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Modernizing Plastic Recycling: The Key to Unleashing American Manufacturing

Modernizing Plastic Recycling: The Key to Unleashing American Manufacturing

I Watched the State of the Union Address: Everyone is “Winning” Except Child Care

I Watched the State of the Union Address: Everyone is “Winning” Except Child Care

Disinformation Wins: Justifying ICE Murders through Transphobia

Disinformation Wins: Justifying ICE Murders through Transphobia

A child putting a coin in a small piggy bank.

Trump Accounts: Who Benefits From the New Child Savings Accounts?

10 economic falsehoods debunked from Trump’s State of the Union speech

10 economic falsehoods debunked from Trump’s State of the Union speech

Memorial Day 2025

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Credit: The White House

Memorial Day Tribute 2025
Hugo Balta
By Hugo BaltaMay 26, 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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This year is significant for several military anniversaries: it marks the 250th anniversary of the United States Army, Navy, and Marine Corps; the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II; the 75th anniversary of the start of the Korean War; and the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War.

On Memorial Day, President Donald Trump is expected to visit Arlington National Cemetery. This location is the final resting place for over 400,000 individuals who served and lost their lives while protecting their country.

In a recent proclamation, Trump called on government officials and citizens to fly American flags at half-staff and to engage in prayers for peace.

The proclamation emphasizes Memorial Day as a day of remembrance, honoring the sacrifices made by those who served in defense of liberty. It reflects on the solemn duty to remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for the nation.

It reads in part: "We are eternally indebted to our Nation’s fallen heroes. On this solemn day, as we honor their sacrifice, the First Lady and I ask all citizens to join us in prayer that Almighty God may comfort those who mourn, grant protection to all who serve, and bring blessed peace to the world."

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 an accredited Solutions Journalism and Complicating the Narratives trainer with the Solutions Journalism Network.


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Trump Has Betrayed the Troops Again

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Electoral Reforms

Virginia On The Path to Join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact

Election Interference Is Weakening Our Republic
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Election Interference Is Weakening Our Republic

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Democracy

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American flag

Analysis of concentrated power in the U.S. political economy, examining inequality, institutional trust, executive authority, and the need for equal access and competitive markets.

Chalermpon Poungpeth/EyeEm/Getty Images

America: What We Want, What We Have, What We Need

Equal Access in an Age of Concentrated Power

The American constitutional system was designed to restrain power, not to pursue a single national mission. Authority was divided across branches, diffused among states, and slowed by deliberate friction. As James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 51, ambition was meant to counteract ambition. The design assumed competing interests would prevent domination.

For more than two centuries, that architecture has endured. The United States remains the world’s largest economy by nominal GDP, according to the World Bank’s World Development Indicators, with deep capital markets and a formidable innovation system.

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The Disconsent of the Governed

The U.S. Capitol is shown on February 24, 2026 in Washington, DC.

(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

The Disconsent of the Governed

President Trump’s administration and Congress have not paid much attention to what legislators call “the normal order” in matters related to codifying laws and implementing programs and policies that are supposed to help mind the public’s business or satisfy petitioners looking for attention and relief. This has been partly by design and partly not.

A serious consequence of our leaders not following “normal order” has been to encourage many of us who aren’t in government to use more polarizing rhetoric and to act out more than usual. While there may be little we would consider “normal” about how our national government has been working recently or how people have risen to support or challenge it, we would be mistaken and doing ourselves a great disservice if we were to dismiss or condemn the agitated steps everyday Americans are taking as unhinged or “the work of domestic terrorists.” Their words and actions may be on the other side of normal, but there’s nothing crazy about them.

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A tragedy in Mali, West Africa is a reminder of solidarity across difference and the work needed at home in the United States

Map highlighting Mali over Mali flag

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A tragedy in Mali, West Africa is a reminder of solidarity across difference and the work needed at home in the United States

This fall, I got a phone call from a longtime friend in Mali, West Africa. I could hear the familiar hum of insects in the background, even as I heard the audible strain in his voice. A tragedy had just unfolded - innocent people were being displaced, villages destroyed, and people killed in the name of religion and political extremism. Even though it has been over two decades since I last visited, Mali is a place I grew to know and love - and for over 25 years, I’ve been blessed with a close friendship with my host family, with whom I lived during my time in the U.S. Peace Corps. I had been one of just over 2,500 volunteers who had served in the country until security concerns forced the closure of Mali’s Peace Corps program in 2015. And now, the village where I lived had been burned down, and my friends and host family were refugees on the run.

It was a reminder about how quickly things can change. One day, you wake up to the familiar path of sunlight across mud brick walls and the large baobab trees that frame the dirt path leading from the main road. Another day, you wake up to a worst nightmare - a country in chaos, extremism on the loose, and the very real force of violence right at your doorstep. It was also a reminder that political unrest can strike close to home, to the places and people I know and love, and that political instability and violent, polarizing rhetoric takes its toll.

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A person's hand holding a stamp above a vote deposit box.

A woman casts her vote on the day of the presidential election on May 18, 2025 in Bucharest, Romania. Today's was a second-round vote after a first round on May 4th.

Getty Images, Andrei Pungovsch

When Rivals Converge: Electoral Influence Beyond the Cold War

A recent report issued by Republican staff members on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, which focused on alleged European censorship practices, cited Romania as a case study of aggressive EU overreach, referencing investigations into the far-right candidate’s campaign financing and the annulment decision. In doing so, elements within the U.S. political system appeared to align rhetorically with Moscow’s framing of the episode as an example of EU elite suppression rather than Russian interference.

This does not constitute evidence of coordination between Russia and the United States. There is no public proof of joint strategy or operational cooperation. But it does suggest something more subtle: narrative convergence in support of the same political force abroad and in opposition to pro-European institutional actors.

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