Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Follow Us:
Top Stories

Federal Hill's Warning: A Baltimorean's Reflection on Leadership

Opinion

Federal Hill's Warning: A Baltimorean's Reflection on Leadership

Cannon at Federal Hill Park, Baltimore, MD

In the column, "Is Donald Trump Right?", Fulcrum Executive Editor, Hugo Balta, wrote:

For millions of Americans, President Trump’s second term isn’t a threat to democracy—it’s the fulfillment of a promise they believe was long overdue.


Is Donald Trump right?

Should the presidency serve as a force for disruption or a safeguard of preservation?

Balta invited readers to share their thoughts at newsroom@fulcrum.us.

Chris H. from Maryland was the first to respond.

Time will tell.

As someone who has voted for Trump in 3 elections and agreeing with a majority of the policies he ran on, I constantly find myself thinking this time he has gone too far. When Trump sent federal troops to DC, I was in strong opposition. As he continued to send even more troops to Chicago and Portland, I thought back on history and what has been done in the past.

As someone born and raised in Baltimore, I have read much about the city’s history. On the eve of the Civil War, the first bloodshed was actually shed in the streets of Baltimore, not Fort Sumter, when Lincoln sent federal troops to patrol the streets of Baltimore. They fired on Baltimoreans who rioted against them. Baltimore, being a Confederate sympathizer city and home to the largest junction of railroads in the country, needed to be secured by Lincoln because if Baltimore went into the arms of the Confederates, the nation’s capital, DC, would be lost. In retaliation of the riots, Lincoln turned federal cannons towards the city as a warning to stay with the Union or be no more. Those cannons are still there as a reminder in a park called “Federal Hill.”

As time goes by, we look at Lincoln as a unifier of the country and one of the greatest presidents in our country’s history. My thoughts of being a citizen in Baltimore in the 1860s probably would have been different of Lincoln today, seeing him more as a tyrant than unifier for sending troops into my city. In hindsight, Lincoln did what was right and was able to keep the country together and abolish slavery.

Will we remember Trump in the same way? I doubt it, but time will tell.

We invite you to read "Is Donald Trump Right?" and accept Hugo's invitation to share your thoughts at newsroom@fulcrum.us.

The Fulcrum will select a range of submissions to share with readers as part of our ongoing civic dialogue.

We offer this platform for discussion and debate.


Read More

Military Spectacle and Presidential Power: From Parade to Policy

U.S. President Donald Trump in the Cabinet Room of the White House on December 08, 2025 in Washington, DC.

(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Military Spectacle and Presidential Power: From Parade to Policy

On June 14, I wrote Raining on Trump’s Military Parade, an article about the Washington, D.C. military parade that marked both the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary and President Donald Trump’s 79th birthday. The event revived debates about the politicization of military spectacle, fiscal priorities, and democratic norms. Six months later, those same themes are resurfacing in new forms — not on the National Mall, but in Congress, the courts, and foreign policy.

The House of Representatives passed the roughly $900 billion military policy bill known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2026, in a bipartisan vote of 312-112 on Wednesday. The bill now heads to the Senate for approval. Key provisions of the legislation include:

Keep ReadingShow less
Workshops, Street Promotions and Alleged Covert Operations: Russian Propaganda in Latin America

Workshops, Street Promotions and Alleged Covert Operations: Russian Propaganda in Latin America

Amid political unrest ahead of Mexico’s 2024 presidential election —between late 2023 and early 2024—, Russian state media outlet Russia Today (RT) launched a street-level promotional campaign in Mexico City. Posters appeared in Metro and Metrobús stations, encouraging commuters to scan a QR code to watch the channel’s newscasts.

The host of RT’s program Ahí les va also mocked accusations that the channel spreads propaganda on his YouTube show.Photos from the Telegram account “¡Ahí les va!”

Keep ReadingShow less
Nonprofit Offers $25,000 Financial Relief As over 6,000  Undocumented Students Lose In-State Tuition

Source: Corporate Pero Latinos

Photo provided

Nonprofit Offers $25,000 Financial Relief As over 6,000  Undocumented Students Lose In-State Tuition

Tiffany is one of over 6,000 undocumented students in Florida, affected by the elimination of a 2014 law when the FL Legislature passed SB 2-C, which ended in-state tuition for undocumented students in July.

As a result, the TheDream.US scholarship that she relied on was terminated – making finishing college at the University of Central Florida nearly unattainable. It was initially designed to aid students who arrived in the U.S. as children, such as Tiffany, who came to the U.S. from Honduras with her family at age 11.

Keep ReadingShow less
Democracy 2.0 Requires a Commitment to the Common Good

Democracy 2.0 Requires a Commitment to the Common Good

From the sustained community organizing that followed Mozambique's 2024 elections to the student-led civic protests in Serbia, the world is full of reminders that the future of democracy is ours to shape.

The world is at a critical juncture. People everywhere are facing multiple, concurrent threats including extreme wealth concentration, attacks on democratic freedoms, and various humanitarian crises.

Keep ReadingShow less