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    Obama takes aim at companies cutting deals with Trump: ‘We have capacity to take a stand’

    Barack Obama took aim at institutions and businesses who made deals or worked out settlements with the Trump administration, noting on a new podcast episode: “We all have this capacity, I think, to take a stand.”In a talk with Marc Maron on the comedian’s last edition of his long-running WTF With Marc Maron, the former US president said institutions – including law firms, universities and businesses – that have changed course during the Trump administration should have stood by their convictions.Instead of bending to the administration, Obama noted that universities should say: “This will hurt if we lose some grant money in the federal government, but that’s what endowments are for. Let’s see if we can ride this out, because what we’re not going to do is compromise our basic academic independence.”He also noted that the organizations that did concede to Trump should be able to say: “We’re not going to be bullied into saying that we can only hire people or promote people based on some criteria that’s been cooked up by Steve Miller,” in reference to the top White House aide and architect of Trump’s hardline immigration policy.Obama, whose two terms preceded the first Trump administration, also said that companies should also have stood up against administration pressure campaign to turn back from diversity hiring.“We think it’s important, because of what this country is, to hire people from different backgrounds,” Obama said.Universities, law firms and other businesses have all reached agreements with the White House, including dropping DEI targets and agreeing to rein in campus antisemitism in exchange for restoration of federal funding. A series of powerful Washington law firms have also agreed to provide free legal services to the administration, while corporations have rolled back diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.Disney, a frequent target of political-ideological factions on the left and right, scrapped its internal “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” program for “Opportunity & Inclusion” to empower “all through access, opportunity, and a culture of belonging”.Elsewhere in the interview, Obama acknowledged that integrity comes at a price.“Sometimes it’s going to be uncomfortable,” he told Maron, referencing a joke that Maron made in his stand-up routine that Democrats annoyed the average American into fascism.“It cracked me up,” Obama said. “I wasn’t as funny about saying this, but four or five years ago I said: ‘Look, you can’t just be a scold all the time. You can’t constantly lecture people without acknowledging you’ve got some blind spots, too.’”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionVulnerability, he said, comes in standing up for core convictions but not attempting to assert “that I am so righteous, and so pure, and so insightful, that there isn’t the possibility I’m wrong on this.“There was this weird progressive language,” he said, that implied a “holier than thou superiority that’s not different to what we used to joke about coming from the right and the moral majority … and certain fundamentalism that I think was dangerous”.Maron posted the final episode of his show on Monday after 16 years of hosting and with more than 1,600 installments that he’s broadcast from his Los Angeles garage. Obama brought the 62-year-old host, stand-up comic and actor to his Washington office for the last interview.Obama asked the initial questions. “How are you feeling about this whole thing?” he said, “transition, moving on from this thing that has been one of the defining parts of your career and your life?”“I feel OK,” Maron answered. “I feel like I’m sort of ready for the break, but there is sort of a fear there, of what do I do now? I’m busy. But, not unlike your job … I’ve got a lot of people who over the last 16 years have grown to rely on me.” More

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    Majority of special education staff in US education department laid off – report

    The majority of staff in the education department handling special education has been laid off, according to multiple reports.Friday’s total of 466 layoffs across the education department also impacted the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, which oversees programs that support millions of children and adults with disabilities nationwide, according to sources speaking to various outlets.“Despite extensive efforts to minimize impact on employees and programs during the ongoing government shutdown, the continued lapse in funding has made it necessary to implement the RIF (reduction in force),” according to a letter issued to workers that CNN reviewed.The Guardian has contacted the education department for comment.One department employee told NPR: “This is decimating the office responsible for safeguarding the rights of infants, toddlers, children and youth with disabilities.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSimilarly, the National Association of State Directors of Special Education said that if the layoffs are true, “there is significant risk that not only will federal funding lapse, but children with disabilities will be deprived” of free and proper education, K-12 Dive reports.Chad Rummel, executive director of the Council for Exceptional Children, told the outlet: “The rumored near elimination of the Office for Special Education Programs is absolutely devastating to the education of people with disabilities.”“Eliminating federal capacity to support Idea is harmful to people with disabilities, their families, and the professionals who serve them, and it runs counter to everything our members work toward every day,” Rummel added, referring to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act which ensures a free and appropriate public education to eligible children with disabilities throughout the country.In March, the education department announced layoffs of 1,300 employees, or nearly 50% of the department’s workforce, which the education secretary Linda McMahon described as a “significant step toward restoring the greatness of the United States education system”. More

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    Republican and Democratic senators dig in heels over government shutdown

    Republican and Democratic senators Lindsey Graham and Mark Kelly have dug their heels in over the government shutdown – which is now approaching two weeks, with the former saying that the closure won’t push him to meet Democrats’ demands for a restoration of Obama-era healthcare subsidies.Graham said on NBC News’s Meet the Press on Sunday that he was in favor of the Senate voting to reopen the government and prepared to “have a rational discussion” with Democrats – but not with the government shut down.“I’m willing to vote to open the government up tomorrow,” Graham said. “To my Democratic friends: I am not going to vote to extend these subsidies.”Graham, speaking to Democrats, added: “It’s up to you. If you want to keep it shut down, fine. It’s not going to change how I approach healthcare.”The senator’s comments came as Vice-President JD Vance warned that permanent cuts to the federal workforce will only get “deeper” as the shutdown continues.Vance told Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures that “the longer it goes on, Maria, the more significant they’re going to be. If you remember, we went nine days before announcing any significant layoffs.“The longer this goes on, the deeper the cuts are going to be,” Vance continued.More than 4,000 federal workers have so far been identified for job terminations. The Senate has voted multiple times over the last two weeks on a stopgap funding measure but not enough Democrats have joined the proposal to reach a 60-vote threshold.Graham’s comments may indicate a hardening approach to negotiations over healthcare subsidies with or without a functioning government.“The subsidies we’re talking about here,” Graham told NBC. “If the (Obama’s) Affordable Care Act is so affordable, why, every time I turn around, are we spending $350 billion to keep it afloat?”The dispute on the network continued with Arizona senator Mark Kelly, a Democrat, criticizing Republicans for refusing to negotiate with Democrats.“We need a real negotiation, and we need a fix. We need this corrected for the American people. This is for so many people – their healthcare is running towards a cliff, and if we don’t fix this, it’s going to go right over it,” Kelly told host Kristen Welker on Meet the Press.Against increasing pressure to reach a deal, with both sides weighing the political cost of a lack of a resolution, House speaker Mike Johnson said on Monday that Republicans had “probably a hundred different ideas about how to fix it but we can’t do that overnight”.He said Democrats’ demands for a resolution to the healthcare subsidies issue without lengthy discussions were “impossible and inappropriate”.“It’s not a deliverable and they know it,” Johnson said. “They chose that issue because they thought it would sell well to the public and it would show they were fighting Trump. It’s all a big facade and I’m so frustrated by it.” More

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    Markets rebound amid latest US-China tariff spat as traders look to possible ‘Taco trade’

    European stock markets have edged higher and cryptocurrencies rebounded amid signs that a new front in the US-China trade war may not be a severe as first feared.Tensions between Washington and Beijing escalated again on Friday and over the weekend, as Donald Trump threatened to impose additional US tariffs of 100% on China starting next month.The US president accused the country of “very hostile” moves to restrict exports of rare-earth minerals needed for American industry. Beijing said it would retaliate if Trump does not back down.However, Trump and senior US officials opened a door to a possible deal with China on Sunday. The president wrote on Truth Social: “Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine! Highly respected President Xi just had a bad moment. He doesn’t want Depression for his country, and neither do I. The U.S.A. wants to help China, not hurt it!!!”The comments have offered some comfort for investors in Europe, with stocks opening mostly higher on Monday. The UK’s blue-chip FTSE 100 index rose by 0.2% in early trading, while markets in France, Spain, Germany were all up by about 0.5%.Most big cryptocurrencies rebounded after a deep sell-off over the weekend. Bitcoin edged up by 0.3% to more than $115,000, after falling below $105,000 on Friday. Ether had dropped to less than $3,500 but rebounded to about $4,100.Richard Hunter, of the broker Interactive Investor, said investors were hoping for a “Taco trade”, which is the idea that markets rally because “Trump Always Chickens Out” (Taco) of aggressive tariff decisions.“The president’s propensity to shoot from the hip unsettles the investment environment, even though some are already speculating that the Taco trade is alive and well,” he said.However, a heightened sense of uncertainty is pushing investors to gold, which is considered a safe haven asset. Its spot price hit another new high on Monday, rising to as high as $4,078.5 an ounce.Derren Nathan, of the broker Hargreaves Lansdown, noted that US stock futures suggested that there could be “at least a partial rebound” when the market opens later on Monday.“Traders may be banking on a similar pattern where American indexes entered a six-month period of almost unbroken growth helped by a string of trade deals, and growing hopes of a soft-landing for the US economy,” he said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionShares in Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca – which made a deal with Trump to lower drug prices and avoid tariffs over the weekend – initially rose on Monday morning, before falling back by 0.4%.Fears were still running high in Asia, with main markets tumbling on Monday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped by 2.3%, while the Taiwanese market fell by 1.4% and the Thai exchange declined by 2%. In mainland China, the Shenzhen exchange fell by 1.4% and the Shanghai market slipped 0.4%.On Monday, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian urged the US to promptly correct its “wrong practices” and said it would act to safeguard its interests.Despite the trade tensions, Chinese exports bounced back in September, topping forecasts as it diversified its markets.Chinese exports rose by 8.3% year on year last month, according to official customs data. This was the fastest growth since March, and beat a 6% increase forecast by economists polled by Reuters. It comes after a 4.4% increase in August. More

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    Trump news at a glance: Insurrection Act on the cards, says Vance, as president touts peace in the Middle East

    The Trump administration is considering ways to invoke emergency powers, including utilising the Insurrection Act of 1807, which would allow president Donald Trump to deploy troops on US soil in the event of major unrest.Despite legal pushback, vice-president JD Vance has confirmed the White is seriously considering the idea. “The president’s looking at all of his options,” he told NBC’s News’s Meet the Press on Sunday, adding that “we are talking about this because crime has gotten out of control in our cities”.The acknowledgment came as president Trump boarded a plane for Jerusalem, where he is scheduled to speak at the Knesset and meet families of hostages set to be released from Gaza on Monday after helping to broker a major peace deal.The war, he proclaimed, “was over”, adding that relations in the Middle East would “normalize”.Here are the key stories:Trump ‘looking at all options’ amid threats to invoke Insurrection Act, Vance saysThe White House is talking about invoking the Insurrection Act that would allow the deployment of military troops on US soil to quell domestic unrest amid legal challenges over the moves, JD Vance confirmed on Sunday.Vance was asked on NBC News’s Meet the Press whether Donald Trump was seriously considering invoking the emergency power to deploy national guard forces and even the US military in domestic settings.Read the full storyTrump says ‘war is over’ in Gaza as Israel awaits release of hostagesThe war in Gaza has ended and the Middle East is going to “normalize”, Donald Trump said on Sunday as he flew to Israel, which was waiting for Hamas to release Israeli hostages as world leaders were gathering to discuss the next steps toward peace.“The war is over, you understand that,” Trump told reporters onboard Air Force One as he began a flight from Washington DC to Israel.Read the full storyChina warns US of retaliation over Trump’s 100% tariffs threatBeijing has told the US it will retaliate if Donald Trump fails to back down on his threat to impose 100% tariffs on Chinese imports as investors brace for another bout of trade war turmoil.China’s commerce ministry blamed Washington for raising trade tensions between the two countries after Trump announced on Friday that he would impose the additional tariffs on China’s exports to the US, along with new controls on critical software, by 1 November.Read the full storyTrump officials reportedly consider selling student loan debt to private investorsOfficials in the Trump administration are reportedly weighing the possibility of selling portions of the federal government’s $1.6tn student loan portfolio to private investors, which experts say could carry risks for both taxpayers and borrowers – potentially reshaping the student loan landscape in unpredictable ways.Read the full storyMaga figures back Bukele’s call for Trump to crack down on US judgesDonald Trump is not known for taking advice, especially from foreign leaders who often seek to flatter and compliment the US president, writes the Guardian’s Jason Wilson in this feature on the El Salvadorian leader’s thoughts on the US judiciary.El Salvador’s authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele has followed a different tack, he writes, by calling on the Trump administration to follow his example in impeaching “corrupt judges”.Read the full storyWhat else happened today:

    ‘Cavalier and aggressive’: why are border agents flooding into US cities? The Guardian’s Maanvi Singh has this piece on how border agents have become a key force in Trump’s migrant crackdown.
    Catching up? Here’s what happened on 11 October, 2025. More

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    Trump ‘looking at all options’ amid threats to invoke Insurrection Act, Vance says

    The White House is talking about invoking the Insurrection Act that would allow the deployment of military troops on US soil to quell domestic unrest amid legal challenges over the moves, JD Vance confirmed on Sunday.Vance was asked on NBC News’s Meet the Press whether Donald Trump was seriously considering invoking the emergency power to deploy national guard forces and even the US military in domestic settings.“The president’s looking at all of his options,” he said, adding that “we are talking about this because crime has gotten out of control in our cities”.Trump’s attempts to use federal national guard forces in Democratic-run cities has faced challenges in the courts, most notably in Chicago in recent days.The vice-president’s ominous remarks came days after Trump referred to the Insurrection Act from the Oval Office, bluntly stating: “If I had to enact it, I would do that.” Military forces are forbidden from engaging in law enforcement duties on home soil.But under the Insurrection Act, which was signed in 1807, the president can deploy them domestically in cases of insurrection or rebellion, violence that is preventing the functioning of federal laws.The power was used during the 1960s civil rights movement during clashes over desegregation of the south but since then has been very rarely activated. The last time a president called on it was in 1992 when the governor of California requested military aid from George HW Bush in response to civil unrest in Los Angeles.In Sunday’s Meet the Press interview, Vance said Trump “hasn’t felt he needed to” invoke the Insurrection Act up to this point. But he confirmed that it was among the tactics being considered as the administration continues to be stymied in federal courts from deploying federalised national guard forces in Democratic-run cities.Federal courts have blocked the White House from using troops in Oregon and Illinois. On Thursday a federal judge prohibited the deployment of federalised national guard personnel in Chicago, admonishing the administration that she had “seen no credible evidence that there is a danger of a rebellion in the state of Illinois”.National guard troops have been sent into Illinois by the Trump administration from both Texas and California but under the temporary court order cannot be put out into the streets.Vance told NBC News that options such as the Insurrection Act were being considered because “there are places in Chicago where people are afraid to take their children … for fear of gun violence, for fear of gang drive-by shootings”.In a separate interview with This Week on ABC News, Vance said that Chicago had been given over to “lawlessness and gangs” and had a murder rate “that rivals the worst places in the third world”.In fact, violent crime has been falling at unprecedented rates in America’s biggest cities including Chicago over the past two years. Chicago is not in the top four large US cities with the highest murder rates – all of whom are in states controlled by Republicans.As Vance did the rounds of Sunday’s political talkshows, tension between the Trump administration and the Democratic states it is targeting exploded across TV screens. The vice-president was repeatedly asked by George Stephanopoulos on ABC News whether the Democratic governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, had committed a crime that could see him being prosecuted by the Department of Justice as have several other of Trump’s “political enemies”.Vance skirted the question until he was pressed into saying: “He should suffer consequences. Whether he has violated a crime I would leave to the courts, but he has certainly violated his oath of office and that seems pretty criminal to me.”Pritzker responded to the veiled threat by accusing Vance of coming out with a “tidal wave of lies”. The governor told This Week that he was not intimidated by the prospect of prosecution as has befallen the former FBI director James Comey and the New York attorney general Letitia James, who have both been indicted in recent days.Pritzker said: “I am not afraid. Do I think he could do it? He might. But as I have said before, come and get me. I mean, you’re dead wrong, Mr President and Mr Vice-President, and I will stand up for the law and the constitution.”Raw emotions were widely on display across the TV studios as the federal government shutdown entered day 12. The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, told Fox News Sunday that the crisis had been orchestrated by Democratic leaders in Congress as a partisan move “so that they can prove to their Marxist base that they are willing to fight Trump”.He said that after eight attempts to reopen the government had all failed in votes in the Senate, the shutdown was causing “real pain for real people – and the Democrats don’t seem to care”.On the same program, the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, denied that the Democratic stance was partisan. “We will sit down with anyone, any time, any place, go back to the White House, to have a bipartisan discussion about reopening the government,” he said.The Democrats’ aim, Jeffries added, was to “improve the quality of life of the American people and address the healthcare crisis that threatens tens of millions of people across the country”. More

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    China warns US of retaliation over Trump’s 100% tariffs threat

    Beijing has told the US it will retaliate if Donald Trump fails to back down on his threat to impose 100% tariffs on Chinese imports as investors brace for another bout of trade war turmoil.China’s commerce ministry blamed Washington for raising trade tensions between the two countries after Trump announced on Friday that he would impose the additional tariffs on China’s exports to the US, along with new controls on critical software, by 1 November.“Wilful threats of high tariffs are not the right way to get along with China,” a spokesperson for the commerce ministry said on Sunday, according to the state news agency Xinhua. “China’s position on the trade war is consistent. We do not want it, but we are not afraid of it.“If the United States insists on going the wrong way, China will surely take resolute measures to protect its legitimate rights and interests.”Trump and senior US administration officials opened a door to a China trade deal on Sunday as market futures showed another US stock market drop.“Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine! Highly respected President Xi just had a bad moment. He doesn’t want Depression for his country, and neither do I. The U.S.A. wants to help China, not hurt it!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.The message came after JD Vance called on Beijing to “choose the path of reason” in the latest spiralling trade fight between the world’s two leading economies that has shaken stock markets.Dow futures showed a drop of 887 points ahead of the stock markets’ open on Monday. The index dropped sharply lower on Friday after reignited fears of a trade war with China when threatened to impose 100% tariffs on Chinese imports after China said it would restrict rare earth exports. The Dow fell 879 points, or 1.9%.“It’s going to be a delicate dance, and a lot of it is going to depend on how the Chinese respond,” Vance said on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures. “If they respond in a highly aggressive manner, I guarantee you, the president of the United States has far more cards than the People’s Republic of China. If, however, they’re willing to be reasonable,” he said, then the US would, too.The US president shocked the financial markets on Friday when he accused China of “very hostile” moves to restrict exports of rare-earth materials needed by US industry.It prompted heavy falls on Wall Street, where about $2tn (£1.5tn) was wiped off the value of the US stocks.China insisted on Sunday that its latest export controls on rare earths such as holmium, erbium, thulium, europium and ytterbium were legitimate.“China’s export controls are not export bans,” said the commerce ministry spokesperson. “All applications of compliant export for civil use can get approval, so that relevant businesses have no need to worry.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe measures were introduced after Washington added a number of Chinese firms to its export control list in a crackdown on the use of foreign affiliates to circumvent export curbs on chipmaking equipment and other goods and technology.The UK’s FTSE 100 share index fell almost 1% on Friday as Trump’s threat sparked a late selloff. The futures market indicates there could be further losses in London and New York on Monday, although there could also be relief that Beijing has not yet retaliated.Bitcoin, which had tumbled 8% after Trump’s post on Truth Social, rose by 4% on Sunday after China refrained from retaliating.Trump’s tariff threat was “a rather unwelcome development for financial markets” as investors had “by and large moved on from the trade and tariff story”, said Michael Brown, a senior research strategist at the brokerage firm Pepperstone.“Chiefly, the question that every man and his dog are attempting to answer is whether this is a credible threat, that the Trump admin might follow through on, or whether this is another example of the ‘escalate to de-escalate’ strategy that Trump used so frequently earlier in the year.“A strategy where outlandish and ridiculous tariff figures are threatened, in an attempt to focus minds, extract concessions from the other party, and ultimately come to agreement faster than otherwise might’ve been possible.” More

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    Democrats are captive to outdated etiquette. It’s endangering democracy | Ryan W Powers

    In early August, dozens of Democratic lawmakers fled Texas for Illinois, denying Republicans the quorum needed to pass new congressional maps projected to give the party as many as five additional seats. Their absence paralyzed the state legislature, turning a walkout into political resistance and drawing national attention.As the standoff dragged on, Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, offered an unorthodox countermove: a proposal to suspend his state’s independent redistricting commission and draw maps designed to hand Democrats a comparable advantage. He unveiled the plan with spectacle, mimicking Donald Trump’s signature style through all-caps declarations, a mocking nickname for White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt (“KaroLYIN”) and AI-generated celebrity endorsements.While Texas Democrats ultimately returned and the Republican redistricting plan has advanced, Newsom has been cast as the emerging leader of Democratic opposition to Trump. Why did it take the party nine months to find one?It wasn’t for lack of need. Just last summer, Trump ousted independent agency heads who contradicted his narrative, deployed the national guard to Washington DC against the mayor’s wishes and granted the attorney general license to enlist the justice department in partisan battles. Each step pushed democratic norms closer to the breaking point.The real answer is that the most powerful liberal institutions – the Democratic establishment, major donors and the professional class around them – are captive to outdated etiquette. They prize agreeability as an end in itself: disruption is discouraged, compromise exalted, restraint worn as a badge of honor. And because these institutions shape liberal culture from the top down, their attachment to niceties dulls urgency and narrows the space for bold, breakout leadership.What makes Newsom unique is his willingness to defy convention when circumstances demand it. The lesson is not in his theatrics, but in the reminder that strategically breaking norms can sometimes accomplish more than following them.California’s independent redistricting commission is written into the state constitution, which means Newsom’s proposal cannot advance without voter approval in November. Even if successful, redistricting alone is only a stopgap. The deeper fight is cultural: whether the Democratic establishment can break its attachment to rigid politeness before democracy withers.The stakes are not theoretical. The Trump administration has undermined judicial independence, hollowed out federal agencies and run straight through one of elite liberalism’s most entrenched institutions: big law.For decades, elite law firms have been essential to Democrats, supplying both the funding and talent that sustains the party’s infrastructure. Yet when faced with punitive executive orders, some of these very institutions – once defenders of liberal democracy – folded, signing settlement deals that critics have labeled unconstitutional and undemocratic.Until recently, I was an associate at a big law firm. After publishing an op-ed about the constitutional dangers of a Trump-Palantir partnership – implicating my firm’s client Trump Media, and a former client, Palantir – I was warned that continuing to speak out could cost me my job. What came next was more interesting: a test of how far one act of dissent could ripple through a system built to contain it.Instead of leaving quietly, I challenged big law publicly. I announced my firing on Instagram with a caption that began “Candidly, I’m disgusted” and concluded with a stern rebuke of big law’s surrender to Trump “in shadowy back rooms, on billion-dollar yachts”. The post was raw, even theatrical, but its real purpose was to spotlight a more substantive op-ed I had written on the corporate legal sector’s complicity in democratic backsliding.Within hours, the post went viral. Political commentators with a combined audience of more than 10 million amplified it on social media, and leading legal publications picked up the story. The op-ed drew more than 50,000 readers, including Fortune 500 CEOs, non-profit leaders and the dean of Harvard Law School. Even the prominent legal scholar Laurence Tribe shared the piece.What began as a messy act of dissent had become legitimized critique. Some elites may have clutched their pearls at the breach of decorum, but the spectacle renewed debate over big law’s role in creeping authoritarianism.In elite liberal spaces, the expectation is always the same: stay quiet, exit gracefully, never make a scene. Yet nonviolent unruliness has power precisely because it breaks the code of composure. Psychologists call this the “expectancy violations theory”: when behavior defies what’s anticipated, it commands outsized attention and carries significant weight. That impact is magnified when it comes from insiders with status or access.This dynamic suggests that liberalism’s best strategy is to subvert its own norms. Critics may argue that spectacle undermines substance, or that breaking etiquette diminishes the credentials that lend Democrats authority. But in today’s attention economy, spectacle is often how substance gets noticed. Breaking strict decorum is not the enemy of liberalism; it may be the very tool that keeps it alive.Elections bear this out. In Wisconsin’s supreme court race this year, the candidate Susan Crawford broke from traditional judicial etiquette. She waged a decisively bold campaign, labelling her opponent Brad Schimel “a rightwing extremist” and mocking him as “Elon Schimel” in light of his endorsement by the controversial tech billionaire. Behavior that might once have seemed undignified instead helped drive record turnout and carried her to a decisive victory.By contrast, in Ohio’s 2022 Senate race, the US representative Tim Ryan built a campaign on moderation and convention, presenting himself as a steady unifier. That strategy failed to resonate with the electorate, overshadowed by the deliberately unorthodox and provocative campaign of his opponent, JD Vance, now the vice-president.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe cult of congeniality has left Democrats out of touch. Their resistance, defined by hollow gestures like waving “No King!” and “Save Medicaid” signs on the House floor, only underscores how mismatched the party is to the moment. The reason is clear: politics has evolved, but the Democratic establishment still clings to the Obama-era script of unwavering politeness and reserve that now defines a bygone age.That era ended with the mainstream embrace of rightwing populism. In the late 2000s, the Tea Party clawed its way into the national spotlight by angrily heckling Democratic lawmakers, parading AR-15s outside political events and staging unruly rallies on the National Mall. The movement dominated headlines, heavily influencing the Republican party’s agenda and showing that unruliness itself could confer political legitimacy. By the 2010 midterms, Republicans had turned that ethos into an electoral strategy and managed to flip 63 House seats, the party’s largest gain since 1948.If the Tea Party proved that disrupting norms could win elections, Trump showed that it could seize an entire party. Once a familiar face on red carpets and network television, he built a political base by rejecting etiquette: apparently mocking a reporter’s disability live on stage, attacking a federal judge’s ethnic background and urging supporters to use physical force against protesters at his rallies. Acts that might once have disqualified a candidate instead became evidence that longstanding norms were now optional.Even so, Democrats should not use rightwing populism as a blueprint. That approach is rooted in demolition: attacking institutions indiscriminately, sometimes through brute force. What’s needed instead is an approach rooted in defense: reinforcing institutions carefully and rejecting violence wholesale. When Nicole Collier, a Texas state representative, camped out in the House chamber, she was not attempting to upend the legislature. She was pushing back against a Republican power play that threatened its integrity.Skeptics may argue that this style of politics risks alienating moderates or deepening division. But unruliness is not an end in itself: it is a temporary shock meant to restore democratic vitality. Here, abandoning etiquette is less about breaking order than resetting it. As the economist Karl Polanyi observed, such interruptions act like an immune response, jolting institutions back to health so decorum can return.Of course, bold disruption carries risk. Breaking composure can cost reputations, careers, even relationships. From Harry Belafonte, ostracized by Hollywood and mainstream media for defiant civil rights activism, to Larry Kramer, rejected by his peers for uncompromising Aids advocacy, history shows that those who put action above etiquette often paid dearly. But sacrifice itself – the willingness to acceptance consequences – is what transforms dissent into political pressure.The task now is to channel deliberate, nonviolent unruliness into strategy. Trump’s return to the White House made clear that authoritarianism does not yield to decorum. Voters recognize this: a recent survey found that nearly three-quarters of Democrats believe their leaders aren’t fighting hard enough. Newsom has now stepped forward, with Kathy Hochul, the New York governor, and Obama himself – the onetime apostle of gentility – lending their support. Breaking ranks will not always succeed, but caution all but ensures defeat. The choice is plain: abandon outdated norms, or watch democracy slip away.What’s giving me hope nowWhat gives me hope are the people living out Jane Goodall’s final lesson: that hope is a discipline we practice together, not a feeling we hold alone. The ones who show up at town halls, register young people to vote and lean into the small, human bonds that keep hope alive. Connection is everything.

    Ryan W Powers is a legal analyst who writes a weekly newsletter on democracy, dissent and the law More