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Whatever Donald Trump does next, this chaos will soon be shaping ordinary lives for the worse | Gaby Hinsliff
by Evelyn Reynolds 10 April 2025, 16:58
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
by Evelyn Reynolds 10 April 2025, 16:57
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
by Evelyn Reynolds 10 April 2025, 14:00
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
by Evelyn Reynolds 10 April 2025, 12:00
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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Fear spreads as Trump targets lawyers and non-profits in ‘authoritarian’ takedown
by Evelyn Reynolds 10 April 2025, 12:00
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
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Federal workers fear Musk’s ‘efficiency’ agency is using AI to spy on them: ‘They are omnipresent’
by Evelyn Reynolds 10 April 2025, 11:00
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View image in fullscreenAt the Department of Veterans Affairs, a senior official warned employees in an email that virtual meetings were being secretly recorded. Anyone dissatisfied with Donald Trump’s decisions should be careful about voicing their opinions, the official cautioned.Over at the state department, IT staff said new monitoring software had been loaded onto computers. Some staffers had started using white noise machines in their offices, or even turned on an office breakroom sink, to muffle conversations in case there might be any hot mics within range.A supervisor at one water management organization that works closely with the Environmental Protection Agency sent a warning to staffers that their meetings and phone calls with the agency were being monitored by an artificial intelligence tool.Anecdotes like these are rife among federal employees now, amid fears that senior agency leaders or agents from Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” may be snooping on conversations, using software to track computer activity and, possibly, using artificial intelligence to scan for disloyalty or mentions of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) buzzwords. Many fear losing their jobs, as thousands already have.“It’s like being in a horror film where you know something out there [wants] to kill you but you never know when or how or who it is,” one employee from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development said.These details arose from conversations with more than two dozen federal employees who spoke with the Guardian and Crooked Media’s What a Day newsletter, and shared emails from agency officials and screengrabs.The employees described a culture of fear among those who remain in the federal workforce, after waves of layoffs left many of their peers unemployed or stuck in professional limbo amid confusing and unresolved legal cases.The US government has long been transparent with federal employees about its ability to monitor them with software. But now, top officials across the government are warning employees to exercise extreme caution, over fears about what this administration might do with the information, what technology might be used, who would receive the info and whether stray talk might form the basis for fresh job cuts.Trump administration representatives denied some of the assertions and concerns raised by sources for this article, but didn’t respond to all of them. The EPA denied recording meetings, but didn’t specifically address the use of artificial intelligence. Other agencies, including the Department of Veterans Affairs and education department, didn’t respond to requests for comment.A manager at the Association of Clean Water Administrators (ACWA), which brings together state officials to work with the EPA on water quality and management, recently distributed an email warning staffers that meetings with EPA staffers may be monitored by AI.The email reads: “We recently learned that all EPA phones (landline/mobile), all Teams/Zoom virtual meetings, and calendar entries are being transcribed/monitored.”The information is then fed into “an AI tool” to be analyzed and scrutinized, the email’s author continues, adding “we saw” an AI notetaker listed as a participant in one of the meetings. “I do not know if DOGE is doing the analysis or … the agency itself,” the author writes. Participants aren’t being notified that the call is being transcribed, the email states.The EPA denied that it is recording meetings. It also didn’t specifically address the question of an AI tool.“This is fake news,” an EPA spokesperson said in a statement. “EPA is not monitoring or transcribing phone calls, meetings, or calendar entries.”But Trump political appointees have told EPA managers that Musk’s team is implementing AI to monitor workers and look for disparaging comments about Trump or Musk, according to a Reuters report.During a meeting on Wednesday morning, EPA managers told employees that Doge is “using AI to scan through agency communications to find any anti-Musk, anti-Doge, or anti-Trump statements”, an employee told the Guardian and What a Day. Employees should be “very careful” about what they say in private messages and virtual meetings, the managers added.“I honestly just think the Doge spying is kind of pathetic,” the employee said. “If they’re that confident about what they’re doing, they wouldn’t be so paranoid.”According to another email shared with the Guardian and What a Day, a Department of Veterans Affairs official also warned employees that virtual meetings were being secretly recorded.The VA didn’t respond to a request for comment.Top veterans affairs researchers across the country were recently put on administrative leave, according to an email obtained by What a Day. One of them was put on administrative leave for the “inappropriate distribution of VA material”, according to the internal email. But it’s not clear whether the individual was accused of speaking to the press or committing some other infraction.A representative for Doge did not respond to a request for comment.At the now-shuttered US Agency for International Development (USAID), employees said they discovered that their private communications were being monitored by leadership who arrived after Trump’s inauguration, prompting staff to abandon official channels altogether.“They went into our chats, like our private group chats,” said a former USAID employee who lost their position during the mass firing wave in February. “It was [the acting administrator] Jason Gray, not Doge directly. But he was put in place when they fired everybody” because he knew the systems well.The intrusions became so blatant that Gray – who was also the agency’s chief information officer – suddenly appeared in one group chat with more than 40 contractors.“We knew they were watching,” the former USAID employee, who was in the chat, said. “Everybody went on either Signal or WhatsApp because nobody was trusting [leadership] at that point.”Gray’s turbulent tenure culminated in USAID’s website being taken offline.In February, IT staff at the state department warned some employees that monitoring software was being uploaded onto computers, according to an employee, who provided images showing a record of their individual keystrokes being tracked in the software.Others worry that Doge could begin combing through conversations for anti-Trump sentiments or diversity, equity and inclusion “buzzwords”, which could then be used as grounds to fire employees.Supervisors began sharing unofficial guidance to “act as though we are always on a hot mic”, the state department employee said.“We’re turning on sinks and shit to have conversations,” they added. “It’s really funny to think about the Dogebags sitting there, watching and learning in real time, that the ‘deep state’ is really a bunch of goobers just doing our boring jobs for middling pay.”Government employees should expect that they’re being watched, top officials in the Department of Veterans Affairs said at an employee town hall in New England. “There shouldn’t be any expectation of privacy,” an official told employees, according to a list of questions and answers at the town hall provided to What a Day.At the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in February, managers warned some employees to be extra careful about what they say on calls, according to an employee. “I personally think they are watching us,” they said.Some workers at the education department are fearful of speaking out, describing the atmosphere as “total paranoia”. Doge has infiltrated the education department, where half of the staff has already been fired as Trump seeks to dismantle the entire agency.“They are just so omnipresent and the work environment is so toxic and hostile, it feels like anything is possible,” a former senior education department official said about the potential for surveillance.This story is published in collaboration with Crooked Media More
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US small business owner says China tariffs endanger her company: ‘I could lose my home’
by Evelyn Reynolds 10 April 2025, 10:00
Beth Benike knew the tariffs were coming.The Minnesota veteran invented a placemat with bungee cords that hold toys or utensils, keeping them off the floor when babies toss them. It’s one of several products she created for Busy Baby, a company she runs with her brother. They are manufactured in China.She expected and budgeted for about 20-30% tariffs this year. When the first round of tariffs came in at 10%, it was manageable. Then the rate on China crept up, then up again, to 54%. That was her “oh, shit moment”, but she thought she could weather it, she told the Guardian.It didn’t stop there, though. It climbed up to 104%. She filmed a video of herself “mid-meltdown” over the extreme tariff, posting it on her social media.Busy Baby is one of many US small businesses having to reckon with monumental tariffs that could shutter their livelihoods. Donald Trump’s escalating trade war with China now includes a 125% tariff on Chinese products coming into the US. These businesses were given little more than a week to confront a budget-busting tax on their goods.View image in fullscreen“After today’s announcement, and the impending 104% tariff, I am abandoning my products in China. I am leaving them there because I simply cannot afford to ship them here,” Benike told her followers on Monday, before Trump hiked the tariff on Chinese goods up even further on Wednesday.“At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday as he paused tariffs on other countries.Benike already paid about $160,000 to manufacture her products in China, and would have to pay more than that to bring them to the US. So for now, she’s trying to figure out other options: she could try to sell them overseas, or send them to another country to repackage them.“I’m terrified for my business, and I’m terrified for all the other small businesses in the United States right now, because we don’t know what to do, and we’re invested in our businesses. I could lose my home, and I don’t understand it, and I don’t know what to do,” she said in the video.After Trump’s latest increase, Benike said she was looking into sending the paid-for products to Australia, where she has friends, to have them repackaged, then importing them from there during the 90-day pause because it is at least a way to get the products she already paid for to the US.Her business has grown since she founded it in 2017, and accolades have come with it. She was named Minnesota’s small businessperson of the year by the US Small Business Administration this year. She finally got into big retailers – Target and Walmart – with small test runs. Those contracts, though, were signed before the tariffs. Walmart told her it wanted to keep and expand its offerings from Busy Baby, she said, but she had a “hard conversation” with the buyer this week to let them know she cannot add a third product to their roster because of the high tariffs.View image in fullscreen“It has completely stifled my growth in big box retail, which has been our main goal for three years– to grow into that space,” she said. “Because as a teeny, tiny business, that’s a huge achievement, huge for our brand. And now it’s halted.”The other option, the one Trump wants, is a pipe dream: manufacturing her products in the US. Benike would prefer to manufacture here, too. But a mountain of logistics, near impossibilities, stand in her way.Food-grade silicone, which she uses for her products, is not available domestically. When she looked into the cost of importing the material when she first started, it was more expensive than importing a finished product, and the prices have gone up since then. Manufacturing facilities in the US with the compression mold machines she needed require much larger runs than she can commit to. The minimum requirements for factories here was 20,000 – in China, she could do a couple thousand at a time.Making the molds for her products takes about two months. They also are made in China – many American manufacturers send American steel to China to makemolds because they’re better at it there, she said. The molds alone would cost up to $75,000 in the US. If she found a factory and the capital needed to get it all going, it would still take a minimum of four months until she had products ready to sell, she estimated.“It’s financially impossible for me to manufacture here. But even if I had an angel that just dropped a million dollars in my lap, it doesn’t make sense as a business model for how much we would have to charge for the product and charge the consumer,” she said. “It doesn’t make any sense. So I wish I understood the big picture, or how they expect us to pivot in this tiny window of time. I don’t understand, I just don’t understand this.”She said she has about two or three months’ worth of product on hand now, giving her a few months until she could theoretically go out of business if she doesn’t figure something else out. If people buy up what she has left, that at least gives her some cashflow to buy her some time to make new plans.On Tuesday, she got a call from the Small Business Administration, she said. Someone there saw her video, so she’s sending them information on her products and the machines at the factory she uses now. The agency is going to try to find a factory in the US that could make her products, but she’s not holding her breath.View image in fullscreenShe decided to post her video and speak out about the way the tariffs are affecting small businesses because she has a community of supporters and other entrepreneurs who can help and commiserate, including some who know her from her appearance on Shark Tank.Two years ago, during a different tough spot for her business, she had suicidal thoughts. The weight of being a CEO was heavy. She thought, if she was gone, at least her family would have life insurance to live on. She got help then and learned coping strategies.The thought of life insurance surfaced again this week. She caught it quickly, reminding herself that “this is a trick my brain is playing on me right now, because it doesn’t see a way out”. She wants other entrepreneurs to know they aren’t alone as they face these tariffs. She’s heard from some, who have messaged her privately to say they are feeling the same pain, but can’t speak out because it’s a business risk.Some of the comments on her video and on local news websites that have written about her predicament have not been kind. Some have said, you voted for this, or you deserve this if you voted for Trump. She did not vote for Trump, she said, but she does not know why her political beliefs matter.“No one deserves this. No one. Regardless of who they voted for,” she said. “Trump said he was going to do tariffs. We knew that. Yes, we knew tariffs were coming. I would have never in a million years guessed it would be like this.”She has more than 15 patents for the products she’s created for the “accidental business” she came up with after her son was born. She learned how to start a business, develop products, set up an e-commerce store. Now, digging her way out from huge tariffs is one more thing to learn.“We’ve got a great product, and it is a great product for babies. Babies exist all over our world, all over the planet, babies everywhere. I can’t fail,” she said. “This is my children’s livelihood. It’s my home.” More
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Pentagon chief says US could ‘revive’ Panama bases
by Evelyn Reynolds 10 April 2025, 07:08
The US defence secretary has floated the idea of the country’s troops returning to Panama to “secure” its strategically vital canal, a suggestion quickly shot down by the Central American country’s government.Pete Hegseth suggested during a visit to Panama that “by invitation” the US could “revive” military bases or naval air stations and rotate deployments of its troops to an isthmus the US invaded 35 years ago.He also said his country was seeking free passage through the canal for its navy ships – which Donald Trump had said were “severely overcharged and not treated fairly in any way, shape or form”.Trump, since coming to power in January, has repeatedly claimed that China has too much influence over the canal, which handles about 40% of US container traffic and 5% of world trade.His administration has vowed to “take back” control of the strategic waterway that the US funded, built and controlled until 1999.Hegseth suggested on Wednesday the former US military bases that dot Panama could be used again to host American troops.He said a deal signed with Panama this week was an “opportunity to revive, whether it’s the military base, naval air station, locations where US troops can work with Panamanian troops to enhance capabilities and cooperate in a rotational way”.While Hegseth cited the possibility of joint exercises, the mention of a rotational force was likely to raise the hackles of Panamanians, for whom sole ownership of the canal is a source of national pride.The US has long participated in military exercises in Panama. However, a longer-term rotational force – such as the force the USmaintains in Darwin, Australia – is politically toxic for Panama’s centre-right leader, José Raúl Mulino.His government quickly slapped down the idea. “Panama made clear, through President Mulino, that we cannot accept military bases or defence sites,” said Panama’s security minister, Frank Abrego, in a joint public appearance with Hegseth.Hegseth also said the US was seeking an agreement under which its warships could pass through the canal “first, and free”.Jose Ramón Icaza, Panama’s minister for canal affairs, said: “We will seek a mechanism by which warships and auxiliary ships can have a compensation system for services, that is, a way to make them cost-neutral but not free.”The independent Panama Canal Authority (PCA) that manages the waterway said on Wednesday that it was seeking a “cost-neutral scheme” to compensate services rendered in security matters for warship tolls.Under current treaties, the canal is open to all countries and vessels must pay the same rates according to their capacity and cargo, regardless of their country of origin or destination.The PCA said the US recognised Panamanian sovereignty over the waterway, although Hegseth did not mention it in the news conference.The Pentagon chief’s two-day visit has been peppered with comments about China and its influence in Latin America. He said the US was not looking for war with China but would counter Beijing’s “threats” to the region.“We do not seek war with China. And war with China is certainly not inevitable. We do not seek it in any form,” Hegseth said. “But together, we must prevent war by robustly and vigorously deterring China’s threats in this hemisphere,” the former Fox News anchor said.China hit back after Hegseth’s comments, saying Washington officials “maliciously attacked China … exposing the US’s bullying nature”.Trump has zeroed in on the role of a Hong Kong company that has operated ports at either end of the canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans for decades.Hegseth asserted that China-based companies were also capturing Latin American land and infrastructure in strategic sectors, such as energy and telecommunications, and that China had too large a military presence in the hemisphere.“Make no mistake, Beijing is investing and operating in this region for military advantage and unfair economic gain,” he said.Under pressure from the White House, Panama has accused the Hong Kong-backed Panama Ports Company of failing to meet its contractual obligations and pushed for it to pull out of the country.The company rejected an audit on Wednesday that suggested it had failed to pay $1.2bn due under its concession.The ports’ parent company, CK Hutchison, announced last month a deal to offload 43 ports in 23 countries – including its two on the Panama canal – to a consortium led by the US asset manager BlackRock for $19bn in cash. A furious Beijing has since announced an antitrust review of the deal.The US invaded Panama in 1989 to oust the dictator Manuel Noriega, killing more than 500 Panamanians and razing parts of the capital. More

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