Indo-Russian Strategic Relationship Has Always Been Among Moscow’s Top Priorities: Interview With Gleb Makarevich


India's PM Narendra Modi and the President of Russia, Mr. Vladimir Putin witnessing the Exchange of MoUs between India and Russia in Hyderabad House, New Delhi on December 05, 2025. Photo Credit: India Prime Minister Office

July 29, 2026
By A. Jathindra

Gleb Makarevich is a Junior Research Fellow, Centre of the Indo-Pacific Region at the Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences (IMEMO RAS) – Russia’s leading academic institute and think-tank in International Relations.

His academic interests cover Russian foreign policy towards South Asia, India-Pakistan confrontation, Pakistan’s external and internal affairs, its strategic culture, the interaction between the nation’s elites, namely, the political class, business circles and the military. Makarevich’s expertise in the analytical domain includes Indian foreign policy and Russia-India relations.

Let us begin with the Russia–Ukraine conflict. Russia is often described as a Pacific power, yet the war in Ukraine continues without resolution. It is notable that Ukraine, despite its relatively smaller size, has demonstrated remarkable military resilience, even conducting operations within Russian territory. In your view, what factors have enabled this resilience?

Gleb Makarevich

This resilience has been unabled by the following factors: unprecedented (military, economic, ideological) support by the West; Russia’s initial calculation to conduct a special military operation, rather than to be involved into a full-scale warfare – as a result, Russia initially had to confront a mobilized society and pursue its goals with means of peaceful time; as the conflict transformed into the war of attrition, Ukraine enjoys resources of the US, Europe and West-prone allies with Russia handling its issues based on its own resources.

In this context, many within the Western strategic community argue that while Russia is geographically a Pacific power, its ability and willingness to project influence in the region remain uncertain. How would you respond to this perspective?


It is fair to say that Russia does not invest enough efforts and resources into projecting its influence in the region, although it has some capacities and demonstrates its willingness. However, last 5-10 years saw tremendous rise in Russia’s activities in the region: gradual surge in trade dynamics, investments and launching joint ventures (bestly exemplified in oil and gas field – Nayara Energy brilliantly epitomizes that, expansion of Russian businesses in service sector – Yango as a primary example), joint initiatives in defense and security domain (regular military drills, development of technological cooperation in defense sector). To sum it up, Russia realizes that so far it has not accomplished all of its goals, but one should not ignore achievements in place and the fact that the work is still in progress.

Europe appears to be undergoing a process of rearmament. For example, Ukraine has sought a license to produce U.S. Patriot missile interceptors, which are widely regarded as among the most effective defenses against ballistic missiles. Does this development place Russia in a state of enduring strategic threat? How do you interpret this evolving dynamic?

Regarding Patriot missile interceptors, so far it is not clear whether Ukraine or its European allies will be able to deploy enough industrial capacities to produce this system. Discussing technological transfers to Ukraine in general, it is common understanding in Russian expert community that Russia is at war with the whole West and its cumulative resources, rather than with Ukraine itself. Consequently, this sort of escalation dynamic has been expected and Russia has enough capacities to respond to that properly.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has repeatedly criticized the Indo-Pacific concept as an artificial construct advanced by the United States, Japan, and Australia—primarily aimed at deterring China and diminishing ASEAN’s central role. Western analysts contend that, beyond this critique, Russia has yet to establish itself as a credible third option in the Indo-Pacific, and that its engagement with the region increasingly depends on China. How do you respond to this assessment?


What concerns Foreign Minister’s statements, there are some opposite opinions here. For example, I personally believe that Russia should come up with its understanding of the Indo-Pacific or Indian Ocean Region framework, rather than neglecting the concept itself – and I am not alone in this regard. Coming to Russia’s dependence on China in the region, I would not agree with that. Moscow has multiple other significant partners – to name a few, India as a crucial partner in many dimensions; Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia and Myanmar among ASEAN countries; Iran, UAE and Saudi Arabia in the Gulf. Even if one considers East Asia only, there is interesting dynamics with regard to South Korea (not mentioning North Korea) and even Japan. Hence, although one should not underestimate China’s significance in Russia’s foreign policy in Asia, Moscow has other important partners to rely on and demonstrates willingness to develop ties with new counterparts.

The second term of President Trump is widely regarded as a period of significant change. Unexpectedly, contradictions have emerged between the United States and its European allies. For instance, the U.S. Department of Defense was renamed the Department of War, and the Indo-Pacific Command reverted to its earlier designation as the Pacific Command. Some observers interpret these moves as signaling a return to a regional hegemonic posture reminiscent of the Monroe Doctrine. How does Russia, as a Pacific power, view these developments?

As you rightly mentioned, many developments in current US actions stem from personal features of President Trump and his second term. So, I would consider all this renaming and rebranding related moves to be of domestic politics. Regarding US international posture in the region, Russian general calculations seem to be the same: Moscow treats Washington as a global power that pursues continuation of its hegemony in multiple domains, even though it does not seem to have enough resources to substantiate it as it did in the past. With passage of time, it will have to reassess its policies and refrain from meddling into every issue, leaving the space for rising regional powers.

India and Russia have often characterized their ties as those of ‘dear friends,’ with roots extending deep into history. At the same time, the United States has voiced concern over this partnership and continues to apply pressure on New Delhi. In this context, how would you evaluate the Indo–Russian strategic relationship, and in your view, what role does India hold in Russia’s broader strategic calculus?

Indo–Russian strategic relationship has always been among Moscow’s top priorities and certain to be even more important in years and decades to come. Russian expert community is confident that if India considers its relations with Russia to be in line with its strategic interests, New Delhi is highly unlikely to give up to American pressure. In this context, our goal is to further imbue our bilateral partnership with something mutually beneficial and strategically significant to make it both dynamic and resilient to external manupulations.

Russia’s strategic posture is often interpreted as supportive of a strong China. At the same time, another perspective underscores the importance of a strong India as a counterbalance to China. From the Russian point of view, how do you assess the emergence of a “strong India” within this wider geopolitical equation?

Russia supports the right of any regional, middle or small power to be strong. Of course, when it comes to its strategic partners – be it China or India – Moscow supports this right even more: no wonder, it is in Russia’s political, economic and security interests to have strong allies. Regarding India’s posture, Moscow always welcomed New Delhi’s s intense development in many fields. Thus, this perception is highly unlikely to change, as the more successful and credible partners Russia has, the higher chances of its own gradual development.

This article was published at TCSS


About A. Jathindra

A.Jathindra is a geopolitical analyst and the founding director of the Trinco Centre for Strategic Studies, an independent think tank based in the port city of Trincomalee, Sri Lanka. His work focuses on Geopolitics and International Relations, with particular emphasis on China, South Asian security challenges, regional politics, and transnational terrorism.He is an alumnus of the U.S. Department of State’s International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP), having participated in the regional initiative “U.S. Foreign Policy in the Indo-Pacific.”
View all posts by A. Jathindra →

 

Record low water levels halt Danube shipping

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By IntelliNews July 29, 2026

The Danube's water level in Budapest fell to 26cm on July 28, breaking the previous record low of 33cm set in 2018 and the river’s flow rate is round 60% below its average level.

The drought affecting the broader region has brought water freight transport to a halt on much of the Danube, which is also negatively impacting tourism, business online VG.hu writes. The crisis is exposing Hungary's long-standing vulnerability to climate-driven water shortages

Authorities said the prolonged heatwave affecting both the Alps and the Carpathian Basin, combined with the lack of meaningful rainfall across the Danube and Tisza catchments, means water levels are expected to decline in the coming days. Forecasts suggest little immediate relief, as another heatwave develops over the region, with temperatures expected to reach 40 degrees in the coming days.

The Danube, one of Central Europe's most important inland transport corridors, linking Germany and Austria with the Black Sea, serves as a vital export route for Hungary's agricultural sector. Much of the country's wheat, maize and oilseed harvest is transported by barge to Romania's Port of Constanța before being shipped to global markets.

With river depths in several sections falling below navigable levels, barges carrying grain are operating with 20-40% less cargo than normal, while some vessels have been forced to reduce loads to just 10-20% of capacity. The lower utilisation has sharply increased transport costs as more voyages are required to move the same volume of goods.

Although exporters can switch to rail or road transport, these alternatives are significantly more expensive and could erode the competitiveness of Hungarian grain on international markets, Botond Szalma, chairman and CEO of logistics company Plimsoll Ltd, which specialises in international freight transport, told VG.

The situation is being compounded by broader regional pressures. Ukraine has increasingly relied on Danube shipping routes after Russia's attacks on Black Sea port infrastructure reduced the country's maritime export capacity. Restrictions at Russia's Black Sea port of Novorossiysk and ongoing security risks in the region have redirected additional freight to the Danube, further straining an already-constrained transport corridor.

Fuel logistics have also been affected. Barges carrying petroleum products from Austrian, Slovak, and downstream Danube refineries have reportedly been delayed, raising concerns that smaller fuel distributors in Hungary could face supply disruptions if low water levels persist.

Industry representatives argue the crisis highlights a structural weakness unique to Hungary. Unlike much of the upper Danube, where a network of dams and navigation locks regulates river levels, Hungary's section of the river remains undammed following the abandonment of the Bos-Nagymaros hydroelectric project after the fall of communism.

Logistics experts say this leaves the country particularly exposed during prolonged droughts, with ports becoming inaccessible and freight operations grinding to a halt whenever river levels fall sharply.

In several stretches of the river, vessels can no longer navigate safely, forcing operators to leave ships waiting for higher water levels.

Around Budapest, sightseeing boats and hydrofoil services have been running reduced schedules, while several international cruise operators have cancelled or shortened itineraries, transferring passengers by bus instead.

The worsening drought has also intensified concerns about Hungary's broader water management strategy. Opposition politicians and agricultural organisations argue that the country is no longer facing occasional droughts but a structural water crisis driven by climate change, pointing to years of below-average rainfall and declining groundwater levels across the Great Plain.

The government has acknowledged the growing challenge, establishing a National Water Coordination Centre earlier this year to coordinate drought mitigation efforts and expanding programmes aimed at retaining water in wetlands, canals and floodplains rather than allowing it to drain out of the country.

Critics argue these measures remain largely reactive and fall short of the large-scale infrastructure investments needed to adapt Hungary to increasingly frequent periods of extreme heat and prolonged water scarcity.

'Kill shots': WSJ infuriated as Trump's FDA repeats 'absurdities' to stifle medicine

Matthew Chapman
July 28, 2026 

RAW STORY


Vaccination (Shutterstock)

The Wall Street Journal editorial board continued on Tuesday to express its rage at the Trump FDA for blocking experimental treatments.

Specifically, the board took aim at efforts by regulators to stifle new therapies for late-stage melanoma and Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

"President Trump pushed out Marty Makary and his deputy Vinay Prasad this spring in large part because they had scuttled treatments for life-threatening and rare diseases," noted the board, something they have been covering for months. That should have been the end of it, and for a while, it appeared it was, the board continued.

"The FDA under acting Commissioner Kyle Diamantas in recent months appeared to be turning around," the board wrote. "The agency is reconsidering many treatments rejected by the previous regime and has scheduled public hearings with outside experts to review medicines."

But now, FDA staff have once again advanced the same arguments that Makari and Prasad's deputies used to block Replimune's cancer therapy and Capricor Therapeutics' cell therapy to treat Duchenne. Trials of these drugs have already shown promising results, but Makari and Prasad, allies of anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Health and Human Services chief Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have had it out for these drugs as part of their demands for control groups, even though there are more ethical ways of testing such treatments.

"The panel ... concocted pretexts to kill the treatment — for instance, the staff opined that maybe biopsies had zapped the tumors. If only biopsies had such miraculous effects," the board wrote. "This week’s briefing document repeats such absurdities and manipulates the data to claim the drug doesn’t work."

The FDA, lamented the board, has had its "bureaucratic culture of control" worsened by Prasad, who "[drove] out division leaders and staffers who didn’t share his anti-industry dogmatism," creating a "leadership vacuum." They concluded: "We hope the experts this week aren’t swayed by the bureaucracy’s kill shots, which underscore why the FDA needs permanent leaders who share the President’s right-to-try principles."

 US lawmakers press Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on vaccine settlement

By Dan Levine
Wed, July 29, 2026 
REUTERS


Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. departs after speaking during an event sponsored by the Action for Progress Coalition, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 2, 2026. REUTERS/Al Drago/File PhotoMore

July 29 (Reuters) - A group of U.S. senators has asked Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to disclose whether his family stands to profit from a recent legal settlement involving Merck's Gardasil vaccine, according to a letter reviewed by ‌Reuters.

The letter, sent on Monday by four Democratic senators including Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, notes that Merck earlier this year agreed ‌to pay $50 million to settle litigation over Gardasil. Before becoming health secretary last year, Kennedy was an attorney of record in some of the cases.

As health secretary Kennedy oversees multiple ​health agencies that regulate and pay for vaccines, and said he would hand over his financial interest in vaccine litigation to a son.

The senators asked whether Kennedy's son received the health secretary's share of Gardasil fees, and if so, how much money that represents.

Kennedy did not commit to recuse himself from U.S. health agency decisions involving Gardasil, the letter says, or other policymaking around vaccine litigation.

"You are charged with setting federal vaccine policy and regulating vaccine manufacturers, ‌including Merck, even as your family and former employer ⁠may financially benefit from actions you take as Secretary," the senators' letter states, and asks for a reply by Aug. 11.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) did not immediately respond to a request for ⁠comment.

Kennedy has long promoted anti-vaccine views and has brought a series of changes to U.S. vaccine policy since he joined the Trump administration.

Before taking office, Kennedy played an instrumental role in organizing mass litigation against Merck on behalf of people claiming injury from the Gardasil vaccine against human papillomavirus. Merck has consistently defended ​Gardasil's ​safety and efficacy.

After his nomination by Trump, Kennedy initially said he intended to keep ​a 10% fee of any settlement involving Gardasil cases ‌he referred to the Wisner Baum law firm, which has represented dozens of plaintiffs.

Warren and other lawmakers expressed concerns over the potential for a conflict of interest, and Kennedy ultimately said he would transfer his stake to a son. One of Kennedy's sons, Conor, works at Wisner Baum.

Kennedy's son did not immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did Merck. Brent Weisner, managing partner of the firm, said in an email that "at no time" will Kennedy or his son receive fees from a Gardasil settlement.

"If these Senators are worried about corruption, they should take a long hard look at ‌the revolving door between industry" and federal agencies like the Food and Drug ​Administration, Weisner said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends Gardasil as a routine ​immunization for 11 and 12-year-olds to prevent cervical and other ​cancers caused by HPV.

Earlier this year, the CDC attempted to change its guidance and said U.S. children should receive a ‌single dose of HPV vaccine, rather than the two-dose ​course marketed by Merck. A federal judge ​blocked that move.

Kennedy has for years called for a re-examination of the process for seeking compensation for vaccine injuries. Patients who were harmed by shots on the U.S. immunization schedule can only seek a limited amount of damages from a fund run by HHS, ​known as the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP).

The senators' letter ‌said Wisner Baum has sought awards from the VICP in more than a dozen lawsuits. The senators asked whether the ​health department led by Kennedy intends to expand the injuries eligible for federal compensation under the VICP, among other changes.

(Reporting by ​Dan Levine in San Francisco; Editing by Michele Gershberg and Michael Perry)

Interview

When a Fascist Organization Set Up Shop in Their Town, Residents Fought Back

Michael Edison Hayden’s new book tells the story of an Appalachian town’s fight against an anti-immigrant behemoth.

By Shane Burley , 

Truthout

July 27, 2026

An aerial view of the Berkeley Castle on December 8, 2022, in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. Peter Brimelow of the web site VDARE.com is currently the owner of the property.

Ricky Carioti / The Washington Post via Getty Images

There is a certain symmetry to what we have experienced over the past decade of collapsing national consensus and far right radicalization. In cities and small towns around the country, people are watching as their friendships break down along lines of political or moral agreement, and as the shadow of white nationalism towers over even the most seemingly idyllic environments.

This is the conflict that researcher and journalist Michael Edison Hayden found when looking at Berkeley Springs, a small and astoundingly beautiful corner of West Virginia nestled along the edge of Appalachia, where the anti-immigrant group VDARE, a popular far right publication founded in 1999 that mixed edgy Republicans like Pat Buchanan and Ann Coulter with explicit white nationalists, decided to purchase a literal castle to use as its home base. What happened next was a clash between residents and some of the most vocal and best-funded white supremacists in the country, and Hayden was pulled directly into that story as he stood with the town’s residents and faced personal and emotional catastrophe along with them.

This story is woven through his new book, Strange People on the Hill, a mix of deep reporting and painfully honest memoir that tells the story of people trying to survive alongside the increasing strangeness of the communities where we once felt at home.

I spoke with Hayden about what drove this project, how it evolved, the activism Berkeley Springs residents took up, and what this all means for a far right that has unmatched power in Donald Trump’s second term.

Shane Burley: We get a lot of books each year about the growth of the American far right, but yours was different. What brought you to the uniquely personal approach you took, and how did it change along the way?

Related Story

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The inherent instability of white supremacist groups offers anti-fascists the tools to sow chaos within the movement. By Shane Burley , Truthout  April 15, 2024

Michael Edison Hayden: I tried to do something different. We’ve been writing about this era for a long time, and I wanted to do something that would center the psychological conditions of the moment more than necessarily the bad guys doing it. I wanted to focus on what it’s like to live in this time where everybody is so obsessed with the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, and how crazy it’s making people.

When Bold Type [Books] approached me about doing a book, I thought it would be an opportunity to help further distinguish the difference between the town and VDARE by showing what it had done to Berkeley Springs, lifting up the town’s story and showing that the area is worth saving. I didn’t want to leave my work with the town unfinished.

But then it changed a lot when I ran into all those issues with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), where I worked, because I couldn’t actually write the book without dealing with what had happened there. [After being terminated from the SPLC, Hayden threatened a discrimination lawsuit. The organization ultimately settled.] I happened to be in Berkeley Springs in December 2023 when I dealt with suicidal ideation, which stemmed not only from the hell of reporting on this material but also what happened at the SPLC … union-breaking tactics and discrimination. One of the more important events in the town at that moment was me coming there to speak to people, so I couldn’t keep myself out of the story.

The book deal was all I had when I went into a psychiatric hospital, because I’d lost my job, I’d lost everything. So I was working on the book while I was hospitalized. I wrote and rewrote the first lines of the book through a lot of difficulties like memory loss from medication and the changing environments as I went through treatment.

For me, the story shows that everybody is going through a tremendous loss of sanity because of the era we’re in. If you look at things like those execution-style shootings in Minneapolis and how quickly people on the MAGA right rushed to defend it without getting any more information, we’re really going crazy.

I wanted to capture that feeling, that we are all going through this horrible thing together.

You land in this small town of Berkeley Springs in Appalachia, a tourist enclave that is now essentially being threatened by a white nationalist institution setting up shop. Tell me a bit about this town, and how these community members started trying to build a plan to push VDARE back out of their neighborhood. This is something that is likely familiar to a lot of people. Over the past 10 years, many folks without any history as activists have been forced into situations where they have to rapidly become community organizers.

The most defining thing is there are not a lot of people from Appalachia living in Berkeley Springs. It is a town full of people who came from somewhere else. It’s an affordable place for people who like nature, so it brings people from all over, especially retirees. This is part of what leads it to be economically defined by tourism, people who make a living selling knickknacks or coffee, and their market is the visitors who come to town.

It’s an interesting question whether or not the main characters of the book consider themselves activists. There’s that anti-fascist motto, “we protect us.” This is something really primal for people. None of these people were really into radical leftist politics. For the most part, they’re liberals who embodied the “we protect us” mindset by necessity, not as some sort of deeply ideological political stance.

This was more like, wait, we’re all screwed. All our businesses — this is how we make money. Then this person comes in, they have radical anti-immigrant beliefs, and they’re about to become the most famous and possibly wealthiest people in town. What do you do about that?

So they came together as business owners in the beginning to try to solve a problem that had no obvious solution. Peter and Lydia Brimelow bought their castle privately. It’s their property. So how do you even fix that?

From there, they end up becoming activists. They hadn’t thought in those terms before, but I think they would probably look back and say that they were.

Peter Brimelow had been incredibly influential on the anti-immigrant right, and in the creation of the “alt-right” and the radicalization of people like Ann Coulter and Stephen Miller (which you’ve written about). But what was his significance at the point in which he arrived in the town?

At the time Peter Brimelow purchased the castle in 2020, I think he believed this was the start of a VDARE dynasty. This organization he built would radiate outward from this castle beyond his death and become an institution for nativists and, if you would like, fascists.

But they ran into a huge problem. After Charlottesville, there was a growth of activists who worked to institute social punishment and accountability for what was witnessed there. That meant calling people’s jobs, calling people in the towns where they grew up and saying, “Did you know this happened?” One of the most important ways was to call people hosting [fascist] events and ask if they want something like what happened in Charlottesville to happen here, too.

That’s what happened to VDARE when they tried to set up conferences. VDARE lost access to multiple hotels due to this type of activism. Peter and Lydia believed they found an answer by purchasing the castle. This can finally be a home base where the “dissident right” can gather.

What he didn’t understand was that when he signed off on that castle purchase, that was the end of VDARE.

He had previously been at the height of his influence. You had Stephen Miller in the White House, somebody who looked up to Peter Brimelow. You had people listening to Pat Buchanan and Ann Coulter, both VDARE contributors.

Peter was at peak influence, and I think ultimately, to use a cliché, they flew too close to the sun.

The people they were bringing into the movement didn’t always have the same kind of snobby Brimelow manners, like Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler or Kevin DeAnna, who had even more explicit interest in neo-Nazi politics than Brimelow. In the same way that the younger generation of the MAGA movement is more wild and reckless, the same thing was true of the type of people VDARE was cultivating. Then financial troubles followed, as did New York State investigations into this nonprofit status. Things crumbled quickly.

We watch as the residents begin a kind of desperate attempt to organize the town against Brimelow, but fractures start forming. This is also quite familiar for people whose relationships were, perhaps before Trump and the alt-right, primarily apolitical, but who now experience sharp barriers forming between them. How do they change during this process?

I think it’s something that everybody who has engaged in any kind of political activism understands.

In our most naive, childlike state, when we first take political action, we may assume everyone knows what we are doing is right, and then you’re surprised to find that not everybody agrees. And that opposition can even come from ostensibly liberal allies who simply don’t agree with speaking out. Once you start speaking up about life and struggle, there will be blowback.

That’s what happens to most of the people in Berkeley Springs. That includes both people who made a stand defending VDARE and people who stood up against it. I don’t defend VDARE supporters in any way when I’m saying this. I’m just saying that anybody who spoke up about anything was met with either antagonism from people who believed the opposite, or from a crowd of people who wanted everybody to just shut up and not disrupt the apple cart.

In the case of Trey and Paul — two of the book’s main characters, whose coffee shop is at the center of the story — they had people who were ostensibly liberal and with them ideologically, but who really went off trying to undercut them and make them look foolish. Multiple people accused Trey of bringing journalists, outsiders, to Berkeley Springs to spark bad press. These are people who may have agreed with them and been against VDARE but couldn’t rationalize the significance of the situation and just wanted everybody to stop talking about it.

We watch as they throw everything at the wall, with limited results. This is an experience that I think resonates particularly across rural communities that have tried to scrape together strategies with few resources and a lack of uniform political support. What did they learn from this experience, and what lessons do you think this offers to all of us thinking about how to mobilize our communities during a time of far right government capture?

I think everybody in town is eager to move on and put the VDARE years behind them. It’s like you finally broke up with your shitty ex, but her stuff is all over your house. They know VDARE is gone and doesn’t have the kind of presence it used to have, but the castle is still owned by Peter and Lydia Brimelow, and they are still in town.

I think the townspeople who opposed VDARE in Berkeley Springs are surprised and impressed with themselves to a degree, and I think they also know that there is no total victory for them.

As for what everybody else can learn, I’ve given that a lot of thought. The thing to do — and it’s a difficult thing — is that when you see something that is wrong, it doesn’t matter if it seems impossible. You need to speak up and do something about it.

Berkeley Springs had an impossible situation. VDARE bought that castle with a fountain of dark money. The town had no access to funds by comparison. When you’re stuck with a situation that seems impossible, but you know it’s wrong, you still have to speak up. They tried everything, and they were able to find wiggle room and dislodge VDARE.

One thing that’s not in the book (I only found out afterward) is that people from the town were calling New York State Attorney General Letitia James, who ultimately opened the crushing investigation into VDARE’s nonprofit, and trying to get her to pay attention to what was happening in Berkeley Springs. Even sending my articles to her.

They tried everything. On the day of a VDARE conference at the castle, they hosted a pro-immigration event in town. There were a bunch of different flags from different countries, a bunch of cookies, and maybe five people. But there was enough to have a pro-immigration sign visible in the town.

Whose mind was changed that day? We don’t know. You just don’t know.

In order to live, you need to act. That is the lesson from their activism. The easiest thing to do is try to get your money together and move away. Say it’s a lost cause.

And they didn’t do that.

The center of the U.S. far right movement seems to be shifting away from fascist organizations and into posts of formal political power. We see as, to a degree, white nationalist organizations have shrunk, but that may correlate with how well those ideas have percolated into the mainstream GOP. So where does the heart of the U.S. far right sit today?

They don’t need groups anymore. If you want to be a Proud Boy or you want to be in the Patriot Front, why wouldn’t you just join ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement]?

There’s no way to statistically quantify how many people who have been in groups like that, or have been attracted to groups like that, are in ICE. But there’s an opportunity to get paid for it. And when you look at the propaganda that comes out of the DHS [Department of Homeland Security] Twitter account and all these things, there’s just no reason for some of these organizations anymore. It’s nominally a neo-fascist collective with cryptocurrency schemes, setting up UFC fights.

There’s no need for these fringe white nationalist organizations anymore, necessarily. We’ve seen the Daily Stormer’s editor Andrew Anglin hanging it up, for example. The MAGA movement has peaked. Now the question is: What will the movement do now that it has ascended and become such a dominant cultural force?

We don’t need to worry about whether MAGA is a fascist movement. Of course it is. After January 6, after Minneapolis, it’s a fascist movement.

The question is: What will they do going forward?

Will they succeed in taking some sort of autocratic hold on the country, a grip on a weakened democracy? We don’t know yet. We don’t know if they have the savvy to govern purely as an authoritarian movement. Right now, we have authoritarian moments and symbols and events overlaid onto something that still resembles the United States we knew before Trump.

I think right now we’re going to find out whether this very fascist movement is able to dominate in the way we know they want to.


This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Shane Burley

Shane Burley is the author of Why We Fight: Essays on Fascism, Resistance, and Surviving the Apocalypse (AK Press, 2021) and Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It (AK Press, 2017). His work has appeared in places such as NBC News, Jacobin, Al Jazeera, The Baffler, The Daily Beast, Truthout, In These Times and Protean. He is currently working on an anthology of anti-fascist writing called ¡No pasarán! and writing a book on antisemitism. Follow him on Twitter: @shane_burley1.

Trump Escalates Campaign Against Smithsonian With New “Warning Signs” Order


Trump’s executive order bashed the Smithsonian Institution for attempting to advance ideas of “social justice.”

By Chris Walker , 

Truthout

July 28, 2026

A Smithsonian sign is displayed in front of the National Museum of African American History and Culture on July 10, 2026 in Washington, DC.

Kevin Carter / Getty Images

President Donald Trump issued an executive order this past weekend demanding new signage outside the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History (NMAH), due to what his administration has alleged are displays that demonstrate an unpatriotic view of the past.

The signs will “warn” visitors about a supposed “ideological capture” of the NMAH. They also claim that the museum’s displays depict historical events using a “radical view of American history.”

The latest action follows 16 months of the Trump administration pressuring the Smithsonian Institution to change its content, threatening to review current exhibits and cut off funding for the museums unless they adhere to the White House’s standards. The effort has resulted in the ouster of at least one museum director.

The Smithsonian is not governed by a single branch of government, making the administration’s demands highly unusual and likely unprecedented. Instead, the museums are managed by a board of regents, which includes members from all three branches of government, as well as nine additional citizen members.

Trump’s executive order issued on Friday calls for the Interior Department and the National Park Service (NPS) to “install temporary signage” along sidewalks at the NMAH to inform passersby of a report issued by the administration regarding the accuracy of the museum’s exhibits. That report claims that “the Smithsonian leadership does not present American history as a shared national inheritance to be taught and celebrated, but instead views American history as a ‘prime tool’ to advance ideas of social justice and the radical transformation of our society.”

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Many Call Authoritarianism “Un-American.” 250 Years of History Show Otherwise.
A group of Indigenous scholars are countering erasures in US history in Rebecca Nagle’s new “First America” podcast.
By Petala Ironcloud , TruthoutJuly 18, 2026

The Trump administration’s allegations are ironic, given that Trump himself demonstrably lied to the American public tens of thousands of times during his first term in office, and has continued to lie during his second term.

During a congressional hearing last week, NMAH director Anthea Hartig denied that the museum’s exhibits are ideological. Said Hartig:


Our work is governed by the Smithsonian standards of scholarship, accuracy, independence, and nonpartisanship. The museum does not take sides in America’s political debates. We preserve and document the evidence of American life in all of its breadth, so that the public can encounter the past and draw their own conclusions.

The claims by the White House do not “fairly or accurately” represent the museum’s standards, Hartig added.

Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-New Mexico), ranking Democrat on the Oversight Committee, blasted the administration for targeting truthful exhibits at the museum.

“This EO is a clear political overreach, driven by an ideological agenda to rewrite American history,” Stansbury said on social media. “Our Smithsonian institutions do not belong to the President, but to the American people and so does our nation’s history.”

American Historical Association executive director Sarah Weicksel also criticized the executive order, noting that there is “no precedent” of a president demanding that a museum “present a completely alternative narrative” — one based on a “very narrow and very circumscribed definition of patriotism.”

The executive order is “an absolute affront to the professionals who work in that building,” Weicksel added in comments shared with The Washington Post.

Nearly Half of Americans Say US Should Arrest Netanyahu Ahead of Trump Meeting

About a quarter of Americans say that the US should let him walk free, compared to nearly half who want him arrested.

By Sharon Zhang , TruthoutPublished

July 28, 2026

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump met in the White House in a meeting closed to the press on July 28, 2026, ahead of Sen. Lindsey Graham's funeral.

Posted by the Prime Minister of Israel's X account

Nearly half of Americans think that the U.S. should carry out the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he enters the country, new polling finds, outnumbering those who say the U.S. shouldn’t arrest him by nearly two to one.

Polling conducted by The Economist/YouGov ahead of Netanyahu’s visit to the White House on Tuesday finds that 49 percent of U.S. adults say that the U.S. should arrest Netanyahu. This includes 68 percent of Democrats and 55 percent of independents.

This belief holds a double digit lead over those who say otherwise, with 27 percent saying that the U.S. shouldn’t arrest him. An additional 23 percent say they aren’t sure.

The survey also found that a plurality of Americans say that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians, with 43 percent saying as such and 24 percent denying the genocide.

The polling comes as Netanyahu has traveled to the White House for his seventh visit with President Donald Trump in his second term, and their first in-person meeting since they launched the war on Iran. The meeting was closed to press coverage. Netanyahu is also slated to attend the funeral of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) on Tuesday.


The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in late 2024. Discourse surrounding Netanyahu’s warrant, issued for crimes against humanity committed in Israel’s genocide of Gaza, has surged in recent days after New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said his office was exploring legal avenues to arrest Netanyahu if he enters the city for the United Nations General Assembly meeting in September.

In a video posted on his social media channels last week, Mamdani said that his office determined that it does not have the authority to arrest Netanyahu. But the progressive politician called on the U.S. government to join the ICC and arrest the prime minsiter, labelling him a “war criminal, the architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people.”

“He is responsible for the killing of more than 73,000 people, for the maiming of tens of thousands of children, as those who survive undergo amputation without anesthesia,” Mamdani said. “Benjamin Netanyahu is not welcome in New York City.” The video circulated widely, becoming one of Mamdani’s most popular videos and garnering nearly 10 million likes on Instagram and nearly 1.5 million likes on X.

Netanyahu called the video “hate speech” in response on Sunday, and said that the ICC charges are “bogus.” Israel has been engaged in a yearslong campaign to attack the ICC, and the U.S. has also recently ramped up attacks with the goal of dismantling the body.

‘Countless Seniors Will Soon Pay More’: Trump Ends Subsidy for Medicare Prescription Drug Plans

“Donald Trump and Republicans are making healthcare more expensive for seniors at every turn.”


US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz speaks at the Wisconsin Air National Guard facility at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport on July 8, 2026, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
(Photo by Mark Schiefelbein-Pool/Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Jul 29, 2026
COMMON DREAMS


The Trump administration on Tuesday said it would end a subsidy program that helped lower premiums for seniors enrolled in Medicare Part D prescription drug plans, a move that’s expected to increase monthly costs for millions of Americans amid a broader affordability crisis.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), headed by Mehmet Oz, announced “the conclusion of the Part D Premium Stabilization Demonstration” for the coming year, just months before the start of Medicare open enrollment. Oz characterized the subsidy program as a “bailout” for insurance companies and said that “premiums will go up by less than $10 for most Medicare recipients.”

But The Wall Street Journal, which reported the administration’s move ahead of the public announcement, noted that nearly half of Medicare Part D plan enrollees would likely see increases “largely in the $11 to $20 range a month.” The subsidy program, established in the wake of the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act, cut the average Part D premium by more than 25% this year.

Leslie Dach, chair of the advocacy group Protect Our Care, said in a statement that President Donald Trump and his Republican allies “continue to force seniors to pay more while handing tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations.”

“Trump and Republicans are making healthcare more expensive for seniors at every turn,” said Dach. “In the middle of a GOP-induced affordability crisis, they are eliminating a key program that helps seniors afford their medications, meaning countless seniors will soon pay more just to get the lifesaving prescriptions they need. For older Americans living on fixed incomes, even an extra ten or twenty dollars a month can mean choosing between filling their prescription, paying the electric bill, or buying groceries. Seniors deserve lower prescription drug costs and affordable healthcare.”

Around 25 million Americans are enrolled in standalone prescription drug plans through Medicare Part D, which is offered by private, Medicare-approved companies. Another 31 million Americans are enrolled in Medicare Part D via privatized Medicare Advantage plans.

Juliette Cubanski, vice president and director of the Program on Medicare Policy at the nonprofit research group KFF, wrote that standalone Medicare Part D prescription drug plans “may soon seem even less affordable” following the Trump administration’s change, “leading to further enrollment growth in Medicare Advantage.” (Prior to becoming head of CMS, Oz was a prominent booster of Medicare Advantage.)

Each year, millions of people across the US are forced to forgo or ration prescription medications due to high costs.

Kendall Witmer, rapid response director at the Democratic National Committee, said the Trump administration’s decision to terminate the Medicare Part D subsidy program shows that the president and his party “are doing everything they can to make healthcare unaffordable for Americans, especially for seniors.”

“Trump and Republicans’ massive healthcare cuts have pushed working families to the brink as they grapple with skyrocketing insurance premiums, even bigger medical bills, and rising prescription drug costs,” said Witmer. “Americans are taking on record amounts of medical debt just to make ends meet—all while Trump and his family get even richer and his wealthy donors rake in tax cuts.”

Bari Weiss’ CBS News retracts ‘brazen lie’ after false smear of progressive Dem NYC Mayor: report

Alexander Willis
July 28, 2026

RAW STORY


Editor-in-Chief of CBS News Bari Weiss attends the annual Allen and Co. Sun Valley Media and Technology Conference at the Sun Valley Resort in Sun Valley, Idaho, U.S., July 10, 2026. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Bari Weiss’ CBS News New York was forced to remove a line from its coverage of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani after journalist Judd Legum identified what he called a “brazen lie” about the progressive Democratic mayor, Legum reported Tuesday.

CBS News’ report centered around a petition launched by Giovanni Galante, whose husband died in the 9/11 attacks, calling for Mamdani – who is Muslim – to stay away from the 25th remembrance ceremony of the attacks. As of Tuesday morning, the petition had more than 24,000 signatures.

The conservative tabloid New York Post ran a report Sunday about the petition, and with the initial headline, according to Legum: “STAY AWAY: Thousands of 9/11 families demand Mamdani be banned from 25th-Anniversary.” On Monday, Legum said CBS News New York published a similar report, in which it claimed “thousands of 9/11 victims’ families” were asking Mamdani not to attend the ceremony

Writing in a report published Tuesday on Popular Information, his independent news publication, Legum noted that the New York Post’s report directly contradicted its own headline by claiming “at least 300 victims’ families” had signed the petition, despite the headline claiming it to have been “thousands.”

To get to the bottom of the discrepancy, Legum conducted an interview with Galante, who went on to admit that no list existed regarding how many of the petition’s signatories were 9/11 victims’ families.

“Rather, the 300 figure that organizers shared with the New York Post was an estimate based on how they believe the petition spread before it received much publicity,” Legum wrote.

Galante went on to explain how organizers came to the 300 figure.

“We all know each other, so…think about it. If you know 10 people and they give it to 10 more people they know that lost,” Galante said, according to Legum. “That’s how we got the 300 number. I don’t go through the list and look at the names.”

Legum later contacted CBS News New York for comment regarding the apparent discrepancy, after which, he said, the outlet had amended its report.

“After Popular Information reached out for comment, that line was removed,” Legum wrote. “A revised article on the CBS website says the petition has ‘purportedly drawn thousands of signatures, including some victims' families.’”

Further supporting Legum’s claim that CBS News New York had amended its report was a Monday post on the publication’s Facebook page, which showed that the original caption retained the "thousands of 9/11 victims’ families” figure before being edited later that same night to “some 9/11 victims’ families.”

Bessent says Americans won't need retirement savings: 'Elon's so far ahead of the curve'

Daniel Hampton
July 28, 2026   

RAW STORY

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent speaks to reporters at the White House in Washington, D.C., October 22, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Monday night that he agrees with Elon Musk's prediction that artificial intelligence will produce so much abundance that Americans won't need to save for retirement.

The exchange, flagged online by journalist Aaron Rupar, came when Hannity asked Bessent whether he believed Musk's claim that AI-driven wealth would make traditional retirement savings unnecessary.

"I do, but I think I would change the timeline," Bessent said. "I've seen Elon speak for a long time and he is — look, his record speaks for itself in terms, as an inventor, as a venture capitalist, as a great American. He's normally early. He's just so far ahead of the curve. He sees things that no one else sees. But I do think we are building this incredible economy that we can't even imagine."

Bessent added that a quarter of jobs that exist in 2026 didn't exist in 2000.

Musk laid out the underlying vision earlier this year on the Moonshots with Peter Diamandis podcast, calling AI and robotics a "supersonic tsunami" that would bring about a world of zero scarcity.

"Don't worry about squirreling money away for retirement in 10 or 20 years," Musk, the world's richest man, told Diamandis. "It won't matter."

Musk predicted that by 2030, AI will exceed "the intelligence of all humans combined," and that humanoid robots will eventually outnumber people.

Bessent's embrace of that forecast landed at a pivotal moment for millions of American retirees.

The 2026 Social Security Trustees Report, released in June, projects that the retirement program's primary trust fund will be depleted in 2032, triggering an automatic 22 percent benefit cut for current and future beneficiaries unless Congress acts.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that an immediate 24 percent cut on insolvency would translate to an average monthly reduction of about $500 for retirees, affecting roughly 63 million people.

The trustees also noted the outlook had worsened partly because of the 2025 "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," which reduced tax revenue flowing into the trust fund.

Musk's original comments were widely panned by financial planners. Business Insider surveyed seven personal finance and AI experts about his advice, all of whom urged Americans to keep saving.

Pride and Proximity in Berlin

Adrienne Teitcher

 July 29, 2026

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Last weekend, I was sitting by the river, talking to a stranger about how our proximity to others, physical or sociological, determines the extent to which we experience them as fully alive, and also to mourn their deaths. It was twilight in the suburbs of Berlin; the quiet of this warm night air broken now and again by the party boats cruising by.

To illustrate my point, I said, “God forbid a bomb should go off in a café in Berlin. A few deaths would make headlines across Germany and all over the West, because we are—or feel ourselves to be—close to those who died. But if an apartment block in Beirut is leveled by an Israeli missile, it gets a single paragraph in the news, and then we all move on.” I felt a superstitious chill upon uttering these words.

That was around 10 p.m. Later, I would learn that this was the precise time someone drove a van into marchers attending the Christopher Street Day parade–the mainstream Pride event in Berlin–and then, after smashing into a tree, began stabbing those nearby.

Devastating.

This morning, after processing the attack with friends and fielding calls from distant family, I did something without even realizing: I turned the page on the carnage. I sat at my desk and I got back to work on a documentary I’m pursuing about the lie of denazification.

It was only when I messaged a friend about filming dates that I realized I was quite out of sync with those around me. She wrote back and said she was reeling from the attack and unable to talk right. And suddenly, I felt insensitive, reptilian even—cold.

So I had to ask myself: What was wrong with me? How could I already be back at my desk, catching up on work? Then I remembered: that’s exactly what I’ve been doing every single day for the past two and a half years at least, since Israel escalated its genocide against the Palestinians.

No one deserves to die because they chose to go out into the streets and affirm that their life has value—that they refused to be silenced or forced to hide who they are, by law, hate or violence. This is what Pride means to me.

Yet, just as no one deserves to die at a Pride march, no one deserves to die because they live in an apartment building selected seemingly at random by IDF high command, on the pretense that they shared their domestic space with “the enemy”.

Likewise, no one deserves to be turned into red mist because they’re sheltering in a tent in Gaza or Beirut when Israeli artillery drops.

120 schoolgirls do not deserve to die screaming in their school auditorium in Minab, Iran, in the opening act of the USA’s latest imperialist adventure.

A patient, lying in bed at Al-Aqsa Hospital in Gaza, does not deserve to be set on fire when Israel carries out an air strike on a space that should be a safe haven.

None of these people deserved to die.

Yet time and again, after each slaughter was blotted out by yet another slaughter—even with the firebombing of the Al-Aqsa Hospital, the image of a shell of a person in a bed, seemingly shifting and rotating their stiffened body amid the raging flames—I just moved on.

As I sit at my desk, watching the footage once again, I wonder: Was this person alive? Or was it simply the force of the heat from the explosion caused by the Israeli airstrike that made their body move as if they were?

I feel sick, I physically recoil, as part of my mind tries to merge with the experience of this person, tries to imagine what it would mean to have your skin burn away and still somehow be conscious.

And yet, even after this gruesome exercise, I will move on. I know I will. This is what I do. And this is what disgusts me about myself.

I can only live this so-called life—go to work, pay taxes, dance, treat myself to a coffee, breathe the air, tell a joke, wonder if I should put grapes in my salad this evening—by pushing these memories away and welcoming the numb detachment that separates the functionally “normal” from the insane.

When did I decide that I wanted to be normal?

Pride exists because queer people—trans, lesbian, gay, intersex—have not always been seen as fully human. Yet when I look at the scores of daily deaths of brown people in the so-called Middle East, at the indifference to suffering when it occurs on bodies coded as “Muslim” or “Arab,” I see that the dehumanization runs far deeper for these communities than the violence and threats I experience as a trans woman in Berlin.

In the midst of this rising tide of imperial violence, Pride has lost its meaning. Proud of what? What is the goal? To assimilate into a nation state that exports deadly bombs to a warzone? And are we supposed to somehow take succor from the fact that the murderers who helm the German regime are willing to light the candles of us sexual deviants in this, our dark night?

Pride draws the lens of our awareness into a small, proximate circle—those around us, those who look like us, who think alike—and at best struggles to achieve access to an unjust power, while failing to speak to those killed or forced into unlivable lives by a bloodthirsty empire and its many, many tentacles.

I can’t think clearly anymore. I can’t feel freely. Because to feel the burden of these cruel days would mean to stop—completely—any exertion of energy, any movement within a single fiber of my being, unless that spark is an act of resistance to a world that normalizes the humiliation, degradation, herding, and slaughter of those whose lives are deemed to not matter.

Adrienne Teitcher is a trans artist based in Berlin.