Posts by Shopie Claire
Trump’s Gerrymandering Scheme in Red State Falls Apart at the Seams
Indiana Senate Republicans aren’t falling in line behind President Donald Trump’s gerrymandering scheme to keep control of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections. Molly Swigart, a spokesperson for Indiana Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray, put it simply when speaking to Politico Wednesday. “The votes aren’t there for redistricting,” she said. Four people familiar with…
Read MoreTrump Keeps Attacking Americans. Why Does He Get Away With It?
Democrats don’t do this. When Trump calls Baltimore “rat infested” or posts videos of himself defecating on protesters, there’s no coordinated response. A few members of Congress might tweet about it. Some Democratic voters express outrage online. But there’s no sustained campaign to make it a defining scandal. There are no prime-time speeches on the…
Read MoreComey Accuses Trump of Basing Case Against Him on “Personal Bias”
“Small arms” include armor, explosives, chemical weapons, pistols, and rifles. “Ordnance and ordnance accessories manufacturing” refers to other materials, such as artillery, barrels, extractors, and mounts. For comparison, in 2019, ICE spent just $5.7 million on the “small arms” category through October 18, and during Trump’s first administration, the government spent an average of $8.4…
Read MoreDemocrats and Republicans Get Same Shutdown Request From Constituents
Americans don’t want their representatives to bow to the pressures of the government shutdown. Politicians on both sides of the aisle are hearing the same message from their constituents, whether they’re in vulnerable districts or partisan strongholds, reported MSNBC Monday: “Keep up the fight.” “Almost to a T, I hear from people that they want…
Read MoreTrump Judges Rule He Can Deploy National Guard to Portland
Johnson chuckled. “The president uses social media to make a point. You can argue he’s probably the most effective person who’s ever used social media for that. He is using satire to make a point,” Johnson replied. “He is not calling for the murder of his political opponents, and that’s what these people are doing.”…
Read MoreVideo: What to Know About the ICE Raid at a Hyundai Plant
new video loaded: What to Know About the ICE Raid at a Hyundai Plant ICE and other law enforcement agencies detained nearly 500 workers in Georgia in September. Farah Stockman, who covers manufacturing for The New York Times, describes the fallout from the incident and what could be next for foreign factory investments in the…
Read MoreAbraham Lincoln’s 1859 Lesson for Some 2028 Democrat
It was 1859. The analogies to the current state of American politics are not precise and even paradoxical. To begin with, John Brown, though crazy and bloodthirsty, was on the right side of history. He preferred wielding guns to scoring debating points. He had utter contempt for politicians, electoral campaigns, and the Constitution. In fact,…
Read MoreNo Kings: How Mass Protests Weaken Unhinged Autocrats Like Trump
You can watch this episode of Right Now With Perry Bacon above or by following this show on YouTube or Substack. There were 2700 No Kings events across the country, with at least 7 million participating, according to Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of Indivisible, one of the groups that helped coordinate the protests. It was…
Read MoreRepublicans Should Be Afraid—Just Look at Who Joined No Kings Protests
Listening to anyone from the Trump administration talk about the No Kings protest would have had you expecting complete anarchy. Masked men with Molotov cocktails, smoke in the air, American flags burning, police and National Guard in full riot gear—something more akin to January 6. “This crazy No Kings rally this weekend, which is gonna…
Read MoreThe Crime Is Nationcide
The first mention I was able to find in that search came from 1794, when Gracchus Babeuf, a French revolutionary, used the term in his The War of the Vendée and the System of Depopulation. In August 2024, American Political Science Review published an article about how, after the defeat in 1867 of their French…
Read MoreThe Infamy of the “Kavanaugh Stop”
Believe it or not, there was a time when the Supreme Court’s emergency docket rulings did not regularly garner controversy; they were simply the means by which the court could consider time-sensitive legal crises, such as motions related to capital punishment. But a key feature of the Trump era is the transformation of the emergency…
Read MoreZohran Mamdani Gets It. So Does Marjorie Taylor Greene.
It’s a message that sounds strikingly similar to one being pushed by a decidedly different politician: Zohran Mamdani, the 33-year-old democratic socialist who is poised to become New York City’s next mayor. A lot of coverage of Mamdani’s rise understandably focuses on his style. He’s a charismatic and compelling politician with an invaluable gift in…
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