Politics Archives - Flux

To end Trump’s Second Gilded Age, Democrats should take a page from the original Progressives

Matthew Sheffield — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 06:56:32 +0000

Yesterday, I discussed how former president Barack Obama holding a public event with New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani sent a firm message to Democratic leaders that the days of freezing out party members who want more activist governing or campaigning styles need to end. By openly affiliating with Mamdani, Obama communicated without a word that […]

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Barack Obama reading books to preschoolers with Zohran Mamdani is a very big deal

Matthew Sheffield — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 22:41:01 +0000

This is the first of a two-part series. The second part is available. A mayor visiting a classroom isn’t normally a notable event. Leaders like New York’s chief executive Zohran Mamdani routinely visit schools as the cameras watch. But there was something different about the book reading that took place on Saturday at the Learning […]

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Viktor Orbán’s defeat will remove a powerful model, ally, and funder for U.S. far right

Peter Montgomery — Sat, 18 Apr 2026 07:41:36 +0000

When Hungary’s voters toppled Viktor Orbán, the country’s proudly “illiberal” leader, they not only delivered a stunning rebuke to the Trump administration, they cost the MAGA movement in the U.S. a model for authoritarian right-wing governance, a culture war ally, and an inspiration to MAGA-aligned far-right nationalist movements in Europe. Right Wing Watch has been […]

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Trump hates Pope Leo because he sees himself as the real vicar of Christ

Matthew Sheffield — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 19:25:58 +0000

This is the second of a three-part essay on how Friedrich Nietzsche became the lodestar of reactionary Christianity. Read part one here. Please subscribe to stay in touch. You would think that given the drastic unpopularity of his war of choice against Iran and the economic devastation it’s causing Americans, that President Donald Trump would be spending […]

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Why Trump won: Democrats have a coalition, Republicans have an ecosystem

Matthew Sheffield — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 21:42:15 +0000

This essay is the ninth in a series called “How This Happened,” examining larger trends in recent American political history and how they manifest in today’s politics. Please subscribe to receive future installments. It’s not official, but it’s obvious by now that Donald Trump is going to return to the White House next January. It’s easy to […]

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The ‘Intellectual Dark Web’ and the long history of right-wing rebranding

Matthew Sheffield — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 11:13:29 +0000

This essay is the fourth in a series called “How This Happened,” examining larger trends in American political history and how they manifest in today’s politics. Please subscribe to receive future installments. Just over six years ago, the New York Times published a splashy essay by staff editor and writer Bari Weiss hailing an “alliance of heretics” called the “Intellectual Dark […]

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Israeli attacks on journalists helps hide their war crimes

Ari Paul — Mon, 23 Oct 2023 04:00:55 +0000

The Israeli communications minister’s attempt to shut down Al Jazeera’s bureau in Jerusalem—on the grounds that the Qatari news outlet is biased in favor of Hamas and is actively endangering Israeli troops (Reuters, 10/15/23)—should inspire some déjà vu. In the last war in Gaza, an Israeli air strike destroyed a Gaza building housing both Al Jazeera and Associated Press offices (AP, 5/15/21). […]

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Establishment media continue to be bamboozled by ‘Greater Idaho’ movement

Jim Carroll — Sat, 21 Oct 2023 13:09:52 +0000

The deeply problematic “Greater Idaho” movement, which seeks to cleave off the majority of Oregon’s territory and a tenth of Oregon’s population to join the state of Idaho, has received another white-washing treatment by major media, this time by The Washington Post. As I’ve discussed before, and as experts on Western U.S. politics and right-wing […]

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American media fails in its most important role: informing the public

Gregory Shupak — Tue, 17 Oct 2023 16:10:57 +0000

If the commentary that news media outlets offer up is supposed to equip audiences to understand the world, then major US outlets’ coverage of the unfolding horrors in the Middle East are failing spectacularly. The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post combined ran seven editorials on Israel/Palestine between October 7–9: one from the Times, four from the Journal and two […]

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Revolutionary: the Far-Right plan to ‘seize control of the administrative state’

Kyle Mantyla — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 04:19:37 +0000

In the wake of former President Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, far-right activists began laying the groundwork for his return to office. One of the centerpieces of that plan is something called Project 2025, which aims to gut the federal government and fill it with MAGA activists who will do Trump’s bidding. As Politico recently […]

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