NICD, a non-partisan organization based at the University of Arizona that would promote healthy and civil political debate. The National Institute for Civil Discourse integrates research, practice and policy to support and engage: Elected officials who are capable of working to solve the big issues facing our country. A public that demands civil discourse as well as government that works in the best interests of the country as a whole. A media that informs citizens in a fair and responsible way.
Site Navigation
Search
Latest Stories
Join a growing community committed to civic renewal.
Subscribe to The Fulcrum and be part of the conversation.
Top Stories
Latest news
Read More
Close-up of sign reading 'Immigrants Make America Great' at a Baltimore rally.
Trump’s Anti-Latino Racism is a Major Liability for Democracy
Apr 02, 2026
Donald Trump’s second administration has fully clarified Latinos’ racial position in America: our ethnic group’s labor, culture, and aspirations are too much for his supporters to stomach. The Latino presence in America triggers too many uneasy questions (are they White?), too many doubts (are they really American?), and too much resentment (why are they doing better than me?).
Trump’s targeted deportations of undocumented Latinos, unwarranted arrests of Latino citizens, and heightened ICE presence in Latino neighborhoods address these worries by lumping Latinos with Black people. Simply put, we have become yet another visible population that America socially stigmatizes, economically exploits, and politically terrorizes because aggrieved White adults want to preserve their rank as our nation’s premier racial group. The cumulative impacts are serious: just yesterday, an international panel of investigators on human rights and racism, backed by the U.N., found that such actions have resulted in “grave human rights violations.”
Racism like this is a major liability for a multi-racial democracy like ours—and Latinos must push back against it by nurturing greater political solidarity with Black Americans. Doing so will ensure that our children and grandchildren enjoy more equity and opportunity than we do in a society where our voices are actively silenced and regularly ignored. It will also guarantee that democracy is practiced to its fullest capacity by the time our children and grandchildren become voting-age adults.
U.S. society often lures Latinos to think of themselves as ambitious and hard-working, usually to distinguish themselves from racist tropes about Black people. Do not take the bait! This is a short-sighted strategy devoid of historical understanding. All immigrant groups before us—Irish, Italians, Jews— actively chose to distance themselves from Black people, which means they were highly aware of the price of being Black in America.
The truth is that Latinos have always been substantially closer to the Black experience in America than the trajectory of Irish, Italian, Jewish, and other European immigrants—and we must start acting like it. As a Latino person, if you sense that democracy is falling apart because your voting rights are being rolled back, because law enforcement is abusing rather than protecting your communities, or because you feel that no matter how hard you work, things are less affordable, then the answer is to combine your voices with Black Americans, who share these and other opinions.
My lab’s data-driven research shows that when Latinos and Blacks view themselves as being on the same political “team,” they make real progress toward democratic goals. Indeed, when Latinos and Blacks are reminded about the similarities between their experiences with racial discrimination, Black adults become more supportive of policies that benefit Latinos (e.g., flexible immigration procedures) while Latinos express more generous attitudes toward Blacks (e.g., support for Black Lives Matter).
My message to my Latino co-ethnics is simple. Today, we can do what is right for our ethnic group and others who are positioned similarly, and join communities, activists, and other groups working to dismantle the structures that create racial disparities and promote Black-Latino conflict. Some of these efforts will involve new coalitions between grassroots organizations seeking to enhance the well-being of Black and Latino families during these trying times, as is now happening in Northern California. Other efforts will involve recharged alliances between Black and Latino elected officials and civic leaders, such as those led by Mayor Karen Bass in Los Angeles and Mayor Brandon Johnson in Chicago.
Before Trump’s arrival, we Latinos told ourselves that we were also “minorities”—but only temporarily. Sure, our parents and grandparents came here with little, often lived in squalor, and experienced exclusion from the mainstream. But this would eventually pass, we told ourselves, because our children and grandchildren would experience upward mobility.
But that strategy isn’t working out for us. Yes, we can take out mortgages for homes. We can finance cars. We can even send some of our kids to college. But these developments are deceptive. We are accumulating little intergenerational wealth, we have atrociously weak political representation, and we remain stuck in jobs where our skill sets far outstrip our pay. As a result, despite working hard, our future prospects are dimming amid all these trappings of progress.
The goal here is not to pretend that we are all the same; it’s to acknowledge that we are more similar than different. This simple shift in perception produces more camaraderie between Latinos and African Americans, especially among Democratic people of color. This political unity translates into larger and more energized blocs of Latino and Black voters that support political candidates and policy proposals that uplift the voices and concerns of our communities.
In our political system, victories still demand large numbers of votes. So, it is in our collective interest for Latino and Black people to unify and act in tandem when opportunities present themselves, just as they are at this very moment. Together we can achieve what we and others most fundamentally need – a truly multi-racial democracy that faithfully responds to our interests and preserves our rights.
Dr. Efrén Pérez is a professor of political science and psychology at UCLA, where he directs the Race, Ethnicity, Politics, & Society (REPS) Lab. He is the author of several award-winning books, including Diversity’s Child: People of Color and the Politics of Identity. His data-based research can be accessed at https://eoperez.com
Trump’s Anti-Latino Racism is a Major Liability for Democracy was first published on Latino News Network and was republished with permission.
Keep ReadingShow less
Recommended
A lawsuit against xAI over AI-generated deepfakes targeting teenage girls exposes a growing crisis in schools. As laws struggle to keep up, this story explores AI accountability, teen safety, and what educators and parents must do now.
Getty Images, Andrew Harnik
Deepfakes: The New Face of Cyberbullying and Why Parents, Schools, and Lawmakers Must Act
Apr 01, 2026
As a former teacher who worked in a high school when Snapchat was born, I witnessed the birth of sexting and its impact on teens. I recall asking a parent whether he was checking his daughter’s phone for inappropriate messages. His response was, “sometimes you just don’t want to know.” But the federal lawsuit filed last week against Elon Musk's xAI has put a national spotlight on AI-generated deepfakes and the teenage girls they target. Parents and teachers can’t ignore the crisis inside our schools.
AI Companies Built the Tool. The Grok Lawsuit Says They Own the Damage.
Whether the theory of French prosecutors–that Elon Musk deliberately allowed the sexualized image controversy to grow so that it would drive up activity on the platform and boost the company’s valuation–is true or not, when a company makes the decision to build a tool and knows that it can be weaponized but chooses to release it anyway, they are making a risk-based decision believing that they can act without consequence. The Grok lawsuit could make these types of business decisions much more costly.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit filed against xAI this month argue the company "saw a business opportunity: an opportunity to profit off the sexual predation of real people, including children," according to Rolling Stone. The outrage is global. France reported Grok to prosecutors. Malaysia and Indonesia blocked the chatbot. Brazil demanded X to remove deepfake content, and the UK is taking legislative action to criminalize the creation of sexually explicit, nonconsensual content.
The Cat-and-Mouse Problem
"Nudification" apps, tools that strip clothing from photos to generate realistic nude images, have existed in corners of the internet for years with little consequence. But in 2024 and 2025, when major AI platforms including xAI updated their tools in ways that made the capability accessible to almost anyone, what had been a niche problem spread rapidly into schools and communities across the country. Victims, unfortunately, are left with little recourse for a couple reasons.
First, if regulations or legislation starts to infringe on users, they just hop to a different platform. This pattern is not unfamiliar to security practitioners, and the takedown of the Hydra Market in 2022 serves as a classic example. A dark web marketplace is seized and almost overnight a new one emerges in its place. The threat isn’t eliminated. It relocates.
It’s also difficult to trace the true origin of deepfake images and videos. Even though forensic tools exist, they lack the sophistication needed to be truly helpful with deepfake video investigation, according to ethical hacker, FC aka FREAKYCLOWN. “Whilst there may be a digital trail to follow with some deepfakes, attribution is always going to be challenging.”
There’s also a cost factor, which could be prohibitively expensive for many of the teenage victims. Given that there is no guarantee that a forensic investigation will yield the results they need, the best place for victims to start is trying to find where it originated. “Signatures, like which software generated it, which software distributed it, and any possible metadata embedded in the file as well as digital fingerprints for certain platforms will be apparent,” FC said, “But in many cases the person behind the video may have a level of anonymity that could be impossible to unpick.
The Law Is Catching Up, But Not Fast Enough
Pennsylvania amended its criminal code to specifically classify AI-generated child sexual abuse material as a third-degree felony. Legislators in multiple other states are pursuing similar measures. The recently signed Take It Down Act is a step in the right direction, but legal experts caution that legislation takes time, and teenagers remain acutely vulnerable while lawmakers work to catch up. Since deepfake technologies became publicly accessible almost a decade ago, states have been passing legislation to protect victims, but it wasn’t until 2025 and early 2026 that the federal Take It Down Act became law. Still, states are looking to hold not only perpetrators but also AI platforms accountable.
What Schools Must Do Now
Schools need clear protocols so that when students report these incidents, administrators escalate them rather than bury them. "Parents, educators, workers, and policymakers are now asking sharper questions about accountability, fairness, and safety. We still have time to shape how these systems enter public life," J.B. Branch, Attorney and Policy Counsel, Public Citizen said.
As a first step, schools can follow the lead of Lynnbrook High School in San Jose, CA where the board of trustees unanimously approved updates to the district’s bullying policy, Board Policy 5131.2, to now include protections for cyberbullying both on and off campus.
A Reason for Cautious Hope
Effective change mandates strong leadership, though. Unfortunately, nearly seven months passed between the known case of Grok being misused and restrictions being put in place. Even then, the restrictions were only for non-paying subscribers and they were paired with Musk denying he had any knowledge of Grok creating sexual underage images.
This lawsuit is an opportunity to establish something the cybersecurity industry has long understood about accountability: if you build the tool that made this possible, you bear responsibility for what it did. AI companies need to implement structural safeguards before deploying tools capable of generating explicit content, not wait until a public outcry or class-action lawsuit forces their hand.
AI companies need to be held accountable. They built the tools and now a lawsuit is asking one to own the damage. The real question is not only will they be held accountable but whether this will also be the moment that changes the calculus permanently.
Kacy Zurkus is a freelance writer whose work has been published in Next Avenue, Dark Reading, and Security Boulevard. She's also Director of Content for RSAC, a cybersecurity company.
Keep ReadingShow less
Thousands of people participate in a 'No Kings' protest in Manhattan on March 28, 2026 in New York City. This is the third nationwide "No Kings" protest held against the Trump administration.
Getty Images, Spencer Platt
NYC Spends $60M on Citizen-Led Democracy. It Doesn’t Work.
Apr 01, 2026
The decisions that shape daily life are almost entirely local. Whether your street gets repaired. Whether your neighborhood gets the housing it needs or the rezoning it doesn't. Whether your school is funded, your park is maintained, and your block is safe. These are not abstract policy questions debated in Washington. They are immediate and tangible, and their consequences fall directly on the people who live with them. And that proximity matters.
Democracy works best when the people deciding a question are the same people who will bear its consequences. When that connection holds, decisions are grounded, trust builds, and governance earns its legitimacy. When it breaks, when authority drifts upward into layers of boards, offices, and bodies disconnected from the communities they nominally serve, something essential is lost; Not just efficiency but also trust, shared meaning, and the felt sense that self-government is real.
What exists in this city instead is the opposite: a structure layered so many times over that no single body has clear authority, no resident has meaningful influence, and the city spends tens of millions of dollars annually on offices and boards that cannot make a single binding decision.
New York City has 59 Community Boards, the bodies theoretically closest to neighborhood-level governance. Their members are not elected nor regularly rotated, but appointed by Borough Presidents, meaning politicians decide who gets to participate in local democracy. Those same five Borough Presidents maintain full offices with communications directors, policy advisors, and community liaisons, at a combined cost of approximately $32.1 million annually. Yet they have no legislative or executive authority. None. This is in addition to the $20.4 million annually allocated to the Community Boards themselves, who also have no legislative or executive authority. The five Borough Boards add another $600,000 on top of that, a redundant oversight layer duplicating functions that were already advisory to begin with. (All figures reflect the NYC fiscal year 2025 adopted budget.) A single housing proposal, for example, can pass through multiple boards and review bodies, none of which have authority to approve it, before it ever reaches the body that does.
Yet, rather than consolidating or restructuring this effort from the bottom up, the city has continued to add to it. The Civic Engagement Commission and its People's Money fund represent a genuine attempt to bring participatory governance to the city, inviting residents to submit and vote on budgeting priorities. The instinct is right. But the program is short-term, advisory-only, without a clear role, does not use lottery or sortition to select participants, and overlaps with the very Community Boards already doing similar work, at an additional $5 million on top of the structures already described. Most recently, Mayor Mamdani established a new Office of Mass Engagement on his second day in office, acknowledging that civic engagement efforts have long been siloed and duplicative across city government. Again, the instinct is right. But without structural consolidation and real authority, a new coordinating office risks becoming yet another layer in a system that already has too many.
New York City needs a different foundation entirely. By consolidating these fragmented, politically appointed bodies into permanent, lottery-selected Citizens' Assemblies at the neighborhood level, these assemblies would serve as the first layer of review before the City Council. Randomly drawn from the population the way juries are, rotating regularly, and charged with deliberating on local issues, including housing, zoning, budgets, schools, and infrastructure, they would reflect the actual demographics of each neighborhood far more accurately than any politician-appointed body.
This is not a radical idea. Sortition, random selection for civic duty, is older than elections. Ancient Athens used it. American courts use it every day. Ordinary people, given structured time and access to information, make serious, evidence-based decisions on questions that impact them directly. Participation would be voluntary, with reasonable accommodations to make service accessible. Unlike most Citizens' Assembly proposals, which have been abstract or overreaching, this framework is deliberately local: assemblies are only as effective as the proximity between the people deliberating and the consequences they live with. Elected government remains essential at every level above it. What has been missing in New York is permanence, clear authority, and genuine standing. That is what this structure would provide.
It would not require new taxes or new spending, only the consolidation of the millions already allocated across these bodies into a single, permanent structure.
New York City has the civic ambition. It has the money. And it knows what its problems are. What it has lacked is the structure. That ends with a City Charter update and the political will to make it happen.
Susan C. dos Reis DiVito is the founder of The Capacity Project, which develops frameworks for the structural redesign of democracy built from the bottom up. Learn more at democraticcapacity.org.
Keep ReadingShow less
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before boarding Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport on Monday, March 23, 2026, in West Palm Beach, Fla.
(Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images/TNS)
Team Trump had to start a war to learn how the global economy works
Apr 01, 2026
Early Monday morning of March 23, financial markets surged when President Donald Trump claimed there had been productive talks with Iran about ending the war. Therefore he backed off a vow to bomb Iranian power plants if the Strait of Hormuz wasn’t reopened by Monday evening. Iran denies any such talks actually took place.
This is a rare moment in which reasonable people can be torn about which government is more believable.
Regardless, markets were buoyed by the hope that this might be another TACO moment — Trump Always Chickens Out — and the belief that he was looking for an off-ramp.
I have no idea whether this partial pause will last, whether Iran will grab Trump’s lifeline, or whether markets will stay upbeat. And neither does anyone else. But whichever way things go in the days and weeks ahead, we’ve already (re)learned some useful lessons.
For starters, overall success is dependent on more than military success. Critics and supporters of the war have been talking past each other since it started because it has been extremely impressive militarily, but politically, geo-strategically and economically, it’s been far murkier.
That’s because Iran has an asymmetric advantage. It can disrupt the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil and numerous other vital resources from fertilizer to natural gas are shipped. It can also strike its neighbors’ oil and gas facilities.
It’s like Iran is a beaten weakling holding a vial of nitroglycerin in the engine room of the global economy. You can take him out, but only at great peril.
As the Economist recently put it, “Although President Donald Trump says he has ‘destroyed 100% of Iran’s Military Capability’, the 0% that remains is playing havoc with the global economy.”
Economic vulnerability is nearly synonymous with political vulnerability and political vulnerability is strategic vulnerability. It’s great that the Iranians haven’t blocked the strait with thousands of mines as military textbooks foresaw, but if it’s impassable because ships are uninsurable, the results are largely the same.
That’s why I have some sympathy for the administration’s effort to deal with the economic challenge it didn’t adequately prepare for.
That effort includes releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, waiving Jones Act rules that require American-flagged and built ships to transport oil for American markets, and lifting some sanctions on Russian oil (a boon to President Vladimir Putin).
And, most remarkably, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced a temporary suspension on Iranian oil sanctions for already oil-laden ships parked in the strait.
This is exceedingly unusual. Normally, one intensifies economic blockades on enemies in wartime. But that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a bad idea if it works to lower prices. (Although the fact that this could potentially give Iran 10 times more money than President Barack Obama did when he infamously sent them pallets of cash to secure the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is pretty wild.).
I’m skeptical that Trump’s effort to single-handedly manage the price of oil will work. For whatever momentary relief it provides markets, it also demonstrates that Iran’s has got leverage.
But here’s what I find fascinating. The Trump administration has been obsessed with maximizing the president’s war powers to justify his agenda on such things as industrial policy, immigration, domestic deployment of the National Guard and, most glaringly, trade. But now, when we’re actually at war, they’re reversing their economic philosophy in service to Trump’s seat-of-the-pants decision-making.
Trump’s trade policies are exactly what the great 19th century economist Henry George had in mind when he warned, “What protectionism teaches us, is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war.”
What’s so strange is Trump’s turning George on his head, by easing economic pressure on our wartime enemy. But he’s also reversing his own biases by liberating our domestic economy.
Of course, sanctions are more coercive than tariffs, but economically they operate on the same logic: Sanctions restrict exchange, reduce supply and raise costs. The administration is effectively conceding that supply restrictions — i.e., tariffs — raise prices and that relaxing them lowers prices. It usually scoffs at such market logic when defending tariffs or domestic shipping restrictions.
The Jones Act, an egregious economic albatross conceived in the wake of World War I that makes all manner of goods more expensive in peacetime, is being waived during wartime, even though the point of the Jones Act is to leave us better prepared to fight wars.
I wish I could believe that the Trump administration was actually learning any of these lessons and that might endure after this war eventually ends. But at this point, that lesson is beyond his ability to learn. Trump believes he’s not just the master of his fate, but everyone else’s as well.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.
Keep ReadingShow less
Load More