It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
The Trump administration’s hard line against Cuba pushed Sherritt International Corp. to the brink. Now, an ex-adviser to the US president may be the Canadian mining company’s salvation.
The nearly 99-year-old company, whose former chief executive was once known as Fidel Castro’s favorite capitalist, has staked its business on a bet few Western companies would touch. After entering Cuba in the 1990s, Sherritt developed a nickel-and-cobalt mine through a joint venture with the state before expanding into energy. The result was a sprawling business that’s survived commodity busts, US political pressure and economic instability on the island.
That wager abruptly unraveled this month, plunging Sherritt into turmoil. After President Donald Trump expanded sanctions on the communist country, Sherritt initially announced plans to dissolve its mining venture in Cuba. On Wednesday the US charged former Cuban President Raúl Castro with murder, sharply escalating a standoff with Havana as the Trump administration attempts to reshape the island’s political order.
But just days after Sherritt announced its retreat from Cuba, a potential rescuer emerged in the form of a Dallas family office linked to Ray Washburne, a real estate executive appointed by Trump in 2017 to lead the Overseas Private Investment Corp. Washburne’s Gillon Capital LLC signed a non-binding preliminary agreement on Wednesday that would hand the family office a controlling stake in Sherritt.
“It came out of nowhere,” Peter Hancock, Sherritt’s interim chief executive officer, said in an interview. “I would like to tell you that I’m a business genius and that I knew an American entity would see that it could create value in the situation that Sherritt was in. But no, I didn’t foresee that.”
As Trump’s foreign policy during his second term turns markedly more aggressive, Sherritt is still at risk of losing its Havana gamble. The saga underscores the dangers facing companies and investors from shifting geopolitics amid a rapidly changing world order. While major multinational firms have not been immune to conflict-driven losses, the threat is particularly acute for companies with assets concentrated in a single country outside of the US.
It’s not clear whether Sherritt’s preliminary pact with Gillon signals a potential shift in Trump’s Cuba strategy. On Wednesday, he played down the need to further ratchet up pressure on the Cuban government after the charges against Raúl Castro. Representatives for Gillon and the State Department didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
But for Hancock, the sudden backing from Gillon helped “bridge the huge gap” between Sherritt and the administration.
“This deal happened because an actor in the United States was able to make a case to the US State Department,” he said. “We were collateral damage in a larger policy objective for the United States.”
Sherritt was founded in 1927 and named after Carl Sherritt, a trapper who staked copper prospects in Manitoba. The company’s first foray into Cuba was steered by Ian Delaney, who became CEO after a proxy fight in 1990 and secured a deal with the Castro government one year later. The state agreed to sell Sherritt unprocessed nickel from Moa, a mine in eastern Cuba that was nationalized after the country’s 1959 revolution.
It was a milestone deal for the Canadian firm, which needed raw material to feed its key asset: a refinery in Alberta. The company entered into a joint venture agreement in 1994 with the state to operate Moa, which produces cobalt and nickel, both key metals for the energy transition and providing power to data centers.
For years, Sherritt was enormously successful in Cuba. Its market capitalization jumped to almost C$5 billion ($3.6 billion) in 2008, while the stock traded as high as C$18. Sherritt, by that time, had poured significant investment into the country, including stakes in electricity, oil and natural gas ventures alongside state companies.
Sherritt executives became the first people barred from entering the US under the Helms-Burton Act, a law passed in 1996 to target firms doing business in Cuba. But Canada and several European nations opposed the law and maintained diplomatic ties with Havana, allowing Sherritt to keep selling most of its nickel and cobalt into those markets as well as Asia.
Yet at the height of Sherritt’s rise following its success in Cuba, the company made costly bet on a nickel project in Madagascar. The decision would ultimately shred its balance sheet, driving debt to almost C$2.5 billion at its peak in 2013. Then came a prolonged slump in nickel prices, leaving the company periodically teetering on the brink of insolvency.
Saddled with a heavy debt load and years of weak cash flow, the company became even more reliant on Cuba, exiting other assets including its Canadian coal business to fund loan repayments and eventually writing off its Madagascar venture. Today, Cuba accounts more than 70% of the company’s asset base on a book value basis.
“They had an ample opportunity to eliminate their indebtedness entirely,” Jeffrey Gavarkovs, a managing partner at Northstream Capital Inc., said in an interview. But “the combination of Cuba and a debt load that was a little bit too heavy was their poison pill.”
While Sherritt continued receiving distributions from its power and nickel operations, the company spent more than C$100 million on an offshore well, a higher-risk category of oil exploration, Gavarkovs said. The effort yielded a well that was ultimately written off as uneconomic.
But according to Gavarkovs, who owns Sherritt bonds, the company’s biggest flaw was its bloated corporate overhead for what had effectively become a single-asset mining company. Directors on the board, rather than ensuring that unsecured note-holders received cash interest payments as required by the debt covenants, prioritized vesting cash-settled stock options, he said.
The company also spent millions trying to fend off several activist campaigns against it, he added. Last year investment firm Pala Assets Holdings won its battle against Sherritt, resulting in the resignation of CEO Leon Binedell and a shakeup of the board.
When US forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in January, investors began speculating that Cuba could be the Trump administration’s next target. In Venezuela’s case, US oil majors and Western mining companies swarmed into the country after Maduro’s arrest, with Chevron Corp. emerging as one of the clearest winners.
But unlike Chevron, which has a diversified asset base, Sherritt was facing a worsening a fuel shortage as the US blocked Venezuelan exports to Cuba. The company announced plans to pause mining at Moa in February after receiving notice that planned fuel deliveries could not be fulfilled.
As Cuba’s economy continued to crumble, with mass blackouts sweeping the island as Trump tightened his squeeze on the nation of 10 million people, Sherritt faced a choice: keep operations going at a loss and at reduced capacity, or mothball the company’s most valuable asset. In late March, the company announced it was seeking an emergency cash injection of as much as C$50 million to support Moa.
Hancock was at home in Halifax on Monday, a public holiday in Canada, watching the Giro d’Italia cycling race on TV when the phone rang. On the other end was Washburne, calling with his offer for Sherritt.
Two days later, the Canadian company announced that it had signed a non-binding term sheet with Gillon. Sherritt said the US State Department had no objections to the discussions.
It’s far from certain that Ottawa will support a US investor taking majority ownership of Sherritt, however. Canada instituted a new policy in 2024 to make it more difficult for foreign companies to take control of Canadian critical minerals assets.
To Ben Rowswell, a former Canadian ambassador to Venezuela, the move by a Trump-friendly investor to take control of Sherritt in Cuba exemplifies what’s become known as the Donroe Doctrine, the US president’s take on Washington’s 19th-century push for hemispheric domination.
The latest move provides “further insight into the changing character of the US relationship with the region as it’s turning into an extractive predator” that uses its power over all countries, said Rowswell, now a consultant with strategic advisory firm Catalyze4.
The government of Prime Minister Mark Carney might be reluctant to attempt to block the takeover of Sherritt by a US investor to avoid complicating efforts to renew a free trade agreement with the US, Rowswell said, adding that he believes Carney’s administration should defend the company against US sanctions.
A spokesperson for Canada’s industry department said the government welcomes foreign investment that benefits Canada’s economy, but declined to comment on specific transactions.
Sherritt isn’t the only foreign company with mining operations in Cuba: Singapore-based commodities trading giant Trafigura has a lead-and-zinc mine there in a joint venture with the state. The company has said that it complies with all applicable sanctions and maintains a regular dialogue with relevant authorities.
Despite the potential deal with Gillon, Sherritt’s situation remains tenuous. Three board members have resigned from Sherritt, leaving just Hancock and one other director. Its chief financial officer and its auditor also departed earlier this month. The company now trades as a penny stock, with a market capitalization near C$80 million. Without essential nickel and cobalt supplies from Cuba, the available inventory at the company’s Alberta refinery will run out in mid-June, it said earlier this month.
“A lot of things will need to happen to get to the state where the full value is realized,” said Hancock, adding that sourcing key inputs such as fuel and sulfur would also be critical to unlocking Sherritt’s full potential. But, he added, “the posture of the US government with respect to this deal opens up a much wider world of financing.”
The Fort Saskatchewan refinery is one of just a few nickel processing facilities in North America. As governments and manufacturers race to build critical minerals supply chains outside of China, the facility carries growing strategic importance, according to Northstream’s Gavarkovs.
For Hancock, a former engineer with commodities trader Glencore Plc, there have been “a lot of very unexpected twists and turns” since he stepped in as interim CEO of Sherritt in December. If the Gillon proposal goes ahead, any easing of tensions between the Trump administration and Cuba would likely improve the payoff for the Washburne family office, he added.
Gillon is “very, very familiar with the business and the value that they see down the track,” he said. “This deal signals that they believe Sherritt has got a real bright future when things normalize in Cuba.”
(By Sybilla Gross, Paula Sambo and Stephen Wicary)
Sherritt in talks to hand control of Cuba mining business to ex-Trump adviser
US new sanctions revive a decades-old clash with Sherritt, rooted in the 1990s. (Image courtesy of Sherritt International.)
Sherritt International Corp. is in talks to hand a controlling stake to a family office linked to a former adviser of President Donald Trump, as the mining company seeks to navigate US sanctions tied to its Cuba operations.
The Toronto-based company said it signed a non-binding term sheet for a private placement involving a warrant, which would allow Gillon Capital LLC to acquire enough common shares to own 55% of the company on a fully exercised basis, according to a statement Wednesday.
Sherritt expects that the exercise price will be at a discount to the company’s closing price May 15. The company, which operates nickel and cobalt mining and refining businesses tied closely to Cuban state partners, on Tuesday reversed course on plans to unwind its operations in the Caribbean country.
Shares of Sherritt, which trades as a penny stock, rose 9% in early trading in New York.
Gillon Capital is the family office of Ray Washburne, a real estate executive whom Trump appointed in 2017 to head the Overseas Private Investment Corporation before later naming him to the Presidential Intelligence Advisory Board.
Sherritt said it has “engaged constructively” with the US Department of State, which confirmed no objections to Gillon Capital’s engagement with the company, according to Wednesday’s statement. The Department of State and Department of Treasury don’t view the negotiations as contrary to US law, the statement said.
Last week, Sherritt said it was considering steps to relinquish its 50% stake in a Cuban nickel-and-cobalt mine, as well as surrender its interest in an energy joint venture with the state. On Tuesday, it backtracked on that decision and flagged it was evaluating a “potential value preserving opportunity.”
Sherritt operates nickel and cobalt mining and refining businesses tied closely to Cuban state partners and has long depended on the country for a significant portion of its production.
The company has been in turmoil since Trump signed an executive order earlier this month targeting non-US individuals and entities doing business in Cuba, which has faced sweeping US sanctions since the 1960s. The upheaval triggered a wave of departures, including three board members and the chief financial officer, and triggered a plunge in its share price.
Sherritt International (TSX: S) has dropped plans to dissolve its mining assets in Cuba, though operations will remain suspended amid ongoing US sanctions.
In a statement on Tuesday, the Canadian miner said it will now keep its Cuban interests, namely the Moa nickel mining venture, and will not proceed with its application to the Court of King’s Bench of Alberta to disclaim the asset.
The decision was made following further “consultation with advisors, stakeholders and relevant governmental authorities,” and “in light of additional information” currently available to the company, it said.
The announcement comes just days after Sherritt said it would be dissolving the 50/50 Moa joint venture with the state-owned General Nickel Company, citing a “material change” from the JV shareholders’ agreement. It followed a recent executive order by US President Donald Trump that expanded sanctions on Cuba to include non-American entities, including Sherritt.
The extended US sanctions triggered a wave of departures within the company, including three board members, the chief financial officer, and led to a more than 50% drop in its share price.
Before that, the Toronto-based miner had already been struggling due to its heavy exposure to the Cuban market. Sherritt has been mining cobalt and nickel in the island nation since 1990. It also produces electricity, oil and gas through a stake in Energas SA, another joint venture with Cuba’s state electric and petroleum companies.
Sherritt International shares rebounded slightly off an all-time low of C$0.11 on the news. Its market capitalization is approximately C$81 million ($59 million), following a decline that extends to nearly two decades.
While the company is not longer seeking a dissolution of the Cuban assets, its participation in the Moa venture will remain suspended, Sherritt said on Tuesday, adding that it will “continue to work with stakeholders and advisors on steps to address the executive order as soon as practicable.”
The company also said it has been presented, on a preliminary basis, with “a potential value preserving opportunity”, which it will evaluate.
US Supreme Court Rules Cruise Lines Can Be Sued Under Cuban Libertad Act
There are other cases under the Libertade Act also pending in the U.S. courts based on Trump’s 2019 decision not to extend the suspension of the act. Presidents before Trump had suspended the enforcement of the act.Cruises docked at the piers in Havana between 2016 and 2019 working under U.S. licenses (GPH photo)
The United States Supreme Court handed down its ruling saying four cruise lines could be sued for their use of the pier in Havana, Cuba, under the Libertad Act passed by the U.S. Congress in 1996. The case has been seen as a potential watershed in the long-running fight for compensation for assets seized during the 1959 Cuban revolution and other events around the globe.
At issue was the cruise lines' use of the docks in Havana between 2016, when the United States lifted many of its restrictions on Cuba under President Barack Obama, and June 2019, when Donald Trump reinstated the restrictions and let a presidential waiver over enforcement of the Libertad Act lapse. The Havana Dock Company, which built and operated the docks under a 99-year concession before the Cuban revolution, sued Carnival Corporation, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, MSC Cruises, and Royal Caribbean Group, contending they profited from the use of confiscated property.
The case alleges the cruise lines carried nearly one million passengers to Cuba between 2016 and 2019 using the piers that were tainted property, seized by the Cuban government in 1960 from Havana Docks. Under the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act (known as the Libertad Act or the Helms-Burton Act for its sponsors), companies were given the right to sue for compensation from their seized properties.
A federal district court in Miami found for Havana Docks and awarded damages of $440 million. However, a U.S. Court of Appeals reversed the decision. The cruise line case was argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in February over the interpretation of the act. Among the defenses presented by the cruise lines is the argument that the concession for the piers was to have expired in 2004. Further, it is argued that the cruise lines were operating under permits issued by the U.S. government.
The Supreme Court, in an 8 to 1 decision, ruled that the property was, in fact, “tainted” by the 1960 seizure and that Havana Docks only had to show that the cruise lines had used the confiscated property. The majority opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas disagrees with the appellate court’s ruling, finding that the act generally makes those who use property tainted by a past confiscation liable to any U.S. national who owns a claim on that property. Havana Docks' claim for the lost docks was certified at $9 million in 1960.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, raises concerns that the majority opinion, however, is too broad. She believes it was unlikely that Congress intended in the act that “someone who suffered a finite loss to reap infinite recoveries.” She believes the claim should be finite and not go on so long as anyone continues to make any commercial use of the docks. Justice Sotomayor, in her opinion, raises another point, highlighting that the cruises were operated at a time when U.S. policy was that they were lawful and beneficial to both Cuba and the United States.
The solo dissent came from Justice Elena Kagan, who focused on the assertion that the Cuban government always owned the docks. She points to the 2004 expiration of Havana Docks’ contract. She warns the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the act “treats all property interests as if they were perpetual ones." She sides with the Appellate Court, saying that Havana Docks’ claim should fail because the cruise lines did not use the docks during the time-limited concession.
The ruling sends the suit against the cruise lines back to the lower courts for further arguments.
There are other cases under the Libertade Act also pending in the U.S. courts based on Trump’s 2019 decision not to extend the suspension of the act. Presidents before Trump had suspended the enforcement of the act.
The Supreme Court in February also heard a case under the act brought by Exxon Mobil seeking compensation from the Cuban state-owned oil company CIMEX. The U.S. energy company lost its oil and gas assets in Cuba, which were seized by the Castro regime after the revolution and handed over to the state oil company.
In 2022, it was noted that more than 40 Libertad Act suits had been filed, including cases against commercial shipping companies Maersk, MSC, Crowley Maritime, and Seaboard Marine. Some of the cases brought under the act, such as Crowley Maritime and American Airlines, have reportedly reached settlements, while others will be impacted by the decisions in the cruise line case and the yet-to-be-announced decision by the Supreme Court in the ExxonMobil case.
Sunday, May 17, 2026
Hope in a Time of Democratic Decline
Two major reports released this year tell a grim story: Global freedom continues to decline and the US has lost its longstanding classification a liberal democracy. But hope lies in the data.
Protesters hold signs as they participate in a “No Kings” protest in Manhattan on March 28, 2026 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
The US score on the University of Gothenburg’s V-Dem Liberal Democracy Index declined by 24% in only one year, while its world rank dropped from 20th to 51st place out of 179 nations.“ The US joins nearly a quarter of the world’s nations undergoing democratic backsliding, and is on its way to joining the three-quarters of the world population, some 6 billion people, who live in autocracies. If President Donald Trump’s first term “laid the foundation”, according to the report, the second term has seen the backslide quicken.
The bad news is now measurable. V-dem rates the US as an elected democracy, losing its higher position as a liberal democracy. V-dem points to a breakdown of liberal characteristics including freedom of expression, respect for civil liberties, and well-functioning checks and balances, especially those between the executive branch and the judiciary. Freedom House reports a similar dramatic decline. As does the Democracy Meter.
Such a democratic crash is typically associated with coup d’etats. According to V-Dem we are back to the lowest level of democracy since 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, establishing the US as a democracy that enfranchised, at least in law, all citizens.
Trump did not create our democratic weaknesses, but he is exploiting them. Power has been unevenly coalescing in the presidency since at least Andrew Jackson’s administration. Democrats have done little to roll back the executive overreach that marked George W. Bush’s post 9/11War on Terror or Barack Obama’s drone strikes. Even former President Joe Biden could not help but overuse executive orders to overcome congressional gridlock. These precedents emboldened Trump. If the imperial presidency has previously been restricted to despotic rule abroad, it is now directed to the US’ own citizens and subjects. Trump is the domestic return of the imperial boomerang, establishing what political theorist Nikhil Pal Singh calls a “Homeland Empire.”
The 2026 midterm elections are more than a referendum on Trump. They are a test of whether American democracy can repair itself.
We were warned. This most recent executive power grab was foreshadowed by the Project 2025Heritage Foundation plan to enact “unitary executive theory.” By 2026, according to Project 2025 Tracker, half of the 320 objectives have been met. We have entered what former Republican adviser Gregg Nunziata calls “the age of American Caesarism.”
Still, buried within V-dem’s report are two important lessons of hope. The first lesson is that demand for democracy, as both a norm and practice, remains strong. Democracy remains powerful as an ideal, which is why even autocrats rarely reject elections outright and often rely on the appearance of democratic forms to confer legitimacy. Trump may troll liberals by cosplaying a king, selling 2028 merch, or even quipping in relation to the midterms that “when you think of it, we shouldn’t even have an election.“ But Trump still requires elections to be viewed as legitimate—even within the Republican Party. Uncertainty in elections can never fully be removed while democracy remains the norm.
The second lesson is that the first election after a democratic slide is a pivotal moment to reverse the trend. This means the 2026 midterm elections are more than a referendum on Trump. They are a test of whether American democracy can repair itself. Elections remain dangerous to autocrats precisely because they cannot fully control what voters will do.
Nevertheless, autocrats still attempt to tilt the playing field in their favor. To consolidate their grip on power, autocrats engage in what Stephen Levitsky and Lucan Way call “competitive authoritarianism.” Opposition remains legal and elections are still contested. But authoritarians weaponize the executive and judicial machinery of the state to make opposition costly.
Taking a page out of the authoritarian playbook, Trump has worked to discipline institutions that might constrain him. He has filled the administrative state with party sycophants, hollowed out government agencies, and targeted media and universities. He wields violent rhetoric to delegitimize opposition, both antifa bogymen and centrist liberals, and pardons those who illegally act in the administration’s interests, encouraging others to act with impunity. The list goes on. The point is to intimidate civil society and silence dissent. Historian Timothy Snyder calls this “anticipatory obedience.”
The danger, however, is that Trump is not alone. His impulses have become intertwined with party strategy. Voting rights are the clearest example of this unified threat. Trump’s SAVE Act has stalled in the Senate, but the Roberts Court has arrived with the cavalry to fulfill the Republican party’s long-awaited agenda. The recent Callais v Louisiana has already revealed itself to be a cudgel in Black voting districts. In a perverse acceptance that racism no longer exists, the ruling has green-lit a gerrymander race to the bottom.
Trump is a political bully. He seeks to whittle us down with near constant reminders that he has the power and we do not. Broadly, this thumb-on-his nose strategy underpins his social media message. This is its only message: Power begets power. Trump is relying on us to accept defeat that has not yet occurred. But power is not the same as inevitability. Despite the increasingly stacked odds, the upcoming midterm elections are a pivotal moment to repudiate autocracy.
Justice Elena Kagan, in her stinging dissent in the Callais v Louisiana decision, reminds us that the Voting Rights Act “was born of the literal blood of Union soldiers and civil rights marchers” and “[brought] this Nation closer to fulfilling the ideals of democracy and racial equality.” Rights were born in struggle. They can be lost in despondency. We must remind ourselves that democratic institutions are not self-executing: We are the guardrails.
What I call a “living democracy” builds on the uncertainty and hope that lies within the heart of the democratic project. The late political theorist Sheldin Wolin named this hopefulness “fugitive democracy,“ something fleeting that must be continually renewed. As Wolin writes, ”The possibility of renewal draws on a simple fact: that ordinary individuals are capable of creating new cultural patterns of commonality at any moment.“ It is up to us to rebuild hope in our political communities and in such numbers that we can defeat the electoral odds stacked against us.
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
Frances Moore Lappé Frances Moore Lappé is the author of 20 books, beginning with the acclaimed "Diet for a Small Planet." Most recently she is the co-author, with Adam Eichen, of the new book, "Daring Democracy: Igniting Power, Meaning, and Connection for the America We Want." Among her numerous previous books are "EcoMind: Changing the Way We Think to Create the World We Want" (Nation Books) and "Democracy's Edge: Choosing to Save Our Country by Bringing Democracy to Life." She is co-founder of the Cambridge, Mass.-based Small Planet Institute. Full Bio >
Lewis D’Avigdor Lewis d’Avigdor, PhD, is the managing director of Small Planet Institute. A former lawyer and historian, having taught at Cornell, Harvard, and Wheaton College, his work focuses on American and African-American politics and culture. Full Bio >
A Christian nation? At 250, America is still fighting over what that means
Scholars say American history is more Christian than secular advocates claim — and less religious than Christian nationalists would assert. A look at the complicated, contested history of America as a Christian nation.
(RNS) — When people ask Holly Hollman if America is a Christian nation, she has a simple response.
“What do you mean by that?”
The longtime general counsel of the Washington, D.C.-based Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, which promotes the separation of church and state, Hollman explains that if the question is whether most Americans are Christian, that’s yes. But if they’re asking whether Christians should have special legal privileges that others don’t have, she says her answer is a hard no.
Most historians and legal scholars agree that two things have always been true about the United States — it has no official religion, and Christianity has shaped its culture, laws and public life since before its founding. But what does it mean to be a nation of mostly Christians without a state religion? For most of the nation’s history, the country held that tension without resolving it.
The debate over that question has gained new intensity in the Trump era, especially as the country approaches its 250th anniversary. On Sunday (May 17), the Trump administration will host “Rededicate 250,” a daylong festival of prayer and thanksgiving on the National Mall. The idea, Trump said when he announced the event at the National Prayer Breakfast, is to “rededicate America as one nation under God.” Many of the speakers at the event — most of them Christian and evangelical — espouse the idea that America was and always has been a Christian nation.
The argument is not merely historical. Some proponents of America as a Christian nation argue that non-Christians are essentially second-class citizens — and say only Christians should enjoy religious freedom or have the right to run the country. That’s turned disagreements over America’s founding into a debate over national identity with direct consequences for the country’s growing number of non-Christian Americans.
“The Prayer at Valley Forge” engraving by John C. McRae, from an original painting by Henry Brueckner, circa 1889. (Image courtesy of Library of Congress/Creative Commons). The painting was inspired by a biography of George Washington that contains factual errors, says author Warren Throckmorton.
Until the 1970s, the belief that America was a Christian nation — demographically and culturally — was commonplace, said John Fea, a professor of history at Messiah College in Pennsylvania and author of “Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?” Many of the nation’s laws, on everything from sexuality and marriage to more mundane details, such as what kinds of businesses could open on Sundays, were shaped by Christian ideas. RELATED: Hegseth, Barron, evangelical leaders to join Trump event rededicating America to God
The notion of America as a Christian country became contested and redefined during the Reagan era and the rise of the religious right, which wanted the country’s laws to be more explicitly Christian. There were calls for official prayers and Bible readings in school and a return to“family values”in response to the sexual revolution of the ’60s and 1970s and the rise of feminism.
All of a sudden, the idea of being a Christian nation became a partisan debate, not a historical one.
“You want to get on the side of Christian America, or you’re going to oppose a Christian America — that pretty much tells you where you are at politically today,” said Fea.
Fea is careful to note that America has never been legally a Christian country — the establishment clause in the First Amendment to the Constitution explicitly forbids establishing an official national religion. Nonetheless, from the earliest days of the republic, many Christians, on all sides of the political spectrum, have argued that all aspects of society, including governmental policy, should be shaped by their faith.
John Fea gives a lecture at the Lumen Center near the University of Wisconsin–Madison on Oct. 3, 2025, in Madison, Wis. (Photo courtesy of Stephen and Laurel Brown Foundation)
Matthew Avery Sutton, a professor of history at Washington State University and author of “Chosen Land,” a religious history of America, said the country is more religious than secular Americans claim and less religious than Christian nationalists would have us believe.
White Protestants, he said, had no qualms about shaping education, politics and foreign policy, as well as the day-to-day aspects of life — especially in the first 150 years of the country’s life. There were Christian prayers in school, and political debates on issues such as immigration, slavery, the use of alcohol and other social issues were rife with references to religion.
And politicians talked a lot about God.
That’s something conservatives like David Barton, a popular evangelical author who promotes the idea that America has always been a Christian nation, get right.
“When they say that the First Amendment did not keep religion out of government but simply kept government out of religion — I think that is an accurate description of the way the First Amendment was applied,” Sutton said.
The flags circling the Washington Monument fly at half-staff in Washington, Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Much of the modern debate about America as a Christian nation has been shaped by a 1947 Supreme Court decision, Everson v. Board of Education. In that case, a New Jersey taxpayer named Arch Everson objected to a local school board policy that reimbursed parents for bus fare to school, even if kids went to Catholic schools.
Everson lost — the court ruled that since the reimbursement went to the parents, it was legal. However, the court also ruled for the first time that the First Amendment applied to state governments — and it made Thomas Jefferson’s idea — that the First Amendment made a “wall of separation” between church and state — an explicit part of law.
“The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state,” the court wrote. “That wall must be kept high and impregnable.”
That ruling would pave the way for later ones that ended official prayer and Bible readings in school and would eventually shift the way many Americans view this issue, especially those on the political left, Fea argues.
Holly Hollman. (Photo courtesy of BJC)
“For people on the left, especially, Everson has reshaped the way the whole national history, going back to 1776, has been told,” Fea said. “All of a sudden, you have this wall of separation of church and state that’s high and impregnable.”
Sutton said the Everson decision was good for America. But the court’s reading ignored a lot of history. “I like that interpretation better,” he said. “I think that produces a better country, but it is a bit ahistorical.”
Legal experts like Hollman have a different view.
Hollman, who also teaches law at Georgetown University, sees the Everson case not as a turning point but as surfacing a principle present from the beginning.
“There’s a thread in the understanding of the First Amendment — one of the central purposes is to keep the government out of essential matters of religion,” she said. “Certainly, an essential matter of religion is how people believe about God and their relationship to God, and what Scripture they hold as important.”
Sutton pointed to “The Light and the Glory,” a bestselling book first published in the 1970s, after government-sponsored prayer and Bible reading were banned in school, as helping to inspire calls to revive Christian America. Co-written by Peter Marshall Jr., a pastor and speaker who championed the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation, the book was popular with homeschoolers and conservative Christians.
“They helped fuel this idea that the nation was once one thing and that had been lost, and that it’s up to Christians to reclaim it,” Sutton said.
Christians have been making that same argument since the earliest days in the United States, often in ways that sound like the Seven Mountain Mandate, a conservative evangelical idea that Christians should run all parts of society.
“The complete Christianization of all life is what we pray and work for, when we work and pray for the coming of the kingdom of heaven,” the Rev. Washington Gladden, a Columbus, Ohio, pastor and leader of the Social Gospel movement, told the State Association of Congregational Churches of Ohio in May of 1894.
For Gladden, though, making society more Christian meant doing things such as building housing for the poor, ending segregation, giving better wages for workers, welcoming immigrants, putting limits on profits from the stock market and other social causes.
That call to revive a God-blessed past has gained new popularity today in conservative circles, through writers such as Barton and through the rise of Christian nationalists. For them, making society more Christian means making sure conservative Christians have political power and opposing same-sex marriage and abortion.
Much of what proponents cite as proof that America was founded as a Christian nation is factually incorrect, according to Warren Throckmorton, a retired psychology professor and author of “The Christian Past That Wasn’t,” due out May 19.
Throckmorton notes that Ben Carson, the former secretary of Housing and Urban Development, neurosurgeon and author, claimed that prayer saved the U.S. Constitution. While on a book tour in 2024, Carson told the story of how delegates to the Constitutional Convention in June of 1787 found themselves bogged down. Then Ben Franklin suggested that the delegates start praying and asking for “the assistance of Heaven.”
“And they knelt and prayed. And they got up and they put together the Constitution of the United States, which I think is a God-inspired document if we will follow it,” Carson said, at an event Throckmorton recounted in his book.
Franklin did implore delegates to pray, said Throckmorton. But they decided not to.
“The Convention, except three or four persons, thought prayers unnecessary,” Franklin would later write.
For Throckmorton, concerns about the separation of church and state go way back — all the way to his distant ancestor, John Throckmorton, a follower of the Baptist preacher Roger Williams. When Williams was exiled from Massachusetts after clashing with Puritan leaders, John Throckmorton joined him in what became the state of Rhode Island — one of the few early Colonies not to have an official state church.
Warren Throckmorton, author of a new book, "The Christian Past That Wasn't" (Courtesy photo)
"The Banishment of Roger Williams" by Peter F. Rothermel, circa 1850.
(Image courtesy Wikipedia/Creative Commons)
“Religious freedom in America and separation of church and state does not only go back to Williams, but it goes back to the people who are willing to sacrifice everything and move to Providence with him,” Warren Throckmorton said.
Even though most Americans have been Christians, Throckmorton said, there’s been no consensus on the most Christian way to run a country. Those disagreements started even before the country was founded — like the feud between Williams, a Baptist, and the Puritan leaders of Massachusetts, who were Congregationalists. Christians even fought over which edition of the Bible to read in public schools — leading in the 1800s to the so-called Bible War in Cincinnati and the riots in Philadelphia between Catholics and Protestants.
Those disagreements continue today with different Christians arguing over immigrationenforcement policies and claims by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that God has blessed America’s war on Iran.
“There’s no unified view with Christianity,” said Throckmorton.
In his latest book, Throckmorton debunks what he calls seven myths about America’s past — from the idea that early colonists made a “covenant” with God to the idea that America’s founders were all Christians and wanted to create a Christian homeland.
These myths are built on stories like the one about Franklin and prayer — which are partially true — in order to create a politically useful version of the past.
“One of the reasons that founding myths arise is so that we can feel a part of something bigger than ourselves — part of a really great country and a really great religion,” he said. “I mean, you don’t want to be a part of a bad religion or a bad country.”
Daniel Darling, author of “In Defense of Christian Patriotism,” is sympathetic to the claim that Christianity is a central part of America’s identity. Christianity has long served as America’s civil religion, he said, providing a common moral framework for American culture and law.
Along with giving a sense of right and wrong, that framework taught that our fellow citizens are people made in God’s image and, as such, have inalienable rightsnot from government but from God, said Darling.
He said that Christianity and especially churchgoing also helped provide social capital and build community, two things that are in short supply these days as religion has declined over the past few decades. When people say they want to get back to being a Christian nation, Darling thinks they are really longing for a return to a sense of community and common purpose. They don’t want to go back to the 1950s, he said, because that would mean undoing the progress that’s been made on civil rights and other issues since then.
“But I do think there is a sense that we’ve lost something good, even if we’ve made progress. I think you can hold those two things together.”
Fea said that as a historian, he wants to know what people think being a Christian nation means. He pointed to Martin Luther King Jr.’s letter from a Birmingham jail, which linked “Judaeo Christian” values to the nation’s founding.
Civil rights protesters, King wrote, drew on the heritage.
In this file photo taken April 12, 1963, the Rev. Ralph Abernathy, left, and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., right, are taken by a policeman as they led a line of demonstrators into the business section of Birmingham, Alabama. Arrested for leading a march against racial segregation, King spent days in solitary confinement writing his “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” which was smuggled out and stirred the world by explaining why Black people couldn’t keep waiting for fair treatment. (AP Photo)
“One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo Christian heritage,” he wrote, “thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.”
Fea said that there has often been a backlash in American culture during times of demographic and social change. That was true in the 1800s, when Irish immigrants came to the U.S., and in the early 1900s, when Italians and other Europeans arrived, and it’s been true in recent years with Hispanic immigrants — and with Muslim and Hindu immigrants.
He believes that backlash is helping fuel the arguments that America is a nation for Christians. Recently, Jenna Ellis, a former Trump lawyer turned podcaster, argued that freedom of religion only applied to Christians — not those of other faiths.
“I mean, we don’t have all of these protections for our rights that our founders recognize come from God, our Creator, so that we can go out and live a pluralistic society and say, well, let’s recognize the dignity of Islam,” she said, claiming that the founders only wanted to protect Christians.
Fea says that’s not what history tells us. The founders knew that Hindus and Muslims might make their way to America and believed religious freedom applied to them.
“The challenge at the 250th is to think about how we can still hold on to those ideas about equality, liberty and religious freedom and make them work in a modern context,” he said.
Disgusted NY Times writer nails 'egregious' irony in court upending America's 'high point'
Supreme Court Associate Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas wait for their opportunity to leave the stage at the conclusion of the inauguration ceremonies in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2025 in Washington, D.C. Chip Somodevilla/Pool via REUTERS
There's a bleak irony in the right-wing U.S. Supreme Courtstriking down one of the highest points in American democracy, argued New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie.
The conservative majority severely weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act in a 6-3 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, ruling that protecting minority representation in congressional maps is unconstitutional, and Bouie argued in a new column titled "the law they hate was a high point in our history" that they had betrayed democratic values.
"The Voting Rights Act of 1965 wasn’t the top-down dictate of a rogue, liberal Supreme Court — if such a thing has ever existed," he wrote. "It wasn’t the brainchild of out-of-touch bureaucrats in Washington, nor was it some kind of martial settlement imposed on the states of the former Confederacy."
"It was, instead, an achievement of the most effective social movement of the postwar United States," the columnist added. "The Voting Rights Act revitalized American democracy and stands as one of its great achievements."
The swift response to the ruling by Republican state legislatures made the landmark law appear to have been an imposition by an outside force, but Bouie said it was instead the years-long work off grassroots activists who risked their lives to secure their fundamental rights, and the act was signed into law by a president elected in one of the largest landslides in U.S. history and reauthorized by Congress over and over.
"If there is any single law that you could plausibly say represents the general will of the American people, it might be one that was reaffirmed nearly every decade for 40 years by the people’s representatives," Bouie argued. "This isn’t just a historical point or a piece of idle trivia. It is essential. And it gets to what is so egregious about the court’s campaign against the law."
The Voting Rights Act was an effort to fulfill the promise of the Constitution's 15th Amendment, itself the result of the sacrifices made in the Civil War, to make democracy real for all Americans, Bouie argued, and he bitterly noted the irony of this particular court undoing those hard-won gains.
"The Voting Rights Act has more — much more — democratic legitimacy than this Supreme Court has ever enjoyed," Bouie wrote. "After all, most of this court’s conservative majority was appointed by presidents who entered office as winners of the Electoral College but not the popular vote."
"It is that relative difference in democratic legitimacy that makes this court’s voting rights jurisprudence so offensive," he added.
Black clergy strategize, preach and urge election turnout after Voting Rights Act gutting
(RNS) — 'We need accountability. We need to set goals, track registrations, follow up to ensure that those who register actually vote,' a Church of God in Christ bishop said at an 'emergency’ meeting.
Protesters fill the halls in the Louisiana Legislature in Baton Rouge during a Senate committee hearing Friday, May 8, 2026 on redistricting. (AP Photo/Jack Brook)
(RNS) — On the first Sunday (May 3) after the Supreme Court decided to hollow out the Voting Rights Act, the Rev. Richelle Lewis-Castine offered some clear advice to her congregation in Patterson, Louisiana.
“I encouraged them to early vote,” said the pastor of an African Methodist Episcopal Church. “I encouraged them to make sure that they get the information, that they’re reading carefully, and to encourage other people — especially those groups in their families who would not normally vote — to vote because it is so very important at this hour.”
Rev. Richelle Lewis-Castine is the president of the 8th Episcopal District Women in Ministry and an ordained elder in the AME Church that has pastored many churches in the Central North Louisiana Conference. Photo courtesy PREACH Facebook
Lewis-Castine is among a group of Black clergy taking proactive measures in the wake of the ruling, which is already reshaping election processes across the country — including prompting Louisiana legislators to meet on Friday (May 8) to debate redrawing their congressional maps after the court’s declaration. The 6-3 ruling stated, in the words of Justice Samuel Alito, “That map is an unconstitutional gerrymander,” referring to Louisiana’s second majority-Black district.
The New National Christian Leadership Movement, a faith-based social justice group, announced it would gather pastors and community leaders to protest at the Louisiana State Capitol, where the first redistricting hearing was held in Baton Rouge.
On Friday, social media posts from Baton Rouge news outlets showed a crowd of dozens of people outside the hearing room at the state capitol repeatedly shouting “Shut it down!”
Pastor Debra Morton, co-overseer of the New Orleans-based Greater Saint Stephen Full Gospel Baptist Church, received a text about the protest and shared it with others, including people who joined her for a regular midweek prayer session. In speaking to worshippers, she urged action rather than despair.
“I spoke to our congregation on our prayer call this past Wednesday morning, saying to them, we must, one, vote,” she said, pointing to the capitol event as an example. “In addition to that, not be discouraged, not let it take us down, but that we must go to the polls, and then we must fight.”
During the state Senate hearing, the Rev. Gregory White of Beech Grove Baptist Church in Baton Rouge spoke in support of a bill that would maintain both of the majority-Black congressional districts in Louisiana. He said he didn’t intend to speak at the hearing, but was inspired by the waves of protesters and speakers who voiced opposition to other plans that would eliminate one or both of the districts. He cited Luke 18, referring to a parable Jesus tells in the Bible about a corrupt judge who initially denies a widow seeking justice before eventually relenting due to her persistence.
“Well, you are the judge, and here are the people,” White said, addressing the senators. “And they keep on coming. And they keep on coming. And they keep on coming. I just want you to think about it.”
When he finished speaking, state Sen. Caleb Kleinpeter, a Republican who moderated the meeting, asked the pastor to repeat the passage, then paused to write it down.
A few days earlier, African American ministers from across the country and a range of denominations gathered for an online “Emergency Black Clergy Zoom Meeting” hosted by Bishop Erika Crawford, leader of the AME district that includes Louisiana, and the Rev. Barbara Williams-Skinner, co-convener of the National African American Clergy Network. Between prayers led by executives of the Progressive National Baptist Convention and the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, other denominational leaders on Tuesday took turns sharing their strategies as legislators in Florida and Tennessee were making new congressional maps that could change the current election season.
Bishop Talbert Swan II speaks during the “Emergency Black Clergy Zoom Meeting.” Video Screengrab
Bishop Talbert Swan II, director of social justice ministry for the Church of God in Christ, a predominantly Black Pentecostal denomination, ticked off the various ways his denomination hopes to prepare its members to vote.
“We want every COGIC church to become a voter registration hub — that means setting up registration tables at every service, training volunteers and ensuring that every eligible member is registered, not occasionally, but consistently,” Swan said. “We need accountability. We need to set goals, track registrations, follow up to ensure that those who register actually vote.”
Bishop Charley Hames Jr., chair of the commission on social justice and human concerns for the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, referred to the Supreme Court decision as a “massacre of our rights,” prompting calls to action in his denomination.
“We put out a call to our church to have, No. 1, designated voter engagement captains at every local church by the first Sunday in June, charged with verifying registration, assisting with mail ballots and organizing rides to the polls,” he said. “We are reenacting Souls to the Polls Sundays, on the Sunday preceding Election Day, encouraging early voting wherever the law permits.”
Hames said there will be renewed initiatives with local NAACP branches, ecumenical groups and Black sororities and fraternities — as have been done in the past — and young adults will be encouraged to become political candidates.
“Whether it is a local race, whether it is the state seat, whether it’s school board, we are engaging our young people to run for office,” Hames said.
Though a range of Black leaders has criticized the high court’s decision, their responses were not monolithic. Some Black conservatives, including members of Project 21, a leadership network of the National Center for Public Policy Research, sided with the high court’s ruling.
“The Constitution demands that government classifications based on race remain the exception — not the rule,” said Linda Lee Tarver, a Christian book author and a Project 21 ambassador and mentor, in a statement. “The legacy of the Civil Rights Movement was to secure equality of opportunity and equal treatment under the law, not to institutionalize racial line-drawing as a default feature of our political system.”
Rev. Marques Smith. Courtesy Smith
But in Louisiana, the Rev. Marques Smith, pastor of two AME churches in New Orleans that are on the verge of merging, said he has stressed to his congregants that “the decision by the governor disenfranchises everybody,” referring to Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry’s suspension of the primary elections for U.S. House seats the day after the high court’s decision.
“I encouraged them — you could say, implored them — that they should cast their ballot,” Smith said of his congregants. “The vote has not been canceled. Still go cast your vote. We’re still encouraging early voting so that we as a congregation could be available on voting day to help our friends and neighbors get to the polls.”
During Sunday’s worship service, he said he passed the microphone to an 89-year-old veteran of a march with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who told his fellow congregants that it “hurt his heart” that voting rights debates were continuing.
Black clergy have also rushed to push back against redistricting efforts launched in other parts of the South in response to the Supreme Court ruling.
Clergy in Memphis, such as the Rev. J. Lawrence Turner of Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church, participated in several demonstrations this week to condemn a Republican-led effort to break apart a majority-Black district based in the city. Turner called it a “deliberate restructuring of power” that disproportionately targets “specifically Black communities.” Tennessee Republicans voted to eliminate the district on Thursday, but clergy have vowed to respond with legal challenges and surges of voter turnout.
“We’ve been here before, and every time this nation has tried to draw us out of history, we have found a way to draw ourselves back in,” said the Rev. Earle Fisher, pastor of Abyssinian Missionary Baptist Church in Memphis, in a news conference with other clergy this week.
Sunday, May 03, 2026
“Let’s Vote to Save This Land” and “America Renews Itself”
It’s great that wealthy Democratic Party celebrities like Bette Midler and Bruce Springsteen dislike the deranged fascist lunatic atop the world’s most lethal superpower, but their stance on the United States’ 47th president falls far short of the menace posed by the Trump fascist regime.
Midler and Springsteen’s statements are incommensurate with the historical moment – a time during which, “humanity,” in the words of Refuse Fascism (RF), “is held hostage by a fascist regime that is genocidal, hell-bent on destroying the environment and which every day is bolting into place a white supremacist, theocratic, patriarchal, immigrant-bashing, science-denying, fascist America.
“Right now,” RF adds, “a fascist regime in power stands in the way of any chance at a decent future for humanity.”
“This regime,” RF rightly insists, “will not be stopped by waiting for a midterm election that [Trump operatives and allies] are actively rigging. No one should believe that a tyrant who incited—and then pardoned—the January 6th insurrectionists will respect any election he loses.”
The notion of waiting Trump out is capitulation, complicity, and advance surrender. It is, as RF says, “up to the many millions of people who do see the present existential danger to act now and make the demand TRUMP MUST GO NOW! — felt everywhere from the top to the bottom of this country.”
“Let’s Vote to Save This Land”
This is NOT how Bette Midler sees things. Look at Midler’s widely viewed new bourgeois rendition of the longtime labor-left folksinger Woody Guthrie’s iconic 1940 anti-fascist anthem “All You Fascists Bound to Lose.” The proletarian balladeer Guthrie sang about “people of every color…getting organized” to fight against fascism, “race hatred,” and capitalist “greed.” He said he’d bring his “union gun” to help those “marching across these fields where a million fascists die” to “end this world of slavery.” Woody’s focus was on the battle right now, in the present moment.
By contrast, the main theme and the main reason the fascists are “bound to lose” in Midler’s watered-down version is that “we’re gonna win the midterms…America get ready,” Midler (with a net worth of $250 million) sings, “midterms are at hand. We’ve got to stick together and vote to save this land.”
Midler says nothing about taking on racism or the greedy capitalist parasites or reaching out across racial linesto end modern slavery. She says nothing about the rest of the world.
Her focus is on bourgeois elections a half year out — a half year out while the monstrous Trump-Vance-Miller-Rubio-Hegseth-Vought regime relentlessly and right now threatens everything decent people hold dear and all prospects for a decent future.
While Woody sang from box cars and jungle camps and at labor, leftist, and civil rights rallies, Midler’s video ends with her and her fellow wealthy celebrity Barbara Hershey smiling on reclining chairs in leisure garb (holding up placards saying, “No Kings,” not “No Fuhrers” or “No Dictators” or “Remove the Dictators” or “Refuse Fascism,” or “Remove the Regime” or “Trump Must Go Now!”)
What Bette Midler does here is in my view rather sinister: coopting a stirring musical call for a serious people’s and proletarian fight against fascism to the project of rallying people behind ruling class candidates in a Weimar party — the dismal, dollar-drenched capitalist-imperialist Dems — that will not and indeed cannot fight fascism the way it needs to be fought.
The fact that the Republifascist party in power is subverting the elections and may even cancel them or refuse to honor their outcome make her version of “All You Fascists” doubly problematic.
“Until They Cut and Run”
This line in Midler’s version of “All You Fascists” is alarming: “Hey there all you fascists, let me put you straight When you come for the rеst of us we’ll fight you at the gate.”
Wait… for the rest of us? Shouldn’t that be for any of us?
Also problematic is this Midler lyric: “We’ll battle ICE together until they cut and run, just like in Minneapolis and when the midterms come.” There are three problems here:
+1. Trump’s fascist ICE (and Border Patrol) gendarmes have not “cut and run” in Minneapolis or anywhere else across the United States. They have re-branded after the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. ICE’s already vast network of concentration, torture, and death camps are expanding right now with massive “Big Beautiful Bill” money that is intact through and across the 2026 midterms elections. The raids and terror continue, dragooning more than a thousand of our immigrant brothers and sisters into the camps every single day.
+2. Midler here falsely conflates the often heroic and inspiring struggle against ICE waged by the people of Minneapolis with the paralyzing muck and mire of the United States’ savagely time-staggered bourgeois electoral politics.
+3. The Republifascists — the party of January 6 — have no intention of “cutting and running” in the face of the mid-terms. They are actively working to rig the elections. They may suspend or cancel them and are likely not to honor their outcomes if they are held and don’t go his way.
The Boss’s Prayer for the Killers of Iranian Civilians and American Freedom
Let’s turn to the Woody Guthrie fan and rock/soul/folk legend Bruce Springsteen (net worth of $1.2 billion) — a close friend of former US imperialist president Barack “Good at Killing People” Obama — said following the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner shooting last Saturday. During his concert in Austin, Texas, Springsteen commented as follows:
“We begin tonight with a prayer for our men and women in service overseas, we pray for their safe return…We also send out a prayer of thanks that our president, nor anyone in the administration, nor anyone attending, was injured at last night’s incident at the [White House] Press Correspondents’ Dinner….We can disagree. We can be critical of those in power, and we can peacefully fight for our beliefs. But there is no place in any way, shape, or form for political violence of any kind in our beloved United States.”
“…praying for the safety of the volunteer military in the Middle East that is currently bombing girls’ schools, hospitals and girls’ volleyball teams is hard to square with a call against ‘political violence.’ At least two of Springsteen’s own songs, ‘American Skin (41 Shots)’ and ‘Streets of Minneapolis’ (admittedly 25 years apart), suggest that ‘political violence’ by the government against the people is pretty much endemic to our ‘beloved United States.’ (After Springsteen performed American Skin (41 Shots) about the killing of Amadou Diallo by four NYPD police officers, the NYPD refused to provide security for Springsteen’s concerts.)”
The Boss is prayerfully thankful for the physical safety of the malevolent beast who sparked January 6, when Donald “Take Down the Metal Detectors” Trump tried to instigate a literal physical coup d’etat to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Recall Trump’s first action after being unconstitutionally returned to power: pardoning 1600 January 6th putschists who had been convicted for their role in the bloody attempted insurrection.
(How thankful is Springsteen for the continuing existence of the leading White House fascist and correspondents’ dinner attendee and survivor Stephen “We are the Storm” Miller, the chief architect of the Trump regime’s racist mass deportation campaign?!)
“Our president?” That’s how Springsteen refers to Donald “Poisoning Our Blood” Trump, the debased, deranged, depraved, and deeply illegitimate monster sitting atop the most lethal superpower in world history? That’s how Springsteen thinks about the orange-brushed tyrant who has unleashed his masked Gestapo thugs, ICE and Border Patrol, on our immigrant brothers and sisters, sweeping up a thousand people a day into an ever-expanding network of concentration, torture, and death camps? That’s how Springsteen thinks about the president whose henchmen killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in the streets of Minneapolis…the president who wanted to use the armed forces to drown the George Floyd Rebellion in blood…the president who told more than 800 US generals and admirals last September that the United States’ top adversary is “the enemy within,” meaning his political opponents and critics?
This is Springsteen’s take on Mein Trumpf, an existential menace to all humanity, the blood-soaked war criminal and wannabe strongman-for-life who is undoubtedly scheming along with his fascist toadies about how to turn his insane war on Iran into a pretext for cancelling or refusing to honor the outcomes of the 2026 mid-terms (see liberal historian Timothy Snyder’s April 6th Substack essay, titled “The Next Coup Attempt”)?
For real, Boss?
“Our men and women in service overseas”? In service to what and who, exactly, Boss? To “we the people,” in a monumentally criminal war opposed by the preponderant majority of US Americans — a war during which the fascist president has repeatedly and criminally threatened to destroy an entire nation of 93 million people?
“Our beloved United States”? Really, Boss? That’s how you think about the arch-plutocratic, savagely unequal, racially hyper-segregated, and cancer-drenched mass shooting, mass incarceration and fossil-fueled Ecocide capital of the world, a nation whose giant military empire has overturned dozens of governments and killed tens of millions of people abroad since 1945 — a nation currently under the rule of genocidal fascists put back in power by a fascist Supreme Court, by racist voter suppression and by a deplorable (imperialist Hillary got something right) base of racist, sexist, and nativist Amerikaners?
Give us a break, Boss. Tell it to your guy Barack Hollow Resistance Obama, not us.
“Find One Face That Ain’t Looking Through Me”
Leafletting literally thousands of Springsteen concert attendees outside Chicago’s United Center on behalf of RF’s demand that “Trump Must Go Now” and for a big “no work, no school” turnout on May Day two nights ago, I kept flashing back to the following passage, italicized below with interjections from yours truly – in Springsteen’s brilliant 1980s ballad “Badlands”:
Poor man wanna be rich Rich man wanna be king And a king ain’t satisfied ‘Til he rules everything
The last three lines fit “king” Trump.
Badlands, you gotta live it everyday Let the broken hearts stand As the price you’ve gotta pay Keep pushin’ ’til it’s understood These badlands start treating us good
Well, the struggle to remove the insane fascist Trump regime – just for starters – must be taken up and acted on by tens of millions every day, not just 5 or 9 million people going to a “No Kings” [try No Fuhrer] rally once every five months. Keep pushing ‘til it’s understood and that we refuse to accept a fascist America.
For the ones who had a notion A notion deep inside That it ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive
Well, what’s the point of being alive if we don’t take up the real struggle against a deranged, illegitimate, and arch-criminal, mass-murderous fascist regime atop the world’s most lethal superpower, an existential menace to all humanity?
I wanna find one face That ain’t looking through me I wanna find one place I wanna spit in the face of these…Badlands, you gotta live it every day.
That’s what me and my fellow RF activists were doing with the crowd outside the United Center: looking for faces not looking through us, for people ready to engage the real historical moment and really spit in the face of Amerikaner Trumpism-fascism before it’s too late. Some of those faces appeared, but far, far too few cam forward given the grave historical period we inhabit.
Despite widespread agreement that the Trump regime is fascist and out to be removed, it was a tough crowd. Many if not most of the Springsteen fans I spoke with see the notion of doing anything more to stop Trump than voting for Democrats in 2026 and 2028 — and maybe going to a weekend No Kings rally once every five months – as not really on their radar screen of life.
Under the influence of the Democratic Party, MSNOW, and leading liberal and Democratic celebrities like Obama, Midler, and Springsteen, the decent or at least non-fascist majority of US-Americans are simply not grasping the depth and the degree of the existential crisis that is tearing at the fabric of “our” government and society, with horrific implications for all of humanity. They are still even now being pulled to see the Trump regime as a temporary rightward pendulum swing that can be corrected through the normal legal and political channels. They think we can wait Trump out, a belief that requires downplaying and ignoring the supreme hazard of letting his regime stay in power. They are still captive to the “normal way of doing things” even as the regime is sweeping previously normative bourgeois democracy and rule of law into history’s proverbial dustbin.
In truth, the old normal is gone, and it’s not just because of Trump and his regime. It’s because of shifts in US and world capitalism – a system hitting its limits in ways that have brought a significant section of the American ruling class and a sizeable minority of the US populace over to the dark side of lawless fascist dictatorship.
The coming Trump fascist mutilation of the mid-terms could help move millions to a deeper understanding of the current chilling historical moment and what needs to be done to sustain hopes for a decent and indeed emancipated future. Let’s hope that’s not too late and work to make sure it isn’t.
“America Renews Itself and We’ll Get Through”
After writing the above, I came across Springsteen’s sermon to the United Center crowd at the end of his concert last Wednesday night. Two things he said seem at least consistent with the grave historical moment we are in and what is required:
+ “We’ve got a president who says he wishes nothing but ill on those who he disagrees with. I don’t want to live that way. That’s not the country I want to live in.”
+ “Find a way to take aggressive, peaceful action…say something, do something, sing something.”
+ “God bless Alex Pretti, God Bless Renee Good.”
Other than that, however, the Boss reinforced the passivity I saw in the crowd before the show by telling his fans that “these are hard times” but “we’ll make it through. Some way, somehow, America renews itself, and we’ll make it through.”
No, Boss, we won’t, not with a fascist regime atop this nation for two more years and nine months; maybe not with the regime in power another summer. It’s not clear that humanity itself will get through a full second Trump administration, given US power.
The world can’t wait Trump out! It really is like RF says: he’s got to go now!
I am struck also by the national chauvinism embedded in the notion of “America renew[ing] itself” – because that’s what “America” does, apparently, in Springsteen’s view, in Springsteen signing off with “God Bless America,” and in this statement to the United Center crowd: “America, we were built on disagreement… We were born out of arguments and disagreements over what course the country should take while we still recognized our common humanity, and our dignity, and our unity.”
The Boss might want to watch Ken Burns’ recent six-part documentary film on the American Revolution. The nation’s War for Independence was a bloody civil war full of torture and atrocities on all sides – quite different from recognizing common humanity, dignity, and unity!
That aside, the United States was born and grew through racist mass genocide, Black chattel slavery, and massive violent territorial conquest, core foundations for a rising capitalist continental empire. Let us never forget the famous words of Frederick Douglass 76 years after the formal break from England:
“Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions! whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are, to-day, rendered more intolerable by the jubilee shouts that reach them… My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is American slavery. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave’s point of view. Standing there identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future…What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.”
Donald Trump as an individual will not define American politics forever. But MAGA may outlast him. Trump has had a transformative influence in the United States and beyond. The question is whether American politics will move past Trump, who is now 80 years old. Will we ever return to a pre-Trump world? MAGA has already reshaped the political landscape. What remains unclear is whether it represents a passing phase or a deeper structural reorientation. Institutional change is fast and reversible; cultural change is slower, more durable, and may not be reversible.
Official changes may happen sooner than we think. The pollster Nate Cohn speculates that “A Democratic Senate is a real possibility.” Trump’s disapproval ratings are climbing. Democrats would need to flip only three seats—if they hold their own—to take control of the House in 2026. The future Congress could plausibly be Democratic-controlled. And if a Democrat wins the presidency in 2028—assuming Trump leaves and there is a peaceful transfer of power—two branches of government could radically change.
That may be necessary, but is it sufficient? One could imagine bureaucratic and institutional transformations and rebooting to undo the horrors of DOGE and Trump. A Democratic Congress with a Democratic president could do much—especially if it has its own governing roadmap comparable in scope and ambition to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025.
But Democrats should temper their current enthusiasm.
One recent poll of voters found a significant minority willing to question established historical facts. A Manhattan Institute poll, as reported by Antonia Hitchens in The New Yorker, found a significant share of young Republican voters—especially men under 50—willing to agree with survey statements suggesting the Holocaust was “greatly exaggerated or did not happen as historians describe.”
That raises a question about the different political ecosystems of these groups. How much of the radical right’s rise is driven by individual leaders, and how much comes from underlying structural conditions? Historical comparisons—from interwar Germany and Hitler to Yugoslavia and Slobodan Milošević in the 1990s—suggest the same tension between leadership and structural breakdown.
In terms of Trump, the more complicated question is what this looks like across different layers of the conservative ecosystem. On one level, there are mainstream political and youth-oriented activities such as those associated with Turning Point USA and Charlie Kirk, which operate inside conventional electoral politics and public activism. These spaces are not fringe; they largely frame their arguments in terms of standard policy debates rather than rejection of the political system itself.
In the short term, parts of Trump-era politics may still be reversible through ordinary electoral change. The current system may revert to “normal” after Trump.
At the same time, much of today’s political audience is no longer shaped by parties or institutions. The question then becomes where the boundary lies between these mainstream conservative spaces and more radical subcultures operating in parallel ecosystems. Figures such as Nick Fuentes and his supporters represent a much smaller but more radicalized world where rhetoric moves beyond conventional political disagreement into explicit rejection of democratic norms and institutions. Conservative Republicans are separate from the more radical MAGA fringes, both politically and culturally.
The continuing split within MAGA may give hope to the Democrats about taking control of the legislative and executive branches of government, but how will Democrats and others deal with the right-wing fringes of MAGA who think Trump is not right-wing enough? When Fuentes was quoted as saying: “My problem with Trump is not that he’s Hitler, my problem with Trump is that he’s not Hitler,” elections and returned institutions will not settle that.
There have been precedents of American hysteria under a charismatic leader. The McCarthy era, for example, had one subject—anti-communism and the Soviet Union. But the senator from Wisconsin quickly flamed out on national television, although his HUAC Committee existed well after his demise. McCarthyism never developed the same broad cultural following as MAGA and its radical fringe.
The structure of political culture has changed. The technological environment is unlike anything that preceded it. The internet and algorithmic media have altered the entire political process. There is no comparing Franklin Roosevelt’s presidential fireside radio chats with Donald Trump’s incessant use of social media as well as influencers like Joe Rogan.
Trump’s cultural MAGA transformation goes beyond political parties and politics. Antonia Hitchens concluded her article in The New Yorker on the new Christian-nationalist fringe by quoting a young high schooler: “If the [Republican] Party wants to kick us out, we will bail and have our own. They can kick us out and die.”
So even if the Democrats sweep the upcoming elections, they will still face deep cultural problems. Institutions can be rebuilt. Bureaucracies can be restored. Budgets can be rewritten. But political cultures do not change as quickly as government agencies. The cultural ecosystem that MAGA helped consolidate will not disappear with a transfer of power.
MAGA and its periphery are often treated as a sudden rupture, but they are better understood as the culmination of several decades of ideological and grassroots mobilization on the American right—from the anti-communism of Joseph McCarthy and the conspiratorial anti-communism of the John Birch Society to the religious nationalism of the Moral Majority, and finally to the anti-government populism of the Tea Party movement. Although they rise and fall over time, these movements are more than temporary political pop-ups.
Trump will leave American politics through age, electoral defeat, or history’s normal rotation of power. But elements of MAGA may already be less a moment in American politics than a feature of its future political landscape.
US new sanctions revive a decades-old clash with Sherritt, rooted in the 1990s. (Image courtesy of Sherritt International.)
