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From Diplomat to Dissenter: Why I Protest Trump’s America

From Diplomat to Dissenter: Why I Protest Trump’s America

Protestors holding signs that read "protect trans kids."

Trump's Orders Threaten Transgender Americans’ Rights

A Trump 2020 flag outside of a home.

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Millions Could Lose Housing Aid Under Trump Plan

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The (New) Fulcrum celebrates the American spirit

Opinion

Sheet music in front of an American flag
merrymoonmary/Getty Images
By Debilyn Molineaux,
Debilyn Molineaux

Debilyn Molineaux is the catalyst of JEDIfutures.org , a global initiative that helps people imagine and create just, equitable, dignified, and inclusive futures. She is best known for her pioneering work in civic innovation, having co-founded Bridge Alliance, Living Room Conversations, and National Week of Conversation. She formerly acted as co-publisher for The Fulcrum. Across these efforts, Debilyn has brought together unlikely allies to co-create solutions for democracy, governance, and social transformation.

Her work lives at the intersection of strategy, systems change, and spirit. A long-time practitioner of personal and collective growth, she brings a deep commitment to the inner dimensions of change that are often overlooked but essential to transformation. Debilyn speaks of the “interstitial spaces” — the connective tissue between people, institutions, and movements — where new possibilities take root.

She also hosts the podcast Terrified Nation, which helps audiences move from fear and despair into courage and action. Her voice is sought by impact investors, changemakers, and visionary leaders who want to align resources, imagination, and human growth toward a thriving future for all.

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David L. Nevins
David L. Nevins
David L. Nevins serves as publisher of The Fulcrum. Additionally, Nevins serves as co-founder and Board Chairman of the Bridge Alliance. Nevins brings business acumen, vision and a tireless this-must-and-can-be-done zeal to the burgeoning movement to bridge divides to transform the political process. As a business leader, Nevins excels at building bridges between people and organizations from the right, left and center for civilized conversation and then action. He co-founded the Bridge Alliance because, as he says, “No matter how well managed and how well funded anyone organization is, significant political reform will not happen without an alliance to further collaborative interactions. Together we can and will raise the collective impact of all.” He is a member of the Aspen Institute Society of Fellows, with a focus on the Aspen Rodel Fellowship in Public Leadership, he established and continues to work with The Nevins Democracy Leaders program at Penn State University. Nevins graduated with honors in economics from Penn State in 1969 and received an M.B.A. in finance from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1971.
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Sep 22, 2021

Molineaux is president/CEO of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund, and Nevins is its co-founder and board chairman. They are co-publishers of The Fulcrum.

In May 2021, when we took over as publishers of The Fulcrum, we were thrilled to have the opportunity to build upon the successes of the first two years. We told you then that The Fulcrum has the potential to serve an important role in acknowledging our differences as a nation in order to strengthen the bonds among us.

Our four-month journey has taught us much.

We are proud of our accomplishments. The 150,000-plus page views per month and 150-plus stories from The Fulcrum that have been re-published by other newspapers and journals across the country are indicators of expanding interest in our coverage.

But we are committed to do more and we are proud to announce a relaunch of The (New) Fulcrum that will further increase our coverage.

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in a recent report called "Our Common Purpose," spoke of "healthy civic culture of participation and responsibility ... which is a combination of the values, norms and narratives that keep our political institutions responsive and inclusive."

The (New) Fulcrum is committed to continuing coverage of news, politics, policy and public affairs. But we are adding new coverage of culture to deepen understanding of our differences and similarities and discover our shared interests and common destinies.

The cultural references we will focus on will include all of the creative arts — music of all types, poetry, dance, literature, painting and drawing, comedy, drama. We will also include aspects of sports: the wonder of athletes' physical prowess, cooperative potential and competitive instincts. We will appeal to the human spirit — spirit that expresses the joys, sorrows and harmonies of the heart and soul.

Indeed, culture is the quintessence of humanity's expressive hope; the realm of endeavor in which our senses — sight, sound, smell, touch and feeling — are shared in family, community and country.

In our increasingly complex world of trauma and travail, where we must care about the health of our democracy and strive relentlessly to strengthen our representative republic, we call upon the products and services of our artists and athletes to remind us of our heritages and traditions, our cooperative and competitive selves.

Accordingly, The (New) Fulcrum will be committed to honoring and celebrating culture as a bridge to the latest news and analysis of politics, policy and the birth of a new civic and political voice to build greater social cohesion, civic engagement and problem-solving.

We invite you to discover and share with us cultural references and products that inspire our better angels that we can disseminate as part of our continuing coverage of the problems and solutions of our times.

As an example please take two minutes and listen to the song "Democracy" from the Broadway musical "Soft Power," and you'll understand our intent.

"Democracy (Reprise)" from SOFT POWER | The Public Theaterwww.youtube.com

As you listen to the song we hope you will agree that art has power to break down boundaries and overcome distances between people.

We invite you to subscribe to our daily email, share our content widely and join us on our journey as we fulfill our mission of being a place where insiders and outsiders to politics are informed, meet, talk and act to repair our democracy and make it live and work in our everyday lives.

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Iguanas on the Tombstones: A Poet's Metaphor for Colonialism​
Photo illustration by Yunuen Bonaparte for palabra

Iguanas on the Tombstones: A Poet's Metaphor for Colonialism​

Iguanas may seem like an unconventional subject for verse. Yet their ubiquitous presence caught the attention of Puerto Rican poet Martín Espada when he visited a historic cemetery in Old San Juan, the burial place of pro-independence voices from political leader Pedro Albizu Campos to poet and political activist José de Diego.

“It was quite a sight to witness these iguanas sunning themselves on a wall of that cemetery, or slithering from one tomb to the next, or squatting on the tomb of Albizu Campos, or staring up at the bust of José de Diego, with a total lack of comprehension, being iguanas,” Espada told palabra from his home in the western Massachusetts town of Shelburne Falls.

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Does One Battle After Another Speak to Latino Resistance?

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(Photo by Eloisa Sanchez/Getty Images)

Does One Battle After Another Speak to Latino Resistance?

After decades of work, Angeleno director P.T. Anderson has scored his highest-grossing film with his recent One Battle After Another. Having opened on the weekend of September 26, the film follows the fanatical, even surrealistic, journey of washed-up revolutionary Bob Ferguson (Leonardo DiCaprio), who lives in hiding with his teenage daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti), some fifteen years after his militant group, French 75, went underground. When their nemesis Colonel Lockjaw (Sean Penn) resurfaces, Bob and Wila again find themselves running from the law. When Wila goes AWOL, her karate teacher, Sensei Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio del Toro), is enlisted to help Bob find his daughter. Although ambitious, edgy, and fun, the political message of the hit film is generally muddled. The immensely talented director did not make a film matching the Leftist rigor of, say, Battleship Potemkin. Nor can the film be grouped among a veritable cavalcade of fictional and non-fictional films produced during the last twenty years that deal with immigrant issues along the U.S.-Mexico Border. Sleep Dealer, El Norte, and Who is Dayani Cristal? are but a few of the stronger offerings of a genre of filmmaking that, for both good and bad, may constitute a true cinematic cottage industry.

Nevertheless, the film leans heavily into Latino culture in terms of themes, setting, and characters. Filmed largely in the U.S.’s Bordertown par excellence—El Paso, Texas—we meet the martial arts teacher Sergio, who describes his work helping migrants cross the border as a “Latino Harriet Tubman situation.” We learn that the fugitive revolutionary, Bob, is known by several aliases, including “The Gringo Coyote.” His savior, Sensei Sergio, explains to him outrightly that he’s “a bad hombre”—cheekily invoking the hurtful bon mots used by then-candidate Donald Trump in a 2016 debate with Hilary Clinton. The epithet is repeated later on in the film when Bob, under police surveillance in the hospital, is tipped off to an exit route by a member of the French 75 disguised as a nurse: “Are you diabetic? You’re a bad hombre, Bob. You know, if you’re a bad hombre, you make sure you take your insulin on a daily basis, right?” All this, plus the fact that the film’s denouement begins with a raid on a Mexican Restaurant in Northern California.

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​Jimmy Kimmel onstage during the 67th GRAMMY Awards

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Getty Images, Johnny Nunez

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There are moments in a nation’s cultural life that feel, at first, like passing storms—brief, noisy, and soon forgotten. But every so often, what begins as a squall reveals itself as a warning: a sign that something far bigger is at stake. The initial cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel by Disney, along with the coordinated blackout from network affiliates like Nexstar and Sinclair, is one of those moments. It’s not merely another skirmish in the endless culture wars. Actually, it is a test of whether we, as a society, can distinguish between the discomfort of being challenged and the danger of being silenced.

The irony is rich, almost to the point of being absurd. Here is a late-night comedian, a man whose job is to puncture the pompous and needle the powerful, finding himself at the center of a controversy. A controversy bigger than anything he’d ever lampooned. Satire that, depending on your perspective, was either too pointed or simply pointed in the wrong direction. Yet, that was not the ostensible reason.

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Bad Bunny performs live during "No Me Quiero Ir De Aquí; Una Más" Residencia at Coliseo de Puerto Rico José Miguel Agrelot on September 20, 2025 in San Juan, Puerto Rico

Getty Images, Gladys Vega

From Woodstock to Super Bowl: Bad Bunny and the Legacy of Musical Protest

As Bad Bunny prepares to take the Super Bowl stage in February 2026—and grassroots rallies in his honor unfold across U.S. cities this October—we are witnessing a cultural moment that echoes the artist-led protests of the 1960s and 70s. His decision to exclude U.S. tour dates over fears of ICE raids is generating considerable anger amongst his following, as well as support from MAGA supporters. The Trump administration views his lyrics and his fashion as threats. As the story unfolds, it is increasingly becoming a political narrative rather than just entertainment news.

Music has long been a part of the American political scene. In 1969, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young released “Ohio,” a response to the Kent State shootings that galvanized antiwar sentiment.

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