Featured
Don’t Let Donald Trump Drive You Into Internal Exile. By Miriam Elder / NYT
Since Donald Trump’s victory, I have not been able to stop thinking about Vladimir Putin’s return to the Russian presidency in 2012 — another time in which an exhausted populace found itself unclear on what to do next.
For months leading up to that moment, tens of thousands of Russians protested as Mr. Putin prepared to return to the Kremlin after four years in a shadow role as prime minister. They were energized and often joyful, young and plugged into pop culture — it was the first time I had seen memes hop from the internet into real life, by way of protest signs. The day before Mr. Putin was inaugurated in May, the police violently cracked down on a mass protest. Read more
Protecting The Black Radical Project: A Call For Courage, Unity And Discipline In 2025. By Eric Ward / NewsOne
It has been 10 years since Ferguson, 10 years since Black communities across the nation ignited a movement that redefined our commitment to justice, dignity, and liberation. That uprising was a clarion call—a demand for accountability, for an end to unchecked violence, and for a reimagined democracy that serves all its people.
Today, as we reflect on that decade of struggle, we face an even greater challenge. The 2024 election has brought a harsh reality. The reelection of Donald Trump and a GOP-controlled Congress set the stage for an intensified wave of repression and retaliation against our communities. Read more
Related: The Pain Creating a New Coalition for Trump. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor / The New Yorker
Political / Social
What Explains Trumpism? By Stephen Crowley / The Nation
It’s capitalism, and it’s global.
There are many problems with the American political system: the Electoral College, an undemocratic Senate, and a right-wing Supreme Court among them. Then there’s America’s deep racism, combined with sexism and xenophobia. But Trumpism goes beyond Trump—and extends beyond the borders (walled or not) of the United States. Read more
Related: Trump’s Cabinet: Many Ideologies Behind the Veil of ‘America First.’ David E. Sanger / NYT
Kamala Harris Campaign Aides Suggest Campaign Was Just Doomed. By
The Harris campaign’s internal polling apparently never had her ahead of Trump.
Senior advisers to Vice President Kamala Harris’ failed presidential campaign suggested this week that there just wasn’t much else Harris could have done to beat Donald Trump. Harris couldn’t have distanced herself from President Joe Biden, they said, because she was loyal. She couldn’t have responded more forcefully to attacks over trans rights, because doing so would have been playing Trump’s game. Read more
Related: How Democrats Lost Their Base and Their Message. By Nate Cohn / NYT
Mexican President’s Harsh Takedown of Trump Exposes an Ugly MAGA Scam. By Greg Sargent / TNR
Claudia Sheinbaum’s response to Trump’s threat of tariffs revealed truths that the president-elect doesn’t want Americans to know.
Amid all this parsing of Trump’s intentions, a crucial fact about his new move is getting lost: At the center of it is a lie. This lie is hiding in plain sight: It’s the underlying suggestion that Mexico is not doing anything to stop migrants from coming and that Trump’s threat of tariffs is needed to change that. Here we’re getting an early glimpse of how he will deceive voters about some of his most potentially destructive designs, on tariffs and immigration alike. Read more
Related: The Rise of the Chinese American Far Right. By Promise Li / The Nation
The Congressional Black Caucus’ record 62 members plan to fight Trump’s agenda. By Curtis Bunn / NBC News
The Congressional Black Caucus, with 62 Democratic members, contributing toward the highest number of Black federal lawmakers in history, plans to act as a counterweight to the Trump administration, says Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York.
While the caucus’s members had planned to uphold a policy agenda for Black and marginalized people under a Kamala Harris administration, instead Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., said the CBC’s role will be to hold President-elect Donald Trump and his congressional supporters accountable. “We’ve always been the conscience of the Congress, and that’s no matter who’s in charge.” Read more
Walmart becomes latest — and biggest — company to roll back its DEI policies. By AP and NPR
Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, is rolling back its diversity, equity and inclusion policies, joining a growing list of major corporations that have done the same after coming under attack by conservative activists.
The changes, confirmed by Walmart on Monday, are sweeping and include everything from not renewing a five-year commitment for an equity racial center set up in 2020 after the police killing of George Floyd, to pulling out of a prominent gay rights index. And when it comes to race or gender, Walmart won’t be giving priority treatment to suppliers. Read more
Related: Study: DEI Training Could Make Racial Tensions Worse. By Suzanne Lucas / Inc.
Facing Legal Threats, Colleges Back Off From Race-Based Programs. By Laura Pappano and Joanna Hou / The Nation
College programs designed to give students from underrepresented groups a foothold in careers are being reframed or disappearing.
While there is no official count of such programs, they have become common offerings on college campuses as ways to support underrepresented students. This has spurred a backlash from conservative groups arguing for “equality”—providing all students the same opportunities—over “equity,” which seeks to help those needing supports to access them. That backlash is expected to intensify with the reelection of Donald J. Trump. Read more
How Systemic Racism Impacts Breast Cancer Outcomes for Black Women. By Bayo Curry-Winchell / She Knows
As women, we often hear about the importance of breast cancer screening and early detection. However, for Black women, despite significant improvements in breast cancer care, a disturbing gap persists in outcomes between Black and White women: systemic racism.
The role of systemic racism and sexism cannot be ignored in understanding these disparities. Social and economic factors, often influenced by systemic racism, can create barriers to timely, high-quality healthcare. Moreover, the constant experience of racism and discrimination leads to chronic stress, or “allostatic overload,” which can have real, physical impacts on health outcomes. Read more
Florida Woman Who Fatally Shot Black Neighbor Gets 25 Years in Prison.
Susan Lorincz, who shot Ajike Owens, was convicted of manslaughter. The case prompted national outrage.
A white woman in Florida who fatally shot a Black neighbor who confronted her amid a longstanding dispute over the neighbor’s children was sentenced on Monday to 25 years in prison. In a case that prompted national outrage and reignited debate around “stand your ground” laws, Susan Lorincz, 60, shot Ajike (A.J.) Owens as Ms. Owens, 35, stood outside the door of Ms. Lorincz’s home in Ocala, a city about 80 miles northwest of Orlando, in June last year. Read more
World News
A potential Israel-Hezbollah cease-fire deal has emerged. Here’s what to expect. By David Brennan / ABC News
Netanyahu is expected to discuss the proposed deal with his security cabinet.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his security cabinet on Tuesday in order to hold a vote on a ceasefire deal that could end more than a year of fighting across the Israeli-Lebanese border, an Israeli official told ABC News. The cabinet is expected to approve the U.S.-brokered deal. Read more
Related: Biden Hopes to Parlay Lebanon Cease-Fire Into a Broader Regional Peace. By Peter Baker / NYT
War fatigue deepens in Israel as deaths mount and fighting expands. By Shira Rubin / Wash Post
A growing number of Israeli reservists are choosing not to report for duty, putting further strain on an overextended military amid an ever-widening war.
“Wherever you look — the economic crisis, the toll on the reservists and their families, and of course the dead and the wounded — Israeli society is definitely at the edge of its capacity,” said Gayil Talshir, a political analyst at Hebrew University. Read more
The number of children recruited by gangs in Haiti soars by 70%, UNICEF says. By Danica Coto / ABC News
A new UNICEF report has found that the number of children recruited by gangs in Haiti has surged by 70% in the past year
Gangs in Haiti are recruiting children at unprecedented levels, with the number of minors targeted soaring by 70% in the past year, according to a report released Monday by UNICEF. Currently, between 30% to 50% of all gang members in the violence-wracked country are children, according to the U.N. “This is a very concerning trend,” said Geeta Narayan, UNICEF’s representative in Haiti. The increase comes as poverty deepens and violence increases amid political instability, with gangs that control 85% of Port-au-Prince attacking once peaceful communities in a push to assume total control of the capital. Read more and watch here
Ethics / Morality / Religion
The ‘Christian Nation-ist’ Set To Take Control Of The Federal Government. By Josh Kovensky / TPM
Russ Vought wants to make America Christian again. And he has put quite a bit of thought into what that might look like.
Across public speeches, little-noticed interviews, and secretly made recordings, the Trump functionary-turned-MAGA policy influencer has spent several years enunciating his belief: America was founded as a Christian nation, and is intended to be governed that way. Vought is most known for proposing aggressive actions aimed at remaking the government into something very different than it is now — actions like deploying the military to quell protests, gutting the independent civil service, and the many draconian policy ideas contained in Project 2025, which he helped bring into being. Read more
Christian vote, especially Catholics, critical to Trump’s historic win. By Elyse Apel / Justthenews
Christians helped push President-elect Donald Trump across the finish line on Election Day, a survey found.
Trump received the majority of the Christian vote, while Vice President Kamala Harris received the majority of the non-Christian vote. This is according to a report from the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University, which surveyed 2,000 voting-age adults nationally. Among self-identified Christians, Trump also received 56% of their votes, compared to the 60% Harris received from non-Christians. Read more
Related: I am a Black Catholic man worried about (another) America under Donald Trump. By Daryl Grigsby / NCR
Gospel-focused racial reconciliation in the Deep South. By Debbie Elliott / NPR
Over the last few years and through this year’s contentious campaign season, which was rooted in America’s deep divisions, there has been a coarsening in the way people talk to each other. We wanted to explore how some are trying to bridge divides.
MOBILE, Ala. — In the sunny lobby of 3Circle Church in Midtown Mobile, a dozen people gather around a lunch table. They’re here to share sandwiches and a frank dialogue. This “pledge group,” as they call it, meets twice a month. It’s a biracial gathering of pastors, nonprofit leaders, lawyers and businesspeople — all from varying Christian denominations in this Alabama Gulf Coast city. Read more
Historical / Cultural
How the first Pilgrims and the Puritans differed in their views on religion and respect for Native Americans. By Michael Carrafiello / The Conversation
Every November, numerous articles recount the arrival of 17th-century English Pilgrims and Puritans and their quest for religious freedom. Stories are told about the founding of Massachusetts Bay Colony and the celebration of the first Thanksgiving feast.
In the popular mind, the two groups are synonymous. In the story of the quintessential American holiday, they have become inseparable protagonists in the story of the origins. But as a scholar of both English and American history, I know there are significant differences between the two groups. Nowhere is this more telling than in their respective religious beliefs and treatment of Native Americans. Read more
That Time Mississippi Reinvented Slavery With Its ‘Black Codes.’ By Erik Loomis / Wonkette
On November 25, 1865, Mississippi created the first of the Black Codes. Designed to re-create slavery in all but name, this signified the white South’s massive resistance to the freeing of their labor force and the lengths to which it would go to tie workers to a place under white control.
Remember, the point of slavery was labor. If anything, we don’t talk about this enough. Yes of course it was racist, but the whole reason was to have a permanent labor force. Whites would do anything to create that labor force. And they did, engaging in crimes against humanity for hundreds of years. They had no intention of letting the end of technical slavery get in the way of labor control. Read more
America Has Done Mass Deportation Before. By Eric Foner / The Nation
From the Indian Removal Act of 1830 to the deportation of Mexican-Americans during the Great Depression, Trump can easily find precedents for his policy. None of them ended well. Relatives and friends wave goodbye to a train carrying 1,500 undocumented Mexicans being expelled from Los Angeles back to Mexico.
Among Donald Trump’s numerous promises during the presidential campaign, none generated more enthusiasm from his supporters—or denunciation from opponents—than his plan to deport the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. Such a massive uprooting of population would shock the rest of the world, not to mention throwing the labor market in many states into chaos. Yet the idea of ridding a society of persons deemed undesirable is not without precedent. Read more
Related: The price America paid for its first big immigration crackdown. By Greg Rosalsky / NPR
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs’ case raises questions about the many observers who might have ignored his alleged crimes. By Zoe D. Peterson, Mary P. Koss and RaeAnn Anderson / The Conversation
The billionaire hip-hop producer Sean Combs was charged in September 2024 with sex trafficking and a range of other offenses – and continues to be hit with lawsuits from alleged victims.
Perhaps one of the most stunning aspects of the unfolding case is the large number of people who may have been witnesses to the alleged crimes. Most of these assaults allegedly occurred at crowded social events and parties since at least 2001. Read more
Related: Everything to Know About Diddy’s Chances of Getting Out of Jail. By Kalyn Womack / The Root
Kendrick Lamar Makes His Point Clearer. By Spencer Kornhaber / The Atlantic
On his new album, GNX, a rapper who’s obsessed with excellence tries to entertain the masses.
Kendrick Lamar has long styled himself as an enemy of midness. The 37-year-old Pulitzer Prize winner makes statement albums thick with meaning and detail. He tells cohesive stories by unpredictably varying his flow, voice, and production ideas; he challenges audiences with noise-jazz interludes and intricate wordplay. Read more
Sports
How does a champion motivate itself? The Celtics are figuring it out. By Candace Buckner / Wash Post
The Boston Celtics, who finally broke through last season, are trying to recapture the feeling that propelled them to a championship.
Stomping around the NBA as the defending champions can have its benefits. This week, the Boston Celtics took advantage of theirs. One really cool perk: A team reunion happens near the White House Rose Garden with the president of the United States offering compliments on — of all things — points per possession. But the luxuries that last season’s accomplishments bestowed on the 2024-25 Celtics do little to nothing for what matters this season: winning again. Read more
Heisman straw poll: Ashton Jeanty can’t seem to gain much ground, but he can make history. By Joe Rexrode / The Athletic
Ashton Jeanty won. Travis Hunter lost. These results did impact The Athletic’s Heisman Trophy straw poll — ever so slightly, with Hunter losing two first-place votes to drop to 24, and Jeanty doubling his first-place votes to get to two.
Miami quarterback Cam Ward got the other first-place vote, picking it up after throwing for 280 yards and two touchdowns in a rout of Wake Forest, breaking Bernie Kosar’s single-season records for completions (263) and passing yards (3,774) in the process. But this remains a two-man race, technically, and a rout in reality. Hunter is oddsmakers’ overwhelming favorite to take home the award and leads this poll with 78 points to Jeanty’s 52. Read more
Tyreek Hill citations dismissed after officers don’t appear in court. By Des Bieler / Wash Post
The NFL star’s attorneys said the officers’ absence ‘evidences their knowledge of wrongdoing,’ which the department disputed.
Two traffic citations issued to Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill in September were dismissed after the police officers who were primarily involved did not appear in court. Read more
When Boxing Legend Sugar Ray Robinson Risked His Life to Deny Mafia Hitman’s Offer to Throw a Fight. By Sudeep Sinha / Essentially Sports
Boxing is often called a dirty game, and no decade has embodied that better than the 1940s.
To understand why, you need to look back to December 1933, when the end of Prohibition finally allowed the production, import, transportation, and sale of alcohol. You might wonder, what does this have to do with ‘Sugar’ Ray Robinson refusing the Mafia’s offer to throw his 1945 fight against Jake LaMotta? The two would fight each other six times, with Robinson dominating the series 5-1 from 1942 to 1951. Despite the lopsided tally, LaMotta had the distinction of being the first to defeat Robinson, who had previously been undefeated. He also managed to knock Robinson to the canvas multiple times, proving he was a formidable opponent in their legendary rivalry. Read more
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