What if we could reinvent the public square in the context of our elections so candidates can genuinely earn the attention to compete? At Pluribus we believe a more meritocratic and modern public square would: 1. Increase participation and informed decision-making by the electorate. 2. Lower the barrier to entry so there is greater competition and more diversity of candidates. 3. Increase prioritization of broad public interests.
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
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's annual policy conference at the Washington Convention Center March 6, 2018 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The Unscrupulousness of AIPAC
Aug 16, 2026
After AIPAC failed to defeat El-Sayed in the Michigan Democratic Senate primary—after spending $32 million—it said that it remains committed to defeating El-Sayed and his "radical, anti-Israel" agenda in the general election. Which means it is poised to sink tens of millions of dollars in supporting Republican Mike Rogers. It also said that Haley Stevens, his opponent, had presented "an authentic Democratic agenda." Meaning that El-Sayed did not? And they think that Mike Rogers, a MAGA Trump supporter, does compared with El-Sayed?
How can AIPAC say that El-Sayed does not present an authentic Democratic agenda when his socialist stance is much more in line with the principles stated in the Declaration of Independence than most centrist Democrats'? And making it sound like AIPAC cares about an authentic Democratic agenda is deceitful, when in the same breath they make clear that they will support Mike Rogers, a Trump lackey, in the general election.
AIPAC's one-dimensional perspective is clearer now than ever. They will fight for the unequivocal U.S. support of Israel at any cost, even if it means having the Republicans and Trump remain in power and destroy our nation.
They are like the Evangelicals to whom there was nothing more important than the creation of a conservative judiciary that would reverse Roe v Wade and other liberal policies, such as LGBT rights, even at the cost of supporting perhaps the most Godless, misogynistic President that the United States has ever had and his MAGA allies. In both cases, they have made a bargain with the devil that will ultimately cost them their souls.
Let me state very clearly at the outset that I, as an American Jew who is the child of holocaust survivors, am a firm supporter of the State of Israel. As illustrated in numerous posts, I have, however, been critical of various actions of past and current Israeli governments towards Palestinians—both Palestinian citizens of Israel and those living in Gaza and the West Bank. See my posts, "The Palestinian/Israel Conflict - A Reality Check," and "A Democrat’s Plan for Ending the War in Gaza and Establishing Peace between Israel and the Palestinians."
And so, I have no problem with there being an organization such as AIPAC that has as its principal mission American support of Israel. But their version of supporting Israel is the "my country, right or wrong" version. It makes no difference what the government in power does; it doesn't matter how egregious the policies and actions of Netanyahu are; they support Israel regardless.
That position is not, in my view, supporting Israel's best interests. Israel has not just become a pariah among many formerly supportive governments around the world; it has suffered existential damage and is further from achieving security for its people than perhaps ever.
When looking at AIPAC's actions, I believe they support Netanyahu because they are as right-wing as he is. They have voiced no criticism of the settlers or other right-wing Israelis that have nothing but contempt for Palestinians. Officially, they support a two-state solution, but their support of Netanyahu's government and settler actions against Palestinians makes that official position a farce, a proverbial "fig leaf."
They are not an organization that asks, how do we support Israel while always acting in the best interests of the United States. They could do so much good with their money and influence. They could work for a better, more democratic Israel, but instead they are supporters of the Netanyahu government. They could work for an Israel that is at peace with its neighbors and is the core of an economic engine that transforms the Middle East. Instead, they work for an Israel that maintains itself through force and fear, never allowing its people to experience the security that comes from living in peace.
Israel deserves the United States' support. But that support should not be unconditional. It is not the role of the U.S. to judge Israeli governments, but when a government takes action that is contrary to international law and is questionable from a human rights standpoint, it should withhold support.
U.S. law provides for withholding arms sales in various situations. First, defense articles may be sold only for specific purposes, including "internal security and legitimate self-defense." Second, no security assistance may be provided to any country whose government engages in a "consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights." Without question, the use of arms against Gaza has gone far beyond "legitimate self-defense" and is evidence of a "consistent pattern" of gross violations of human rights.
AIPAC's support of Israel, regardless of what it is doing, encourages a violation of U.S. law by members of Congress and is unscrupulous.
Ronald L. Hirsch is a teacher, legal aid lawyer, survey researcher, nonprofit executive, consultant, composer, author, and volunteer. He is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Chicago Law School and the author of We Still Hold These Truths. Read more of his writing at www.PreservingAmericanValues.com
Keep ReadingShow less
Recommended
silhouette of person using microscope
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash
Scientists Warn of Deepening Federal Attacks on Research
Aug 16, 2026
Scientists and the federal government have been close partners since World War II. A landmark report by President Truman’s chief science advisor laid out a vision for government research that shaped eight decades of federally funded science. That vision is now at risk. In principle, the Trump administration has supported scientific research with its own vision for a new “golden age of science.” But in practice, the administration has upended the relationship between the government, researchers, and their institutions. The changes have alarmed working scientists and their allies, who have protested in record numbers.
In July, I moderated a webinar on “Rewriting the Rules: What’s happening to public science?” (read the transcript here). The webinar was co-sponsored by NAPA, CODE, and the Bridge Alliance, with Dr. Aaron Carroll of AcademyHealth, Dr. Chris Marcum of the Federation of American Scientists, Dr. Gretchen Goldman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and Dr. Maryam Zaringhalam of the Center for Open Science. I also interviewed Cole Donovan of the Stand Up for Science Foundation by email.
These leaders described many new risks to the scientific enterprise, including:
· Government threats to science across the board. The Union of Concerned Scientists maintains a tracker that has identified about 600 “attacks on science” so far under this administration – more than double the number in President Trump’s entire first term.
· Uncertainty and unpredictability. The administration has pulled back grants that were already obligated, ignored Congressional mandates, and canceled ongoing research programs in the middle of their work, resulting in what Aaron Carroll calls “chaotic” outcomes.
· Greater difficulty accessing data. Chris Marcum, who monitors risks to federal data with his colleagues at dataindex.us, describes “a strong effort to increase the friction for the public to access federal information, whether it's through removing websites or taking down data sets or removing data tools.”
· Damage to health, climate, and environmental research. In health, the Trump administration has gone after the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force, among other agencies and programs. On climate and the environment, it has targeted NOAA, the USDA, the U.S. Global Change Research Program, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
· Undermining trust in science. In May 2025, President Trump issued an executive order on “Restoring Gold Standard Science” premised on the view that “trust in science is going down, and that researchers have earned this mistrust,” says Maryam Zaringhalam. The Center for Open Science responded to the executive order with its own statement.
· Plans to place grant funding under political control. Since the beginning, this administration has eroded long-established systems for independent review of research, for example by disbanding committees that advise federal agencies. Now a proposed regulation from the Office of Management and Budget would require political appointees to review federal grants and empower agencies to cancel or terminate grants based on new priorities. If enacted, the regulation would effectively “end American science has we currently know it,” says Cole Donovan,
These threats have triggered large-scale protests. The proposed OMB regulation generated a remarkable 50 thousand public comments, with an overwhelming majority opposing it. While the ultimate fate of the regulation is unknown, the protest had an immediate impact: The Senate’s stopgap funding bill, passed almost unanimously in early August, includes a provision to stop OMB from implementing its proposed regulation at least until December.
Whatever else happens, the administration’s actions have led thousands of scientists out of the comfort zone of their labs and institutions. Stand Up for Science, founded right after President Trump’s inauguration, has organized marches and political campaigns to support American science in new ways. At the same time, the Union of Concerned Scientists, founded to protest military research during the Viet Nam War, has seen its network grow by more than 50 percent during this administration – and has successfully sued the government over a Department of Energy report that disputed climate science.
The future of American science may be uncertain, but public support for science has never been stronger. New organizations, new coalitions, and a new spirit of activism can protect and even invigorate the national scientific enterprise that we have taken for granted for too long.
You can find the full video of the webinar “Rewriting the Rules: What’s happening to public science?”
Joel Gurin is the president and founder of the Center for Open Data.Keep ReadingShow less
The exterior of Capitol Hill
Getty Images
Why hasn’t the Princeton Redistricting Project spoken out?
Aug 16, 2026
The 2026 congressional map is finally set after ten states adopted new congressional redistricting maps for the November 3 General Election. Observers note that the Princeton Gerrymandering Project (PGP) has not graded any state’s maps since it gave California’s Proposition 50 an “F” on October 30, 2025.
The PGP has officially paused grading its Redistricting Report Card because founder Dr. Sam Wang, who transitioned from the Gerrymandering Project to the Electoral Innovation Lab, has launched a campaign for Congress in New Jersey’s 12th District, requiring him to step back from his academic roles, including his leadership at PGP.
With the nonpartisan anti-corruption organization RepresentUs, the PGP created the Redistricting Report Card. The project grades maps on a scale from A to F using three criteria: partisan fairness, competitiveness, and geographic features (compactness and preservation of community cohesion).
This focuses solely on partisan fairness, which assesses whether the map gives one political party an unfair advantage over the other. To provide clarity, I am sharing my own analysis and grades for each state rather than official PGP evaluations. This should clarify my perspective and reasoning, and I urge you to consult nonpartisan sources and, where available, official PGP materials.
(On March 20, 2022, The Fulcrum published my grade for my birth state, West Virginia, because the PGP listed it among five states without draft maps. Later, the PGP graded the Mountaineer State an “A.”)
For the 2022 election, 22 states received “A” for their enacted congressional maps, five received “B,” four received “C,” three received “D,” and eight received “F.” Two states had insufficient data (Hawaii and Rhode Island). Six had an at-large representative (Alaska, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming).
The following ten states redrew their congressional maps through legislative action and court orders:
TEXAS: Up to 3-5 Republican seats
In Texas, the 2022 PGP grade was “F,” reflecting a 24-to-13 Republican advantage. The governor signed the 2026 congressional map on August 29, 2025, which could create up to five new Republican-leaning seats. The grade is likely to remain at “F.”
CALIFORNIA: Up to 4-5 Democratic seats
In California, the 2022 PGP grade was “B,” reflecting a 40-to-12 Democratic advantage. The California Legislature passed legislation and a constitutional amendment on August 21, 2025, to redraw the state's congressional districts. Voters subsequently approved the map as Proposition 50 in a special election on November 4, 2025. This change could affect the competitiveness of at least five Republican-held seats. Independent Voter News noted that the Princeton Gerrymandering Project rates California’s Proposition 50 an “F,” lowering the grade.
[Note: The new 40th Congressional District, one of five seats Democrats hope to flip, will not be flipped because two Republicans advanced to the General Election after the top-two primary on June 2.]
MISSOURI: Up to 1 new Republican seat
On September 28, 2025, Missouri became the third state to attempt to redraw its districts for partisan advantage after the state governor signed a revised House map into law. That map could help Republicans win an additional seat by reshaping a Democratic-held district in Kansas City. On July 23, 2026, a federal district court denied a motion to block Missouri’s redrawn congressional map and ordered that the districts be used in the August 4, 2026, primary elections. Missouri’s 2202 PGP grade of “A” should be changed to “C.”
NORTH CAROLINA: Up to 1 new Republican seat
The Republican-led General Assembly gave final approval on October 22, 2025, to revised districts that could help Republicans win an additional seat, with a focus on the 1st District. (The Governor cannot veto redistricting plans under the state Constitution.) North Carolina’s 2022 PGP grade of “B” was downgraded to “F” for the 2026 map.
OHIO: Up to 1-2 new Republican seats
On October 31, 2025, the Ohio Redistricting Commission unanimously approved a 2026 congressional map for the state’s 15 U.S. House districts. The map, which remains in effect until 2031, increases the Republican advantage in the state from 10-5 (since the 2022 election) to a projected 12-3 margin. The new grade could drop from a 2022 PGP grade of “D” to “F.”
UTAH: Up to 1 new Democratic seat
On November 10, 2025, a Utah state judge rejected a Republican-drawn congressional map and approved an alternative that included a solidly Democratic district in the Salt Lake City area. The decision may affect all four congressional districts currently held by Republicans and could shift one seat to Democrats. The grade is predicted to rise from the 2022 PGP “F” to a “C.”
FLORIDA: Up to 4 Republican seats
On May 4, 2026, the Florida Governor signed the controversial mid-decade congressional map into law to counteract redistricting actions in other states and to improve the GOP’s chances of winning four additional seats. The map reshapes 28 U.S. House seats to heavily favor Republicans, resulting in a 24-4 partisan split. The new map will not change Florida’s 2022 PGP grade, which was an “F.”
LOUISIANA: Up to 1 Republican seat
On May 29, 2026, the Louisiana Governor signed a new congressional map intended to shift one of the state’s two Democratic districts toward the Republican Party, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais. This action reduced the 2022 PGP grade from “A” to “C.”
ALABAMA: Up to 1 Republican seat
On June 2, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Alabama could use its 2023 congressional map for the 2026 General Election. The map, whose 2022 PGP grade was downgraded from “A” to “F,” is expected to increase Republican representation by one seat. The current delegation is seven Republicans and two Democrats. The map’s grade is expected to remain “F.”
TENNESSEE: Up to 1 Republican seat
On July 23, 2026, a federal three-judge panel ordered Tennessee to adopt a new congressional map that splits a majority-Black district in Memphis. As a result, the state is likely to elect an all-Republican delegation to Congress this fall. Like Louisiana, Tennessee’s 2022 PGP grade of “A” has dropped to “C”.
For the 2022 PGP grade your state received, refer to the list below. Check your state’s grade, then compare it with the 2026 projections to see how the map may change. States receiving an “A” include Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, and Washington. States with a “B” grade are Iowa, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, and Oklahoma received a “C.” New Mexico and Oregon received a “D.” Illinois, Kansas, Nevada, South Carolina, and Wisconsin received an “F.”
For 2026, ‘A’ states are projected to decline from 22 to 21, including Hawaii and Rhode Island; ‘B’ from 5 to 3; ‘C’ from 4 to 7; and ‘D’ from 3 to 2. The number of ‘F’ states is projected to increase from 8 to 11. Review these shifts to identify where partisan fairness changes most.
Let’s punt a PGP football (not soccer) to the Electoral Innovation Lab for the rest of this census decade.
Howard Gorrell is an advocate for the deaf, a former Republican Party election statistician, and a longtime congressional aide. He has been advocating against partisan gerrymandering for four decades.
Keep ReadingShow less
Lady Justice
Photo provided
Impunity: Democracy and the Toll of Unchecked Harm
Aug 16, 2026
Impunity is not only the failure to punish. It is a public answer to the question of whether harm matters.
Every democracy must repeatedly answer the question of impunity. When public trust is violated, or when law itself is manipulated or attacked, penalties matter. But the deeper question is whether a society can recognize injury and prevent further harm when it has lost the ability to clearly name wrongdoing.
Impunity does not merely leave a crime unanswered. It alters the moral atmosphere. It teaches citizens what may be done without consequence, that suffering does not count, and that wrongdoers are not answerable to the world they have harmed.
A Civic and Moral Failure
Impunity is not only a legal failure but also a civic, moral, and sometimes spiritual failure. Religious communities have taught us this. When institutions devoted to conscience, care, and the sacred protect the powerful from consequence, the wound reaches beyond the individual victim into the moral order that institution claims to serve. Psychologists Jennifer Freyd and Carly Smith call this institutional betrayal: the injury done when the institutions that people depend upon fail to prevent harm, conceal it, excuse it, or respond in ways that deepen the original wound. In religious life, that betrayal can become spiritual. When the protection of authority becomes more important than the recognition of harm, the sacred itself is enlisted in betrayal.
Democracies, too, can betray. They betray not only when laws are broken but also when law loses its relation to truth. Public offices can become shields against accountability, and injury to the common world is then displaced onto retaliation against those who try to name it.
A democracy depends upon more than procedure. It depends upon a shared capacity to acknowledge that the harm has happened and that it requires an answer. Without that capacity, public life becomes morally disorganized. Citizens are asked to live inside a contradiction where injury becomes grievance, accountability is perceived as persecution, and loyalty to power is the same as loyalty to the nation.
Hannah Arendt understood that politics depends upon a common world where facts can appear, judgment can be exercised, and people can become answerable to one another. Contemporary psychoanalysis adds another dimension. We do not come to public life disembodied. We bring histories of shame, fear, injury, domination, denial, longing, and unmet repair. These histories do not remain private. They gather in institutions and organize groups. They move through what Earl Hopper called the social unconscious, the unspoken emotional life of societies that is carried beneath awareness until crisis makes it visible.
Impunity enters at this fault line. It offers relief from responsibility and displaces shame away from those who caused harm and onto those who insist that harm be recognized. Guilt becomes grievance. The injured other disappears, while injured power becomes the object of identification. The real wound is no longer the harm done but the humiliation of being held accountable.
The Systematic Inversion of Harm
The corruption of accountability is dangerous. A society can survive conflict, protest, reckoning, even the exposure of terrible wrongdoing. What it cannot survive indefinitely is the systematic inversion of harm. When those who injure are made into victims, when those who seek accountability are made into enemies, when law is used not to repair the common world but to reward the loyal, democratic life begins to lose its moral bearings.
In May 2026, the United States Department of Justice announced a $1.776 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund,” tied to the settlement of President Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax records. The fund was described as a mechanism to compensate people allegedly harmed by government weaponization and lawfare. Legal challenges followed. Critics questioned whether taxpayer money was being used to create a system of redress, or whether it risked becoming a political reward fund for those recast as victims of accountability. A federal judge temporarily blocked implementation. As this essay was finalized, Republican resistance appeared to force a pause, underscoring that democratic counter-pressure still matters.
The courts will determine the legality of the fund. But the psychological and civic question is before us. What happens when the language of harm is captured by power? What happens when grievance becomes the vehicle through which accountability is reversed, and the state participates in that displacement?
Democratic Pressure Works
In December 2012, Jyoti Singh, a young physiotherapy student in Delhi, was brutally raped and murdered. Her suffering horrified India and the world. People poured into the streets, grieving, enraged, ashamed, and unwilling to let the violence be absorbed into silence. I was doing some work in India during that period, and I remember the atmosphere not only as outrage but also as a struggle over meaning. Would this young woman’s suffering be privatized as family shame, or would it become a demand that the state, the courts, and the public recognize that harm had occurred and that law must answer?
Her parents played an extraordinary role. Her father, Badri Nath Singh, insisted that his daughter be named. He did not allow shame to rest upon her or the family. He placed responsibility where it belonged. In doing so, he helped alter the symbolic field. Jyoti Singh’s rape and death was not to be hidden as a stain upon the family. She was to be remembered as a daughter of India whose suffering exposed a failure in the nation’s conscience.
The protests that followed did not make India safe for women. No single law could do that. The wound was larger than legislation, and violence against women remains a continuing crisis. But something changed. Public grief became civic force. The Justice Verma Committee was formed. Laws were changed. The language of sexual assault was widened. The public had forced the law to answer harm.
This is not a simple story of progress. It is a story of democratic pressure. It shows what can happen when citizens refuse the psychic arrangement on which impunity depends. They refused silence. They refused the displacement of shame onto the victim. They refused the convenience of forgetting. They insisted that the state recognize injury and respond.
Toward Responsibility and Repair
Punishment is only one function of law. At its best, law helps a society keep harm, responsibility, and repair in right relation. It marks the difference between grievance and injury, between revenge and accountability, between private pain and public obligation. It says that the powerful may not define reality alone.
The insights of contemporary and feminist psychoanalysis are indispensable to understanding the dynamics of unchecked power. Jessica Benjamin has written of recognition as the fragile achievement through which one subject meets another as “real.” Domination begins when the other is no longer recognized as a full subject, but reduced to an object, obstacle, instrument, or threat. Lynne Layton reminds us that social inequalities do not remain outside the psyche. They shape what can be felt, disavowed, projected, or claimed as innocence. Donna Orange’s radical ethics insists upon the moral demand of suffering, the obligation not to turn away from the injured other.
These clinical ideas carry democratic meaning. A democracy requires the capacity to recognize the other as real. It requires institutions that can bear truth without retaliating against it. It requires enough moral courage to let shame do its proper work, not as humiliation but as a signal that one has violated a bond and must return to responsibility.
Jeffrey Rosen reminds us that the American founders understood the pursuit of happiness not as the pursuit of pleasure but as a lifelong discipline of virtue, character, self-command, and responsibility to the common good. That older moral vocabulary matters now. Democracy cannot endure on rights alone if rights are severed from conscience. Liberty, detached from responsibility, becomes exemption from consequence. Grievance, detached from truth, becomes a substitute for public life.
Punishment alone cannot answer the question before us. The deeper question is whether harm will be recognized, whether responsibility will remain where it belongs, and whether law will serve the public.
Impunity is seductive because it promises freedom without accountability. But that promise is false. Impunity asks whether or not harm matters. A democracy may answer through silence, delay, reversal, or reward. The wrong answer can have unbearable consequences.
A democracy reveals itself in what it does with harm. It may deny it, bury it, monetize it, spiritualize it, or turn it into grievance. Or it may recognize it, grieve it, investigate it, legislate in response to it, and create conditions in which trust can become possible again.
That work is never finished. It is legal work, civic work, psychological work, and spiritual work. It asks citizens and institutions alike to resist the comfort of innocence when innocence is purchased through denial. It asks us to remember that responsibility is not the enemy of freedom. It is one of freedom’s necessary forms.
When harm no longer matters, democracy itself is at risk. When harm is recognized, responsibility restored, and repair made thinkable, the common world can begin again.
Gaea Logan is a British-American relational psychoanalyst, educator, and writer. She is the executive director of the International Institute for Trauma Studies in Ukraine, chair of the Task Force on Dialogue and Peace, and a fellow of the American Group Psychotherapy Association.
This article was originally published as part of From Many, We, a Charles F. Kettering Foundation blog series that highlights the insights of thought leaders dedicated to the idea of inclusive democracy.
Keep ReadingShow less
Load More