Vendors sell merchandise in the Santee Alley area of the Fashion District on June 19, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. Fear of ICE raids and the recent violent protests occurring nearby have hurt business, keeping shoppers away from from the area known for its cut-rate electronics, inexpensive clothing and large selections of quinceañera dresses.
When federal immigration enforcement operations swept through Los Angeles earlier this summer, the effects rippled far beyond the undocumented community. Entire neighborhoods saw the slowdown of businesses as the sense of fear began to settle in. Yet, the absence of safety nets has encouraged residents to rely on one another.
Across the city, mutual aid networks, some long-standing and others entirely new, have mobilized to meet urgent needs. From advocacy nonprofits to autonomous street-defense teams to the vendors themselves, the response reveals a pattern: in times of crisis, communities turn inward, pooling resources, skills, and trust to keep each other afloat.
Walking through the Fashion District’s Santee Alley, known locally as Los Callejones, the economic fallout is visible. Foot traffic is thin. Vendors lean against their stalls, scanning the street.
Erick, who helps run his family’s hat and embroidery shop, says the raids have cut business in half. “Since the ICE raids started, I’ve lost more than 50% of my revenue,” he said. “There’s a lot less people, and families are afraid of just walking around and shopping. It’s supposed to be a safe space, but now customers wonder if they’ll even make it home without being stopped.”
Even weekends, which used to be the busiest days, feel eerily slow. A group chat among vendors now acts as a warning system, allowing them to alert each other of possible ICE sightings.
Rodrigo Alvarado, who works at a cellphone accessories stand, has been in the Callejones for over a year. He says the decline in sales is steep and happened immediately after rumors of enforcement circulate. “More than anything, I feel like it is the bad promotion [misinformation] that has been circulating about Santee Alley. ICE has not been on the premises, and my bosses have told me if they were to show up, it would be trespassing,” he said.
At the end of the alley is a stand stacked with zines, flyers, and small plastic bags, each one containing what volunteers call a “Know Your Rights kit.” The station belongs to the Downtown LA Community Defense Center, an entirely autonomous, volunteer-run network that exists mostly through group chats and word of mouth.
“I can’t give my name,” one masked volunteer said, “but I’m a born-and-raised Angeleno. This effort is just a bunch of people who care about protecting the community. We don’t know each other personally, we organize anonymously, but we come together to get vendors the information and tools they need.”
The tools include legal guides distinguishing real judicial warrants from fake Department of Homeland Security warrants, private property signs to deter ICE from entering shops, and bright plastic whistles. Vendors are trained to use specific whistle calls to warn each other if ICE is nearby or if someone is detained.
The Defense Center also works on getting the community ready if a raid occurs. The organization has no official board and relies on rotating volunteers to step in when others are unable. Many of the printed materials come from other Angelenos who design, fund, and contribute to the cause.
On the other hand, InnerCity Struggle is a non-profit that has worked on education, housing, and economic justice in East Los Angeles for over 30 years. When ICE raids hit, they prioritize direct mutual aid efforts, raising $52,800 toward a $100,000 goal, to help immigrant families who lost income or faced deportation-related expenses through a $500 rental assistance or free grocery program.
Similarly, HIIT Factory LA, a local gym, launched a mutual aid drive providing groceries, gift cards, and bill assistance to impacted families, turning workout classes into fundraisers.
From nonprofit offices to gym floors to neighborhood groups in the Callejones, the common thread is taking initiative to help those that are directly affected, not only by spreading information but through resource and monetary help. These networks are rooted in the communities they serve; therefore, they know the specific needs of people and the best way to mend their hardship.
Still, the limits are clear. Funding runs out. Volunteers face burnout. And the risk of future raids remains constant.
These networks of resilience show that when the government turns against its people, neighbors can coordinate rapidly to preserve not just livelihoods but dignity.
Lluvia Chavez, a Mexican-American bilingual journalist dedicated to amplifying the stories of underrepresented communities, and a cohort member with the Fulcrum Fellowship
In politics, attention is drawn to spectacle. Cable news runs endless loops of red-faced lawmakers clashing in hearings, while pundits dissect every gaffe and polling shift. Every election season becomes a staged drama, parties locked in opposition, candidates maneuvering for advantage. The players may change, but the script stays the same. Those in power know that as long as the public watches the visible fracas, the hidden machinery of control runs quietly, unexamined and untouched.
We are told the drama hinges on which party controls which chamber, which map shapes the advantage, and which scandal sidelines a rising star. These are presented as the key moves in the political game, shifting the balance of power. Every election is declared the most consequential of our time. But these claims are, in reality, crude distractions—very much part of the performance—while the real levers of power turn behind the scenes, where laws and policies shift with the choices of a few hundred individuals, each capable of tipping the balance with a single vote.
That discretion is the engine through which corruption spreads. Party leaders seize it with threats and promises. Donors buy its flexibility. Mapmakers rig it toward predetermined outcomes before any votes are cast. Gossip corrodes it. Personal ambition spends it. Wedge issues pit neighbor against neighbor, fracturing coalitions that might challenge it. All these distortions rest on one premise: The assumption that a legislator’s vote is theirs to give.
Do away with that discretion, and the machinery that runs on it begins to collapse. Picture a representative with no personal agency over how they vote, their ballot nothing more than the precise reflection of their constituents’ majority position on each measure. In such an arrangement, the whip has no sting. In fact, the whip itself magically vanishes. The gerrymander becomes a joke if the mapped voters’ will is mirrored exactly. Smear campaigns waste their venom, for there is no “character” left to assassinate that could change the outcome. Lobbyists arrive with fat wallets and find nothing to buy. And wedge issues lose their power to split if the people’s views on one matter do not dictate their fate on another.
The elegance of such an intervention lies in its trifecta superpower: Its eminent doability, its disproportionate effect, and its robustness.
To become a reality, the intervention has no impossible hurdles to overcome. No constitutional overhaul. No sweeping amendment. No billion-dollar reform package. No term limit legislation. Just one person, elected on the simple promise to serve as a conduit rather than a decider.
Second is that power in this arrangement is not linear. In a closely divided chamber, even one such member could tip the balance of the national agenda. A handful could upend it entirely. A single vote, if placed at the precise intersection of forces, can redirect the course of legislation. And when it is done not behind closed doors but openly, with the explanation plain—“I voted this way because that is what the majority of my constituents told me”—it exposes the fragile justifications that traditional politicians hide behind.
Such clarity spreads. People watching this model in action will see not just a different style of representation but the fact that literal representation is possible at all. This is dangerous knowledge to those who thrive on the belief that politics must be an art of dealmaking, that governing is a chess game whose rules they alone understand. Once the illusion breaks, more candidates will emerge to run on the same premise. No billionaires needed, no party infrastructure—only the recognition that the game’s rules can be rewritten from inside the game, one piece at a time. And history shows that the system is not so impenetrable: The elevation of Lina Khan to chair the FTC under Biden—despite corporations fighting her nomination tooth and nail—and the 2025 victory of Zohran Mamdani in the mayoral Democratic primaries are proof. That said, Khan’s work is now being methodically undone, while Mamdani is receiving only tepid support from the DNC, with his win threatened by both Andrew Cuomo and incumbent Eric Adams, both Democrats. The change proposed here guards against such undoing and undermining.
And third, once in place, the arrangement resists reversal. To take it away, the establishment would have to strip a representative of the duty to mirror their constituents’ will, doing so in full view of the public. It would require saying, in effect, “We are removing your voice from the process so that your representative may again act on their own, without your consent.” Even the most shameless would hesitate to mount such an argument without fear of political immolation.
Yet, we remain stuck in the stale dialectic between grand revolutionary fantasy and meek mock incrementalism. But the truth sits elsewhere, hiding in plain sight. Complex systems—ecological, economic, political—are riddled with points where a precise intervention unravels entrenched arrangements. These points are not obvious. They are masked by the churn of surface events, by the noise of the spectacle. They require patience to locate, courage to act upon, and an indifference to the glamour of more visible battles.
Mine is not a call for purity or idealism. Instead, it is a call for political precision engineering. The engineer looks for the load-bearing beam, the point at which a modest force will achieve maximum effect. In politics, that beam is the individual legislator’s discretion over their vote. Remove it, and the structural incentives shift. Remove it in just one place, and others will begin to see the blueprint for removing it elsewhere. The change need not come from the center outward. It can start at the periphery, at the edges where attention is thinnest, where the establishment is slow to notice that something irreversible has begun.
Of course, those who profit from the current order will insist that such a model is naive, unworkable, or dangerous. They will claim that the people are too ill-informed, too distracted, too prone to whim to be trusted with direct input on every measure. But that is precisely the point: They are already trusted with electing the people who pass these measures. What they are denied is control over the substance of what those people do once elected. The change would not be in the level of trust but in the location of agency.
In the end, the proposal is disarmingly modest: Find one person willing to stand as a pure mirror, to forgo the seductions of influence and personal judgment in favor of perfect fidelity to their constituents’ will. Let them serve not as a leader, but as a conduit. Watch the shift in power ripple outward, the old incentives wither, the lobbyists circle in frustration, and the wedge merchants howl as their knives dull.
We often speak of butterflies in politics, the small moments that change the trajectory of nations—a debate line, a protest, a scandal. But here the butterfly is not a metaphor, nor is it an accident. It is deliberate, positioned exactly where the storm will begin, not to be carried by the wind but to direct it. A light touch in the right place, and the whole weather of the system changes.
Ahmed Bouzid is the co-founder of The True Representation Movement.
Veterans hospitals are struggling to replace hundreds of doctors and nurses who have left the health care system this year as the Trump administration pursues its pledge to simultaneously slash Department of Veterans Affairs staff and improve care.
Many job applicants are turning down offers, worried that the positions are not stable and uneasy with the overall direction of the agency, according to internal documents examined by ProPublica. The records show nearly 4 in 10 of the roughly 2,000 doctors offered jobs from January through March of this year turned them down. That is quadruple the rate of doctors rejecting offers during the same time period last year.
The VA in March said it intended to cut its workforce by at least 70,000 people. The news sparked alarm that the cuts would hurt patient care, prompting public reassurances from VA Secretary Doug Collins that front-line health care staff would be immune from the proposed layoffs.
Last month, department officials updated their plans and said they would reduce the workforce by 30,000 by the end of the fiscal year, which is Sept. 30. So many staffers had left voluntarily, the agency said in a press release, that mass layoffs would not be necessary.
“VA is headed in the right direction,” Collins said in a statement.
But a review of hundreds of internal staffing records, along with interviews with veterans and employees, reveal a far less rosy picture of how staffing is affecting veterans’ care.
After six years of adding medical staff, the VA this year is down more than 600 doctors and about 1,900 nurses. The number of doctors on staff has declined each month since President Donald Trump took office. The agency also lost twice as many nurses as it hired between January and June, records viewed by ProPublica show.
In response to questions, a VA spokesperson did not dispute numbers about staff losses at centers across the country but accused ProPublica of bias and of “cherry-picking issues that are mostly routine.”
Agency spokesperson Peter Kasperowicz said that the department is “working to address” the number of doctors declining job offers by speeding up the hiring process and that the agency “has several strategies to navigate shortages,” including referring veterans to private providers and telehealth appointments. A nationwide shortage of health care workers has made hiring and retention difficult, he said.
Kasperowicz said that the recent changes at the agency have not compromised care and that wait times are getting better after worsening under President Joe Biden.
While wait times for primary, mental health and specialty care for existing patients did increase during Biden’s presidency, the VA’s statistics show only slight reductions since Trump took office in January.
However, appointment wait times for new patients seeking primary and specialty care have slightly increased, according to a report obtained by ProPublica.
As of early July, the average wait time nationally to schedule outpatient surgery appointments for new patients was 41 days, which is 13 days higher than the goal set by the VA and nearly two days longer than a year ago.
In some locations, the waits for appointments are even longer.
At the Togus VA Medical Center in Augusta, Maine, internal records show that there is a two-month wait for primary care appointments, which is triple the VA’s goal and 38 days longer than it was at this time last year. The wife of a disabled Marine veteran who receives care at the facility told ProPublica that it has become harder in recent months to schedule appointments and to get timely care.
Her husband, she said, served in Somalia and is completely disabled. He has not had a primary care doctor assigned to him for months after his previous doctor left over the winter, she said.
“He has no person who is in charge of his health care,” said the woman, who did not want to be named because of fears her comments might affect benefits for her husband. “It was never like this before. There’s a lack of staff, empty rooms, locked doors. It feels like something that’s not healthy.”
Kasperowicz said the VA is taking “aggressive action” to recruit primary care doctors in Maine and anticipates hiring two new doctors by the end of the year.
Nationwide, records reviewed by ProPublica show, the vacancy rate for doctors at the VA was 13.7% in May, up from 12% in May of 2024. Kasperowicz said those rates are in line with historical averages for the agency. But while the vacancy rate decreased over the first five months of 2024, it has risen in 2025.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who has been critical of Collins’ stewardship, has argued that the VA is heading in a dangerous new direction. He said that ProPublica’s findings reinforce his concerns about “damaging and dangerous impacts” from cuts and staffing reductions.
“Dedicated professionals are fleeing — and recruitment is flagging — because of toxic work conditions and draconian funding cuts and firings,” he told ProPublica. “We’ve warned repeatedly about these results — shocking, but not surprising.”
In the VA’s Texas region, which covers most of the state, officials reported in an internal presentation in June that approximately 90 people had turned down job offers “due to the uncertainty of reorganization” and noted that low morale was causing existing employees to not recommend working at the medical centers.
Anthony Martinez, a retired Army captain who did tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, said he has witnessed a downgrade in care at the Temple, Texas, VA facility. He said that the hospital has lost records of his recent allergy shots, which he now has to repeat, and he has to wait longer for appointments.
“Problems have always existed but not to this degree,” Martinez said.
Martinez, who runs a local nonprofit for veterans, said he’s heard similar frustrations from many of them. “It’s not just me. Many vets are having bad experiences,” he said.
Kasperowicz said the agency couldn’t discuss Martinez’s case without a patient privacy waiver, which Martinez declined to sign. He said wait times for primary care appointments for existing patients at Temple are unchanged over the past fiscal year. But internal records show an increase in wait times for new patients in specialties such as cardiology, gastroenterology and oncology.
Administrators there have expressed concern about the impact of staff losses, warning in their June internal presentation about “institutional knowledge leaving the Agency due to the increase of supervisors departing.”
It is not just the loss of doctors and nurses impacting care. Shortages in support staff, who have not been protected from cuts, are also adding to delays.
In Dayton, Ohio, vacant positions for purchasing agents resulted in delays in acquiring hundreds of prosthetics, according to an internal VA report from May. Kasperowicz said the hospital has recently cut processing time for such orders by more than half.
Some facilities are experiencing trouble hiring and keeping mental health staff.
In February, a human resources official in the VA region covering much of Florida reported in an internal warning system that the area was having trouble hiring mental health professionals to treat patients in rural areas. The jobs had previously been entirely remote but now require providers to be on site at a clinic.
When the region offered jobs to three mental health providers, all of them declined. The expected impact, according to the warning document, was longer delays for appointments. Kasperowicz said the VA is working to address the shortages.
Yet even as the agency faces these challenges, the Trump administration has dramatically scaled back the use of a key tool designed to help the VA attract applicants and plug gaps in critical front-line care.
The VA in recent years has used incentive payments to help recruit and keep doctors and other health care workers. In fiscal 2024, the agency paid nearly 20,000 staffers retention bonuses and over 6,000 new hires got signing bonuses. In the first nine months of this fiscal year, which started Oct. 1, only about 8,000 VA employees got retention bonuses and just over 1,000 received recruitment incentives. The VA has told lawmakers it has been able to fill jobs without using the incentive programs.
Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., said during a congressional oversight hearing in July that the Trump administration is withholding the bonuses because it “wants them to leave” as part of a plan to privatize services.
“It’s not that VA employees are less meritorious than they were under Biden,” she said. “They want every employee to be pushed out so they can decimate the VA’s workforce.”
David Armstrong investigates healthcare at ProPublica.
Eric Umansky is an editor-at-large at ProPublica.
Vernal Coleman is a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter based in Chicago.
Veterans’ Care at Risk Under Trump As Hundreds of Doctors and Nurses Reject Working at VA Hospitals was originally published by ProPublica and is republished with permission.
National Black Business Month is about correcting an imbalance and recognizing that supporting Black-owned businesses is suitable for everyone.
Every August, National Black Business Month rolls around, and for a few weeks, social media lights up with hashtags and well-meaning posts about supporting Black-owned businesses. You'll see lists pop up—restaurants, bookstores, clothing lines—all run by Black entrepreneurs. Maybe your favorite coffee shop puts up a sign, or a big brand launches a campaign. But once the month ends, the noise fades, and for many, it's back to business as usual.
This cycle is familiar. It's easy to mistake visibility for progress or to think that a single purchase is enough. But National Black Business Month is meant to be more than a fleeting moment of recognition. It's a moment to interrogate the systems that got us here and to put our money—and our intent—where our mouths are. In a better world, Black business success would be a given, not a cause for annual celebration.
Understand it is impossible to talk about Black entrepreneurship in America without acknowledging the weight of history. For generations, discriminatory practices—from redlining and restricted access to capital to exclusion from professional networks—stunted the growth of Black businesses. Even now, Black entrepreneurs face higher loan rejection rates, higher interest rates, and less venture capital funding than their white counterparts. According to a 2022 Federal Reserve report, only about 1% of U.S. venture capital-backed founders are Black. The numbers aren't just statistics; they represent dreams deferred, ambitions underfunded, and talent overlooked.
National Black Business Month isn't about charity. It's about correcting an imbalance and recognizing that supporting Black-owned businesses is suitable for everyone. When Black businesses thrive, whole communities thrive. They create jobs, fill unmet needs, and serve as cultural anchors. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Black-owned companies employ over a million people and contribute billions to the economy. It's not a side story—it's a central one.
However, for all the progress, there's a reason why this month still matters. Far too many Black entrepreneurs are still fighting uphill battles. The pandemic took a heavy toll—between February and April 2020, nearly half of all Black-owned businesses closed, compared to 17% of white-owned companies. While some have bounced back, recovery has been uneven. The old barriers—access to capital, mentorship, and networks—are still in place, even if the language around them has softened.
What does it mean to "raise consciousness" during National Black Business Month? It means moving beyond token gestures. It means asking hard questions: Are we supporting Black businesses only when it's convenient, or are we making it part of our everyday lives? Are corporations using this month as a branding opportunity, or are they committing real dollars to Black founders? Are local governments ensuring that Black entrepreneurs have equal access to city contracts and resources, or are old patterns simply repeating themselves?
The easiest place to start is with our wallets. Conscious consumerism isn't about guilt or obligation; it's about making choices that reflect our values. If you're willing to wait in line for a new iPhone or drive across town for a trendy brunch spot, you can as easily seek out a Black-owned bookstore, bakery, or clothing store. With apps and directories now making it easier than ever to find Black-owned businesses in your area, there's no excuse not to.
Moreover, it means becoming a regular, not just a one-time customer. It means leaving positive reviews online, recommending businesses to friends, and engaging with brands on social media. For those with platforms—whether that's a classroom, a boardroom, or a news feed—it means using your influence to amplify Black voices and businesses. And for those with capital, it means investing, not just spending.
Individual action matters, but it's not enough. Transformational change requires institutions—banks, venture capital firms, government agencies, and corporations—to step up. That means rethinking lending standards, breaking down barriers to procurement, and building pipelines for Black talent. It means mentorship programs that are more than just window dressing, and grant funding that doesn't disappear after August.
Initiatives like the NAACP's Black-Owned Business Resource Center and the National Black Chamber of Commerce are pushing for structural change. Major banks have pledged billions to support Black-owned businesses. But promises need to be matched by outcomes. Are these dollars reaching Black entrepreneurs, or are they getting lost in bureaucracy? Are new policies changing who gets hired, funded, and promoted, or is it just more of the same?
It's easy to lament our challenges, but National Black Business Month is also a time to celebrate. Black entrepreneurs are reshaping industries, creating brands with global reach, and setting new standards for excellence. Think of Tristan Walker, who built Bevel and then sold it to Procter & Gamble. Or Pinky Cole, whose Slutty Vegan empire is turning plant-based food into a cultural phenomenon. Or the thousands of small business owners who keep their doors open against all odds, offering spaces for connection and creativity. These stories aren't just inspiring—they're instructive. Thus, highlighting what is possible given when talented people have room to grow, when consumers show up, and when institutions do their part. They remind us that Black business success is not a miracle—it's the outcome of hard work, innovative strategy, and community support.
So this August, celebrate loudly. Share your favorite Black-owned brands. Eat, shop, and invest with intention. But don't let it stop there. The fight for economic justice, for equity, and opportunity is year-round. Black businesses have always been at the heart of American innovation and culture. It's time our support matched their impact—not just for a month, but for good.
Rev. Dr. F. Willis Johnson is a spiritual entrepreneur, author, scholar-practioner whose leadership and strategies around social and racial justice issues are nationally recognized and applied.
