Pete Hegseth's plummeting popularity blows away CNN data guru: 'On a different planet!'

Alexander Willis
March 20, 2026 

 RAW STORY

Harry Enten discusses polling data on CNN, March 20, 2026. (Screengrab / CNN)

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been overwhelmingly rejected by the American public, according to a new series of polls — and it's to such an extent that CNN’s Harry Enten was left astounded.

“He's going over like a lead balloon, not just overall, but especially with independents,” Enten said, reviewing new polling data from Quinnipiac and Yahoo. “Past secretaries of Defense at a time of war, this early on in the war, tend to be very popular, [but] just look at this!”

According to the new polling data, Hegseth’s net popularity currently sits at -15 overall and -28 among independent voters per Quinnipiac. Yahoo’s poll produced even lower figures, with Hegseth netting -18 net popularity, and a staggering -33 among independents.

The polls were conducted around two weeks after the Trump administration launched its war against Iran, a period that historically has seen secretaries of defense's popularity rise. That pattern was not repeated in Hegseth’s case.

“Normally, secretaries of defense are celebrated early in wars,” Enten noted. “At this point, Pete Hegseth is anything but celebrated.”

Looking at historical polling data, Enten noted that former Defense Secretary Dick Cheney enjoyed 62-point net popularity around two weeks into the Gulf War, and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a 58-point net popularity a few weeks into the Iraq War. Roughly the same time into Trump’s Iran war, Hegseth had a -17 net popularity.

“It's just completely on the other side of the aisle, 17 points below water in the average!” Enten said. “He is on a completely different planet, this war is being received completely differently, at least when looking at the secretary of Defense.”

CNN’s John Berman asked Enten whether Hegseth’s unprecedented unpopularity this early on in the Iran war could be due to President Donald Trump’s own historic unpopularity.

“No!” Enten answered. “No, secretaries of Defense under the first Trump administration were popular, especially 'Mad Dog" [Jim] Mattis!”

Killed airman's dad claims Hegseth lied in war brag about son

Travis Gettys
March 20, 2026

RAW STORY


U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth salutes, as he and President Donald Trump arrive at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware, U.S., March 18, 2026. REUTERS/Kylie Cooper


The father of a slain service member denied Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's account of their private conversation.

The Pentagon chief said Thursday that he had met the day before with the families of six military service members killed in the Iran war, and he said they told him to "honor their sacrifice" and "finish the job." But the father of an Air Force crew member killed in a crash characterized their exchange differently, reported NBC News.

“I can’t speak for the other families," said Charles Simmons. "When he spoke to me, that was not something we talked about."

Simmons' 28-year-old son Tech. Sgt. Tyler H. Simmons, was among six crew members killed when their refueling plane crashed in Iraq last week. He told NBC News his comments to the defense secretary at Dover Air Force Base were a bit more ambivalent than Hegseth claimed.

“I understand there’s a lot of peril that goes into making decisions like this, and I just certainly hope the decisions being made are necessary," Simmons said he told Hegseth.

Simmons, a 60-year-old music teacher from Columbus, Ohio, flatly denied telling Hegseth or President Donald Trump that he wanted them to continue fighting the war.

"No, I didn’t say anything along those lines," he said.

A public official who was within earshot of the president's meetings with family members told NBC News they did not hear anyone tell him to "finish the job."

Simmons conceded that he didn't "have all the data" the president and top military leaders had access to, but he said he had "questions" about the war.

“Who wants war?” he added. “Sometimes it’s a necessity, and I just don’t know what’s going on.”

Simmons did say that his son had expressed support for the operation before volunteering for the ultimately fatal mission.

“He said, ‘Dad, I can’t give you any details, but if civilians knew what we knew, a lot of the criticism [of the war] would cease,” Simmons said.


Simmons did credit both Trump and Hegseth for greeting him with warmth and compassion, which he said contrasted with the president's public persona, and he said their sympathy seemed sincere.

“I was pleasantly surprised because the perception is they [Trump and Hegseth] don’t care, they’re going to do what they want to do,” he said. “I got to see a different side of them up close and personal.”

'It's a farce': Analysts left in disbelief as Hegseth scolds allies and the press

Robert Davis
March 19, 2026 

RAW STORY

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth holds a briefing with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine, amid the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., U.S., March 19, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY


Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's press conference on Thursday left two political analysts in disbelief.

Hegseth spoke to the media about the ongoing war in Iran and suggested that the American media was working against the Trump administration's objectives by covering the war negatively. He also bashed America's allies in Europe for not helping the U.S. reopen the Strait of Hormuz, which the Iranian regime effectively blockaded to American and Israeli ships after the two countries began a coordinated bombing campaign in Iran in late February.

“Our ungrateful allies in Europe, even segments of our own press, should be saying one thing to President Trump: thank you,” Hegseth said at one point.

Tommy Veitor and Jon Favreau, both former Obama White House staffers, described Hegseth's presser as a "farce" on a new episode of their podcast, "Pod Save America."

"Ungrateful European allies — he's just taking shots at people for no good reason," Favreau said.

"It's just a farce," Vietor said.

Trump has tried to rally international support to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. So far, only Estonia has stepped forward to discuss the issue. Every other NATO ally has told Trump they won't help, according to reports.

OPINION

Pete Hegseth’s Holy War

The US now finds itself in a long-term war waged by an angry, fanatical Fox journalist, not a competent secretary of defense.


US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth address a group of National Guard troops before conducting their re-enlistment ceremony at the base of the Washington Monument on February 6, 2026 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Paul Josephson
Mar 20, 2026

Common Dreams


Pete Hegseth is carrying out a Holy War at the Pentagon and abroad. He has rightly come under fire for incompetent leadership and mediocre management of the Iran war. The war was a mistake in the first place, both because Iran did not pose an immediate threat to US interests, and because President Donald Trump assumed a rapid victory and regime change would secure oil for the US and its allies for decades to come. But motivated by Christian Nationalism, fueled by angry masculinity, and blinded by ideological certainty, Hegseth’s crusade was doomed to failure from the start. Within the Pentagon, the battle against “woke” ideas and diversity has shaken leadership and hurt morale.

On the international front, Hegseth’s religious conviction about the immorality of Iran’s Islamic leadership led him to the conclusion that his god would protect the US in any war. Yet devoid of real goals and plans, motivated by ignorance about Iranian society, and discarding the intelligence community’s dire warnings about the chances of failure, Hegseth pushed on. The US now finds itself in a long-term war waged by an angry Fox journalist, not a competent secretary of defense.

The Crusader




While Praying to ‘the Lord,’ Hegseth Threatens ‘Most Intense Day of Strikes’ in Iran


Hegseth’s worldview is steeped in mistaken views of the 11th century Crusades, infused with white male privilege, and seasoned with ideology rather than intelligence briefings. Hegseth developed his views at Princeton University where he studied politics. He became a frequent contributor to and publisher of the Princeton Tory, the school’s conservative newspaper. In his writings he “strived to defend the pillars of Western civilization against the distractions of diversity.” He attacked the university for encouraging and supporting “pre-marital sex, homosexuality, abortion, and a general hostility toward faith and religion.” He declared that “the homosexual lifestyle is abnormal and immoral.” He rankled at the buzzwords of diversity, tolerance, sexual liberation, and multiculturalism which he took to be anti-Western. He concluded that the university “has abandoned almost all its moral/truth-seeking guidance to undergraduates.”

Hegseth took advantage of Reserve Officers’ Training Corps funding for his education at Princeton, seeking to overcome the dangers of multiculturalism by becoming a soldier of god. After graduation he joined the Army National Guard, becoming a major, and was deployed three times abroad earning two Bronze Stars. Hegseth’s tattoos carry his Christian nationalism for all to see: a Jerusalem cross on his chest, a Christogram here, a “Deus Vult” (“God Wills It,” a Crusader battle cry) there, an American flag here, crossed muskets there, and other grotesque inkings common in violent far-right communities.

Hegseth failed to understand that technology alone does not win a war, nor does his insistence on the elimination of “wokeness” in the Pentagon.

Hegseth’s holier than thou attitude about the need to wage war on “wokeness,” Islam, and other evils was hardly tempered by a whistleblower report on his tenure as the president of Concerned Veterans for America (CVA), from 2013 until 2016, which describes him as being repeatedly intoxicated; sexually pursuing CVA female staffers; creating a hostile workplace; and drunkenly chanting in public, “Kill All Muslims! Kill All Muslims!” A history of alcohol and sexual abuse suggests an individual unfit to lead the Department of Defense (DOD), and in fact Hegseth was forced out as chief executive of CVA amid allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct.

Hegseth’s certainty that white males must control society seems confirmed by a string of abusive acts. His former sister-in-law claims that his second wife feared for her personal safety during their marriage, and often hid in a closet. She herself experienced an angry, intoxicated Hegseth screaming in her face. Claims of rape against Hegseth in 2017 did not result in charges against him, but did result in the future DOD secretary paying the woman in question a $50,000 settlement. His own mother, Penelope, sent him an email that said: “You are an abuser of women—that is the ugly truth and I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego.” Married three times and fathering a child out of wedlock, Hegseth said, “I have failed in things in my life, and thankfully, I’m redeemed by my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” Ultimately, Hegseth found salvation in the narcissism of Donald Trump. In 2017 Hegseth became co-host of “Fox & Friends Weekend.” He ingratiated himself to the president by incessantly promoting the lie that voter fraud had led to Trump’s loss in the 2020 election.

Purifying the Pentagon

Appointed secretary of defense by Trump, Hegseth announced, “We became ‘the woke department’… Not any more. We’re done with that shit.” He set out to purge the Pentagon of woke, gay, and transgender personnel that he believed weakened the US military. He said, “For too long, we’ve promoted too many uniform leaders for the wrong reasons—based on their race, based on gender quotas, based on historic so-called firsts.” Yet there were questions from the start about his own minimal “qualifications” as a Fox News host and Trump sycophant. In March 2025, only months into his Pentagon appointment, he risked the lives of US soldiers by proudly sharing classified war plans in unsecured communications with a journalist. Loyal to Trump, he kept his job.

Trump, who has no military experience, but four draft deferments and a FIFA soccer peace prize, began his second term by firing a distinguished F-16 fighter pilot, General Charles Q. Brown, Jr., as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Hegseth followed along, carrying the president’s racist water by ending diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in the Pentagon, and by purging defense department libraries and websites that addressed anti-racism and sexism. His racism carried so far as an order to stop classifying nooses and swastikas as hate symbols (this effort to permit Nazi symbols among the Coast Guard was abandoned). But his white Christian chest-thumping intensifying, Hegseth ordered the renaming of Navy ships that honored African Americans; the purging by Pentagon archivists of the biography of Jackie Robinson; and the removal of a picture of the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, the Enola Gay, because “gay” is forbidden.

Hegseth’s goal, he said, was to eliminate the “social justice, politically correct, and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department.” There would be “no more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship, no more division, distraction or, gender delusions, no more debris.” There would be no more fat soldiers, but only fit ones. And there would be no beards, “no more beardos,” only the paramount clean-shaven look of individual expression. Calling for Aryan purity, he said, “We don’t have a military full of Nordic pagans, but unfortunately, we have had leaders who either refuse to call BS and enforce standards or leaders who felt like they were not allowed to enforce standards.” Women could serve only if they could kill as effectively as Hegseth’s warriors. To mold these warriors, Hegseth determined to permit bullying and hazing “to empower leaders to enforce standards without fear of retribution or second-guessing.”

Why his anger at “beardos”? Hegseth said that anyone who needs a shaving exemption for more than a year would be forced out of the service. This ended a policy created mainly for Black and brown troops with pseudofolliculitis barbae, a skin condition that makes daily shaving lead to cuts, sores, and scarring. For Hegseth, “grooming standards” were commensurate with the “warrior ethos.” In the name of the warrior mindset, Hegseth extended his purge to women, gays, and transgender individuals. Hegseth eliminated the Women, Peace, and Security program at the DOD as “woke” and “divisive” although it is codified in a 2017 law that Congress passed unanimously and was signed by Trump. Hegseth’s Pentagon is now forcing transgender service members to leave in the name of military preparedness. (Hitler, too, despised homosexuality. He had Ernst Röhm and other gay SA members murdered in 1934 because of their “degeneracy”; the Nazi regime made the persecution of homosexuals a priority. Perhaps Hegseth studied the Wehrmacht at Princeton?)

White Christian Officer Training

US Ivy League schools, MIT, CalTech, Chicago and other universities were crucial to the US to wage the Cold War, strategize the arms race, and build radars and other weapons. But the anti-intellectual Hegseth decided to end officer training, fellowships, and graduate-level education programs at Ivy League and other top-tier universities starting in the 2026-2027 academic year because of their allegedly “woke ideology” and anti-American sentiment. He claimed the need to refocus “the US military on maximum lethality, warfighting, and accountability; prioritizing combat effectiveness, merit-based standards, and a direct, combative culture over political correctness.” He insisted that the DOD needs “more troops, more munitions, more drones, more Patriots, more submarines, more B-21 bombers… more innovation, more AI… more space, more speed.” And he believes he can achieve these goals by shifting programs to conservative schools that stress Christian nationalist thinking.

Toward those ends, Hegseth announced the elimination of several senior service college fellowship programs for the 2026-2027 academic year and beyond. He desired “strategic thinkers through education grounded in the founding principles and documents of the republic, embracing peace through strength and American ideals, and focused on our national strategies and grounded in realism.”

The failure of the Trump-Hegseth Holy War against Iran underlines the need to divorce religious beliefs from declarations of war.

What he meant by this was doctrine steeped in the ideas of limited government, free enterprise, constitutional originalism, and Christian morality. The new partner institutions included such conservative beacons of white Christianity as Liberty University (whose past president resigned in the midst of a sex scandal); Baylor University (whose past president ignored a campus rape scandal, helped Jeff Epstein avoid prosecution, and who investigated Bill Clinton over real estate deals and Oval Office oral sex at a cost of $52 million); Regent University (that has long pushed the Christian orientation of its founder, Pat Robertson, who called for letting LGBTQ advocates and Muslims kill themselves); Hillsdale College (whose president at the time of the Clinton infidelity was allegedly having a long affair with his daughter-in-law who then committed suicide); and Pepperdine University (which was long embroiled in a lawsuit over sexual orientation of students). The trainees will be ready for religious wars, if morally ambivalent.

War Crimes and Holy War

The failure of the Trump-Hegseth Holy War against Iran underlines the need to divorce religious beliefs from declarations of war. While the medieval Crusades had largely political-military significance for control of the Holy Land, such Christian nationalists as Hegseth have recast that history as a holy war against Moslem infidels. In the ongoing war that the US launched on the Islamic Republic, Hegseth emphasizes that the Christian god is on his side. He said: “Our capabilities are better. Our will is better. Our troops are better. The providence of our almighty God is there protecting those troops, and we’re committed to this mission.” He asserted that the Trump administration was carrying out hold battle against “religious fanatics who seek a nuclear capability in order for some religious Armageddon.”

Hegseth’s reliance on religious justifications—and his certainty that Trump expected a quick victory to distract Americans from the Epstein scandal—hurried the US into its attack. But there was no justification: Iran was not within days of deploying ICBMs or nuclear weapons, and was hardly prepared to attack the US. Indeed, negotiators on both sides were close to a US-Iran agreement to forestall nuclear weapons development—and recreate the agreement that Trump abrogated in 2018 in the first place.

The great danger, now realized, was that Hegseth confused personal religious and ideological imperatives with military need. The Nazis conflated Bolshevism, Judaism, and Slavic racial inferiority, hurried into a war with the USSR that Hitler expected to win within days or weeks, yet plunged the world into war. So, too, Hegseth mixes hatred of Islam, Iran in particular, with religio-spiritual embrace of the Christian Bible, Western civilization, and a sacred mission for Israel, in the end transforming a war against the Islamic Republic of Iran into a religious crusade.

Hegseth: Waging War with No Plans

Hegseth ignored real time challenges that, after initial “victories,” have left the DOD in a bind as to how to move forward. In the first two days of the attack, the US spent $5.6 billion in munitions: More than 2,000 munitions were rained down on nearly 2,000 Iranian targets. But the armaments are hardly in an unlimited supply, must be replaced, and it will take months to do so, especially for precision, smart weapons. This will leave the US vulnerable elsewhere in the world. Hegseth failed to understand that technology alone does not win a war, nor does his insistence on the elimination of “wokeness” in the Pentagon. Hegseth assumed that initial firepower would bring Iran to its knees, but he has only strengthened the resolve of Iran’s leaders to stand up to the US, and has even brought its oppressed people into some agreement with the theocracy.

Hegseth has worried so much about beards, DEI, and Holy Wars that he attacked Iran without minesweepers that the DOD decommissioned in the autumn. These might have opened the Strait of Hormuz to the world’s oil traffic, one-third of which passes through the Strait. And without allies—Trump’s odious behavior and policies have turned away even England, France, and Canada—the US is isolated in this war. It has little recourse to their stockpiles, let alone their minesweepers. How long will Hegseth—and his witless president—wait to ask Congress to replenish the Pentagon budget and secure more munitions to continue “the most intense strikes”? And how can Hegseth justify the fact that, when planning for his Holy War, he ordered the Pentagon to buy up tens of millions of dollars of steak and crustaceans in order to spend its budget authorization before the end of the fiscal year?

For Hegseth, who embraces quick, empty responses and has forgotten any analytical tools he may have learned in college, any negative comment is “fake news.”

The troubling subservience to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war aims in Ukraine has handicapped the Hegeth and Trump Iran fiasco as well. Trump has both refused to condemn Putin’s support for Iran through intelligence sharing, military cooperation, and providing drone components and satellite imagery all of which are likely harming US soldiers. Russia is generally prolonging a war in the Middle East that benefits its closest Middle Eastern partner in the fight against the US and Israel. Trump has eased sanctions on Russian oil, which is permitting Putin to earn millions of dollars in oil revenues to fund his four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. Recall that in his first month as defense secretary, Hegseth endorsed Russia’s territorial occupation of Ukraine. At the very least, Hegseth is uninterested in Russian support for Iran.

Hegseth still promises in this war “intense strikes,” “the most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes; intelligence more refined and better than ever.” He ridicules the Iranians as “desperate and scrambling.” Likely to justify the US murder of 180 children, he announced, “Like the terrorist cowards they are, they fire missiles from schools and hospitals... deliberately targeting innocents.” The missile hit midmorning when children would certainly be present. Where is the Christian morality? Committed to a different Jesus than the one in the Bible, Hegseth told US soldiers to ignore legal advice about when they were permitted to kill enemy combatants under their rules of engagement. Hegseth smirked in couplets, “Maximum lethality, not tepid legality. Violent effect, not politically correct.”

What Has the War Department Wrought?

Hegseth, the former Fox News host, knows how to manipulate the messages to confuse the public. He uses press conferences to attack the media for their reporting on his and Trump’s war—from its initial justifications, to his overconfidence, to miscalculations regarding closure of the Strait of Hormuz, to faltering world oil supply, and to the massive unpopularity of the war as US deaths and costs accumulate. He might as well say to the American people, “Let them eat lobster.”

Into the third week, the Iran war has led to the deaths of at least 13 US service members and has burned through more than $11.3 billion worth of taxpayer dollars. The Persian Gulf has been plunged into chaos as Iran mounts retaliatory strikes against military bases and oil refineries in the region. But for Hegseth, who embraces quick, empty responses and has forgotten any analytical tools he may have learned in college, any negative comment is “fake news.”

The secretary of military propaganda admonished the press to learn the craft of Fox: “Allow me to make a few suggestions… I used to be in that business, and I know that everything is written intentionally, for example, a banner or a headline.” He called for right-wing takeover of CNN and other media. Pete needs one more tattoo: “What, me worry?”

'Now we know' why Trump fired the Social Security inspector general: report

Brad Reed, 

Common Dreams
March 19, 2026

 A person holds a sign during a protest against cuts made by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to the Social Security Administration, in White Plains, New York, U.S., March 22, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Layne/File Photo

A Social Security advocacy organization on Thursday blasted the Trump administration for covering up damaging information contained in an inspector general report released in December.

According to The Washington Post, a report from the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) inspector general (IG) about call wait times for beneficiaries was altered to make it seem as though wait times to speak to representatives had been reduced to under 10 minutes per call.

“An unpublished draft of the report... showed that the inspector general had planned to report another metric—called the ‘total wait time’—to measure the overall time it takes for callers to be connected with an SSA employee,” the Post explained. “According to that draft report, in 2025 total wait time averaged 46 minutes to over two hours.”

The Post added that this “information was deleted from the draft after the agency reviewed it before publication.”

Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, responded to the report by saying that “now we know why [President Donald] Trump fired the inspector general at Social Security,” noting that the SSA IG was one of several fired across multiple agencies at the start of Trump’s second term.

Altman then argued that the attack on inspectors general was part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to dismantle government transparency all together.

“Inspectors general are the American peoples’ eyes and ears in these agencies,” said Altman. “The Trump administration is undermining that oversight at every turn. Under this administration, the IG has no ability to conduct independent oversight. There is no meaningful check on the Trump administration’s Social Security sabotage.”

Democratic communications consultant Jesse Lee linked the damage to the SSA documented in the draft IG report to efforts by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which went on a firing spree of federal workers last year.

“So DOGE did a smash and grab at the Social Security Administration, breaking into the most sensitive data, firing phone and in-person case workers,” Lee wrote. “Trump appointee waved around an IG report claiming wait times were fine—after burying the real report saying they were up to two hours.”

A Missed Opportunity for the French Left

By Harrison Stetler

March 19, 2026

Source: Jacobin

Image by Jeanne Menjoulet/Wikimediacommons, licensed via CC BY 2.0

This month’s local elections in France may not turn out to be such a debacle after all. A far cry from the nationalist and conservative wave that many had feared, left-wing candidates are reasonably well positioned to hold on to power, not only in major urban centers like Paris and Lyon. The first-round vote on March 15 also has the Left holding its own in smaller and midsize cities, and it has a chance to notch up victories in places like Toulouse.

The far right is making inroads, but that’s hardly breaking news. Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National and its allies are on the path to extend their grip in rural areas and traditional bastions along the Mediterranean coast and in the industrial north. They are even now eyeing larger cities like Nice and giving the Left a run for its money in Marseille, France’s second-largest city. This year’s biggest loser will likely be Emmanuel Macron, whose conservative-centrist bloc is set to continue its gradual disappearance from the political stage two years after its self-inflicted blow in the 2024 snap parliamentary elections.

The relative surprise is the Left. The parties that made up the erstwhile left-wing alliance Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP), which won the largest share of seats in the snap elections in summer 2024, are still providing a credible alternative — almost despite themselves.

France’s local elections are upturning one of the main stories of the last year, which saw the unity of the NFP succumb to an internecine power struggle between its two biggest factions: the centrist Parti Socialiste (PS) and Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s France Insoumise (LFI).

For mainstream media outlets and top brass in the center-left establishment, these elections were supposed to be the chance to mark a break from France Insoumise, the largest of the NFP caucuses elected in July 2024. Defying expectations of the party’s weakness in interim non-presidential elections, France Insoumise will win city hall control in bastions like Saint-Denis, a large municipality just north of Paris, and postindustrial Roubaix. It also has a shot in the largely inter-left duel for control of Lille. Elsewhere, its high first-round scores make it a critical share of the electorate that LFI’s estranged partners need to convince before the runoffs on March 22 — support which could prove critical in cities like Lyon, Marseille, and even Paris.

There’s one conclusion that hopefully all parties of the former NFP are paying attention to: after the drama of party struggles settles down, electorally there’s no way around the imperative for left-wing unity. One year before the 2027 presidential elections, and the parties of the Left remain as mutually dependent as ever. This applies both to France Insoumise, which doesn’t always seem to take the measure of its political isolation, as well as to the leadership of the PS, Greens, and Communists (PCF).   

This message may never really land. For months, this election was meant to be a referendum against Mélenchon’s force. Instead, these elections — LFI’s first major foray into municipal politics — has shown that the party maintains the loyalty of a solid chunk of the left-wing electorate, though its difficulty in breaking out of its traditional bastions ought to be cause for reflection. What’s proving worryingly sticky in the public perception of it as a party is its image as a divisive “far-left” grouping, in lockstep with its aging standard-bearer.

But nothing justifies the campaign of excommunication that the centrist PS has waged in its attempt to claw back hegemony over the left-wing space. From the Macronists to Le Pen, France’s chaotic political field has for months come together behind a full-on offensive against LFI, with accusations of antisemitism against Mélenchon and his party coming back in full force in recent weeks.

The mid-February killing of a fascist activist in Lyon also spiraled into a national indictment of the left-wing force, affiliated with activists of the Jeune Garde antifa group involved in the violent confrontation that resulted in Quentin Deranque’s death. Through it all, it was often hard to distinguish between PS spokesmen and their competitors in the Macronist center and far right.

In several key contests, PS and allied candidates now have little choice but to seek support from France Insoumise voters — just the electorate that has been denigrated as irrational and deluded radicals. Under PS leader Olivier Faure, the party is sticking to its preelectoral omertà against a national pact between France Insoumise and the center, rebuffing LFI calls for “anti-fascist” lists in the second round.

Encouragingly, there is some flexibility on the local level. In Lyon, incumbent Écologistes mayor Grégory Doucet has merged lists with the LFI hopeful, placing it in good position to hold off the Right. PS and allied candidates have even agreed to sign up behind LFI frontrunners in places like Toulouse. In Paris and Marseille, the center left has opted to go it alone, counting on lingering divisions on the Right to ensure victory.

The anti-LFI bashing tends to be reined in when push comes to shove. The centrist liberal Raphaël Glucksmann, a possible standard-bearer for the PS in 2027, is the leading advocate for the anti-LFI front. “The Glucksmann line has been defeated in the voting booths. The ‘never-PS’ line of Jean-Luc Mélenchon is also beaten,” left-wing MP Alexis Corbière told Le Monde in reaction to this Sunday’s results. But the persistent problem is translating cool-headed thinking like this into a baseline strategic assumption about the current political crisis. Himself one of the MPs purged from LFI in the lead up to the summer 2024 election, Corbière also serves as a reminder that LFI has not always made its stubborn strength easy for its partners to accept.

This electoral cycle ought to be seen as a missed opportunity. Instead of a chance to build on past gains, the Left has been mired by an internal power struggle that drowned out the outlines of a largely shared program for better municipal life. Calls for more investment in social housing and free school lunches, along with expanding public transportation, were heard from candidates across the left-wing field, from LFI and the PCF to Écologistes and, yes, the PS.

But looking back, it’s impossible to say that these propositions are what this campaign has really been about. Instead, these ideas and many like them became drowned out by reckless acrimony, deepening divisions a year before an election that could well see the far right sail into the presidency.

The price of disunity is that the Left is at best holding its ground, with few signs of the necessary breakthrough beyond its usual bases of support. It’s not hard to see a connection between that fact and another trend confirmed by this year’s vote: the French are voting less and less often. Barring the exceptionally low turnout in the pandemic-era 2020 local elections, this year’s vote looks set to mark a new record, with first-round abstention rising to over 42 percent from the 36 percent of registered voters in 2014.

\\\Email

Harrison Stetler

Harrison Stetler is a freelance journalist and teacher based in Paris

The Each One Reach One Strategy for No Kings, March 28

By Rob Okun

March 18, 2026

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

Image by Phillip Pessar, Creative Commons 4.0

With the US feeling to many like it’s spiraling out of control—recklessly piloted by a White House in chaos—NO KINGS on March 28, couldn’t be coming at a better time. It’s a line in the sand.

We are living through a systematic betrayal of the American people. The Trump administration promised everyday costs would drop; instead, our economy is being siphoned away while families choose between heat or eat. We were promised peace; instead, we are embroiled in a war no one voted for. We were told immigration enforcement would target the “worst of the worst”; instead, ICE and Border Patrol are seizing working immigrants from their homes. Even five-year-olds aren’t immune. And then, the unthinkable: US citizens murdered by state actors.

This isn’t a drill. This is an “All Hands on Deck” emergency.

Our mission is straightforward: “Each One Reach One.” Veterans of the resistance movement are already coming to NO KINGS. But to spur on grassroots activists and everyday citizens to reclaim democracy, we need people who have never before stood on a protest line. We need our neighbors, our coworkers, distant cousins, childhood friends.

Last April, three million people across the country attended Hands Off! rallies. Rebranded in June as NO KINGS, attendance grew to five million. By October’s second NO KINGS, the numbers had swelled to more than seven million.

More than 3000 events in all 50 states are planned for March 28, including 1000 cities.

Imagine the impact if every previous participant brought one new person. Imagine if the “Each One Reach One” campaign contributes to millions more attending NO KINGS! Imagine the sight of 10 million people—or more—standing up for our democracy in a single, unified voice. That isn’t a crowd. It’s a mandate.

Many people are frightened. They aren’t alone; we share their feelings. They feel the betrayal of the Affordable Care Act being gutted. They see their hard-working immigrant neighbors illegally rounded up. They see legislation like the SAVE America Act as a brazen, antidemocratic plot to prevent citizens from voting. Many want to act, but don’t know how.

Let’s reach out, following these guidelines:

• Don’t underestimate their hesitation. Remind them it’s okay to be nervous. Tell them you’ll be right there with them.
• Validate the betrayal: They are observant; they see what’s going on. It’s not partisan to be angry about the cost of living, rising gas prices, the frightening reality of an illegal war.
• Help them see what’s involved: Explain where to meet, what to wear, and what to bring. Remove the mystery of the “protest.” Replace it with a plan.
• Focus on the goal: Remind them that NO KINGS means a government that answers to the people—and that includes them. That the American experiment in democracy means no monarchs.

It’s time to lace up our boots. Start calling and texting people on our phones. Emailing everyone we can.

Seek out at least one person who thinks their voice doesn’t matter and explain to them that it does. On March 28, we show not just the White House—but the world—that when you push the people too far, the people push back.

No War. No Kings. No Way.

 

We the People vs. the Election Commission of India

We Indians are often reminded of how ours is the “largest” democracy in the world; what we now need rather despairingly to know is that we are also the fairest.

By Badri Raina

March 18, 2026

Source: The Wire

Image by Election Commission of India

There is this to be said for the honourable Om Birla, speaker of the Lok Sabha: as a No-Confidence motion came to be tabled for his removal on charges of alleged partisan conduct in the running of the House, he lost not a minute in recusing himself from his perch, vowing not to return till he was exonerated.

This was done truly in the best interests of probity at the highest rung of constitutional governance.

But if you thought his laudable example may henceforth be emulated by other worthies in high constitutional office, think again.

Close on the heels of the now defeated No-Confidence motion against the honourable speaker, 193 members, no less, of parliament have tabled a motion to impeach the Chief Election Commissioner of India on grounds of, allegedly, failing to uphold with impartiality the “ basic” constitutional injunction to ensure “free and fair” elections in the republic by favouring, in multiple ways, the prospects of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

This is the first time since the first ever election in independent India that an Election Commissioner has thus come to be proceeded against – surely not a record to write home about, and a circumstance that ought to trouble the Commission to ponder that it should be so, and why.

The citizen wedded to the true spirit and sanctity of democracy would have expected that, regardless of calculations about how much success this move to impeach him may or may not enjoy, the CEC, along with the other two Commissioners would think it fit to follow Birla’s moral example and likewise recuse himself from his position till the conclusion of the impeachment process – a move necessarily bearing on garnering the trust of “we the people” in the integrity of India’s electoral processes.

But no; Gyanesh Kumar clearly is made of sterner stuff.

That the entire opposition, as in Birla’s case, representing over 60% of the popular vote, is ranged against him does little to induce the least introspection in Gyanesh Kumar.

Even if it is his view that the measure undertaken by the combined opposition is merely a case of crying wolf at electoral losses, democratic propriety might have triggered some qualm, after all, for continuing to man an office that must in every circumstance remain, like Caesar’s wife, above suspicion.

It may also be noted that this is the first Election Commission whose operations have had to be so continuously overseen by the top court of the Republic – hardly a certificate of merit for the voter who is looking to exercise the only right that puts her on a level with the highest and the mightiest.

In a cavalier conjunction, the Commission, if anything, has gone on to declare dates for elections to five state assemblies while the motion of impeachment is waiting to be considered in due process.

All that while also the Commission’s insistent Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise, undertaken ostensibly to clean up voters lists, has now landed the realm in an unprecedented situation in two of the five states: in West Bengal, some 60 lakh individuals still await the acceptance of their claim to be genuine voters, a determination that must be made before April 6 and 9.

And think that such is the distrust in the operations of the Commission that unprecedentedly this task of voter verification has been assigned by the Supreme Court of India not to Commission workers alone but to the supervision of judges from here, there, and elsewhere, a measure unheard of in our republican history thus far.

There is no telling that this exercise in ensuring that every eligible citizen’s voter claim is recorded in due time will see completion.

Likewise, some 40 lakh residents of Kerala are now stranded in the Gulf countries owing to the war now underway, and we have no instruction as to how the Commission proposes to obtain their legitimacy and vote for the coming election to the Kerala assembly.

We Indians are often reminded of how ours is the “largest” democracy in the world; what we now need rather despairingly to know is that we are also the fairest.Email

Badri Raina

Badri Raina is a well-known commentator on politics, culture and society. His columns on the Znet have a global following. Raina taught English literature at the University of Delhi for over four decades and is the author of the much acclaimed Dickens and the Dialectic of Growth. He has several collections of poems and translations. His writings have appeared in nearly all major English dailies and journals in India.

CENSORED BY YOUTUBE

Israel’s Push to Put Reza Pahlavi in Charge of Iran

By Rick Sanchez

March 18, 2026

Source: Journalistically Speaking with Rick Sanchez

In every war, the nation waging the war uses propaganda to rally its people and forces. However, the rhetoric is often dangerous and produces justification for war crimes. We’ve seen Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu use terms like ‘Amalek’ when referring to Palestinians in Gaza. We’ve heard Trump boast about mercilessly bombing the Iranian Navy and sinking their ships. This is supposed to be an ‘excursion’ to make the world safer. I don’t feel safer. So what gives?

Open Letter to President Lula: Mr. President, Disobey!

By Boaventura de Sousa Santos

March 19, 2026

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

Image by Ricardo Stuckert, PR/Wikimediacommons, licensed via CC BY 3.0

I write to you with a heavy heart and a free mind. We cannot allow the Cuban people to die and the memory of the Revolution to be cast into the dustbin of history. This is not the time to assess the Revolution’s past or present. Mr. President, you know that over the years I have written several texts offering constructive criticism of the Cuban regime. The moment is different now: it is a matter of saving Cuba from the clutches of a political monster democratically generated in the world’s largest democracy. It is no less monstrous for having been democratically generated. Hitler was too. It merely speaks volumes about the (lack of) quality of the democracy that generated it.

The issue is humanitarian and political. The democratic world, which values sovereignty, owes a great deal to Cuba. The Portuguese-speaking African countries would likely not be sovereign today were it not for Cuba’s decisive aid at the right moment, at great human cost to Cuba and against the geostrategic interests of the most powerful countries, including the then Soviet Union. Without Cuba, the end of apartheid in South Africa would not have come about when it did. Cuba has saved millions of lives around the world through its doctors. Brazil and Portugal, among dozens of other countries, have benefited from this remarkable work for the health of their peoples—an achievement a thousand times more deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize than many others that have received it.

We will never know what the true potential of the revolution is or was because it has been subjected to a barbaric embargo that has lasted for over sixty years, practically since the Revolution began.

But solidarity with the people and the sovereignty of Cuba is not a mere humanitarian act in favor of a population that is literally starving to death. It is an eminently political act against the tyranny of the powerful who want to see the return of the odious colonialism from which Latin America freed itself two hundred years ago. Cuba is Gaza without bombs! The tyrant’s dream is to build Rivieras on the rubble and mass graves.

Dear President,

Fortunately, there are those who resist. Today I am proud to be European because the Prime Minister of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, has publicly defied tyranny. If his defiance is followed by other political leaders, perhaps we can save Cuba and world peace. The significance of Pedro Sánchez’s gesture lies in the fact that Spain is Europe’s fourth-largest economy and a democracy.  Brazil is one of the world’s largest economies and is also a democracy of which Your Excellency is the most authentic symbol.

That is why I ask you, Mr. President, to follow Pedro Sánchez’s example, to disobey, and to make your disobedience heard loud and clear. We have Pedro Sánchez in Europe, and we will have Lula da Silva in Latin America! I am certain that influential acts of disobedience will emerge on other continents as well. Do not let short-term calculations recommended by well-meaning advisors—but lacking a strategic vision of the future—discourage you from rebelling against tyranny and prevent you from saying loud and clear to the tyrant of the North: Enough! And if Cuba needs oil to survive, do not hesitate to send it!

Tyrants do not stop until someone stops them!

The democratic and peace-loving world will thank you, and you can be certain that your act of courage, like the miracle of the loaves of bread, will be multiplied by many others. And I dare to think that your act will inspire Brazilian democrats who will soon be called to the polls to elect their new President.

Quintela, March 18, 2026Email

Boaventura de Sousa Santos

Boaventura de Sousa Santos is the emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Coimbra in Portugal. His most recent book is Decolonizing the University: The Challenge of Deep Cognitive Justice.