A backroom deal for redrawing Michigan's state legislative districts has been rejected by a panel of federal judges, who will instead hear the case as a trial starting Tuesday.
The judges said the Democratic secretary of state had no authority to make the pact with fellow Democrats in the Legislature, who argue the current maps were an unconstitutionally partisan gerrymander at the hand of the majority Republicans in the state House. The Democratic plaintiffs say that about a dozen of the 110 districts ought to be redrawn to give them a fair shot.
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U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, listens to President Donald Trump unveiling the Kennedy Center Honors nominees on Aug. 13, 2025, at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
(Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images/TCA)
Graham’s legacy & his failure over Trump
Jul 18, 2026
I met the late Sen. Lindsey Graham about 20 years ago, when I was coming up in conservative politics.
I had been part of the neoconservative wing that believed in the “benevolent hegemon” version of America, and the idea that “history can be pushed along with the right application of power and will,” as Francis Fukuyama once described it.
Like Fukuyama, many of us later came to question both the prudence and the righteousness of that theory as the Iraq War unraveled. But at the time, my hawkishness endeared me to people like Lindsey. Famously a hawk himself, he took to calling me “my little libertarian,” not because I was one, but as a playful dig at my occasional limitations on war — namely, the Constitution.
As recently as last summer, he charged into a room in the basement of the Capitol where I was and proclaimed, “There she is — my little libertarian.”
I enjoyed working with Graham in those early days, and later as I broke with the party over Trumpism, I enjoyed covering him as a journalist. But I also watched with some sadness as he morphed into a coward.
Donald Trump’s entry into Republican politics scrambled everything — it changed both the party and many of those who had led it, and Lindsey was no exception. In 2016, Graham would call Trump “a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot,” who “doesn’t represent my party.”
Just a short time later, he refashioned himself into one of Trump’s staunchest defenders.
After Jan. 6, conversations inside the party were swirling around whether Trump was still the best standard-bearer for Republicans, or if he was now a liability. It was a moment when leaders on the right could have attempted a realignment of sorts, a life after Trump.
There were good reasons to move on from one of the most destructive periods in modern American politics, including the original ones Lindsey gave for opposing Trump. After all, he was still a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot, but now we also knew he was an incompetent, corrupt, and self-dealing narcissist. Now was the time.
But when Lindsey was asked about this in May 2021, gone were the courage and confidence of his convictions. Instead, he was at best a reluctant realist, at worst, a subservient suck-up.
Graham said of Trump, “He’s the most popular Republican in the country by a lot. If you try to drive him out of the Republican Party, half the people will leave.”
He wasn’t concerned with good conservatives leaving the party — folks like Reps. Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, and Sen. Mitt Romney and Jeff Flake were already being pushed out by Trump. He was talking about the people who showed up on Jan. 6, the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, the white nationalists and MAGA die-hards. They would have left if Trump had been pushed out. To which any good conservative should have said, “good riddance.”
But Lindsey, in his quest for power and relevance, decided to placate those ugly and odious elements, the very elements that his longtime friend John McCain had fought to marginalize and eliminate.
The sad irony in this is that Lindsey already had the kind of power and relevance that could have helped lead a movement to refocus the party on the ideals that once mattered to him. Instead, he squandered it to support Trump’s return, this time with a vengeance.
There’s a lot about Lindsey Graham that I’ll miss — his ability to work across the aisle, his fierce defense of the Syrians and the Ukrainians, his lifelong commitment to public service, and yes, his affectionate nickname for me. But what I’ll miss most is the man he never became, the man who could have led his party to the side of the right and the good. RIP to both men.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.
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Alex Freeman #16 of the United States competes for the ball against Jeremy Doku #11 of Belgium during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Round of 16 match between USA and Belgium at Seattle Stadium on July 06, 2026 in Seattle, Washington.
Luke Hales/Getty Images
World Cup in Living Color
Jul 17, 2026
Scan the faces on this summer’s European World Cup squads: France, England, Germany, the Netherlands. The jerseys hang on shoulders brown, black, olive, fair. These are not the sanitized, single-story teams that once stood for “nation.” They’re unruly, multicolored, undeniably global. And for once, the United States—so often an outlier—seems less exceptional and more like a willing participant in this reimagining of who “belongs” on the field.
Football—let’s call it what it is, the world’s game—has always reflected the societies that shape it, sometimes as a mirror, sometimes as a funhouse. For decades, European countries clung to self-mythologies, their national teams meant to be pure expressions of heritage: the most French of Frenchmen, the most English of the English. But the game, like the world, refused to stand still. The children and grandchildren of immigrants kept arriving, first in club academies and then on national teams, until no one could deny what was already on the field.
France lifted the 2018 World Cup with a roster more United Nations than Bastille Day parade. Just look at Kylian Mbappé: born to a Cameroonian father and Algerian mother, raised in the Paris suburbs, he stunned the world with his speed and scored in the final at only 19, becoming a symbol of new French possibility. People outside the country noticed the shift and cheered. Inside, some bristled, wrestling with the idea that their newest national hero represented so many heritages. But the truth was clear: the tricolor looked more like the banlieues than the palaces, and that was the point. Two World Cup tournaments later, Mbappé adorned the captain’s band for the French.
England, always slower to this party, now fields a team whose star striker might have Jamaican roots, whose midfield general bears a Ghanaian surname—like the rise of Raheem Sterling, once an immigrant kid from Jamaica, now the hope of Wembley. Germany, after years of denying its own multicultural reality, now leans on Turkish, Ghanaian, and Cameroonian heritage to chase trophies, with players like Mesut Özil and Serge Gnabry closing the distance between past and future.
This year, the U.S., a country that wears its diversity on bumper stickers but struggles to live it, finally caught up. The American squad is, for once, not just a melting pot on paper but in cleats and sweat. Names like Folarin Balogun, whose roots trace from Brooklyn to Nigeria through London; Ricardo Pepi, the son of Mexican immigrants from El Paso; and Sergiño Dest, with Surinamese ancestry and a Dutch upbringing, all run out for the anthem. Black, Latino, Asian, Arab, first-generation, fifth-generation—they stand together, even as the nation argues about who counts as "real." Watching them, you see the same pattern that played out in Europe: talent making space, demanding acceptance, forcing the country to ask bigger questions about belonging.
But here, the story turns. Europe’s current embrace of footballers of color was neither automatic nor painless. It took riots, reckonings, and years of bitter backlash—players enduring slurs from the stands, racist abuse on social media, and open doubts about their loyalty from politicians and pundits alike. Some fans saw them as outsiders, scapegoating them for defeat, as when three Black England players were targeted after the 2021 Euro final. Yet out of these wounds came activism, with athletes like Lilian Thuram, Marcus Rashford, and Mesut Özil speaking out, organizing campaigns, and demanding accountability. They refused to let their countries forget that you can love a flag and still be more than its history allows. The U.S. has its own lineage—Briana Scurry, Clint Dempsey, DaMarcus Beasley—but there’s a difference between being tolerated and being celebrated. We are only beginning to learn the latter.
The irony, of course, is that football—the most global of games—has become a stage for countries to show off their diversity precisely when politics in both Europe and the U.S. are retreating into tribalism. You can watch a team made up of the world and then hear politicians talk of building walls, closing borders, restoring some mythical past. The contradiction is glaring. Football, though, does not care about purity tests. The scoreboard is supposedly colorblind; the only thing that matters is what happens when the whistle blows. Yet on another level, what happens on the pitch often spills over into society itself. When diverse lineups win championships and become heroes, they challenge old prejudices and offer models of belonging that ripple beyond stadiums and into public opinion. The visibility of these athletes can shift conversations, prompting both backlash and progress, and sometimes driving real change in how nations perceive themselves. In this way, the beautiful game does not just mirror our societies—it has the power to nudge them forward.
Here is the beautiful game, doing what parliaments and presidents cannot: showing us a version of ourselves that is messier, more honest, and—dare I say—better. Each time a kid with a hard-to-pronounce last name scores a goal and lifts his country’s hopes, we glimpse what national pride could look like if it grew up a little.
The revolution, in the end, may not be televised, but it just might be scored in the 89th minute by a kid whose parents crossed oceans, whose story confounds the old mythologies, but who wears the jersey like he was born for it. And maybe, just maybe, the rest of us will cheer him on—not despite his difference, but because of it.
Rev. Dr. F. Willis Johnson is a spiritual entrepreneur, author, scholar-practioner whose leadership and strategies around social and racial justice issues are nationally recognized and applied.
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Voters cast their ballots in Colorado's primary election at the Central Library on June 30, 2026 in Denver, Colorado. Voters are deciding on candidates for Colorado Governor, US Senate and other races.
Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images
Closed Primaries Let 7% of Voters Choose 87% of Congress
Jul 17, 2026
Consider this wacky football scenario: What if only fans who declared their team loyalty before the game are allowed to watch the Super Bowl? Yep, unless you pick a team, you can’t get into the stadium. This is similar to how closed primary elections work, in which only registered voters of a specific political party can participate in that party's primary. That’s the brilliant analogy the Unite America Institute uses in a new, short explainer video describing the highly undemocratic system that dominates American primary elections.
“In most elections, the real contest is not the general election but the party primary held months before,” said Beth Hladick, Policy Director at Unite America. The new video is part of a year-long fellowship project: the Democracy and Public Service Initiative, a partnership between the National Academy of Public Administration and the Bridge Alliance.
The numbers demonstrate the staggering impact of shutting millions of Americans out of our election system. Unite America Institute research shows that, because of our closed primary system, in 2024, 7% of voters elected 87% of Congress. How does this happen? In most congressional districts, the outcome is effectively decided in the primary, not in the general election. Because so many districts are heavily skewed toward one party, the winner of that party's primary is almost guaranteed to win the seat. But with closed primaries, only registered party members can participate, and voter turnout is typically very low—sometimes just a fraction of eligible voters. The 7% figure refers to the small share of eligible voters who actually participate in these deciding primaries, meaning that fewer than one in ten of the electorate chooses nearly nine out of ten members of Congress. “It feels like telling half the fans they can only go to the game after it’s basically over,” said Ted Delicath, co-creator of the video.
Unite America advocates a simple reform to the system: all-candidate primaries. In an all-candidate primary, all voters can participate regardless of party affiliation, and every candidate appears on the same ballot. The top vote-getters, regardless of party, advance to the general election. “No party gate, no separate stadium entrance. No, ‘You picked the wrong jersey, so you can’t come in,’” said Hladick. And Unite America Institute’s research shows that all-candidate primaries not only increase voter turnout but also could reduce partisanship in our governance system. “It suggests that reform can help create the conditions for better problem-solving, more collaborative governance, and coalition-building,” said Hladick.
Want to make a difference? Learn more about how primary reform works, share the explainer video with friends, or reach out to your elected representatives to let them know that you want a fairer, more open election system. Join organizations advancing electoral reform or volunteer in your community to help empower more voices in our democracy.
Watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jBJYzPpTf4
Bradford Fitch is a Senior Advisor to the Bridge Alliance, former CEO of the Congressional Management Foundation, and author of “Citizen’s Handbook for Influencing Elected Officials."
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Center for Election Innovation and Research Executive Director and Founder David Becker testifies during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on October 7, 2021 in Washington, DC.
Pool/Getty Images
How David Becker Works to Safeguard America’s Election Integrity
Jul 17, 2026
The Unity Forum, a cross-partisan webinar and podcast series presented in partnership with the Bridge Alliance and produced by Alumni for Freedom and Democracy, is dedicated to fostering reasoned discourse and strengthening the foundations of an open society. Each program brings forward respected experts who challenge assumptions about current events, elevate civil dialogue, and deepen public understanding of today’s most pressing social, economic, and legal issues. In addition to attending Unity Forum events, readers are invited to join post-event discussions, volunteer as community dialogue facilitators, or help promote open society initiatives within their networks. Opportunities to stay engaged and make a difference are available for anyone who wants to support the mission of meaningful civil engagement.
On July 23, the Unity Forum welcomes David Becker, executive director and founder of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Center for Election Innovation & Research, which works with election officials of both parties across the country to ensure elections are trustworthy.
A key element of Becker’s work with CEIR is managing the Election Official Legal Defense Network, which provides pro bono legal assistance to election officials threatened with frivolous criminal prosecutions, harassment, or physical violence.
Prior to founding CEIR, Becker was director of the elections program at the Pew Charitable Trusts. As the lead for Pew’s analysis and advocacy on election issues, Becker spearheaded the development of the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, which, to date, has helped most states update tens of millions of out-of-date voter records and register new eligible voters easily and securely.
Before joining Pew, Becker served for seven years as a senior trial attorney in the Voting Section of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, overseeing voting rights enforcement in several states, including California and Georgia, and served as lead counsel on major voting rights litigation, including Georgia v. Ashcroft, ultimately decided by the Supreme Court.
Becker serves as CBS’ election law expert, and his many media appearances include The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, “PBS NewsHour,” and NPR, and he is frequently published on election issues.
He is the co-author, with CBS News Chief Washington Correspondent Major Garrett, of the book “The Big Truth: Upholding Democracy in the Age of The Big Lie. ”
Join the Conversation
To find out more, sign up for the free Unity Forum live webinar on Thursday, July 23, 2026, at 1:00 PM ET. The session will be interactive, with a live Q&A, so you can ask questions directly to David Becker and the moderator.
The event will discuss:
- What voters should understand about election integrity heading into the 2026 midterms
- How election officials verify results and maintain accurate voter rolls
- The difference between real election vulnerabilities and disinformation
- The ongoing debate over voting access, mail ballots, and election security
- How citizens can help protect voting rights and strengthen public confidence
REGISTER NOW:
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Alb0FmtdRh2CRKZv5rPXDg#/registration
David Nevins is the publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
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