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      The podcast showing what resistance looks like under Trump 2.0: ‘Where’s the progressive Project 2025?’

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      In a recent episode of Unnamed and Unbound: Black Voters Matter Podcast, the co-host Cliff Albright spoke with his guests about the power of resilience and community building during a time of uncertainty. Resilience takes different forms, he said, such as mutual aid drives or Washington DC protests featuring go-go music during the national guard’s continued deployment in the capital. “As food is becoming more expensive, and as food programs are being cut, whether it’s Snap or Meals on Wheels, you’ve got a lot of organizations and Black communities that are looking at: ‘How do we feed ourselves?’” Albright, the co-founder and executive director of the voting rights and community empowerment organization Black Voters Matter, said. “The best of our resistance has always included some form of taking care of ourselves.”After the presidential election in November, the Black Voters Matter team got to work. In late January, Albright, his co-founder LaTosha Brown, and the group’s legal director and chief of staff April England-Albright launched the podcast about voting rights and organizing to help keep Black communities informed. Their goal is also to dispel misinformation by engaging people who may be vulnerable to the Trump administration’s propaganda, Albright said, and need some “persuasion in terms of how to interpret what’s going on around us”. For England-Albright, she’d like for activists to build coalitions that learn from the shortcomings of past movements. Ultimately, Brown hopes that listeners feel a sense of belonging in the podcast and that they are encouraged to build community.Some of their guests have included Jennifer Wells from the community organizing group Community Change, Ife Finch Floyd from the policy advocacy organization Georgia Budget and Policy Institute, and Deante’ Kyle, host of the pop culture and politics podcast Grits and Eggs.In addition to the podcast, Black Voters Matter has also given nearly $4m in grants to local organizations including churches, neighborhood associations and NAACP chapters to help organizers canvas and mobilize voters this year. The organization also provides technical support to grassroots groups, such as training them on how to send out mass political text messages. A documentary about Black Voters Matter, titled Love, Joy and Power: Tools for Liberation released this year followed the organization’s work in 2020. Its use as a blueprint for progressive organizers, Albright said, “is critical towards the work that we’re doing now and to understand how we can win” in future elections.“I think that there is a sobering reality of millions of people in this country that in order to create the nation that we desire, we deserve,” Brown said, “it cannot, under any circumstances, be built on the same foundation of corporate greed and race and white supremacy.”The podcast’s inception began shortly after the election results poured in the morning after the 2024 presidential race. Brown sat immobile in her hotel kitchen in Washington DC, in shock that Donald Trump won after she sounded the alarm for years. Prior to the election, she and the Black Voters Matter team had travelled throughout the country to engage voters in an effort to build political power among Black communities.A wave of emotions ranging from betrayal to bitterness and then fear washed over her. “I just felt all of the weight of this Black woman being rejected when she was the best and the most prepared. She was the most patriotic. She was the most transparent,” Brown said. “It was like white privilege, dancing in your face.”“Do we not know what we’ve done?” Brown recalled wondering as she continued to watch the election results come in. She wanted others to know that they weren’t alone in their sense of despair. “I see our podcast like a lighthouse in the storm,” Brown said. It provides a space to discuss organizing strategies in the current sociopolitical environment.Ultimately, current movement builders are creating more clandestine networks similar to the Underground Railroad, said Brown.“What we’ve decided is we’re going to focus on our own wellbeing and creating alternatives for our community and for those who really want to see a multiracial democracy. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to keep building. We’re organizing, and when the time is right, you will know we’re there.”For England-Albright, the podcast helps amplify Black Voters Matter’s coalition building by hosting guests from other community empowerment organizations. “So often in this country policy has not exemplified that we matter,” England-Albright said. “We’ve always wanted to serve as a beacon of hope and light that we do matter in this country, regardless of policy.” Her personal experience working in the government has informed her view on Trump’s second term.As a former supervising attorney for the Department of Education’s office for civil rights during Trump’s first term, she said that she has an insider’s view into how the Trump administration has weaponized the powers of the executive branch in his second term. Project 2025, a conservative agenda published by the rightwing thinktank the Heritage Foundation, laid the blueprint for the Trump administration “to radically reduce the civil servants for the federal government and replace them with individuals who would pass a loyalty test,” England-Albright said. “The reason why he did that was because civil servants played a major role in essentially preventing and halting some of the darker things he wanted to do originally.”To survive Trump’s second term, England-Albright said that activists must build coalitions unlike “we’ve ever had before”. In the past, organizations were often singularly focused on issues, such as saving the environment or protecting voting rights. But this time requires an amalgamation of forces, she said: “We have to find a way to merge all of our individual desires or top button issues to become one, to create the kind of wall that is going to be necessary in this moment.”She wants to see progressives create a long-term strategy that ensures their policies survive in rightwing administrations. “Where is the progressive Project 2025?” She asked. “We have to create permanent laws, whether it comes in constitutional amendments, I don’t care, but we’ve got to do something that makes sure that our voices are permanent in this country.”Amid his disappointment about the current state of politics, Albright retains a sense of optimism by acknowledging that a fight is needed to get through the turbulence and pain. In the fifth and sixth episodes of Unnamed and Unbound: Black Voters Matter Podcast released earlier this year, Albright spoke to guests at a gathering at Alabama’s Dallas county courthouse to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday. On 7 March 1965, Dr Martin Luther King Jr led thousands of nonviolent civil rights marchers who were brutally beaten by law enforcement as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. “When I say love, you say power,” Albright said in a call and response with attendees. Love and power, Albright told the audience, is at the center of his work at Black Voters Matter. That weekend, Selma residents discussed their hopes and fears, focusing on the effects of gun violence on their community.“I personally often will call on Dr King’s quotes about love and power: ‘Power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice,’” Albright said. “So as long as we can be rooted in that; not the sentimental and anemic love, the love that’s bolstered by power, then we can get through this.” More

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      How can blue states fight back against Trump? With fiscal disobedience | Eric Reinhart

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      Against Illinois governor JB Pritzker’s objections, Donald Trump’s Pentagon has ordered hundreds of national guard troops to join his regime’s assault on Chicago communities. Trump subsequently called for Brandon Johnson, Chicago’s mayor, and Pritzker to be jailed for not supporting his agenda. These are simply the latest steps in Trump’s plan not to govern as the president of all Americans but to rule as the dictatorial head of a punitive factional state. Federal funding to Democratic cities is being slashed through executive maneuvers; the justice department is conducting politically targeted investigations and arrests; and the military is being deployed to intimidate fellow citizens. Los Angeles, Portland, my home town of Chicago and other cities have been cast as enemies to be subdued, not communities to be served.This weaponization of federal power represents a sharp break with constitutional tradition. It’s not merely ideological hostility; it is economic coercion and the exercise of violence in service of a president’s whim. The Trump regime is selectively starving Democratic jurisdictions of federal funds, even as their residents continue to pay billions in federal taxes, with blue states accounting for over 60% of the federal government’s revenue. We are being compelled to subsidize our own political subjugation.As the anthropologist Janet Roitman argued in her study of taxation and sovereignty in central Africa, acts of “fiscal disobedience” emerge not simply as refusals to pay but as political interventions that expose ruptures in the reciprocal obligations underlying fiscal authority. Taxation is never merely technical. It is the material expression of political belonging and shared obligation. When the state weaponizes fiscal power against certain communities while continuing to demand unquestioned revenue from them, it undermines its own claim to legitimate authority. In such contexts, withholding or conditionally redirecting tax flows can become a way to re-politicize the fiscal relationship. It makes explicit that the state has already broken the social contract. Blue states today occupy precisely this position: forced to fund a federal government that is actively targeting them, their residents and their institutions.Faced with this reality, Democratic governors need more than legal complaints and rhetorical protest. They need fiscal strategies of resistance commensurate with the scale of the attack. And one of the most provocative – and potentially powerful – ideas available is the creation of state-administered escrow accounts, or “in trust” funds, to temporarily hold federal tax revenues until the federal government upholds its constitutional obligations and withdraws its authoritarian threats.This may sound radical, but it is less secessionist than it may at first appear. It would not involve refusing to pay federal taxes outright, which would open individual taxpayers to prosecution. Instead, the state would act as a temporary custodian, receiving payments from residents and businesses equal to their federal tax liabilities, holding them in trust for the federal government, and releasing them only when certain constitutional conditions are met – such as the partisan cessation of federal defunding and the withdrawal of military deployments unauthorized by targeted states.Such a maneuver would constitute a form of civil disobedience by a state, legally risky and certain to entail confrontation. But Democratic cities and states, progressive non-profits, universities, non-white immigrants, and public health institutions are already facing direct conflict with Trump’s government. This strategy would reset the terms of the conflict and reclaim power against an increasingly brazen Trump regime. It would also underline for everyone the authoritarian, violent nature of the federal government’s tactics rather than allowing them to proceed under the thin guise of “law and order”, as Trump leverages his control over legal systems to wage war against his personal enemies. It would transform what is now a one-sided assault into a constitutional struggle.How it could workStates could establish this system through legislation to create a tax receivership fund, explicitly designated as a trust account for federal tax liabilities. Residents and businesses would make payments into this account instead of directly to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). The state would acknowledge these payments as received on behalf of the federal government, and pledge to remit them in full once specific, legally defined conditions were met – say, the restoration of suspended federal funding and reversal of other punitive actions that violate constitutional guarantees.Importantly, this scheme does not purport to nullify federal taxes or claim state sovereignty over them. It functions as a conditional remittance mechanism, akin to an escrow arrangement in contract law. Of course, the Trump-controlled IRS, which has already been weaponized by the regime, would not quietly accept this. It would likely treat payments into the state trust as non-payment and impose penalties. Legal challenges would ensue. But that is precisely the point: to force a constitutional confrontation over whether the federal government can target states for political punishment while continuing to demand unquestioned fiscal obedience.For such a strategy to work, it cannot be the isolated action of a single state. A state acting alone could be punished, scapegoated, or financially squeezed into submission. But if multiple states act simultaneously, they can transform isolated legal defiance into a coordinated assertion of constitutional co-sovereignty.Here, article I, section 10 of the constitution could offer an eventual tool: interstate compacts. These are agreements between states – subject to congressional consent, and thus not likely legally viable until and unless Democrats win back congressional majorities – that allow them to formally coordinate policy, pool resources, and create collective governance structures. With or without congressional approval, blue states could form a “fiscal sovereignty compact” to coordinate the legal, fiscal, and political strategies involved in holding federal taxes in trust. It could standardize escrow mechanisms across member states, ensuring legal coherence and shared administrative capacity; create a pooled legal defense fund to support court battles; coordinate triggers for releasing funds, so that the federal government faces a unified set of demands; and protect against selective federal retaliation by presenting a united front representing tens of millions of residents and trillions in economic output.This compact would not need to involve all blue states to be effective. A coalition of economically powerful states – such as California, Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, and Washington – could represent a staggering share of federal revenue. If even a portion of federal tax remittances from these states were held in trust, the federal government would face not an isolated legal challenge but substantial fiscal obstacles to its current belligerence.Building an anti-fascist federalismTrump’s use of the federal government to punish political enemies represents an authoritarian turn in American governance. It betrays the basic premise of federalism – that states are coequal entities within a constitutional framework, not mere provinces under imperial command – that was the supposed cornerstone of the Republican party before it sold what little soul it had to a conman. Lawsuits and press conferences are inadequate responses to this kind of assault. What’s needed are mechanisms that translate state and citizen dissent into material leverage. Escrow accounts, when deployed through a coordinated strategy, do precisely this: they turn the flow of money, the lifeblood of federal power, into the explicit site of political struggle.Such a move could have wide-rippling political effects. It would give residents a concrete way to participate in opposing the Trump regime, transforming legal disputes into collective political action. It would also force the supreme court, which is increasingly aligning itself with Trump against the constitution, to directly confront fundamental questions about the balance of state and federal power. Given the corruption of the courts, courtroom victory is neither the expectation nor the point in this strategy; it is instead to use the law to draw clear constitutional and fiscal battle lines – to make states active protagonists rather than passive targets.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSkeptics will call the above proposal unconstitutional, impractical or politically reckless. They are not wrong to note the risks. Under current federal tax law, states have no role in federal revenue collection. Courts might enjoin such efforts quickly. Administratively, state governments would need to build new fiscal infrastructure to receive and track payments. And Trump will seize on any opportunity to paint blue states as “insurrectionists” who must be violently crushed – but the regime is already inventing fictions to justify this regardless of on-the-ground realities.Acknowledging risks is not the same as accepting them as decisive. The legal barriers to fiscal disobedience are formidable in part because the federal government has never before faced coordinated, large-scale challenges of this kind from wealthy states representing a majority of national tax revenue. The courts are not mechanical; they are political actors that respond to the balance of power and the perceived legitimacy of claims. Even if states ultimately lose in court, the process itself would publicly expose the authoritarian abuse of fiscal powers, force constitutional confrontation rather than quiet capitulation, and potentially reshape the political terrain.As is evident from Chicago – where I am writing this with Black Hawk helicopters flying overhead night and day and where my friends, patients, elected representatives, and neighbors are being assaulted in their homes, in hospitals, and on the streets by federal agents acting with total disregard for either reality or legality – a rapid escalation of political violence in America is well under way. The Trump regime has made clear that it will continue to expand its campaign of violence with total impunity if we do not respond. In this context, refusing to counter fascism because retaliation might follow is not prudence; it is surrender.State-administered escrow accounts will not solve the crisis of American democracy, but they could help shift the terrain of struggle away from unilateral federal domination and toward a contested, negotiated, and coordinated anti-fascist federalism much better equipped to contest the destruction of US democracy.Trump is breaking the outer limits of the constitutional order and bending law to his advantage. It’s time for blue states to do the same.What’s giving me hope nowAlthough I’ve written above about large-scale strategy, it is small everyday acts of care between neighbors and co-workers seeking to protect one another within my Chicago community that give me confidence fascism will not consume us. I collaborate with local mutual aid and organizing collectives – such as the CHAAD Project, which supports vulnerable Chicago bar and restaurant workers – to remember that genuine change in society arises from giving and receiving care, and sharing joy and hospitality, with those around you. It is only from that basis that collective ethical and political life can acquire power great enough to topple fascism – and to replace it with a genuine democracy that fosters difference rather than seeking to annihilate it.

      Eric Reinhart is a political anthropologist, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst More

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      Trump news at a glance: Inflatable costumes aplenty as millions march against president

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      Americans in every state marched in protest against the Trump administration, giving voice to concerns that the country is sliding into authoritarianism.Millions turned out nationwide with signs, marching bands, a huge banner with the US constitution’s preamble that people could sign, and inflatable costumes ranging from bananas to SpongeBob SquarePants to frogs, which have in particular emerged as a sign of resistance beginning in Portland, Oregon.The rallies are a turnaround from just six months ago, when Democrats seemed at a loss as to how to counter Republicans’ grip of the White House and both houses of Congress after stinging national election losses.“What we are seeing from the Democrats is some spine,” Ezra Levin, a co-founder of Indivisible, a key organizing group, told the Associated Press. “The worst thing the Democrats could do right now is surrender.”‘We are here to stand firm,’ Chicago mayor tells No Kings protestersChicago’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, told a crowd on Saturday that the Trump administration had “decided that they want a rematch of the civil war”, which the white supremacist Confederacy lost to the Union in the 19th century.“We are here to stand firm and stand committed that we will not bend, we will not bow, we will not cower, we will not submit,” Johnson said. “We do not want troops in our city.”Read the full storyRepublicans subdued as millions marchRepublican voices were mostly silent as No Kings rallies and marches against Trump administration policies unfurled on Saturday, many in the spirit of a street party that countered the “hate America” depiction advanced by senior members of the party.Read the full storySurvivors of US strike on alleged drug boat may be sent to Colombia and EcuadorThe Trump administration is moving to send the two survivors of Thursday’s strike in the Caribbean overseas to Colombia and Ecuador rather than seek long-term military detention for them, four US officials and a source familiar with the matter told Reuters on Saturday.It means that the US military will not have to grapple with thorny legal issues surrounding military detention for suspected drug traffickers, whose alleged crimes do not fall neatly under the laws of war, legal experts say.Read the full storyUS Senate poised to approve industry lobbyist to lead chemical safety at EPAThe Senate is expected to approve Donald Trump’s nomination of an industry lobbyist to lead the US Environmental Protection Agency’s chemical safety office.If the nominee, Douglas Troutman, is confirmed, the top four toxics office positions at the EPA will be held by former chemical industry lobbyists, raising new fears about the health and safety of the American public, consumers and workers, campaigners say.Read the full storyUS border authorities tell airlines to disregard ‘X’ sex markers on passportsUS Customs and Border Protection implemented a rule this week that will require airlines to disregard “X” sex markers on passports and input an “M” or “F” marker instead.While the courts have continued to prevent the Trump administration from outright banning a third gender marker, this week’s rule can still serve to make the lives of trans and non-binary people more difficult, said Andy Izenson, senior legal director at the Chosen Family Law Center.Read the full story What else happened today:

      Disgraced former House member George Santos walked free from prison, provoking criticism from both sides of the political spectrum. Robert Zimmerman, the Democratic candidate Santos beat in 2022 to represent New York’s third congressional district, said in a statement that he had “no doubt that Santos will ultimately end up in Trump’s cabinet”.

      A Vermont state lawmaker has resigned over racist and antisemitic chat messages that circulated within the Young Republican political group, another substantial consequence in a scandal that on Friday saw the New York state Young Republicans’ charter revoked.
      Catching up? Here’s what happened on 17 October 2025. More

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      No Kings protest live updates: millions march against Trump in nationwide day of protest

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      Millions are expected to show out for protests on Saturday at more than 2,500 locations across America, from small towns to large cities, to speak against the Trump administration.No Kings, the coalition behind a mass demonstration in June, is again calling people to the streets to send the simple message that Donald Trump is not a king, pushing back against what they see as increasing authoritarianism.Several US cities now have a militarised presence on the ground, most against the will of local leaders. Trump has promised to crack down on dissent as part of an ongoing retribution campaign. Still, organisers say they expect to see one of the largest, if not the largest, single day of protest in US history.
      What are the No Kings protests?
      A coalition of left-leaning groups is again leading a day of mass demonstrations across the US to protest against the Trump administration. The coalition spearheaded a previous No Kings protest day in June, drawing millions to the streets to speak out against the president on the same day Trump held a military parade in Washington.The protests are called No Kings to underscore that America does not have kinds of absolute rulers, a ding against Trump’s increasing authoritarianism.“‘NO KINGS’ is more than just a slogan; it is the foundation our nation was built upon,” a website for the protests, nokings.org, says. “Born in the streets, shouted by millions, carried on posters and chants, it echoes from city blocks to rural town squares, uniting people across this country to fight dictatorship together.”
      Where are they happening?
      Organisers say there are more than 2,500 protests planned across the country, in the largest cities and in small towns, and in all 50 states. It is part of a distributed model where people protest in their own communities rather than travelling to large urban hubs to show that discontent with Trump exists in all corners of the US.For the 18 October day of action, organisers have identified several anchor cities: Washington DC; San Francisco; San Diego; Atlanta; New York City; Houston, Texas; Honolulu; Boston; Kansas City, Missouri; Bozeman, Montana; Chicago and New Orleans.The protests start at different times depending on location. The No Kings website has a map with details for each location.Read more about who organised the protests, why organisers are asking protesters to wear yellow, what Trump has said about them and more in our Q&A here:Here are some more images of other No Kings protests underway in several US states including North Carolina, Florida, Arizona, and Vermont.Screenwriter and director Tony Gilroy, who created the Star Wars series Andor, was among the thousands of people who gathered in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday afternoon for the No Kings protest.Andor, starring Diego Luna as the protagonist, follows Cassian Andor’s journey as a thief-turned-spy for the Rebel Alliance — the good guys whose ranks eventually go on to include characters such as Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo — in a crusade to take down the Galactic Empire.“We spent six years making a show about the fascist takeover of a galaxy, far, far away,” he said. “We didn’t think we were making a documentary.”Gilroy said the show offered a clear model for what authoritarian rule looks like – and how to resist it.“We spent a lot of time thinking about sacrifice and courage, and the incremental encroachment of authoritarianism and how it works,” he said. “I think I would have been. I think I would have been here anyway, but the show is only amplified my understanding of it – my understanding of the sort of karaoke fascist playbook, but also my appreciation for the varieties of courage it takes for people to resist.”Gilroy was dismayed by the “vacuum” of leadership among the anti-Trump resistance but saw reason to be hopeful as he looked out at the gathering crowd of Angelenos waving American flags and No Kings posters.The rally in Portland has turned into a massive march, now filling the city’s Hawthorne Bridge with thousands filling the streets leading to the bridge.I just witnessed a remarkable scene further back in the crowd, as protesters carrying handmade signs passed a trio of street performers, dressed as Donald Trump, whose head was entirely constructed of Cheetos, JD Vance and Kristi Noem.Just behind the performers, a group of nine people in black bloc clothing held a banner with the slogan “Organize to Attack the State” and chanted for insurrection and revolution.At least one Portlander passing the group suggested that they looked like entirely “fake antifa”.Fake or not, they were massively outnumbered by a crowd that included hundreds of people in animal costumes, making the protest feel more like a carnival than anything at all threatening.Crowds are amassing outside of City Hall in Los Angeles, where many protesters are carrying American flags and organizers are handing out sunscreen and water.A group is dancing to a live band play as street vendors sell hot dogs and elote. There is a large contingent of inflatable costumes – I’ve spotted a frog, a shark and a duck.Many people are also waving Mexican flags, which have become a sign of resistance and protest amid the Trump administration’s violent immigration crackdown in the city.There are plenty of signs denouncing Ice and Trump’s deportation campaign. “If you don’t care that he’s a felon, you shouldn’t care if someone is undocumented,” said one, referencing Trump’s 34 felony convictions by a New York jury.Before the march begins, a speaker just led the crowd in a chant: “Fuck Trump. Fuck Ice.”A panoply of speakers in Atlanta addressed both national problems like draconian immigration enforcement and the erosion of civil liberties, as well as issues of sharp local concern, as when a representative of Play Fair ATL – a coalition of anti-homelessness advocates and rights groups – took the stage.Play Fair intends to hold Atlanta to commitments to refrain from sweeping homeless people from the city’s streets ahead of the World Cup next year, skeptical of mayor Andre Dickens’ resolve to resist demands by FIFA and Trump.The suggestion that support for antifa–that is, antifascism–is tantamount to support for terrorism drew particular scorn from protesters.“I think that’s absurd,” said Nicky Cooper, a software developer in Atlanta. She wore a shirt with an antifascist symbol on it to the rally. The labelling of people as somehow sympathetic to terrorism is chilling, she said. “I mean, we’re leaving a digital trail of this. You know? I have antifascism mentioned on my social media stuff. I mean, I’m not a ‘member’ of antifa, because how do you join antifa? So it’s like, who the hell are we looking for here?”Comments by defense secretary Pete Hegseth to an assembly of high ranking military leaders last month featured prominently in the words of speakers and the reaction of protesters.Brian Woods, 65, from Lawrenceville, is a former Army communications staff sergeant. “I thought it was unnecessary. It goes against what we know as military people.” He marveled at the decision to put that many leaders in the same room at the same time, potentially providing an immense military target to America’s enemies. “He could have said that over one of their so-called secured lines,” a dig by a commo guy at Hegseth’s Signal chats. “They have a bulletproof mentality, so they just do things recklessly, without real thoughts that go into those types of conversations and communications.”Atlanta’s protest march concluded at 2 PM without incident, traveling down streets hallowed in civil rights history from the Atlanta Civic Center to the state capitol building about 1.2 miles away. At least 35 other affiliated No Kings Day protests demonstrations progressed across the state, from Brunswick near the Ice detention center in Folkston on Georgia’s southern border, to Dalton in the heart of Marjorie Taylor Greene’s northwest Georgia district.Initial crowds of about 10,000 in Atlanta contracted a bit as the day progressed, but turnout was roughly equivalent to those in June in Atlanta, and more widely dispersed across the state.Erik Malewaski, a college professor who lives in Marietta–where protests also had been planned–attended the Atlanta event anyway.“I did the Marietta protest last time, and I wanted to see exactly what would go down here, particularly I thought we may get speakers like Warnock and Stacey Abrams.”As well he did. Both senator Rev Raphael Warnock and former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Abrams described the actions of the federal government under President Donald Trump as fascist in plain terms.“They want us to believe that we’re in danger if we speak up…that if we assemble like the First Amendment tells us we can, that there’s a problem,” Abrams said, arguing that the attacks on press freedoms and the firing of outspoken Trump critics like Karen Attiah and Jimmy Kimmel are discrete steps on a path to autocracy. “They want to break democracy forever.” said Abrams. “Their destination is to take our country from us.”I am in downtown Portland, where many thousands of No Kings protesters, many in inflatable animal costumes, are rallying in a riverfront park.A small group of eight counter-protesters in Maga hats and Charlie Kirk shirts have been making their way through the crowd, trying to antagonize demonstrators by blaring air horns and shouting praise for Trump and transphobic slurs through megaphones.The group is led by Tommy Allen, a pro-Trump streamer who was recently charged with assault by Portland prosecutors for punching a protester outside the Ice facility in south Portland during a skirmish instigated by Nick Sortor, a conservative influencer.Their IRL trolling has led to jeers from some members of the crowd, but they have largely been ignored so far. One man, holding a sign in favor of trans rights, repeatedly screamed at the Trump supporters that they were “bootlickers”.Other protesters alerted Portland police officers to the fact that Allen seemed to be trying to provoke conflict, while recording video, and that he was recently arrested. Officers on bicycles seemed to be tracking the movements of Allen and his group from a distance.The New York police department posted on social media that most rallies across the city had ended and that there had been no arrests, adding that more than 100,000 people showed up to peacefully protest.“The majority of the No Kings protests have dispersed at this time and all traffic closures have been lifted,” the NYPD wrote. “We had more than 100,000 people across all five boroughs peacefully exercising their first amendment rights and the NYPD made zero protest-related arrests.”Good afternoon from Los Angeles, where more than two dozen No Kings protests are planned across southern California.In California, San Diego and San Francisco have been identified as the “anchor” cities for the No Kings protests, but a major demonstration is expected to kick off in downtown Los Angeles, at Gloria Molina Grand Park.Here activists are encouraging voters to pass “Prop 50” – a ballot initiative to redraw California’s congressional boundaries to give Democrats an additional five seats to offset the Republican-drawn and Trump-sought gerrymander in Texas.Earlier this morning, a group of protesters formed a human banner on Ocean Beach in San Francisco that read, according to the local ABC affiliate, “No Kings Yes on 50”.Reports are coming in that more than 200,000 people in the Washington DC area rallied near the US Capitol during the No Kings protest today. The event is of the largest nationwide mobilization since president Trump returned to office.Millions took to the streets today across more than 2,700 cities and towns, marking a day of defiance against Trump’s authoritarianism, billionaire-first politics, and the militarization of American cities.Many people at protests across the nation appear inspired by “Operation Inflation”, an initiative where demonstrators wear colorful and inflatable costumes to protests, usually resembling an animal or Pokémon-type character.The trend started with a protester dubbed the Portland Frog, who began dressing in an inflatable frog costume to attend Ice protests.The Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, has joined the No Kings protesters in New York.“I proudly marched side-by-side with labor unions and so many more of our fellow citizens in NYC,” he wrote on social media. “We have no dictators in America. And we won’t allow Trump to keep eroding our democracy.”From my colleague Siri Chilukuri in Chicago:The No Kings protest kicked off in Chicago, Illinois, at Grant Park’s Butler Field at noon. There are at least 10,000 people as the speeches begin. An intergenerational group of protesters has gathered, most with signs opposing Ice’s presence in Chicago or mocking Donald Trump.Many flags, signs and T-shirts read, “Fuck Ice”, and others read “Hands Off Chicago”, a rallying cry that began when Trump first announced his intent to send the national guard into the city. Other signs read “Resist Fascism” and “Hands off our Constitution”.Mayor Brandon Johnson spoke to the crowd, which erupted in cheers when he took to the stage.“They have decided that they want a rematch of the civil war,” he said.“We are here to stand firm and stand committed that we will not bend, we will not bow, we will not cower, we will not submit. We do not want troops in our city.”The crowd erupted in chants of “Fuck Donald Trump” while the Illinois representative Jonathan Jackson spoke to the crowd. Later, as ACLU Illinois’s communications director Ed Yohnka spoke, the crowd chanted: “USA! USA! USA!”Senator Dick Durbin, Lt Gov Juliana Stratton, Representative Chuy García, President of the Cook County board of commissioners Toni Preckwinkle, as well as local aldermen and state representatives were in attendance. More

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      Major highway in California to shut down as US marines fire live artillery over it

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      A celebration marking the US marines’ 250th anniversary will shut down a major freeway artery through southern California on Saturday as the military plans to fire live 155mm artillery shells over the site.The California highway patrol announced the closure at 6am Saturday, saying it would shut down an approximately 17-mile (27km) stretch of Interstate 5 for four hours near Camp Pendleton, a 125,000-acre (50,585-hectare) base in Oceanside in north-western San Diego county. The closure will remain in effect from 11am to 3pm.The event in question will include a live-fire amphibious capabilities demonstration at Red Beach, according to a statement from the US marine corps. JD Vance, a former enlisted marine who served in Iraq, is scheduled to speak to at least 15,000 marines, sailors, veterans and families expected to attend. Defense secretary Pete Hegseth will also deliver remarks.“The capabilities demonstration will feature integrated Navy and Marine Corps operations across air, land and sea,” the Marines’ statement said.The US Marine Corps insisted that the event will comply with established safety protocols, and “no public highways or transportation routes will be closed”.The CHP said in a statement that the military event will involve “live ammunition being discharged by the federal government over the freeway” and made the call to temporarily close a portion of the freeway due to the safety risk and distractions to drivers.Earlier in the week, California governor Gavin Newsom had decried the plans to fire live rounds over Interstate 5, calling it an “absurd show of force” and “totally uncalled for ”.On Saturday morning, Newsom was concerned that the stunt could put Californians in harm’s way. “Flying live rounds over a busy highway without coordination between state, federal, and local partners isn’t just wrong – it’s dangerous,” Newsom posted on social media.The criticism underscored the growing tensions between Donald Trump and the California governor, who has frequently called out decisions by the president’s administration.This celebration was granted no exception from Newsom’s ire. “Using our military to intimidate people you disagree with politically doesn’t make you look strong,” Newsom said. “It makes you look weak. It’s reckless, it’s disrespectful, and yet another action beneath the office of the presidency.”Earlier in October, the navy hosted the president aboard an aircraft carrier off the coast of Virginia to celebrate the same military anniversary. Trump turned that event into a political rally.This show of force coincides with No Kings rallies and marches being held across the US, including several locations in California, aligning behind a message that the nation’s slide into authoritarian rule under Trump needs to stop.Newsom cautioned those participating in the rallies: “I urge our nation to use this weekend’s No Kings marches as a declaration of independence against the tyranny and lawlessness currently running this country. Use your voice. ACT PEACEFULLY. Protect yourself and your community. THERE ARE NO KINGS IN THE UNITED STATES.”In a statement to the New York Times, a spokesperson for Vance, William Martin, said Newsom was misleading the public about the safety risk for the event on Saturday. He said it was routine training.“If Gavin Newsom wants to oppose the training exercises that ensure our Armed Forces are the deadliest and most lethal fighting force in the world, then he can go right ahead,” Martin said.Matt Rocco, the California department of transportation spokesperson, said: “This is all because of the White House-directed military event, that for the safety of the public, we need to shut down the freeway since they’re sending live ordnances over the freeway.”Rocco said the I5 closure could cost up to another two hours of trip time for those commuting between San Diego and Los Angeles. The freeway carries 80,000 travelers and $94m in freight through the corridor daily, according to the governor’s office. Passenger rail services running parallel to the I5 have also been canceled for the afternoon. More

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      Vermont Republican lawmaker resigns over racist and antisemitic group chat

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      A Vermont state lawmaker has resigned over racist and antisemitic chat messages that circulated within the Young Republican political group, another substantial consequence in a scandal that on Friday saw the New York state Young Republicans’ charter revoked.State senator Samuel Douglass, the only elected official known to have taken part in the leaked group chat exposed by Politico, resigned Friday over his participation.In a statement posted online, the 26-year-old Douglass said he was “deeply sorry for the offense” caused by his comments. He added that his decision to step down, effective Monday, “will upset many, and delight others, but in this political climate I must keep my family safe”.Douglass had been under pressure from Vermont governor Phil Scott and state senate minority leader Scott Beck to step aside since Politico obtained and published the chats online.In one exchange, Douglass replied to a message about a “very obese Indian woman” by saying: “She just didn’t bathe often.” In another, Douglass was said to have described how a Jewish person may have made a procedural error. His wife, Brianna Douglass, also on the chat, responded with an antisemitic remark, Politico reported.Other messages in the chat reflected factional infighting in the Young Republicans that included calling Minnesotan members a slur for gay men and other LGBTQ+ people, Nebraskans “inbred cow fuckers” and members from Rhode Island “traitorous cunts”. There was a reference to a “fat stinky Jew” along with comments and jokes about gas chambers, torture and rape, according to Politico.In his resignation statement, Douglass said the comment “was an unflattering remark about a specific individual, absolutely not a generalization” – and said he hoped to “mend bridges to the best of my ability”.His statement also said that he and his wife, who have recently welcomed their first child, had received “some of the most horrific hate one could imagine”, including threats of violence.Political violence has been a dominant topic in the US in part because of the 10 September killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and the 14 June shootings that killed Minnesota’s former house speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and wounded state senator John Hoffman – her fellow Democrat – and his wife, Yvette.Douglass said he had also “reached out to the majority of my Jewish and BIPOC [Black, Indigenous and people of color] friends and colleagues to ensure that they can be honest and up-front with me”.Douglass and his wife had earlier resigned from their positions from the Vermont Young Republicans.On Tuesday, after Politico reported on the Telegram chat, governor Scott said, “there is simply no excuse” for “the vile, racist, bigoted, and antisemitic dialogue”.He added that “those involved should resign from their roles immediately and leave the Republican party – including Vermont state senator Sam Douglass”.JD Vance downplayed the exchanges as “edgy” and “offensive jokes” told by “kids”, though most members of the group were between the ages of 24 and 35. Vance pointed to leaked messages sent by Jay Jones, a Democrat running for attorney general in Virginia, who suggested a political opponent deserved “two bullets to the head”.“I really don’t want us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke – telling a very offensive, stupid joke – is cause to ruin their lives,” Vance said, after in September he demanded consequences for those who made comments about Kirk’s death that he found to be offensive.On Saturday, Beck said Douglass’s resignation marked the end of a “difficult week” in Vermont.“Senator Douglass’ resignation is the first step in Vermont’s healing, and his family’s healing,” Beck told the Washington Post More

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      Why do so many gen Z women across the US identify as ‘leftist’?

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      When Emily Gardiner first started paying attention to politics, she was 15, just beginning high school in 2016. It was the start of the first Trump administration, a moment that politicized a lot of young Americans.Now 23, Emily works as a library assistant in eastern Connecticut and is rewriting the second draft of her adult fantasy novel. She describes herself as “definitely leftist, not liberal”.“I was raised by parents who were politically active,” Emily said, “but I think a lot of my views also come from being Indigenous. My community puts a lot of value in sovereignty.”She adds: “I think for a lot of us who identify as leftist versus liberal, we feel that both the Democrats and the Republicans have kind of capitulated in a way to authoritarianism.” She believes billionaires have too much influence over the Democrats and that “liberals are a little bit less socially active, more prone toward centrism, willing to compromise their values”.Her words echo a generational sentiment among young people and young women in particular: that moderation feels like surrender in a time when so much is at stake. Across the country, generation Z women like Emily represent the most leftwing demographic in modern US history.Such is not the case with the men of gen Z, whose views tend to skew more in line with the national average, according to a recent 19th News/SurveyMonkey poll. The polling found that only 26% of gen Z women approve of the job president Trump is doing, compared with 47% of gen Z men. The national average is 43% approval.“There’s definitely a gender divide,” said Lily, a 24-year-old from North Carolina who works in legal services. “A lot of men of my age group I’ve noticed are more right-leaning.” She believes this comes down to the fact that many of the issues that leftists care about more directly impact women compared to men. Women have to care about politics because their health and safety depends on it.“Unfortunately, I think people often only care about issues that affect them,” she said.For Rebecca J, a 26-year-old from Washington DC, politics were “never optional”.“I’m trans,” she said. “So politics has always kind of been in my life.” Raised in a conservative household, she describes herself as “a socialist, but more of a social democrat, think of it like a leftist by European standards.”What matters to her most now are material conditions. “Economic issues are very important,” she said. “All these social issues we’re grappling with like abortion, trans rights, queer rights, they’re all downstream of the economic issues.”Rebecca is a former tech worker and now works in delivery services. The instability colors everything, she believes. “People are so overwhelmed just getting food on the table. It’s convenient for billionaires that a large chunk of the population is distracted by culture wars instead of asking why rent is unaffordable.”Like many of her peers, she sees the Democratic and Republican parties as a closed duopoly “both failing,” as she puts it “because they don’t want to fix it. That’s their strategy”.Research shows that Gen Z is less likely than older cohorts to believe in meritocratic narratives about upward mobility. Younger people are notably more skeptical that hard work alone is enough to guarantee success.And much like Emily and Rebecca, more gen Zers are choosing to reject the label of “democrat” or “liberal”, feeling that the terms and the Democratic party as an institution no longer represent their stance on many issues.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRachel, a 26-year-old office worker from Michigan, also shares this sentiment. “I identify as left, not liberal,” she said. “‘Liberal’ is used to describe the Democrats and I’m much further left to the point that I don’t want to be considered under the same umbrella. Liberalism is still a capitalist ideology, and I consider myself an anti-capitalist.”For Lily, the issues that feel most urgent are reproductive rights as well as economic inequality. “Definitely healthcare, women’s healthcare specifically, the situation in Gaza, and anything economic affecting our work,” she said. “We’re passionate, but disappointed in our party. I think a lot of people my age would like the Democratic party to go in a different direction, more left.”Internet algorithms also play a significant role in shaping an individual’s worldview. Younger people are more likely to be regular news consumers on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and Reddit. Research shows that algorithms used by social media platforms are rapidly amplifying extreme misogynistic content, especially when it believes the user is a young male.Gen Z men are more likely than baby boomers to believe that feminism has done more harm than good. Experts cite the influence of social media figures like Andrew Tate and the polarizing effects of online content as major contributors to this attitude shift.For gen Z women, it’s clear the leftward drift is deeply rooted in proximity to risk. Their generation came of age amid climate crisis, debt, job insecurity, and the growing threat of authoritarianism. They do not see compromise as civility, but rather as danger. If older generations saw politics as negotiation, Gen Z women see it as self-defense.“Both parties are in the pockets of billionaires,” as Emily puts it.“We don’t feel represented.” Lily said, adding “a lot of people in power now are older, and they’re men. Maybe they just don’t understand the position that a young woman is in.” More