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Two containers, one with a U.S. flag and another with Canada's flag.

Just the Facts: U.S.–Canada Tariff War Escalates As Trump Raises Stakes

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Veterans Day Betrayal: ICE Detains U.S. Military Veterans Under Trump’s Immigration Crackdown

Paramount-WBD Deal: Antitrust, Consumers, and the Future of Media

Paramount-WBD Deal: Antitrust, Consumers, and the Future of Media

People voting at booths.

Who Will Be the First American Candidate To Harness AI

Have Males Always been the Problem?

Have Males Always been the Problem?

Podcast: Rural broadband and the politics of "good enough"

Podcast: Rural broadband and the politics of "good enough"
The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumSep 21, 2022
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
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COVID-19 showed just how essential high-speed Internet is to our everyday lives. It determines how many of us work, learn, and access news and entertainment. Yet, millions of Americans do not have reliable access to broadband and millions more can't afford to pay for the service that's available to them.

Christopher Ali, the Pioneers Chair in Telecommunications at Penn State, unpacks these issues in his book Farm Fresh Broadband: The Politics of Rural Connectivity and joins the Democracy Works podcast for a discussion about market failures, how communities across the country are democratizing Internet access and how the federal government is now starting to step in thanks to funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed in November 2021.We also discuss some of Ali's more recent work on the relationship between broadband deserts and news deserts, and how the combination impacts democratic citizenship.

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We Need To Rethink the Way We Prevent Sexual Violence Against Children
Media & Technology

We Need To Rethink the Way We Prevent Sexual Violence Against Children

People waving US flags
Democracy

What Are American Values?

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Rule of Law

Tariffs on Trial: The Supreme Court’s Hidden Battle for Balance

Voting Rights Are Back on Trial...Again
Rule of Law

Voting Rights Are Back on Trial...Again

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Combatting the Trump Administration’s Militarized Logic

Members of the National Guard patrol near the U.S. Capitol on October 1, 2025 in Washington, DC.

(Photo by Al Drago/Getty Images)

Combatting the Trump Administration’s Militarized Logic

Approaching a year of the new Trump administration, Americans are getting used to domestic militarized logic. A popular sense of powerlessness permeates our communities. We bear witness to the attacks against innocent civilians by ICE, the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and we naturally wonder—is this the new American discourse? Violent action? The election of Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York offers hope that there may be another way.

Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim democratic socialist, was elected as mayor of New York City on the fourth of November. Mamdani’s platform includes a reimagining of the police force in New York City. Mamdani proposes a Department of Community Safety. In a CBS interview, Mamdani said, “Our vision for a Department of Community Safety, the DCS, is that we would have teams of dedicated mental health outreach workers that we deploy…to respond to those incidents and get those New Yorkers out of the subway system and to the services that they actually need.” Doing so frees up NYPD officers to respond to actual threats and crime, without a responsibility to the mental health of civilians.

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How Four Top Officials Can Win Back Public Trust


Image generated by IVN staff.

How Four Top Officials Can Win Back Public Trust

Mandate for Change: The Public Calls for a Course Correction

The honeymoon is over. A new national survey from the Independent Center reveals that a plurality of American adults and registered voters believe key cabinet officials should be replaced—a striking rebuke of the administration’s current direction. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are all underwater with the public, especially among independents.

But the message isn’t just about frustration—it’s about opportunity. Voters are signaling that these leaders can still win back public trust by realigning their policies with the issues Americans care about most. The data offers a clear roadmap for course correction.

Health and Human Services: RFK Jr. Is Losing the Middle

Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is emerging as a political liability—not just to the administration, but to the broader independent movement he once claimed to represent. While his favorability ratings are roughly even, the plurality of adults and registered voters now say he should be replaced. This sentiment is especially strong among independents, who once viewed Kennedy as a fresh alternative but now see him as out of step with their values.

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A thick cloud of exhaust rises up from a chimney in the blue sky

A comparative look at how New Jersey and Texas regulate refinery and chemical-plant pollution—and how weakened federal protections leave communities breathing unequal risks.

Getty Image, Hartmut Kosig

The Wind Doesn’t Know State Lines, Washington Doesn’t Seem To Care

As you cross the George Washington Bridge heading west, you can smell New Jersey. You pass through notorious Superfund marshes and speed through Newark's refinery smokestacks. East Coasters love to mock this “pollution alley," but here’s the twist: starting in the 1970s, New Jersey built some of the tightest refinery regulations in the country. If that corridor still feels toxic 50 years later, what's happening in states with far fewer protections?

When federal safeguards weaken, local rules decide how clean—or how dirty—the air gets. In mid-2025, the White House granted two-year delays for certain hazardous-air-pollutant standards covering dozens of large chemical-manufacturing facilities, including one within the Phillips 66 complex in Borger, Texas. Meanwhile, its sister refinery in New Jersey must carry on under the full force of both federal and state oversight. For families living near these plants, geography now dictates protection. Nearly 845,000 residents live within ten miles of New Jersey’s Bayway refinery—barely 2,200 around Borger’s—two very different stories emanating from similar operations and riding similar winds.

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