“This vote [on BAAJA] is shameful. Communities deserve a seat at the table, but instead we are having our futures negotiated away behind closed doors. The ‘Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act’ betrays families and communities across this country by putting clean water, air and our health on the line. Working people should not have to sacrifice these basic protections for corporations that drive up costs, pollute our communities, and use their money and influence to write the rules.”   -Mar Zepeda Salazar, legislative director, Climate Justice Alliance

“BAAJA contains provisions that would undermine Tribal sovereignty and roll back key environmental laws, such as the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act. As a result, the public would lose key tools used to protect the environment and hold the administration accountable against ICE detention centers, Trump vanity projects, and more.”   -Congressional Progressive Caucus

“As it currently stands, the bill would be an extremely serious mistake, in my opinion, and would do far more harm than good. Given how this Administration has run roughshod over the environmental laws and protections that are currently in place, now is not the time to give the Trump administration freer rein to double down on fossil fuels – which is what President Trump would surely do. And after last week’s historic election we will have a new Congress in January that can strike a far better balance.”   Al Gore

For about 4 days last week I was elated, overjoyed, at the sweeping victories in so many states and so many levels by the Democrats over the Trump-led Republicans. It was historic. It was huge. Many progressives, not centrists looking to make deals with Republicans, were elected. As I said at a local meeting on Saturday, “there’s a lot to build on.”

Then came Monday evening’s vote in the existing, MAGA-run Senate on BAAJA. Not surprisingly, all but one Republican voted for it. But the Democrats were split, and because they were, the vote went Trump/Steven Miller/Project 2025’s way. It looks like the next and final vote on it in the Senate may come as early as this weekend. The MAGA’s are pulling out all the stops to get it passed.

For those Democratic Senators who voted for it, doesn’t the fact that it was a virtually unanimous vote by the Republicans give you pause?

As I’ve continued to stew about this situation I find myself wondering how different it will be once the new Congress is seated in early January. Yes, the Democrats will have an overwhelming majority in the House, and a good majority in the Senate, so you’d think this would lead to things being done differently. But the votes of the 22 Democratic Senators for BAAJA has to make us wonder. Will their desire to appear “bi-partisan” and “reasonable” lead to similar sellouts? If in a few days the Trumpists get the 60 votes they need for BAAJA to be enacted, the answer can only be a very outraging: “yes.”

I don’t expect that the overwhelming Democratic victory on November 3^rd is going to lead over the next two years to sweeping “no to billionaires and fossil fuelers” legislation that the country and the planet desperately need. Partly it’s because, as we’ve just seen, some Democrats still just don’t get it. But it’s also because there is, or has been, a difference between what candidates say when they’re trying to win votes and what they do if elected to office. And, to be honest, given Trump and Miller in the White House, it is the case that there will be at least some times when a much-less-than-needed piece of legislation forces some compromise. That is political reality in Capitol Hill in Washington, DC right now.

But it’s not “political reality” in the country. All of us progressives and defenders of democracy need to keep building the up-from-below, multi-racial, reject-the-billionaires, people’s movement that is THE reason why there are possibilities going forward that were not there before the election. Right now, an immediate front of that people’s movement has to be the fight to defeat BAAJA. US Senators need to be flooded by us this week demanding they do the right thing. And if it passes we then need to shift to the House of Representatives to keep up this literally existential fight for the planet and our communities.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is author of two books, Burglar for Peace and 21^st Century Revolution, published in 2020 and 2021 and both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com

“Neither those who follow the teachings of Jesus, the Hebrew Prophets, the Prophet Mohammed or Buddha, nor those who use Marxist tools of analysis and see themselves as socialists, have been able to prevent the destructive and dehumanizing corporatization of much of the world. More urgently, the world as a whole is facing the very real and immediate threat of social and ecological unraveling as extreme weather events grow both in frequency and in destructive impact. These are happening as the atmosphere and oceans are heated up, primarily because of the production and burning of oil, gas and coal. Tens of millions of people worldwide, predominantly people of color and low wealth, have died, been made homeless or displaced, or suffered significantly in other ways because of this deepening climate emergency.”

-from my book, 21^st Century Revolution: Through Higher Love, Racial Justice and Democratic Cooperation

The sweeping and massive electoral victories for Democrats in the United States yesterday, building upon the similar victories against Trump/MAGA-like governments in Hungary, Serbia, Brazil and (maybe) Israel over the last six months, is such a joyful, wonderful thing. Yes, there is hope for a very different world!

Many things went into the victories here in the USA but one which I found myself centering in on this morning-after is the political impact of the US Senate campaigns by two Democrats in the US heartland, in Kansas and Texas, two states which have been deep-red for decades. Part of the reason for my belief in their importance is the fact that they have been dominated by Republicans, of the MAGA and less-MAGA category, for so long. But it’s also because James Talarico in Texas and Adam Hamilton in Kansas unabashedly framed their campaigns as motivated by their religious beliefs. They spoke eloquently and clearly, weaving together references to Jesus of Nazareth and his life and moral teachings with the ways in which US society under Trump rule and influence has become mean, cruel, divisive and anti-Christian.

One specific that I loved was Talarico referencing Jesus in the Jerusalem temple overthrowing the tables of the corrupt and greedy money changers. He actually said last evening as part of his acceptance speech, “It’s time to start flipping tables.”

I don’t know how many others of the winning Democrats said similar things, but I will be surprised if, going forward, we don’t see more and more Dems and Independents doing so. And that is a good thing.

What can bring about the kind-of up-from-below, people-powered mass movement that, year after year, just keeps winning victories for people and the planet? I am absolutely convinced that an essential aspect must be this: that it is a movement that welcomes people of all religions, all those without any religion, and those who might be somewhere in between, in a very conscious and open way.

Who among us who have seen Talarico and Hamilton on TV or social media have not been impacted and inspired by their words? Their election results indicate that, certainly in Kansas and Texas, huge numbers of people were.

In some ways, right now, this is a smallish piece of what we as a 21^st century progressive movement, including progressives in the House and Senate, need to be focusing on. Much bigger is the urgent issue of how to translate this massive electoral victory into Congressional victories in the US House and Senate. And we shouldn’t be just planning for what happens two months from now when the new Senate and new House, both under Democratic control, are convened. Before then we need to do all we can to prevent the MAGA-dominated Republicans from passing regressive legislation.

One very big example is the BAAJA bill, the problematic piece of legislation due to come up for a vote next Monday, on November 9, in the Senate. This draft bill, negotiated by two Democratic and two Republican Senators and made public before November 3, has been touted as a way to accelerate clean and jobs-producing, renewable energy electric grid access, but the negatives outweigh that positive. What are the big problems with this bill?

-It would fast track data center development and fossil fuel infrastructure projects. It would gut environmental protections and weaken community input into proposed projects. Laws like the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, the Historic Preservation Act and the Endangered Species Act would be seriously weakened. It would increase the pollution of people’s land, water and air in many communities around the country, particularly Indigenous, people of color and low-income communities, increasing the risks of asthma, cancer and premature deaths. And it was negotiated behind closed doors in a secret process that is disturbing.

So what’s an immediate follow-up we can all take after yesterday’s victories? We can all contact our US Senators this week and demand that they reject this BAAJA bill and, instead, get to work on something very different to be passed in January by the new Congress.

Onwards to this and other fights for democracy, justice and a very different country and world!

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of two books, Burglar for Peace and 21^st Century Revolution, published in 2020 and 2021 and both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com

Yesterday for the first time ever I voted early on the first day I could do so in New Jersey. For many decades, about five and a half, I’ve voted on election day itself every time there was an election. But this year I did it differently primarily because of the No Kings – Vote Early actions all over the country a week ago, making the point via millions of people in the streets on the same day that doing so makes it very hard for the Trumpfascists to mess with those votes. It’s like they’re being banked.

In addition, large numbers of people voting early in states where that can happen and where it is then reported on also encourages others to vote, to swell the turnout numbers. Masses of people will sense that there is something happening, something important, and be more motivated to be sure to vote either early or on election day.

A main reason I haven’t voted early before is that for the last 45 years the polling place where I vote on election day, in Brooklyn, NY and then Bloomfield, NJ, has been right across the street from my apartment or house. Why go to a special “vote early” place? Instead I’ve not just voted on election day but usually have stood outside passing out literature for candidates I was supporting.

I’ve come to appreciate election days. Passing out literature is a way to see and meet new people living in my neighborhood, as well as to see friends and acquaintances I haven’t seen for a while. It’s not just a time to vote and work for the best candidates on the ballot but to socialize, to feel more connected to neighbors, to appreciate the significance of this process as compared to countries where elections are either non-existent or are rigged against representatives of working people.

But it is a big problem that an awful lot of people eligible to vote in the USA, especially working-class people, don’t vote. One reason, for sure, is because tens of millions of us believe that whichever party, Republican or Democrat, wins power in a town or state or the country, not very much is going to change. A lot of us believe that’s the case primarily because of the political and economic dominance of the 1%, the billionaire class, the oligarchy. A lot of us, particularly people of color, believe this because of the dominance in too many places and in too many minds of the ideas and practices of racism and white supremacy. And unfortunately, too many people with conservative ideologies chalk it up to what they call the “deep state” or nefarious liberal politics, not pinpointing the real sources of the problem.

It is possible that a big defeat for the Trumpists on November 3, a huge electoral turnout of progressives, liberals and all those who believe in democracy, could lead to significant reform of this situation. It could galvanize a much stronger electoral reform movement in 2027 and 2028 pushed by progressive activists at the grassroots. It would be absolutely huge if ranked choice voting, already used in 14 states in some form, and the removal of corrupting corporate money out of US elections, were passed by the new House and Senate.

The USA is a democracy, but it is flawed. The Trumpists want to turn it into authoritarian rule by Trump and those like him for decades to come. In the face of that threat, for those who believe in the concept that we should have governments “of the people, by the people and for the people,” all of us should have either already voted or are making plans for doing so before or on November 3. Victory, partial but real, is in sight!

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of two books, Burglar for Peace and 21^st Century Revolution, published in 2020 and 2021 and both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com

Early on in this disastrous Trump Presidential term, last February, 2025, I wrote one of these Future Hope columns about the importance of group singing to the development of a genuine, impactful, people’s movement. I wrote it the day after the first of these all-over-the-country protests on the same day, this one organized by the youth-based network, 50501, which is still active.

After yesterday’s successful, nonviolently disciplined, No Kings — Vote Early actions in over 3,000 localities in all 50 states and DC, millions of people, I felt moved this morning to write about this issue again. Remembering that I’ve written about this before, I looked it up online and found the column below.

It has been gratifying to see, hear and learn about the ways in which singing, humor, artwork, dance and “peoples culture” has come forward during this time of testing. It is one of a number of reasons for us to have hope that we truly can bring about the kinds of systemic, revolutionary changes our peoples and the world so much need from those of us in the belly of the beast right now.

Here’s what I wrote 20 months ago to the day, on February 18, 2025, very much appropriate now:

“’The caged bird sings with a fearful trill
Of things unknown but longed for still
And his tune is heard on the distant hill for
The caged bird sings of freedom.’

“-from Maya Angelou poem, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

“Thinking about what I would write in this column about the importance of group singing for a mass people’s movement I somehow remembered this Maya Angelou poem, this poem about singing at a time of adversity.

“One of the first times I ever sang out loud outside of a church or school setting was when, at the age of 20, I was literally ‘caged,’ in a cell in the Monroe County Jail in Rochester, NY. I had just been arrested with seven others for a nonviolent, “Catholic Left” action in 1970, spending five hours inside a Federal Building in the FBI, Selective Service and US Attorney’s offices. We cut up draft files and looked for incriminating FBI files [they were paper back then, not electronic] as a nonviolent protest against both the Vietnam War and the J. Edgar Hoover/FBI-led government repression of many of the organizations working for peace, racial justice and women’s rights.

“I remember how I felt inside that Rochester jail cell: very scared, very aware that I could end up spending a long time in prison. My response to that deep fear was to sing. And as I did so it was strengthening to hear others arrested with me calling out words of support.

“Singing can be a very special thing, especially within mass movements for positive, progressive change. Here’s something Bruce Hartford wrote in his excellent book, “Troublemaker,” about the role of singing in the 1960s Black Freedom movement:

“The songs spread our message,
 The songs bonded us together,
  The songs elevated our courage,
    The songs shielded us from hate,
      The songs forged our discipline,
         The songs protected us from danger,
            And it was the songs that kept us sane.

“Hartford wrote this about one of those experiences:

“’I so vividly remember those night marches during the school crisis when white mobs filled the outer perimeter of the square. As we marched around the green singing with every ounce of energy and passion we could muster we had to circle again, and again, and again, past that one spot where they were most intensely trying to break into our line. Most of the time they couldn’t do it. They simply couldn’t do it. In some way I can’t explain our singing and our sense of solidarity created a kind of psychological barrier between us and them, a wall of moral strength that they couldn’t physically push through to attack us with their clubs and chains, as they so obviously wanted to do.’  p. 347

“25 years ago my wife, son and I moved from Brooklyn, NY to Bloomfield, NJ. I soon began seeing and hearing at various activist protests a group called the Solidarity Singers, an all-volunteer group which sang at demonstrations, meetings, conferences, anywhere they were asked to sing. They sang songs with melodies drawn from the civil rights and labor movements but with words appropriate to the particular issue at that time. About 10 years ago, after retiring from paid employment, I became an increasingly active member of this group to the point where today I consider it to be one of my main areas of activist work in New Jersey.

“There is no question that the existence and persistence of this group has made a difference in building a stronger, multi-issue, activist progressive movement in New Jersey.

“James Connolly, the famous Irish labor, socialist and independence leader, also a women’s rights supporter, understood the importance of singing. In the introduction to ‘Revolutionary Songs,’ published in Dublin in 1907, he wrote this:

“’No revolutionary movement is complete without its poetical expression. If such a movement has caught hold of the imagination of the masses they will seek a vent in song for the aspirations, the fears and the hopes, the loves and the hatreds engendered by the struggle. Until the movement is marked by the joyous, defiant, singing of revolutionary songs, it lacks one of the most distinctive marks of a popular revolutionary movement, it is the dogma of a few, and not the faith of the multitudes.’

“To defeat Trump, Musk and MAGA and advance towards a very different future than what they and the billionaire/fossil fuel class want, it will take multitudes, multitudes lifting our voices together in defiance and in song.

“As we saw yesterday [February 17, 2025] with tens of thousands of people protesting in a coordinated way in all 50 states, and as we will continue to see in multiplying and growing acts of resistance going forward, we won’t go back! Let’s go forward singing!”

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of the recently published books, Burglar for Peace and 21^st Century Revolution, both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com.

“Every few generations, there comes a leader who bends the arc of history. Historians will write that about Bernie Sanders.”  Ro Khanna

Yesterday I happened to catch a brief clip of Ro Khanna speaking in California, introducing Bernie Sanders. Khanna spoke about a “new progressive era” in the United States and explicitly named Bernie Sanders as someone who was essential for that vision to be realized because of the inspiration and leadership he has provided for tens of millions of us over the last ten years. Sanders is currently traveling throughout California building support for a billionaires wealth tax.

It was good to be reminded of Sanders’ decades of leadership as we collectively move into the closing sprint toward November 3. As difficult as these last 20 months have been under Trumpfascist attempts to erase our progressive legacy and to turn the clock backwards many decades, history may end up reporting that their attempts to destroy US democracy in service of the billionaires provided the impetus for the coming together of a mass progressive political force that played a critical role in saving and changing our deeply wounded human societies and ecosystems, “saving the world.” That is a distinct possibility.

Here is what I wrote about Bernie in May of 2015, having worked with him for many years before in the difficult task of building an independent and progressive political movement in the USA:

“Bernie has been a consistent voice for low-income people, working-class people, the middle class and our threatened ecosystem. Earlier this year he co-sponsored with Senator Barbara Boxer a major piece of climate legislation, a ‘fee-and-dividend’ bill described as a ‘gold standard’ type of bill by The Nation magazine.

“In comments made by Boxer at the press conference announcing the introduction of this bill, she referred to Bernie as a straight shooter, someone who didn’t play political games. I remember thinking at the time that for Boxer, immersed as she has been for so long at the highest levels of a pretty corrupt two-party system, that was high praise indeed. It was as if Bernie had been an inspiration to her.

“This strength of Sanders as an outspoken champion of the oppressed and beaten down, at the same time that he has shown his ability to navigate and have some impact even on Capitol Hill without being corrupted, is an additional reason why he really is the progressive left’s best option for 2016.”

In 2015 Bernie was appearing on television calling for someone with progressive politics to step forward to run for President. Eventually, he came to the decision that he was up for the task. After public consideration, and requesting input, on the question of if he should run as an Independent, something he had always done in his Vermont campaigns for elected office, or in Democratic primaries, he decided on the latter route, and he came close to winning against Hillary Clinton. Instead, she lost in November, 2016 and Trump won.

Bernie and others of us refused to give up, continued to fight on issue after issue. He also formed an organization, Our Revolution, to continue to work on major issues, and he consistently called for and supported other progressives running for much more local, or state, offices. Among others, AOC began her political career soon after.

At the age of 85, Sanders has played a huge role in helping us get to where we are right now in October of 2026, in a good position to defeat Trump and the MAGA’s on November 3. If and when that happens, if and when we keep at it up until then, until we “run through the tape,” we can appreciate that the progressive movement stood strong during this time of testing. And we can just keep going, building upon our victories, literally giving hope to people all over the world. A new progressive era: that is a very clear and reachable goal, not far-off into the future but much sooner than many of us have thought possible during these two years of serious testing.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of two books, Burglar for Peace and 21^st Century Revolution, published in 2020 and 2021 and both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com

Let Me Walk in Beauty

O Great Spirit,
whose voice I hear in the winds
and whose breath gives life to all the world,
hear me.
I am small and weak.
I need your strength and wisdom.

Let me walk in beauty
and let my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made
and my ears grow sharp to hear your voice.

Make me wise so that I may understand the things
you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden
in every leaf and rock.
I seek strength not to be greater than my brother or sister
but to fight my greatest enemy, myself.
Make me always ready
to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes
So when life fades as the fading sunset
my spirit may come to you without shame.

Chief Yellow Lark, from the book, God Makes the Rivers to Flow

Less than two weeks from now, on October 12, Indigenous Peoples Day will be recognized around the country. On this day 534 years ago, Christopher Columbus and his men were discovered in the Caribbean wandering lost, trying to find present-day India. Thus began over 500 years of European colonization of the Americas.

Leading up to the 500^th anniversary of that fateful encounter, in 1992, I took part in Washington, DC with a dozen others in a 42-day, water-only Fast for Justice and Peace in the Americas. It was initiated by Brian Willson, Scott Rutherford and Diane Fogliatti, and it went from September 1 to October 12.

The overall message of this action and the much broader movement out of which it emerged was that it was long past time to turn away from all that Christopher Columbus represents—racism, slavery, militarism, imperialism and ecological destruction—and commit ourselves to working for a next 500 years very different than the one experienced between 1492 and 1992. There was an Indigenous-led campaign that had been taking action over many months in 1991-92 in support of this essential new direction for the USA and other countries in the Americas. One specific demand was for Columbus Day to be replaced by Indigenous Peoples Day.

Toward the end of the fast, Diane Fogliatti came up with an idea for how to continue to help keep these issues alive: do an organized fast for 12 days, from October 1 to October 12, each year going forward. I ended up taking part in this, helping to lead a People’s Fast for Justice network which did so from 1993 to 2001. Our two demands were for Columbus Day to be renamed Indigenous Peoples Day and for political prisoner Leonard Peltier to be freed, which he finally was as one of President Joe Biden’s last official acts as President on January 20, 2025, his last day in office.

As far as the renaming of October 12^th, since 1992 there have been a growing number of localities and states which have officially recognized in some way the second Monday of October as Indigenous Peoples Day, including the states of Alaska, California, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Minnesota, Michigan, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin. And responding to this upsurge, Biden signed a proclamation in support of Indigenous Peoples Day.

There’s an awful lot of reasons to be anxious right now, knowing how important it is that there be as massive a repudiation as possible on November 3 of the Trump regime and its apologists in the Republican Party, but it is a very positive thing, something for which to be thankful, that Indigenous peoples throughout the Americas and elsewhere in the world continue to survive, continue to fight for their rights as tribal nations, and continue to give leadership in the existential battle to prevent cascading ecological and societal devastation and for a very different future in the years to come. La lucha continua!

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of two books, Burglar for Peace and 21^st Century Revolution, published in 2020 and 2021 and both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com

,

Think for a moment: what if, in response to all that the Trumpists starting doing after taking office 20 months ago, small groups of angry and pissed off leftist activists had engaged in repeated, explicitly violent acts of street fighting or similar action as ICE continued to assault our neighbors and friends and communities in cities and town across the country? Or what if, rather than millions of people five different times in every state and Congressional District all over the country taking part in explicitly nonviolent No Kings and other actions, something else had happened? What if even just 10-20 of those actions had involved overt property destruction of symbols of repressive government or billionaire takeover, or attacks on police?

History teaches us that if things had been like that, the Trumpfascists, Fox News, Republicans in Congress and other rightists would have used these actions to attack our entire pro-democracy movement as violent and destructive. The odds of that making it harder, possibly much harder, to win the on-the-defensive political and legal victories which we have won would certainly have gone up. Instead of the Trump gang being way down in every national poll, even those by Republican-leaning pollsters, it could be significantly different. Overall, and to an impressive degree, our multi-racial, multi-tactical, multi-issue, pro-democracy and -justice movement has accomplished a lot since Trump and his cronies took office. That is why, less than a month and a half from the huge national election, the “billionaires uber alles” government is in such deep trouble.

It hasn’t always been this way in this country. It was particularly NOT this way in the late 1960’s as anger and frustration over the Vietnam War and racism led to resistance movements against them which were multi-tactical and multi-issue, yes, but which were not consistently nonviolent. Because of this fact, it made it easier for Richard Nixon, J Edgar Hoover and their teams to divide and undercut that peace and justice movement. It is well-known, for example, that a key tactic of FBI and other federal agencies and local police was to implant people into groups to play an “agent provocateur” role, stir up internal division and push for very aggressive and violent tactics. One big example of these government tactics was the use in 1969 of such agents to eventually assassinate Illinois Black Panther Party and unifying Chicago Rainbow Coalition leader Fred Hampton.

To the extent that similar government tactics have been attempted this time around, they’ve had very little effect. Over the last 50 years, particularly since at least the global justice movement of the early 2000’s, organized progressive activism has been much more resistant to and knowledgeable about ways to prevent the success of these government or corporate efforts, like organized de-escalation training and conscious community building.

I write all this not from a pacifist perspective; that doesn’t describe me. I AM a believer in nonviolent tactics and the importance of each of us trying to live as lovingly and nonviolently as we can on a day-to-day basis, but in conditions of very brutal and totalitarian government repression, I could see tactics needing to be sometimes different.

That is not our situation right now in the USA. As bad as the MAGA government is, they have been thrown off by both the breadth and the staying power of our movement, as well as their own incompetence. They are in big trouble politically 45 days before the November 3 election. They are internally divided with past MAGA leaders, like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson, breaking publicly with Trump. And in the Trump of 2026 the MAGA’s have a leader, THE leader, who has shown himself to be a bumbling, idiotic, narcissistic fool.

Let’s keep up the nonviolent public pressure and activism, combined with massive voter turnout efforts, up to November 3. And afterwards, if needed, let’s hit the streets in numbers so large that the Trumpfascist efforts to derail the democratic will of the people are soundly defeated.

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of two books, Burglar for Peace and 21^st Century Revolution, published in 2020 and 2021 and both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com

“Because they want — they think, over two or three cycles, they will elect enough Marxist socialist communists to take over the means of production. That means no more private property ownership. Compare that agenda with some crazy things that people have said in their past. I think — I think that the choice here is very simple. I think Republicans are going to win up and down the ballot around this country, and we’re going to defy history, grow the majority, and move the country forward, just as we have been doing for this Congress in the last year-and-a-half or more.”    -Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, on CNN 9/13 interviewed by Jack Tapper.

It is so clear that anti-“Marxist socialist communists” propaganda is something that we’re going to be hearing for the next 50 days as the Trumpfascist Republicans attempt to get US potential voters to deny the reality of their lives, what they are experiencing and feeling and thinking, and instead be full of nervousness and fear about the “MSC” threat. Those in areas where there are competitive House and Senate districts will particularly be inundated with a ridiculous number of ads along these lines.

Will this have much effect?

It’s easy to say a loud “NO,” it will not, given Trump’s abysmal ratings in the polls, the fact that Trump, as of now, plans to try to turn the election into a referendum about him personally, and the many polls showing that it is a definite possibility that the Democrats will win not just the House—likely—but the Senate. Frankly, it is reassuring on an emotional level to be aware of these realities. It helps to mitigate the very legitimate anxiety it is easy to feel right now.

But this election is too important to lose sight of how absolutely critical it is. And now, for all the scores of reasons people in the US hate or feel very let down by Trump and his gang, a new one is bursting into public view, the existential, real threat of Artificial Intelligence literally taking power away from human beings very soon. That technology is developing so rapidly that even major AI leaders in the US are publicly sounding an urgent alarm.

Given Trump’s response to this dire set of warnings, shrugging it off on the grounds that we need to beat China, nothing else is more important than this issue right now. It could become THE biggest issue of the entire election campaign. That will benefit Democrats and Independents more than Republicans, while ratcheting up and expanding the anxiety and fear levels for much of the country. This is a mitigating factor that will hurt the Republican anti-MSC efforts.

Another mitigating factor is that, surprisingly, while less than half of US Americans view capitalism positively—a very interesting statistic—one third or more view socialism positively, according to a CBS News/YouGov poll. Having the support of 1/3 of the country is no small thing. But it also strengthens the importance of candidates with a socialist orientation who want to win explicitly being in a coalition with other progressives, non-corporate liberals and people of good will both for the November 3 elections as well as when it comes to governing.

What is very clear is that, right now, a huge majority of the US population opposes corrupt Trump, his corrupt gang and the corrupt billionaire class. As we do all we can in these last 50 days to connect with and mobilize that majority, particularly in key states and election districts, we need to keep focused on the issues of most concern to the most people among the working and middle classes: ending the war on Iran, ending the regressive tariffs, universal health care for all, taxing the billionaires and multi-multi millionaires, a moratorium on any new AI Data Centers, human rights for all people regardless of race, color, culture or gender, advancing solar, wind and other renewables, and more. Let’s keep our eyes on the prize!

Ted Glick has been a progressive activist and organizer since 1968. He is the author of two books, Burglar for Peace and 21^st Century Revolution, published in 2020 and 2021 and both available at https://pmpress.org . More info can be found at https://tedglick.com