Zaidane is the president and CEO of Millennial Action Project.
February is Black History Month — a time where we celebrate the accomplishments and triumphs of the Black community throughout American history. It is also a call to action, asking all Americans to be a part of the conversation about the pursuit of freedom and racial equity. These conversations can be challenging — as we know, in the United States, partisan and racial divides are complex.
However, bridging these divides is the only way to achieve meaningful and sustainable progress.
Take it from one of our young leaders in Arkansas:
“I’m the youngest African-American female elected in the General Arkansas Assembly. I have to work across the partisan and racial lines to get things done. … It’s my mission every year to see who I have nothing in common with. … I work on a bill with them, and [the bill] is going to be something meaningful.” — Rep. Jamie Scott
In December, Scott was the recipient of the Millennial Action Project’s Rising Star Award, presented each year to two young state legislators who demonstrate outstanding achievements in building bridges within their legislature. Scott, a Democrat in a super-majority Republican General Assembly, was nominated by Republican Rep. Aaron Pilkington for her tenacious approach to inclusive proble- solving. Together, Scott and Pilkington lead the Arkansas Future Caucus, which convenes young legislators to find consensus and take action on issues that disproportionately impact younger generations.
Too often in policymaking, it can seem like a win-or-lose situation, yet it's this “scarcity mindset” that often leads to winner-take-all results.
Scott, through her tremendous leadership, has modeled a new style of politics — one that rejects the scarcity mindset and embraces a mindset of abundance. In practice, Scott centers communities of color in her solutions, and works with people across racial and partisan divides to ensure that they can cocreate better outcomes for all. What a diversity of leaders within the MAP network, like Scott, have shown us is that collaborative policymaking can be a win-win.
Scott’s attitude demonstrates that by working with unlikely allies — even members with whom you seemingly have nothing in common — you can create winning strategies to benefit all communities. This type of bridge-building gives other legislators a framework for more inclusive policymaking as well. It sets the example that there should be no fear in working together; rather, there are shared wins that come with collaboration.
Watch this in action:
The Millennial Action Project's Rising Star Awards (2021)www.youtube.com
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address during a joint session of Congress in the House Chamber at the Capitol on Feb. 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump delivered his address days after the Supreme Court struck down the administration's tariff strategy, and amid a U.S. military buildup in the Persian Gulf threatening Iran.
Some MAGA loyalists have turned on Trump. Why the rest haven’t
I recently watched "A Face in the Crowd" for the umpteenth time.
I had a better reason than procrastination to rewatch Elia Kazan’s brilliant 1957 film exploring populism in the television age. It was homework. I was asked to discuss it with Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz at the just-concluded TCM Film Festival in Los Angeles. As a pundit and an author, I do a lot of public speaking. But I don’t really do a lot of cool public speaking, so this was a treat.
With that not-very-humble brag out of the way, I had a depressing realization watching it this time.
"A Face in the Crowd" tells the story of a charming drifter with a dark side named Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes, played brilliantly by Andy Griffith. A singer with the gift of the gab, Rhodes takes off on radio but quickly segues to the brand-new medium of television. He becomes a national sensation — and political kingmaker — by forming a deep connection with the masses, particularly among the rural and working classes. His core audience is made up of people with grievances. “Everybody that’s got to jump when somebody else blows the whistle,” as Rhodes puts it.
The film’s climax (spoiler alert) comes when Rhodes’ manager and spurned lover, Marcia, turns on the microphone while the credits rolled at the end of “Cracker Barrel,” his national TV show. Rhodes tells his entourage what he really thinks of the “morons” in his audience. “Shucks, I can take chicken fertilizer and sell it to them for caviar. I can make them eat dog food, and they’ll think it’s steak. … Good night, you stupid idiots.”
It was a canonical “hot mic” moment in American cinema. But the idea that if people could glimpse the “real person” behind the popular facade, they’d turn on them is a very old theme in literature — think Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" (1782) or Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s "The School for Scandal" (1777), in which diaries and letters do the work of microphones.
Kazan and screenwriter Budd Schulberg were very worried about the ability of demagogues to whip up populist fervor and manipulate the masses through the power of TV, in part because everyone had already seen it happen with radio and film, by Father Coughlin in America and Hitler in Germany. But as dark as their vision was, they still clung to the idea that if the demagogue was exposed, the people would instantly turn on their leader in an “Emperor’s New Clothes” moment for the mass media age.
And that’s the source of my depressing realization. I think they were wrong. It turns out that once that organic connection is made, even a shocking revelation of the truth won’t necessarily break the spell.
In 2016, a lot of writers revisited "A Face in the Crowd" to understand the Trump phenomenon. After all, here was a guy who used a TV show — "The Apprentice" — and social media to build a massive following, going over the heads of the “establishment.” Trump’s own hot mic moment with "Access Hollywood," in which he boasted of his sexual predations, proved insufficient to undo him. That was hardly the only such moment for him. We’ve heard Trump bully the Georgia secretary of state to “find 11,780 votes.” He told Bob Woodward he deliberately “played down” COVID-19. After leaving office, he was recorded telling aides he shouldn’t be sharing classified documents with them — then doing it anyway. And so on.
Trump’s famous claim that he could “shoot somebody” on Fifth Avenue and not lose any voters may have been hyperbole. But it’s not crazy to think he wouldn’t lose as many voters as he should.
In the film, Lonesome Rhodes implodes when Americans encounter his off-air persona. The key to Trump’s success is that he ran as his off-air persona. Why people love that persona is a complicated question. Among the many complementary explanations is that he comes across as authentic, and some people value authenticity more than they value good character, honesty, or competence.
This is not just a problem for Republicans. Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner once had a Nazi tattoo and has said things about women as distasteful as Trump’s “grab them by (the genitals)” comments, and the Democratic establishment is rallying around him because he’s authentic — and because Democrats want to win that race.
Many prominent MAGA loyalists are turning on Trump these days. They claim — wrongly in my opinion — that he’s changed and that the Iran war is a betrayal of their cause. But if you look at the polls, voters who describe themselves as “MAGA” still overwhelmingly support Trump. In short, he still has the Fifth Avenue voters on his side.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.