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US President Donald Trump

Trump’s obsessions help bury GOP chances

JD Vance

JD Vance Tells Republicans Who America’s Real Birthright Citizens Are

​U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally.

The President Invited Iran to Bomb My Home

Adult man holds a microphone while asking a question during a town hall meeting.

Consensus Without Power: How Sortition Could Break America's Legislative Gridlock

A solemn portrait of a woman looking down, bathed in dramatic light and shadow from window blinds, emphasizing solitude and deep thought in monochrome.

The Questions We Should Be Asking About the Lindsay Clancy Case

Podcast: Harnessing the power of juries

Podcast: Harnessing the power of juries
The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumMar 28, 2023
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
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Juries have been at the center of some of the most emotionally charged moments of political life, especially in high profile cases like the trial of Derek Chauvin for George Floyd's murder in 2021. This episode explores juries as a democratic institution, while guest Sonali Chakravarti argues that juries provide an important site for democratic action by citizens and that their use should be revived. She says juries could be a forward-looking institution that nurtures the best democratic instincts of citizens like examining their own perceptions and biases and engaging in dialogue and deliberation.

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Economy

What's Good for the Blue Collar Worker is Good for America

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Environment

Climate, Migration and the Far Right: Democracies Need a Short-Term Plan

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Rule of Law

The Law Was Supposed to Be a Shield. I Found the Bars.

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Humans May Start Wildfires. Climate Change Makes Them Catastrophic.
A forest fire glowing with bright orange flames and smoke at night
Photo by Egor Vikhrev on Unsplash

Humans May Start Wildfires. Climate Change Makes Them Catastrophic.

The summer of 2026 once again saw wildfire smoke from the West Coast and Midwest blanketing East Coast skies. Smoke-filled summer skies now seem to be the norm across America, and wildfire season isn’t even close to over.

The public response is also becoming normal. When investigators determine that a person started a wildfire, online chatter usually centers on the idea that humans are the cause and that climate change could not have played a role. That argument confuses the ignition source with the complex conditions that contribute to wildfire. A spark may explain where a wildfire began. It cannot, on its own, explain why flames spread so far and devastate entire communities.

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​U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testifies during a Senate Committee on Appropriations hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on July 21, 2026. Hegseth is crafting a strong and masculine identity for his audience as he reportedly contemplates a presidential run.

(Alex Wroblewski/AFP/Getty Images/TNS)

Politicians Can’t Just ’Give the People What They Want’

For reasons that will baffle my many detractors, I am often asked for advice about being an opinion journalist. One of my standard responses is: You have to be willing to disappoint your biggest fans.

What I mean is that if you start to see your job as telling fans what they want to hear, you risk becoming an entertainer rather than a thinker, and eventually you become a caricature. I’ve seen it happen numerous times. Patrick Buchanan was a brilliant columnist and a serious person. But over the course of his career, he listened too much to the people who said, “Go Pat, go!” and too little to friends who said, “I think that’s taking it too far.”

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If It Quacks Like a Fascist

A Navy veteran argues the Trump administration keeps reaching for fascist symbols, from eagle imagery to a livestreamed execution.

Ira L. Black/Getty Images

If It Quacks Like a Fascist

The Trump administration is evoking neo-fascism on purpose. I want to say that plainly, because when a pattern is this consistent, it would be naive to call it a coincidence. They may deny the intent, but they keep reaching for fascist symbols. If it looks like a fascist and quacks like a fascist, it probably is one.

When a reporter at opening night of Les Misérables asked Trump whether he identified more with Jean Valjean, the protagonist who steals bread to feed the hungry, or Javert, the villain who treats mercy as weakness, Trump called it a tough one. It’s not a tough one, unless you want to be the bad guy. And he might. In their new book, Regime Change, New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan describe a moment when President Trump showed them a list that placed him alongside Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Attila the Hun, and Genghis Khan. By Swan’s account, the president relished the company. Trump is less worried about his approval ratings or the law than about expanding his personal power.

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