Where does the South end and the rest of America begin? Is the South being Americanized or are we watching Southern influence spread to the rest of the country? That’s a topic tackled by Frye Gaillard and Cynthia Tucker in their new book: "The Southernization of America: A Story of Democracy in Balance."
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As a young journalist, I covered the funeral of Cesar Chavez in 1993 and have interviewed Dolores Huerta several times over the past 30 years.
They were heroes to me and my family, icons of the Chicano civil rights movement.
Reading this week in The New York Times the allegations that Chavez raped Huerta and groomed and assaulted minor girls was devastating. My heart felt like it split open knowing one of our greatest civil rights leaders was capable of such evil.
As a child my mother’s family in the 1950s migrated from picking cotton in Texas to Midwestern states, where they picked beets and tomatoes.
They eventually made it to rural Illinois and transitioned from farm work to factory work in Chicago. But my mother never forgot her farm worker roots.
Growing up in the Chicago suburbs in the 1970s, as a family we picketed local grocery stores asking people to boycott lettuce and grapes. My parents taught us about the history of the farm worker movement and its leaders Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta.
For more than 60 years, Huerta held on to the secret of her coercion and assault that resulted in her secretly having two of Chavez’s children.
Huerta issued a public statement Wednesday, “I have never identified myself as a victim, but I now understand that I am a survivor — of violence, of sexual abuse, of domineering men who saw me, and other women, as property, or things to control.”
In the 1998 interview I did with Huerta she acknowledged that she and Chavez would argue. It was her idea for a grape boycott. He wanted it to be a potato boycott.
“It took a fight to get that. In fact, probably the only reason I won that fight was because he was on the seventh day of a fast and he was weak,” she told me. “We never argued about philosophy because we shared the same philosophy. We argued about strategy. Should it be grapes or potatoes? Sometimes he would win, and sometimes I would win.”
She did not reveal to me or anyone until now the deeper reality of their encounters.
For too long we haven’t believed women, or offered them protection from predators. This has created a culture of silence.
In the case of Jeffrey Epstein, an estimated 1,000 girls and young women were trafficked. Besides Epstein, who died in prison, and Ghislaine Maxwell, sentenced to 20 years in prison for conspiring to sexually abuse minors, nobody else has been charged.
We know the names of other men in the files from former President Bill Clinton to current President Donald Trump, the latter mentioned at least 38,000 times. They should and other men in the files should be investigated.
At least in the United Kingdom Prince Andrew was arrested but not for sexual abuse but for alleged misconduct in office.
It is unconscionable the U.S. is not investigating the men in the Epstein files.The accountability for the victims is nonexistent. Now who will be held accountable since Chavez died in 1993?
It’s important to investigate who knew about Chavez’s grooming of girls at his compound and if there are other victims who may yet come forward.
The message must be swift and clear. Cesar Chavez day, celebrated in California and other states as an official holiday on March 31, should be cancelled as a holiday.
Already the United Farm Workers Foundation has cancelled Chavez Day activities. There are reports of cancellations of events in Arizona, California and Texas. A Chavez memorial statue at Fresno State was immediately covered up after news broke. Chavez’s name should be taken off streets, schools and other landmarks. His murals should be painted over.
Instead on March 31 the world should honor all people who have been victims of sexual abuse and violence.
It’s important to remember the values of the movement of economic equality for the farm workers who feed our country and still toil in the fields.
Today, the movement matters as farm workers, immigrants and Latinos are targets of the ICE raids. The fight for economic justice, civil rights and worker protections continues. Huerta, 95, who has fought for this justice, fairness and equity, continues her pursuit.
“The farmworker movement has always been bigger and far more important than any one individual,” Huerta said in her statement. “Cesar’s actions do not diminish the permanent improvements achieved for farmworkers with the help of thousands of people. We must continue to engage and support our community, which needs advocacy and activism now more than ever.”
I’m reminded of how Huerta leads a chant at the end of most of her speeches. I last heard her speak in Albuquerque in the summer of 2023.
“Who’s got the power?
We’ve got the power!
What kind of power?
People power!
She ended with the phrase she coined, “Yes, we can.”
¡Sí, se puede!”
Yes, we can keep fighting for justice for women and workers.
Cancel Cesar Chavez: Continue The Fight For Justice was first published on CA Latino News and was republished with permission. CALN is an affiliate of the Latino News Network.
Teresa Puente is an assistant professor at California State University, Long Beach. She teaches courses in News Reporting and Ethics, Social Media Communication, and Bilingual Magazine Reporting and Production.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters as he and Secretary of State Marco Rubio (L) depart the White House on their way to Florida on March 20, 2026 in Washington, DC.
In politics, words matter. In democratic politics, they matter even more.
Great political leaders have long recognized that fact.
Perhaps no modern American President understood that as much as John F. Kennedy. Speaking at Amherst College, one month before his assassination, Kennedy paid tribute to the power of words this way: “Poetry,” he said, is “the means of saving power from itself.”
“When power leads men towards arrogance,” Kennedy continued, “poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.”
I cannot imagine President Trump ever thinking or saying anything like that. The president seems to have little feel for the English language.
He uses words as weapons, not to inspire or cleanse, but to demonize and trivialize. When he does not use them that way, he turns to euphemisms to distract citizens and hide what is really going on.
Trump’s assault on language is an assault on democracy itself. “Authoritarianism,” Mike Brock argues, “thrives in ambiguity. It requires linguistic fog to operate…. Every euphemism is a small surrender. Every hedge is a tiny collaboration. Every refusal to speak plainly is a gift to those who profit from confusion.”
The latest example of the president’s assault on language is seen in his insistence on calling the war in Iran an “excursion.” On March 11, he described the war this way: “We did an excursion. You know what an excursion is? We had to take a little trip to get rid of some evil, very evil people.”
A little trip? An excursion?
When we think of excursions, we think of vacations, the object of which is relaxation, exploration, or pleasure. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its earliest known use dates from 1537.
But from then until now, I dare say no one has used it to describe dropping bombs, devastating cities, killing civilians, and disrupting the global economy. Trump’s use of a euphemism to describe those things is cynical and dangerous.
Recall the words of former Vice President Dick Cheney, who warned of “the emergence of euphemisms that strive to put an imaginary distance between the American people and the terrorist enemy. Apparently, using the term ‘war’ where terrorists are concerned is starting to feel a bit dated. So, henceforth we’re advised by the administration to think of the fight against terrorists as ‘Overseas contingency operations.’”
He went on to say, “In the event of another terrorist attack on America, the Homeland Security Department assures us it will be ready for this, quote, ‘man-made disaster’ – never mind that the whole Department was created for the purpose of protecting Americans from terrorist attack.”
Of course, Cheney himself had euphemized torture as “enhanced interrogation.” But his warning is valuable, nonetheless.
Decades before Cheney’s admonition, the great writer George Orwell pointed out that when governments commit grave injustices or inflict pain and suffering on people, they often try to sanitize what they are doing by using euphemisms. Writing in the immediate aftermath of World War II, Orwell said, “All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.”
Seems like an apt description of the Trump era.
“Political speech and writing,” Orwell noted, “are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face….”
“Thus,” he observed, “political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness.”
Trump is not the first president, since Orwell wrote, to dangerously abuse language during wartime. Almost before the ink was dry on Orwell’s essay, President Harry Truman was calling the Korean War a “police action.”
But avoiding the language of war is about more than simply getting around the Constitution’s allocation of the power to declare war to Congress. As the Atlantic’s Gal Beckerman observes, “Leaders are sidestepping the term not just to avoid liability, but because Americans clearly want nothing to do with what it signifies. For most people, after the experience of Iraq and Afghanistan, war is just another word for ‘quagmire.’”
When the president calls the Iran war an “excursion,” he trivializes the suffering that the war in Iran has brought there and around the world. Moreover, as Virginia Senator Tim Kaine observes, the president’s way of “characterizing this (the war) is deeply disrespectful” to those in the service and to their families
As the New York Times notes, “Bombs are exploding in Iran and the Middle East, but the fallout is rattling households and businesses in neighborhoods all over the globe. In Kansas, home buyers saw 30-year mortgage rates edge above 6 percent this week. In Western India, families mourning the death of a loved one discovered that gas-fired crematories had been temporarily closed.”
“The widening war,” the Times says, “…has delivered a stunning punch to a worldwide economy that has already been walloped by a breakdown of the international trading order, war in Ukraine, and President Trump’s chaotic policymaking.”
And beyond that, there is the untold environmental damage being done by billions of dollars' worth of bombs. A report in Forbes explains that “Explosions can release huge amounts of particles into the air…The environmental consequences of this process can last long after the fighting stops.”
But the damage does not stop there.
The president’s resort to euphemism does serious damage to the democratic process. Democracy can only thrive when leaders care about what they say and say what they mean.
Orwell gets it right when he observes, “If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” That is Trump’s project, to use language to corrupt thought.
It is odd but not surprising that a president who has made a career of using the most violent and inflammatory language to carry on his campaign of demonizing his opponents turns to euphemism to describe his campaign of violence in Iran.
In words that seem prescient, Orwell warned, “that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language.” Only by rescuing language can democracy be rescued as well.
Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College.
President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media traveling on Air Force One while heading to Miami on March 7, 2026.
Like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, America’s president is undermining the Republic by evading checks, consolidating power, and attacking democratic norms. He disguises his malicious intentions as innocence while dismantling policies and programs that would help citizens.
In earlier opinions, I wrote about three forces that corrode democracy: hypocrisy, corruption, and confusion. Hypocrisy creates a false image of leadership; corruption erodes public trust and suppresses voter participation; confusion keeps the public from seeing the truth. Together, they weaken the Republic.
A president who once declared, “I alone can fix it" now demands concentrated power while the country crumbles. He presents himself as a stabilizing force yet governs through intimidation. He speaks of restoring order while undermining the institutions that make order possible.
This fable of The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing applies to public life. In the story, the wolf disguises himself as a sheep to confuse the flock and move freely among them. The disguise is not a costume — it is a strategy. It allows the wolf to deceive. The president uses a similar disguise. He wraps himself in patriotic language while weakening systems that safeguard the nation. He claims to defend the country while demanding loyalty to himself. He presents himself as a protector while pursuing power and money.
Confusion is not accidental. It is engineered to dull public judgment. When leaders flood public life with contradictions and manufactured crises, citizens lose the ability to distinguish governance from performance. A leader who creates chaos then presents himself as the one strong enough to control it. This strategy is not hidden. Project 2025 — a blueprint for consolidating executive power — is a public declaration of intent. Yet Congress, the branch designed to check presidential overreach, remains silent. Silence is not neutrality. Silence is permission — and it leaves citizens relying on their own judgment to see what leaders refuse to confront.
On January 20, 2025, he raised his right hand, repeated the oath, and immediately began performing duties that bore no resemblance to service to the people. Beneath the disguise, consequences were immediate: Families were separated and jailed. A violent immigration crackdown spread across the country. Innocent Americans were killed by ICE agents. DEI programs were dismantled. Journalists were humiliated and imprisoned. Personal voting data was collected. He pretended to protect the people but governed to protect himself. He pretended to be a reformer but dismantled systems that safeguard fairness.
The pattern extended beyond domestic policy. He invaded Venezuela in January 2026 and ordered strikes on Iran in February 2026, bypassing congressional authorization — a sweeping assertion of executive power. He pretends to be strong but relies on confusion, cover‑ups, and spectacle. His actions reveal a pattern of power without accountability. It is a performance — a fraudulent one — yet his loyalists ignore and excuse his overreach and abuse of power.
Americans watched as he built a cabinet designed for obedience. Nominees were individuals whose wealth insulated them from accountability and prevented them from challenging him. Those appointed to key positions were chosen not for experience, but for their role in crafting Project 2025 — a plan designed to concentrate presidential power by weakening the institutions meant to check him. These were not ordinary appointments; they were strategic placements. The very people who helped write the plan were positioned to carry it out. The intent was unmistakable: reshape the federal system so that loyalty to the president would outweigh loyalty to the Constitution.
Those strategic placements had consequences. Cabinet members and leaders in Congress have a responsibility not to the president, but to the Constitution and Americans. Yet many chose to reinforce the president’s falsehoods, applaud his distortions, and shield him from accountability. Rather than offering honest counsel and transparency, they echoed his claims. Rather than checking his excesses and overreach, they enabled them. Their silence — and their applause — do not protect us. They protect him.
On February 24, 2026, he delivered the longest presidential address in modern history — a marathon of exaggerations, self‑congratulation, and false claims. He boasted that he had taken prescription drug prices from the highest in the world to the lowest. He bragged about accomplishments that never materialized. He never mentioned unkept promises: relief on housing, food, or healthcare. And yet, despite the spectacle, his approval rating remained low — a sign the public no longer buys his lies. His loyalists applauded anyway, not because they believed him, but because loyalty has replaced judgment. That loyalty came at a cost.
He ignored the Epstein victims’ search for truth and closure, offering no acknowledgment of their suffering, while praising the hockey players he suggested had “fought on his behalf”. This is not leadership. It is favoritism disguised as strength.
Democratic decline rarely begins with a dramatic collapse. It begins with smaller fractures: norms stretched before they are broken, oversight criticized before it is weakened, elections questioned before they are undermined, institutions attacked before they are ignored. When a president claims the power to decide which laws apply to him, the public loses the ability to hold him accountable — unless citizens exercise independent judgment.
When he undermines the legitimacy of elections, the people lose their voice. When he attacks independent institutions, the nation loses its safeguards. Concentrated power does not return what it takes. It must be stopped — to prevent deepening inequality, to protect democratic processes, to guard against tyranny, and to preserve liberty itself. That is why constitutional clarity matters.
But the Constitution does not give the final word to any president. It gives it to the people. Democracy is not the property of any party or state — red, blue, or purple. For the Republic to endure, citizens must exercise their constitutional rights, demand that Congress use its power of checks and balances, and engage in civic responsibility.
Americans must see leaders as they are and refuse to surrender their judgment to noise, division, fear, or personality. Political judgment is about choosing sides. Citizen judgment is about choosing the Republic. Political judgment asks, “Which team am I on?” Citizen judgment asks, “What protects the Constitution and the common good?” One is driven by loyalty, personality, or party identity; the other by responsibility, research, and reflection.
Political judgment rewards performance, outrage, and allegiance. Citizen judgment evaluates whether leaders tell the truth, respect limits on power, and uphold their oath. Political judgment applauds a leader’s claims because he is “ours.” Citizen judgment checks whether those claims are real — and whether they strengthen or weaken democratic institutions.
Political judgment narrows the lens to winning. Citizen judgment widens it to safeguarding the Republic.
Judgment matters most when public life is clouded by confusion and spectacle. It requires research, self‑awareness, and reflection on how past choices shape the present. Voters must examine how their decisions affect the Republic, resist tactics meant to distract or divide, and demand accountability and transparency from every public official. Congress must prevent the concentration of power, exercise oversight, and uphold its constitutional responsibilities.
Citizens must vote, hold peaceful protests, challenge federal overreach, support a free press, and insist on separation of powers and judicial independence.
We must not allow the wolf to destroy our democracy. We strengthen the Republic when we let him know that we see who he is — and refuse to be misled. Democracy is not self‑correcting. It is citizen‑correcting. Judgment is not just a civic duty; it is the last line of protection between a free people and the concentrated power that seeks to weaken them.
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Carolyn Goode is a retired educational leader and national advocate for ethical leadership, civic responsibility, and institutional accountability. She writes about democratic norms, public trust, and the moral responsibilities of citizenship.
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters during a news conference at Trump National Doral Miami on March 9, 2026, in Doral, Florida. President Trump spoke on his administration's strikes on Iran.
If you ask President Trump, he’ll tell you we’ve already won the war in Iran.
When asked for an update by Axios on Wednesday, Trump responded with the kind of upbeat nonchalance and flippant boastfulness you’d usually see when asked about the progress on one of his hotels.
“The war is going great,” he said. “We are way ahead of the timetable. We have done more damage than we thought possible, even in the original six-week period.” He then offered that there’s “practically nothing left to target.”
As for an ending? “Any time I want it to end, it will end.”
How, exactly, is it “going great”? What is the “timetable”? Shouldn’t it end when the mission is achieved and not when Trump simply wants it to?
His administration has simultaneously given no rationale to justify our strikes on Iran — failing to prove we were the target of an imminent attack — and all the reasons why we had to, from regime change, to oil, to support for Israel.
It’s sent mixed messages on timing, promising both that it’s practically over and that it could take a while. And it’s been unreliable in its own accounting of what’s actually happened. Have we decimated Iran’s nukes? (I thought we’d already done that.) And who is responsible for the attack that killed 160 schoolchildren in Iran?
We still have no answers to these important questions. When pressed on the school attack, for one, Trump has said everything from Iran was responsible to, most recently, “I don’t know about it.” But an initial report determined the U.S. was at fault, the result of a targeting mistake.
As for the nukes, which the White House declared“ obliterated” last June, our own intelligence assessment just found that Iran can still access about 60% of its enriched material stored at Esfahan. As the non-partisan Arms Control Association notes, “Although strikes can set back Iran’s nuclear program and destroy key infrastructure…military force cannot eliminate Tehran’s proliferation risk.”
Trump’s version of events, as is so often the case, isn’t based on facts, but wishcasting, projection, bombast and bluffs.
And abroad, it isn’t working.
In France, for example, Le Monde derides Trump’s treatment of the war as “spectacle,” lambasting his “celebratory tone.” It noted his grotesque joke that it’s “more fun” to sink Iranian warships than to seize them,” and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s boast that “we are punching [the Iranians] while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”
In The Guardian, columnist Rafael Behr points out the chaos and incompetence of Trump’s war: “Regime change was the plan, but Trump finds it easier to change plans than regimes. He says he has won, but also that he has more winning to do. This is the familiar stage of rhetorical climbdown, indicating dawning awareness that a problem is more complicated than the president initially thought. Complexity resists his whim. It bores him.”
And in Germany’s Bild, Europe’s highest-circulating newspaper, the question is pointed: “Whose pockets is Trump filling with bombs?” It declares “the clearest winner in the biggest Middle East conflict in decades is the U.S. arms industry” and Trump’s sons, who are conveniently now in the drone business.
The world can see through Trump’s charade, but do American voters? Most polls show more voters oppose the war than support it, but by a slim margin.
That margin will widen with time, most certainly. And then Trump’s slick sales pitch will be less and less effective. Or maybe I’m the one who’s wishcasting.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.
Trump’s ‘Just for Fun’ War Talk Shows a Dangerous Trivialization