Archive: Author: Micah Sifry

The Russian Orthodox Church has fused with its nuclear weapons complex, and in a religious conflict all bets are off.Vladimir Putin and Patriarch Kirill on Unity Day 2016–11–04The world is probably closer to nuclear war than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, but you wouldn’t know that from current news coverage. Back in late February, when Russian President Vladimir Putin started his all-out invasion of Ukraine, fears of a nuclear conflagration surged, as Google Trends shows below. Polls of Europeans and Americans alike showed high levels of concern about a possible global nightmare. Now, we seem to have collectively gone back to sleep. But we may be in for a very rude awakening.Global search interest in “nuclear war” over...

MAGA Governors Dumping Refugees on Democratic Cities and Towns Have Picked a Fight They Will Lose“There were men, women and CHILDREN! They hadn’t eaten anything since 6:00 am. What kind of depraved individual loads up 50 people onto a plane and dumps them in a strange place without even notifying anyone that they’re coming? These are ‘leaders’? These are ‘Christians’? I’ll tell you what this is. It’s a disgusting political stunt — at the expense of human beings just wanting to work and provide for their families. But you know what? On this island, we treated them with dignity, we fed them, we gave them medical attention and we will give them a warm and safe place to sleep…Because on Martha’s Vineyard, we...

What will you do with your agency? Will you let events shape you, or will you add your voice to shaping them?Yesterday, the US stock market crashed more than 4.3% in response to the latest inflation report from August.Yesterday, the last of this year’s round of state election primaries were held, crystallizing who will be on the ballot for this fall’s mid-terms.Yesterday, the Biden Administration held a huge outdoor celebration on the White House lawn to mark the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act.Yesterday, top Biden officials also worked feverishly to try to head off a national rail strike that could start as early as this Friday.Also yesterday, Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) unveiled proposed legislation imposing a national ban on abortion...

Republican women who voted for Trump in 2016 are signaling a sea change for 2022.Stop Kavanaugh Rally on US Capitol Grounds — September 4, 2018.Yesterday, I was listening to a group of nine Republican women who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 discuss their feelings about the current political moment in America, courtesy of The Focus Group, a weekly podcast produced by Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark. And what I heard kind of blew my mind. Not only do none of these women, who live in the bellwether swing states of Georgia, Ohio and Pennsylvania, want Trump to run again in 2024, most of them are leaning toward voting for Democratic candidates for governor and senate in their own states.Why? Because the Supreme Court’s...

The President and the former GOP hardliner both evoked the same metaphor, but for vastly different visions of AmericaBuchanan 1992 vs Biden 2022I listened to President Biden’s Thursday night speech on “The Continued Battle for the Soul of the Nation” on the radio, so I didn’t catch the optics of his standing in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia and the weird lighting that his advance team used to stage the event. The words alone were bracing enough, though I wish Biden had chosen to show his audience more than tell it why democracy is in danger.It’s hard sometimes not to worry that we’re heading into this battle with the equivalent of Weimar Germany’s Paul von Hindenburg as our standard-bearer. (Hindenburg was...

The President is trying to protect “democratic values,” but unless Republicans join him in speaking out, Trumpism won’t break.Between May and August, something shifted in the minds of a lot of American voters. They got a lot more worried about what is happening to our democracy. Tonight in Philadelphia, President Biden is expected to address that issue head on. The slow boil that is political conflict in America is about to get a lot hotter.First, what changed? In May, the NBC News national poll asked registered voters what the most important issue was facing the country, gave them a list of possible responses, and then combined their first and second choices. At the top was the cost of living, with 36%...

A reflection on a moment of extra-worldly beauty as we get ready for the change in seasons and our never-ending political dramas(Photo by Jesse Lieman-Sifry, all rights reserved)Five years ago, my son took this photo of me and my wife during the middle of the total solar eclipse that crossed the United States mainland that day. We were standing on top of a high bluff in the hills of eastern Wyoming, somewhere west of Casper, and we had an unobstructed 360-degree view of the horizon as it suddenly faded to sunset red. Above us the eclipsed sun stood coolly against the dark blue sky. I’m not sure anymore, but I think we could also see Mars and Venus off to...

The freedom to choose an abortion shifted the balance in an upstate congressional race; a sign of things to come this fall?Screen grab from Pat Ryan’s first TV adFor all the attention that focused the last few weeks on two congressional races happening in the heart of New York City, one pitting two Democratic lions of the House against each other and the other a free-for-all battle for a rare open seat in a heavily Democratic district, the big story coming out of Tuesday’s primary elections of greater importance to the rest of the country happened way upstate, in the bucolic hills of the Catskills and the upper Hudson River valley south of Albany. That’s where Ulster County executive Pat Ryan, a...

Without any of us ever having a say, we’ve become subjects of quasi-governmental powers who know the intimate facts of our lives.The call to protest Meta’s presence at Netroots Nation 2022Friday morning, during the annual Netroots Nation conference in Pittsburgh, a crowd of about 100 attendees gathered in the exhibitor hall to loudly protest the presence of Meta at the event. The giant company was a Premier Sponsor of the conference, which brought together several thousand liberal and progressive activists for three packed days of trainings, panels and keynotes. Brittany Williams, an organizer with the Facebook Users Union who helped organize the protest, wrote her fellow attendees, “Facebook should not be here. They just helped prosecute a teen and her mom...

Women are registering to vote in surprising numbers and Biden’s approval rate has begun to riseFiveThirtyEight’s composite average of Biden’s approval ratingsSince June 24th, when the Supreme Court eviscerated the right to an abortion, significantly more women than men have been registering to vote, according to data compiled by Tom Bonier of TargetSmart. In Pennsylvania, the margin is 17% more women than men, and that is in a state where registered women previously outnumbered men by 4 points. In Ohio, the tilt is 11%. In Michigan, women are out-registering men by 8 points. Many of these women are registering as Democrats — for example, in Wisconsin, women have out-registered men by almost 15 points since the Dobbs decision came down. 52% of all the...