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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to a crowd and cameras outside.

The Time Will Come to Tear Down the Monuments Trump Has Built for Himself

​U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

RFK Jr. Received Compassion When He Was Arrested for Heroin, but My Patients Do Not

The Tone of Our Country Has Changed — And Americans Can See and Feel It Everywhere

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Election Experts Urge Caution After President’s Primetime Claims

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McConnell Gets ‘Election Day’ Trending, but Not as He Intended

McConnell Gets ‘Election Day’ Trending, but Not as He Intended
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David Hawkings
By David HawkingsJan 31, 2019
David Hawkings
David Hawkings is a contributor for The Fulcrum, a nonpartisan publication dedicated to strengthening democracy by fostering informed civic engagement and elevating diverse perspectives.
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The Twitterverse is having a particularly intense reaction to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's latest line of attack against the House Democrats' political process overhaul.

Almost three months after the polls closed, "Election Day" has surfaced as a trending topic after the top Republican senator described the bill's provision making Election Day a federal holiday as a Democratic "power grab."

The legislation would grant federal workers the day off, the governmental signal of a national holiday that's widely followed by the private sector, and also would create a paid-leave benefit for government employees who work at polling places.

"So this is the Democrats' plan to 'restore democracy,'" McConnell said in a floor speech Wednesday, labeling the measure "a political power grab that's smelling more and more like what it is."

The reaction online has appeared to be almost universally negative, with many echoing the sentiment of Robert Reich, a secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, who said that only McConnell "and Senate Republicans could manipulate something as benign and well intentioned as making Election Day a holiday into a vast left-wing conspiracy. It really shows how scared to death they are of the American people actually having a say in our democracy."

A few policymakers took to Twitter, however, to offer a compromise in the name of holding steady the number of federal holidays. Former Office of Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub, noting that a significant number of federal workers were in the military, proposed combining Veterans Day and Election Day.

A "power grab" to let people vote?He also says it's just a holiday for bureaucrats, almost 1/3 of whom are veterans. How about McConnell compromises by moving Veterans Day to the 1st Tuesday in November? What better way to honor veterans than by making it easier for them to vote? https://t.co/amgEOB2muY
— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) January 30, 2019

Rep. Dean Phillips, a first-term Minnesota Democrat, proposed eliminating Columbus Day from the roster of 10 federal holidays and adding Election Day.

Sen. McConnell opposes making Election Day a holiday because he believes federal employees already have enough days off. So let's make a deal, and trade Columbus Day for Election Day. The day we vote is worthy of such reverence. Retweet if you agree. pic.twitter.com/ypOejyOsLe
— Rep. Dean Phillips (@RepDeanPhillips) January 31, 2019

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Red rock formations in the "Valley of the Gods" on April 22, 2026 in Bears Ears National Monument, Utah. Bears Ears has been a controversial Monument since it's creation in December of 2016.

George Frey / Getty Images

When Public Lands Become Real Estate

Last week, in his latest attempted liquidation of our shared heritage, President Trump signed two executive orders eviscerating protections for close to three million acres of our national monuments: Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. From the Oval Office, a president who has never even seen these sacred sites reduced them by roughly 90%, dwarfing his 2017 attempt at a similar land grab by about a million acres, leaving only 300,000 acres of protected land. These cuts will directly threaten critical wildlife habitats, put nearly 100,000 irreplaceable archaeological sites at risk of destruction, and fracture an interconnected indigenous homeland that has been stewarded by Native tribes since time immemorial. To Trump, it’s just another real estate deal.

The Trump regime has tried to portray this set-up to sell off as an effort to restore public access. During the Oval Office photo op where the president signed the proclamations, he said of the monuments: “You can’t go hunting. You can’t go fishing. You can’t do anything. You can virtually not even walk on it.” That is, to put it mildly, a malicious lie. All your favorite forms of outdoor recreation—from hiking and camping to fishing and hunting—are allowed there, which Trump might know if he had ever visited the land he decided is not worth preserving. In fact, the Antiquities Act doesn’t limit ordinary public use but rather the extent to which an area can be subject to mining and drilling. So much for the land of the free. Trump wants to make it a whole lot easier for extractive industries and private development interests to privatize and pillage these sacred lands for financial gain. Home of the brave? Not an ounce of courage to refuse the fuel lobby when it comes to our public lands. At least the law is on our side. As the President of the National Parks Conservation Association put it, this is both “a betrayal to the American people and illegal.”

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The 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is a call to defend public education, strengthen democracy, and reject school privatization in New Hampshire.

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July 4th, 2026, will be the 250th anniversary of the Declaration. One of the foundational documents of the United States, the Declaration has been taught in many ways: as America’s breakup letter, as a rallying cry for freedom, and as an example of the legal assertion of a right to rebellion—derived from common law and biblical teaching. Influenced by the Protestant reformation, the Great Awakening and enlightenment thinking, the Declaration is an example of the complexity of our founding and a reminder of the important work of educating for democracy.

Yet, many teachers feel like it’s getting more difficult to teach today, on the eve of the 250th. Just like in the era that gave us the “Spirit of ‘76”, teachers, who are striving to keep the spirit alive, must both stay rooted in local life and draw inspiration from Europe.

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A U.S.-Mexico Impasse Will Test How Far the Trump Administration Will Go to Fight Drug Trade

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A U.S.-Mexico Impasse Will Test How Far the Trump Administration Will Go to Fight Drug Trade

After months of U.S.-Mexico tensions sparked by the Trump administration’s threats to strike unilaterally at Mexican drug traffickers, the two governments are heading for a potentially more serious confrontation over President Claudia Sheinbaum’s refusal to arrest Mexican officials charged in the United States with drug corruption.

U.S. Justice Department officials have yet to present a full picture of their evidence against 10 current and former Mexican officials, whose indictments were announced on April 29. They include the governor of Sinaloa state, Rubén Rocha Moya, an ally of the president and a prominent figure in her leftist political party.

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