Illustration of people pro-palestine protest
The past two years have witnessed an unprecedented outpouring of passion and energy in defense of Palestinian lives. Since October 2023, more than 22,000 rallies, marches, vigils, and blockades have been held across the United States. They have brought millions into the streets, blocked airports and bridges, and filled the squares of our cities with chants of solidarity.
And yet—what has changed? Gaza is still under siege, its population slaughtered every single day, and a famine is decimating a whole generation of Palestinian children who, if they don’t die of hunger, are likely to suffer for the rest of their lives the physical and emotional trauma of famine and the terror they are enduring daily. All along, U.S. policy has remained firmly aligned with Israel, with the flow of weapons uninterrupted.
It is time to admit a painful truth: Protest - no matter how vociferous, no matter how righteous – without political imagination is not a strategy: It is an ineffectual ritual. And when sustained over time, it risks becoming a form of catharsis for the powerless rather than a lever to actually shift power.
History offers proof. The massive demonstrations against the Iraq and Afghanistan wars did not halt the invasions or occupations. Obama was not swayed by the protests after the 2008 financial collapse — he rescued the bankers who caused the meltdown, not the families who lost their homes. Even the Watergate hearings, which were propelled by public outrage, revealed how quickly righteous passion can be fragmented, manipulated, and ultimately co-opted.
Meanwhile, those who seek power on the right understand something too few on the left are willing to learn: Political change is won by seizing the levers of power, not chanting outside their doors. The right does not pour its energy into endless protest. Instead, it organizes quietly, takes over school boards, funds candidates, and wins congressional and statehouse seats. Once in office, they use that power—even to push policies opposed by the majority of Americans.
Contrast that with AIPAC. It does not organize rallies in the streets. It does not depend on spectacles of moral witness. Instead, it pools money, recruits candidates, funds them lavishly, and threatens any elected official who dares step out of line. AIPAC has built a political machine—precisely because it understands that in America, policy does not follow the loudest chant; it follows the flow of money and the hard mechanics of winning seats.
Just sit down and imagine this: Imagine if the enormous energy expended in those 22,000 pro-Palestine demonstrations had been directed differently.
Imagine if, in every state, activists chose a single congressional district, recruited an unapologetic pro-Palestine candidate, and poured their resources and energies (think of all the money spent on gas, metro fees, food, flyers, drums to bang on, loud speakers, Keffiyehs, etc., etc.) into getting them elected.
Imagine if, rather than pleading with those in power, a movement had been quietly and resolutely built that made it clear the time for pleading was over, and that the time to reclaim power had begun.
Imagine the political earthquake caused by the influx of 50 new members of Congress who were arriving to change the whole rotten, immoral game.
More crucially, imagine the new era we would have launched where the people, inspired by such a stunning victory that went from “we have had it” to “we are here to govern ourselves," start mobilizing for the next cycle, now fully certain that they can seize their destiny by the horn and assert their will through the ballot box, with their elected candidate fully understanding that they will remain in office only with the grace of their now fully and self-consciously empowered constituency.
And there are many precedents to this.
The Tea Party, with far fewer bodies in the streets than the anti-war movement, transformed the Republican Party by targeting primaries, ousting incumbents, and sending shock waves through Washington. The Christian Right did the same a generation earlier, burrowing into local school boards, judicial appointments, and congressional races until it reshaped the national conversation. These movements understood that policy follows power, and power is won at the ballot box, not at the barricade.
Today, the American public is decidedly and demonstrably pro-working class on the core issues that matter: Healthcare, wealth inequality, reproductive rights, foreign policy restraint. And yet, despite this numerical advantage, those who claim that they are champions of their constituency routinely fail to wield the power they are given on behalf of those who voted them in. Why? Because too many politicians see office not as a vehicle to represent the will of the people but as a springboard to a career to be reliably financed by the same deep-pocketed interests who profit from the status quo.
That is why protests, however righteous, often leave so little behind. They may raise awareness, they may create moments of solidarity, but unless they translate into institutional power, they dissipate.
The right understands this. AIPAC understands this. Until the pro-Palestine and by extension the pro-working class movement learns this and acts on it as well, it will continue to expend oceans of energy in ritualistic protest, while the machinery of policy grinds on untouched.
The real courage today lies not in the streets but in the ballot box — in refusing to beg those in power to listen, and instead on building a movement that seizes power from them.
creative image of Chantal
In 1972, I taught at a Boston prep school where one of my students, Chantal, had been sent from Haiti by her privileged family to complete her secondary education. She was poised, serious, and ambitious. But what I remember most was her fear — and her warning.
"You Americans don't know how lucky you are," she would say, speaking in hushed tones about people who disappeared without warning under Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier's brutal regime. She'd describe how neighbors would simply vanish. Not political activists, just ordinary people who'd said the wrong thing to the wrong person.
"The smart ones learn to be quiet," she'd say, "but quiet people can't save a country." Even the privileged, she explained, were not immune when danger lived in silence.
Fifty years later, watching American democracy strain under unprecedented pressures, I finally understand what Chantal knew instinctively: that constitutional protections mean nothing without the institutional will to enforce them, and that authoritarianism rarely announces itself with jackboots. It arrives quietly, through normalized corruption and rewritten rules.
The Supreme Court's July 2024 ruling in Trump v. United States granted presidents broad immunity from prosecution for official acts, a dramatic expansion of executive power. Combined with the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, which the ACLU describes as authored by "140 former Trump staffers" as "a roadmap for how to replace the rule of law with right-wing ideals," and research showing the US is on track to lose its democracy status within six months, we're witnessing a fundamental challenge to American democratic institutions.
This moment feels unprecedented to many Americans. But Chantal would recognize it immediately, and so should we if we remember our own history correctly.
The Gilded Age We Never Fully Left Behind
Americans often invoke the Gilded Age as a period of entrepreneurial greatness, but we rarely reckon with its systematic brutality. From 1870 to 1900, government wasn't captured by wealthy interests — it was designed by them, for them. Railroad barons wrote transportation policy. Steel magnates controlled labor law. Political machines brokered democracy behind closed doors while children lost limbs in unregulated factories.
The parallels to today are instructive. According to inequality researchers, the top 0.01% of families now control 10% of the country's wealth, surpassing even Gilded Age levels. More concerning is institutional capture—contemporary movements systematically placing allies throughout the federal judiciary, election systems, and regulatory agencies.
The difference is scale and sophistication. Where Gilded Age corruption was often transactional---direct bribes, patronage jobs---today's influence operates through legal structures: dark money networks, regulatory capture, and constitutional interpretation that
This is what Chantal recognized instinctively. The real danger isn't dramatic coups, but the quiet rewriting of rules. In the 1970s, Haiti's Duvaliers maintained a constitutional facade while ruling through fear and patronage, illustrating how formal protections can be meaningless without genuine institutional safeguards.
Unlike the original Gilded Age's limited voting rights, today's crisis unfolds within the context of universal suffrage. This makes the current moment both more concerning and more hopeful—democratic tools are accessible to far more people than robber barons ever faced.
But there's a crucial lesson from that earlier era: what feels permanent can change rapidly when enough people refuse to accept it as usual.
When Silence Broke
The Progressive Era didn't begin with Theodore Roosevelt's "Square Deal" or with landmark legislation. It started with journalists, activists, and ordinary citizens who refused to accept that inequality was natural or that corruption was inevitable. Ida Tarbell exposed Standard Oil's monopolistic practices through rigorous investigation. Jane Addams created models for how government could serve public welfare rather than private interests.
These reformers understood something crucial: democracy isn't a system you inherit. It's something you build, continuously, through institutions that distribute power rather than concentrate it. Their innovations laid the foundation for 20th-century American governance, including antitrust law, workplace safety regulations, public health systems, and civil service reforms.
What We're Building Now
Today's democratic innovations are emerging at the state and local level, where federal gridlock has created space for experimentation. From ranked-choice voting to participatory budgeting to proportional representation, communities are testing reforms that distribute power more broadly and create incentives for coalition-building rather than polarization.
More significantly, a new generation of reformers is tackling structural problems the Progressive Era left unfinished, developing frameworks for constitutional democracy and building movements that don't rely on traditional party structures.
Chantal would have understood the fragility of these experiments. In Haiti, she'd seen how quickly democratic innovations could be dismantled when power was concentrated in the wrong hands. "It's not enough to build good things," she might have said, "you have to build them strong enough to survive the people who want to tear them down."
But unlike the Progressive Era's reforms, which ultimately required federal legislation and presidential leadership, today's innovations face a more challenging landscape. The Supreme Court's current composition appears hostile to voting rights and campaign finance reform. Congressional gridlock makes it nearly impossible to pass major legislation. And the information environment makes building consensus around shared facts increasingly difficult.
The Work of Democracy
Chantal understood that democracy isn't passive; it's something you do continuously. Progressive Era reformers created new forms of democratic accountability for industrial capitalism; however, we now need innovations designed to address today's challenges, including global capital flows, digital systems, and political polarization.
What Chantal Would Say Now
I think Chantal would recognize both the danger and the opportunity in this moment. She understood that authoritarianism succeeds not only through dramatic coups but through the gradual normalization of corrupt practices, and that it can be stopped by people who refuse to accept that normalization.
I wonder what Chantal would make of Americans who dismiss concerns about democratic backsliding as "alarmist." She'd recognize that dismissal. It's precisely what privileged Haitians told themselves right up until the moment their privilege couldn't protect them anymore.
She also understood that privilege provides no protection when institutional guardrails collapse. In Haiti, wealth and status held little value when the rule of law was absent. In America, constitutional rights mean nothing without institutions willing and able to enforce them.
But Chantal also knew something else: that people who understand the fragility of democracy can become its most effective defenders. She didn't flee Haiti because she was powerless. She was sent away precisely because her family understood how quickly any remaining freedoms could vanish entirely.
That's the choice facing Americans now. We can assume our democracy is self-sustaining, or follow the example of Progressive Era reformers and people like Chantal, who understood that democracy is something you build, not inherit.
The work begins with refusing normalized corruption. Support the Fair Representation Act, proportional representation, ranked-choice voting, and participatory budgeting. Contact your representatives about the Freedom to Vote Act. Join organizations like FairVote, RepresentUs, or the Participatory Budgeting Project. The innovations essential to preserving democracy are happening now. The question is whether we'll scale them fast enough.
You Americans, Chantal might say today, still don't know how lucky you have been, but you might be starting to learn.
Edward Saltzberg is the Executive Director of the Security and Sustainability Forum and writes The Stability Brief.
Trinity Health of New England
On September 30, 2025, the outpatient behavioral health departments of Trinity Health of New England are scheduled to close their doors. For many, this may seem like a routine administrative shift. But for those of us living with medical complexities, disabilities, and limited access through Medicare and Medicaid, it marks the end of a lifeline.
My therapist at St. Francis is not just a provider—she is a witness to my life. She celebrates milestones with me, like the development of my children beyond their medical complexities, and the quiet triumphs of my own healing. She holds space for the unimaginable: the disappearance of my autistic son, the electric shock treatment to my heart after the devastating loss of my mother and three matriarchs during the pandemic, and much more. She doesn’t flinch. She listens. She remembers. She reminds me that I am still here.
That relationship is built over time, through trust, consistency, and inclusivity, with access to telehealth. However, I am now being told that even that sacred space is being taken away—with no clear or equitable alternative.
Disrupting therapeutic relationships is not just inconvenient—it’s destabilizing. Especially for those of us whose default prescription is “seek counseling,” when specialists routinely admit they cannot address our “unique” patient-centered needs. Counseling becomes the one place where I am not asked to explain or justify my complexity—it is honored.
This closure comes just weeks after Connecticut passed one of the strongest mental health parity laws in the country, mandating equal coverage for mental health and physical health services, imposing fines up to $625,000 for noncompliance, and requiring annual public reporting from insurers. Governor Lamont calls it a shift from “hoping insurers do the right thing to holding them accountable when they don’t.” And yet, what good is parity on paper if the infrastructure to deliver care is being dismantled?
And still, I rise.
As a former gubernatorial appointee and Chair of the Council on Developmental Disabilities, NAMI CT President https://youtu.be/_4nLoyM0fmw?si=_l0ZJTLC0dC6JAjI and the Keep the Promise Coalition Chair, I’ve spent years creating opportunities for others —building statewide and national allyship, advancing communication access, and pushing for person-centered systems change. I lead panels, author strategies, and stand in rooms where decisions are made. But I also stand in waiting rooms, advocating for my own care, knowing that leadership doesn’t exempt me from systemic indifference.
I learn to breathe through the chaos, to pause when the weight becomes unbearable, and to return to what makes me thrive: my family, my faith, and my fierce belief that equity is not optional. Even when the system fails me, I refuse to let it fail others.
We are living through a national mental health crisis, compounded by economic instability, housing insecurity, and systemic inequities. The most vulnerable—those who are homeless, disabled, or medically complex—are being left to fend for themselves or fall through the cracks. We are being rendered invisible. Again.
It feels like 1999 all over again, when institutional closures and policy gaps left thousands without support. We say “never again.” Yet here we are.
If Connecticut truly believes in equity, inclusion, and mental health parity, then the September 30 closure must be a call to action. We need legislation that not only holds insurers accountable but also protects access to care, funds community-based behavioral health, and ensures continuity—especially for those of us who cannot afford to be forgotten.
“¡Gracias!” to my therapist who ensured there was Nothing about us without us. Your humanity will be sorely missed! It's time for the “foodie capital of the world” to prioritize being the Mental Health Capitol! Mental health care is not optional. It is essential.
Doris Maldonado Mendez is a member of the Connecticut Mirror’s Community Editorial Board.
US Canada tariff battle
The Fulcrum strives to approach news stories with an open mind and skepticism, striving to present our readers with a broad spectrum of viewpoints through diligent research and critical thinking. As best we can, remove personal bias from our reporting and seek a variety of perspectives in both our news gathering and selection of opinion pieces. However, before our readers can analyze varying viewpoints, they must have the facts.
A tariff is a tax imposed by a government on imports or exports of goods, often used to protect domestic industries or respond to trade disputes.
As of August 2025, Canada has significantly reduced its retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods. On September 1, Canada will lift most of the 25% counter-tariffs it imposed in March on $29.8 billion worth of U.S. imports.. However, tariffs remain in place for strategic sectors:
Goods covered under the USMCA (Canada’s CUSMA) are now largely tariff-free, reflecting a renewed commitment to free trade.
The U.S. maintains a mixed tariff regime:
Despite these measures, over 85% of Canada-U.S. trade is now tariff-free, and the average U.S. tariff rate on Canadian goods stands at 5.6%—the lowest among U.S. trading partners.
Starting September 1, Canada will remove tariffs on a wide range of U.S. consumer and agricultural goods, including:
These removals signal a strategic pivot toward restoring trade relations and aligning with USMCA provisions.
Canadian imports of U.S. goods have declined notably in 2025. From January to June, total imports from the U.S. fell by approximately $2.86 billion compared to the same period in 2024—a 1.5% drop. The decline is most pronounced in:
Retailers and manufacturers are responding by staging inventory in the U.S., renegotiating vendor contracts, and exploring offshore sourcing to avoid tariff exposure.
Yes, and dramatically so. Canadian travel to the U.S. has plummeted in 2025, with steep declines across all modes of transportation:
Both economic and political factors drive this downturn:
Canadians are increasingly choosing alternative destinations like Mexico and the Caribbean, reshaping North American tourism flows.
Yes. In 2025, Canada remains a top destination for U.S. agricultural exports. Dairy exports alone continue to exceed $8 billion annually, with Canada and Mexico accounting for over 40% of that volume. Access to Canadian markets remains vital for U.S. farmers to manage supply, stabilize prices, and maintain profitability.
The USMCA continues to offer mutual benefits:
Recent tariff removals and diplomatic overtures suggest a renewed effort to balance trade interests, though strategic sectors remain contentious.
In 2025, the U.S. continues to run a trade deficit with Canada:
Energy imports—especially crude oil and natural gas—remain the primary drivers of this imbalance.
Not necessarily. The U.S.-Canada trade relationship is deeply integrated:
While some sectors feel pressure, the overall relationship remains one of mutual benefit and strategic importance.
David Nevins is publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
