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Immigration News Today: Trump Pauses Visa Appointments Worldwide

Immigration News Today: Trump Pauses Visa Appointments Worldwide

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Democracy in Action: January Retrospective

Opinion

Democracy in Action: January Retrospective
January calendar
Photo by Maddi Bazzocco on Unsplash
Hugo Balta
By Hugo BaltaFeb 09, 2025
Hugo Balta
Hugo Balta is a journalist, educator, and communicator. Hugo is the executive editor of the Fulcrum and a board member of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund, the parent organization of The Fulcrum. He is the publisher of the Latino News Network, a trainer with the Solutions Journalism Network, and an adjunct professor teaching journalism courses.
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Welcome to the first edition of Democracy In Action, insights and discussion about some of the most talked-about topics of the previous month with Fulcrum collaborators.

Consistent with the Fulcrum's mission, this program strives to share many perspectives to widen our readers' viewpoints.

As if fireworks weren’t enough to welcome in the new year, the return of Donald Trump to the White House brought with it its own set of fireworks, beginning with a slew of executive orders.

We also saw tragedy in the form of terror in the attack in New Orleans and the plane crash in Washington, D.C.

There was also a ceasefire in Gaza as Israelis and Palestinians negotiated peace.

Joining me to discuss these topics and more were:

Lynn Schmidt, the columnist and editorial board member with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Rev. Dr. F. Willis Johnson, a spiritual entrepreneur, author, scholar-practioner whose leadership and strategies around social and racial justice issues are nationally recognized and applied.

Steven Hill, former policy director for the Center for Humane Technology, co-founder of FairVote, and political reform director at New America.

We began the conversation with President Trump’s first weeks back in office and the growing list of executive orders.

- YouTubeWelcome to Democracy in Action, insights and discussion about some of the most talked-about topics of the previous month with ...


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Don’t get distracted, stupid!

Hugo Balta is the executive editor of the Fulcrum and a board member of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund, the parent organization of The Fulcrum. He is the publisher of the Latino News Network and a trainer with the Solutions Journalism Network.


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Building Trust, One Conversation at a Time

In 2020, my friend and colleague Dr. Terrence Robinson died suddenly and unexpectedly of COVID. For five years, we had built a youth apprenticeship program together in Cleveland, raised more than half a million dollars, and trained more than 200 young people. Terrence was Black. I am Jewish. The whole time, I wanted to talk with him about the things that sat quietly underneath our friendship: race, religion, history, privilege. I never did, because I was afraid of saying the wrong thing, and the negative ramifications of saying something ignorant in the workplace. Then he was gone, and the conversation I kept postponing was gone with him.

I think about that silence often, because it is the same silence I now see between two communities that once helped change this country together.

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An 82-year-old and 24-year-old bonded over composting—and discovered shared roots, values, and a friendship that broke every generational stereotype.e

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Every day, we cross paths with people whose lives seem completely different from our own. We exchange polite greetings with neighbors, chat briefly with acquaintances, and pass strangers without ever learning their stories. Yet beneath the surface, we often share more than we realize. Sometimes, all it takes is one conversation. Jean and Bella, 82 and 24 respectively, discovered this through their interest in composting.

Bella regularly attended a Sunday morning "Cookies and Conversation" intergenerational discussion group at Hebrew SeniorLife, where Jean lives in Brookline, MA. The two had spoken before, but only in passing. Like many people meeting someone from a different generation, Bella wasn't always sure how to bridge the gap.

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A new union political director explains why labor membership has halved since 1983 even as public approval hits record highs—and what's driving the gap.

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The Ongoing Fight for Bread and Roses

Last Monday, I started a new job as the political director for IBEW 569, a local electrical workers' union based here in San Diego. In talking to friends about what I’m doing–while learning, fast, in real time, how to do the job myself–it occurred to me that there’s actually quite a knowledge gap in society today regarding an understanding of what unions are and what they’re supposed to do. So let’s get into it.

A union is, at its core, a group of workers who agree to negotiate together instead of alone. One worker asking a boss for a raise has almost no leverage. A thousand workers asking together hits different. That leverage of teamwork, that collective bargaining, is how the overtime pay, workplace safety standards, and employer-sponsored health insurance all came to exist in this country. None of it was handed down out of corporate goodwill. Fair wages (bread) and dignity (roses) were won, often at real cost. In 1890, the average workweek for manufacturing employees and building tradesmen was around 100 hours or more. Workers in Chicago who rallied for an eight-hour workday faced police violence, but we have that and weekends now because people were willing to lose their jobs, and sometimes their lives, to organize for it.

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Why do Americans respond so differently to hard history lessons? A look at the three psychological mindsets driving the patriotism debate — and a path past it.

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“They Hate America”: Patriotism in the Face of Historical Updates

I happened upon a civil discussion blog and read a post by a man who said he was happy to report that when he attended a panel discussion about teaching patriotism in the schools, all went well. He said that’s because most of the people in the bridging organization that hosted the event are “pretty patriotic.” He clarified that by writing, “None of the type of bad actors (and there are many) who want to teach kids to hate America and Western Civilization were represented.”

Someone made a comment about why we can’t incorporate historical change into curriculum and objected to the notion that a segment of the population wants to teach kids to hate America. The man who posted cited what he believes is proof. A last commenter simply input the emoji for a sleeping person, as though the argument was boring or unimportant.

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