling information that there is an armed white supremacist in our community who holds deep antisemitic convictions and now knows where I work. Had you really been interested in investigating antisemitism, you might have looked into the whereabouts of that individual. But since you want people like him around so that they can be activated when needed, and since all you really want is to cynically weaponize antisemitism, you might want to arrest me instead. After all, according to your standards, I – a Jew targeted by white supremacists – was all along the biggest threat to Jews in my own community.I have long heard stories about the rise of fascism in Europe from my grandparents, all of whom fled Europe and were refugees from antisemitism. The similarities between the actions of this administration and what my grandparents have lived through are unmistakable. I tell them here so that before you choose to arrest me, you will have one more opportunity to decide whether you will go down in history as aiding and abetting the rise of a fascist regime or as someone who refused to be part of another dark episode in this country’s history. Be forewarned: even if you yourself never directly suffer for your crimes, history will judge you.My dear grandfather, Otto, may his memory be a blessing, escaped Austria by the skin of his teeth when he was only 13 after the Nazi takeover of the country. Having witnessed the horrors of Kristallnacht in November of 1938 – the night when local mobs violently rioted against Jewish homes, synagogues and businesses across much of Germany and Austria and arrested 30,000 citizens just for being Jewish – his parents made the decision to flee to Shanghai, the only port that would accept them. Clearly, our current president’s rhetoric regarding enemies of the American nation from within and without, against immigrants, trans people and people deemed un-American in their political commitments (like myself), are eerily reminiscent of the stories my grandfather told me about the scapegoating of Jews.As I consider the memory of dear grandmother Rachel, may her memory be a blessing, who grew up in Poland and survived the Holocaust, including enduring a harrowing year in Auschwitz and the death march to Germany, I cannot shake the sense of another parallel. As Hitler and the Nazi party were consolidating power, they appointed sycophants like yourself and so many others to positions of power in the Nazi administration. The most important criterion for Hitler was not that the people in positions of power were competent or even knowledgeable, but that they would be spineless and loyal to him.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAccording to the historian Ian Kershaw, this type of leadership, where all bow to the great leader, led to the Holocaust, as the people surrounding Hitler constantly sought to outdo each other in their loyalty to the Führer. Knowing Hitler’s hatred for Jews, they constantly tried to curry favor by suggesting the most radical and far-reaching policy ideas towards Jews. This dynamic, which Kershaw called “working toward the Führer”, ultimately led Hitler and the people surrounding him to decide on the “Final Solution”, the plan to exterminate all the Jews in the world on an industrial scale in death camps. This idea of working toward the leader is upon us today, as we see institutions and even some in the Democratic party bowing before the great leader and his will. Instead of standing up to the administration at every turn, institutions, businesses and politicians across the country prefer to anticipate the administration’s wrath and eliminate any behavior or materials that might come under scrutiny. Meanwhile, Republicans rush to outdo each other in flattering the great leader, as American society seems frozen with fear in face of the rising tides of fascism.So, Kash Patel, do you want to arrest me and help bring about fascism?

      Eran Zelnik grew up in Israel and came to the US 15 years ago to complete his PhD in history. He now lives and teaches in Chico, California More

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      Democrats’ problem isn’t just messaging – it’s the electoral math | David Daley

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      It’s much worse than the usual disarray. Even after hopeful election results last week, Democrats are shut out of power in Washington, bewildered over the 2024 election, and staggered by Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s blitz to rapidly assert power over the media, universities and the courts, while dismantling huge swaths of the federal government.Exiled to the political wilderness, Democrats have blamed their messaging and messengers. They have sought different ways to talk about trans rights, abortion, immigration and populist economics. They have sought their own network of social media influencers and podcasters so that they can talk to young or occasional voters.None of this will make the difference. Democrats could spend as much time as they like fine-tuning the perfect pitch on trans women and high school sports. They could develop an army of faux-Joe Rogan podcasts for future candidates to make their case. They could even win the occasional upset special election. And they will still remain powerless.That’s because while Democrats might have a messaging and messenger problem, they have a much larger issue: math. And it’s a cruel math, where just coming close to a majority doesn’t count.A captured supreme court, gerrymandered legislatures, a radically malapportioned Senate, and the electoral college mean that the basic math that paves any road toward 270 electoral votes, 218 members of the House, 51 senators and five members of the supreme court is tilted dramatically against Democrats. All of it is likely to get much worse before it gets any better. Before the midterms, Republicans seem determined to pass new voting restrictions that will place new barriers before tens of millions, make registration and voting itself decidedly more difficult, and call into question the very possibility of free and fair elections. Until Democrats fully recognize that the structural barriers before them could doom them to opposition status even if they reassemble a majority coalition, they are not grappling with the cold reality of this moment. Politics and public opinion could move in their direction. The structural math might only get worse.The House mapStart with the US House, the heart of the party’s midterm dreams. Republicans hold seven seats more than Democrats, and history suggests that the opposition party often gains that many seats in a midterm off anti-incumbent frustration alone. Listening to Democrats, you get the sense that they feel it’s almost a given they will take back the House. The conventional wisdom suggests the national House map is balanced. Neither is the case. Better balanced, perhaps, from the last decade, but Republicans still benefit from a gerrymandered advantage of 16 seats, according to the non-partisan Brennan Center.Getting close to a majority, as Democrats did in the current House, is one thing. Getting over the top is harder than it looks. On a map that is nearly maximally gerrymandered to eliminate competitive seats – only 37 of 435 races were within five points in 2024 – flippable seats are rare and difficult to target. Democrats won, and must defend, 22 of those – which leaves just 15 competitive seats to provide the necessary yield. Only four of those districts are in states carried by Kamala Harris in 2024.Beyond that, one might start by identifying vulnerable GOP members from districts that also backed Harris. There are only three of those: Nebraska’s second, New York’s 17th and Pennsylvania’s first. These have been Democratic targets for some time. The incumbents remain safe and Democrats would have a lot of voters to persuade; those aren’t among the 15 competitive districts. Nebraska’s Don Bacon and New York’s Mike Lawler won by seven percentage points. In Pennsylvania, Brian Fitzpatrick won by nearly twice that, 13 points.Democrats meanwhile must defend 13 districts carried by Trump where incumbents have, thus far, managed to outrun national trends of partisan polarization. What that means is that in many ways, Democrats are overextended on the current map; they’ll need a strong year simply to defend what they already hold.But the operative phrase is “current map”. That’s not the same as “2026 map”. The other challenge comes from redistricting and from the US supreme court. In Ohio, where Democrats have narrowly held two Trump-leaning districts, the GOP will be able to redraw the congressional map ahead of the 2026 elections. Two of the competitive seats carried by Democrats in 2024 are in the Buckeye state. The GOP will probably gerrymander those seats so that they are uncompetitive for even an incumbent Democrat, pushing a 10-seat to five-seat GOP edge in the state to a 12-3 advantage. More redistricting dominos could fall. A potential decision by the US supreme court in a racial gerrymandering case from Louisiana could lead to Black-majority seats there as well as in Alabama and Georgia being wiped off the map. Suddenly Democrats don’t face just a seven-seat gap; they need to find their way to several more on a difficult map.The Senate mapThe Senate map looks even harder. Republicans hold a 53-47 majority. Democrats need to gain four seats to win the chamber – if, that is, they successfully defend one seat in Georgia, as well as open seats in purple New Hampshire, Michigan and Minnesota, where Democratic incumbents have announced retirements. Democrats will once again target the Maine senator Susan Collins. Beyond that, it’s a tough road: they will need to hold the four purple seats, defeat a popular survivor in Maine, and then take three more from this unforgiving, unlikely list where the best bets are North Carolina, Texas, Florida, Ohio, Iowa or South Carolina.Ouch. The longer-term Senate trends don’t look much more favorable given how nationally polarized these races have become. In 2024, there were 24 solid red states that Trump won by double digits. There were 19 blue ones. Republicans now hold all 48 Senate seats in the red states. Democrats (or independents who caucus with them) hold 37 of the 38 from blue states. Democrats would need to defeat Collins and then win 13 of the 14 from seven swing states – which means maintaining two in Georgia, Arizona and Michigan, and finding a way to win in North Carolina. Otherwise, they need inroads into states where Democrats have had almost no statewide success for more than a decade.Political realities can change. But the road to 51 seats requires challenging the current math and maps in quite dramatic ways. Texas, Florida, Ohio, Iowa and South Carolina is change that is difficult to believe in.Population changesPopulation shifts don’t favor Democrats, either. By 2035, experts suggest, 70% of the nation will live in the 15 largest states, with just 30 senators. Right now, two-thirds of Americans live in the largest 15 states, according to census data. They are represented by 30 senators – 21 Democrats and nine Republicans. The other third of us? These smaller 35 states aren’t only whiter than the nation at large, they tilt decisively to the Republican party, represented by 46 Republicans and 24 Democrats.Those population shifts will affect the House as well when it is reapportioned after the 2030 census. Early Census Bureau estimates suggest that California will lose four seats, New York two, and Illinois, Minnesota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Wisconsin one apiece. Maybe Democrats will find a way to gerrymander Illinois so completely that a red seat is lost. But on balance, this will almost certainly cost Democrats several current blue seats. Those seats would each shift to states where Republicans have locked in huge advantages via controlling the redistricting process, and where they have long drawn lines that outpace demographic trends: four each to Texas and Florida, and one for Arizona, Idaho, North Carolina and Utah.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreenThe presidency and supreme courtElectoral college power will shift as well. The projected 2030 reapportionment would have cost Joe Biden in 12 electors in 2020; in 2024 it would have been a loss of 10 for Harris. That shifts the fight for the White House. This decade, a Democrat could win the White House simply by carrying the reliably blue states, as well as the once-mighty “blue wall” of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and the Omaha, Nebraska, elector. But subtract those 12 electors and that’s not close to enough. Beginning in 2032, if these projections hold, Democrats would have to win the blue states, the “blue wall”, plus either North Carolina or Georgia, or both Arizona and Nevada.One place where conservative power won’t shift any time soon: the supreme court. The Democrats have won the popular vote in seven of the last nine presidential elections, yet they are in a terrible position. The 6-3 Republican supermajority should prove enduring for decades. If Trump replaces Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito with younger justices, the advantage could last even longer. In order to break this hold, Democrats will not only need to control the White House when openings arise, but also the Senate. Barack Obama’s appointment of Merrick Garland was stonewalled by a Republican Senate in 2016; the chamber has only become more aggressively ideological – let alone tougher for Democrats to win – in the decade since. It is easy to imagine a Republican Senate simply refusing to consider any Democratic president’s nominee.So what do Democrats do?None of this is intended to be oppressively bleak. It is to paint a realistic picture of what Democrats face and to explain where they must win to pry back any levers of federal power and sustain it.Of course, nothing is static. Plenty of events over the next two and four years, from a recession to further national security embarrassments, could scramble American politics. Democrats have already flipped some 2025 state legislative races few expected them to win. Still, winning November races when turnout and polarization are at the highest is much more difficult – and picking up double digits in the US House with limited targets is a demanding task. Last week’s results in Florida, where Republicans easily held the congressional seat that belonged to the national security adviser, Michael Waltz, despite Democratic energy, breathless coverage in the national press, and a massive fundraising advantage, should be a brutal reality check. And that’s assuming free and fair elections, and before factoring in the extreme, voter-suppressing Save Act making its way through Congress that would make it more difficult for tens of millions of Americans to vote.It’s tougher still to see the road to a Senate majority near term. Hoping for polarization to ebb, or the Maga grasp on the GOP to ease, is coming to a gun fight with good vibes and crossed fingers.Messaging and messengers are not unimportant. They’re crucial. Especially if Democrats hope to change a brand that is toxic in many states where they must find a path to victory if they want any hope of reaching 270, 218 or 51. But math remains the far bigger challenge – and even perfect messaging crashes against structural and geographic realities. Too many Democrats, and the party’s polling/consulting complex, want to bleed the ActBlue accounts of supporters on lost causes like the Florida special election.The focus for Democrats must be on something different: defending free and fair elections, and building a coalition right now behind reforming redistricting, the courts, statehood for Washington DC and Puerto Rico, and imagining the Senate reapportionment that Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned 30 years ago we would soon desperately need.That’s what needs to be communicated: structural reforms represent everyone’s only hope to create a level playing field, meaningful elections and an accountable democracy for all.The good news is that these reforms are already popular with Americans: 70% back supreme court term limits and ethics codes. Gerrymandering is loathed in red, blue and purple states. It’s time to make the same serious case for reapportioning the Senate, adding states, a more proportional House, ranked choice voting, and additional judicial reforms. The National Popular Vote interstate compact keeps getting closer to revamping presidential elections so that every vote is equal. “A more perfect union” fundamentally means that American democracy must evolve with the times.Call it the Contract to Reform America, or Project 2029, or “make American politics fair again”. Get all the influencers and future podcasters onboard. Until Democrats fix the math and reform the system, the few will control the many for decades to come.Messaging that basic unfair reality is something even these Democrats should be able to do. If they can’t, we are in the kind of authoritarian fix that no election will be able to undo.

      David Daley is the author of Antidemocratic: Inside the Right’s 50-Year Plot to Control American Elections as well as Ratf**ked: Why Your Vote Doesn’t Count More

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      in US Politics

      Fear spreads as Trump targets lawyers and non-profits in ‘authoritarian’ takedown

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      As Donald Trump dismantles federal agencies, his administration is also creating a chill among non-governmental groups, cowing non-profits, intimidating universities and extracting commitments from law firms to support his aims.Officials have launched investigations into progressive and climate organizations, colleges and recipients of government grants. Experts worry that if nongovernmental groups are frightened into silence, US democracy may not weather the strain.“Trump has a strikingly authoritarian instinct,” said Steven Levitsky, a Harvard political science professor who co-authored the book How Democracies Die. “This is what authoritarians do, they go after civil society,” he added, referring to organizations that exist outside the government and often seek to hold it to account.Some institutions are caving to the president’s demands, or staying quiet about their work in the hope of evading his attention.But others facing attacks have solidified their resolve, doubling down on their missions and even directly taking on the administration.“We will continue to vindicate the rights of our clients, and we do so without fear, because we know that we’re right,” said attorney Eric Lee, who represents a student facing deportation.Attacks on lawyersThe administration has cracked down in particular on lawyers, especially those who have investigated Trump or represented those who oppose him.Trump has targeted individual law firms and collectively attacked immigration attorneys, who he alleges engage in “unscrupulous behavior”. Some Biden-era officials told the Washington Post they have been unable to find representation because of the menacing effect Trump has had on the field. Some law firms have caved to the president’s demands, obeying his orders as a way to stay in business.Paul Weiss agreed to $40m in free legal services to the Trump administration. Willkie Farr & Gallagher committed to spending $100m in pro bono work to causes the firm and Trump support, and Milbank struck a similar deal for $100m in pro bono services.The onslaught prompted Democratic attorneys general to write a letter to the legal community, saying Trump’s goal was to “deter lawyers from representing politically disfavored clients”.The American Bar Association (ABA) has rejected the president’s attempts to undermine lawyers and the courts, saying in a statement that these actions show a “clear and disconcerting pattern”.“If a court issues a decision this administration does not agree with, the judge is targeted,” the statement said. “If a lawyer represents parties in a dispute with the administration, or if a lawyer represents parties the administration does not like, lawyers are targeted.” After issuing the missive, the association said it was “targeted” by a Trump official who told lawyers not to attend its meetings.Eric Lee, a lawyer for Momodou Taal, the British Gambian Cornell University student who faces deportation for participating in a pro-Palestinian demonstration, said it is “shameful, pathetic, feckless, cowardly” for major law firms and universities to acquiesce to Trump’s demands.It is also “historically uninformed” to believe giving in to these demands will get an authoritarian to moderate his positions, he said, encouraging lawyers to stand up for their profession.“We certainly are concerned about what is taking place,” Lee said. “But what can we do? If we stop fighting, then all is lost.”Chris Godshall-Bennett, the legal director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said that while the chilling effect is real, he doesn’t want people to believe they can’t get help. A lot of the attacks are “bluster”, he said, and there are lawyers willing to take a stand.“We have nothing to be afraid of, compared to the folks that we’re trying to help,” he said.Threatening non-profitsThe Trump administration is taking aim at non-profit advocacy groups, particularly if it sees their goals as antithetical to his aims. An array of non-profit employees told the Guardian that they are not willing to speak publicly about their work for fear of ending up on the administration’s radar.Some of the work in question was once seen as bipartisan or noncontroversial but is being treated as radical by the Trump administration, such as alleviating poverty, lowering utility bills or providing people with food.“I’m worried that the Trump administration is really intent on punishing who they perceive as their political opponents, even when those people, like, us are not at all political,” said one representative from a climate-focused organization, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of garnering attention from federal officials.Some advocates feel threatened for adhering to principles that were prioritized by the Biden administration.“Under Biden, we were asked to articulate the ways in which we would be using grant funds to live out environmental justice principles,” a representative from one grassroots non-profit in the north-east said. “Those are the values that are currently under attack.”In certain cases, groups who previously received federal money for their work are not only losing their funding, but also being targeted and demonized by administration officials.The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for instance, recently decided to terminate green grants worth $20bn, clawing back the money from Citibank, which was tasked with disbursing the funds. The justice department and FBI have launched a criminal investigation into three grantees, alleging possible legal violations including “conspiracy to defraud the United States”.Agencies have so far failed to legally support their claims of malfeasance, but have wrought havoc on the groups, with two non-profits exiting one of the coalitions being investigated.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe three grantees – Climate United Fund, the Coalition for Green Capital and Power Forward Communities – are suing EPA and Citibank in an effort to restore the funding.The Trump administration’s “unprecedented and unfounded actions” have put grantees “in impossible positions”, said a representative from Power Forward Communities.Organizations that received grants from Fema’s shelter and services program, are also being investigated, raising fear of additional crackdowns.“They’re not arresting people yet who work at non-profits, but everybody’s concerned that that is something that they might eventually do,” one person who works at an immigration non-profit told the Guardian.Many groups also worry that the Trump administration could seek to revoke their non-profit 501c3 status.In November, the House passed the “non-profit killer bill”, which would hand the executive branch broad powers to do so in the name of fighting “terrorism”. Many are concerned it will also pass the Senate if put up for a vote. But even in the absence of such legislation, advocates fear the administration will strip non-profits’ legal status on technical grounds.“We’re being especially careful to dot our Is and cross our Ts when it comes to meeting [501c3 legal] requirements,” said the north-east environmental justice advocate. The group is ensuring strict adherence to legal lobbying caps, and are being more cautious when using language criticizing the Trump administration – or even using politicized terms such as “environmental racism” – in written communications, the person said.If the attacks on 501c3 status come to fruition, non-profits may struggle to find legal representation and, given the attacks on the legal profession, be left to defend themselves in court.“There are so many organizations and charities that have benefited from the help of law firms, often pro bono assistance from firms that want to do good in their community, and the way they have to do that is through assisting with their legal services,” one non-profit executive told the Guardian. “The fact that firms now may no longer be able to do that leaves many organizations wondering if we are unprotected.”Trump’s attacks have also forced groups to be more cautious when considering filing or joining lawsuits that would make them more visible to federal officials, a worker at another immigration non-profit said, noting that non-profits’ ability to keep their tax legal status may depend on their shying away from their missions.Defunding universitiesUniversities, which are often hotbeds of progressive politics and dissent, are also facing repression. In early March, the administration announced the cancelation of $400m in grants and loans to Columbia University, alleging the school has failed to protect students from antisemitic harassment. In response, school officials yielded to a series of changes demanded by federal officials, sparking outrage from advocates.Weeks later, officials went after Harvard University, announcing a plan to review some $9bn in contracts and multiyear grants over accusations that the university also did not protect Jewish students and promoted “divisive ideologies over free inquiry”. The following day, Princeton University said dozens of its federal research grants were suspended over allegations of the promotion of antisemitism.The administration also paused $175m in federal funding to the University of Pennsylvania over its inclusion of transgender athletes in women’s college sports.“I’ve studied authoritarianism and authoritarian regimes for more than 30 years [and] authoritarian regimes tend to go after universities because they are usually very influential centers of dissent,” said Harvard’s Levitsky, who was among the 700 who signed a letter calling for the university to resist pressure to capitulate to Trump’s demands.The Trump administration also announced a task force on alleged antisemitism at 10 major universities, placed 60 colleges and universities under investigation for allegations of antisemitic harassment and discrimination, and arrested current and former college students for participating in pro-Palestinian demonstrations.Jerry Nadler, a member of Congress from New York, said Trump is taking advantage of “the real pain American Jews face” in order to “wield control over the truth-seeking academic institutions that stand as a bulwark against authoritarianism”.Jason Stanley, a Yale professor who studies fascism, announced in March that he would be leaving the university to work at the University of Toronto, in part because of the US political climate. Columbia University’s decision to give in to Trump’s demands played a pivotal role in his decision to accept an offer from Toronto, he told the Guardian.Other academics are more hopeful. Michael Crow, the president of Arizona State University, said he is not giving into pressure because “if we get intimidated then imagine what happens in the society as a whole”. Instead, the university is attempting to defend itself, showing its record of success on the four dozen projects from which officials have pulled federal funding.“There is of course concern everywhere,” Crow said, “but now is the time to make your case stronger than ever”. More