From “The New Civil Rights Movement Starts Now” at The Contrarian:

Democracy is not a spectator sport. Whether you want to exercise your right to vote, join a protest, call your elected officials, run for office, or keep tabs on the week’s hottest issues and protests, The Contrarian has you covered.

Here are our top suggestions for getting involved in the days ahead. These are heated times; we encourage non-violent and lawful activism.

Republicans across the South are using the cover of the Supreme Court’s execrable Callais decision to dilute the power of Black and Brown voters. In response, voting rights advocates are organizing an All Roads Lead to the South day of protest and action on Saturday, May 16.

The day’s key demonstrations will take place in Selma and Montgomery, Alabama, two hallowed grounds from the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. Organizers are framing the action as a continuation of that struggle: “Our parents and grandparents marched, organized, bled, and won,” they write. “The Voting Rights Act was theirs. The fight to keep it is ours.”

The day will begin in Selma, scene of the Bloody Sunday march in 1965, with a “Moral Moment for Faith Leaders” at 9 a.m. local time, with a crossing the famed Edmund Pettus Bridge. The culmination of the day of action will be in Montgomery, home of the bus boycott led by Rosa Parks, with a rally at the state capitol beginning at 1 p.m. The Contrarian will be reporting on the scene all day. Contrarian publisher Norm Eisen, April Ryan, and others will come to you live from Montgomery on Saturday evening with a recap of the day’s events.

Supporting actions are planned in cities from Austin to St. Louis, Trenton to Tallahassee. Find the event nearest you on this interactive map or organize one of your own.

The most important step you can take in the face of the Republican assault on representative democracy is ensuring that you, your friends, and your family members are registered to vote and have a plan to vote in November. The All Roads page has a “Stop the Voting Purge” tool to help you check your registration and polling place, register to vote if necessary, and sign up for election reminders.

President Obama provided a couple of  soundbites Democrats can use in unveiling GOP corruption. As Ashleigh Fields reports at The Hill:

Former President Obama on Tuesday said the president “shouldn’t have a bunch of side hustles,” signaling there should be a clear ethical standard for those occupying the Oval Office.

“A good policy that I’d like to see followed is that the president of the United States shouldn’t have a bunch of side hustles that those companies and foreign entities can invest in,” the former president told Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show.”

Obama’s comments come after President Trump’s critics have raised concerns with his decision to accept a Qatari jet with intentions to use the carrier as the next Air Force One.

During his second stint in office, others have flagged potential corruption as private companies back Trump’s $400 million White House ballroom project and his family’s cryptocurrency stock has significantly grown.

Obama said he thought it was a “pretty obvious principle” not to engage in “side hustles” while serving as commander-in-chief.

…“The idea is that the attorney general is the people’s lawyer. It’s not the president’s consigliere. …There’s a bunch of stuff that we can overcome,” he said. “We can’t overcome the politicization of the criminal justice system.”

…When asked what powers he believes the president should not have, Obama said, “Although this is in the Constitution, it’s a little hard to change, but maybe don’t pardon people who’ve given you a bunch of campaign contributions or invested in your businesses.”

Former President Obama’s way with words is still instructive for Democratic candidates at all levels. The G.O.P. has actually devolved from a party dedicated to enriching the already super-wealthy into a personality cult of groveling sycophants. It’s about boiling Republican corruption down for time-challenged voters. Obama knows how to rephrase the critiques of Republican corruption into easy-to-remember soundbites. Democratic campaigns should pay attention.

From “The Real Reason to Worry About the Midterm Elections: Some worry about a November Trump coup. That’s far-fetched, but the ordinary forms of voter suppression are the greater concern” by Robert Kuttner at The American Prospect:

…Trump has been desperately trying to gain control of the election machinery, so far to no avail. His executive orders trying to assert control over electoral machinery that the Constitution clearly gives to the states have been blocked by the courts. The SAVE America Act, which would accomplish the same thing by statute, was passed by the House but died in the Senate.

Trump still hopes to use his control of the Postal Service to undermine the use of mail-in ballots, and to find a way to require photo ID, all on the bogus and discredited premise that illegal voting is rampant. One vexing problem is that even if election officials in blue and purple states reject Trump’s demands to turn over election records for federal purging, Republican officials in some states are going along. This is being challenged in court.

How far would Trump go? In the nightmare scenarios posed by some concerned groups, Trump waits until Election Day, claims that Iran has hacked the election, declares a national emergency, and suspends the election until the accuracy of polling can be assured. Delay is deadly. In some versions of the nightmare, Trump sends in ICE to seize ballot boxes and voting machines.

…MOST LEADERS IN THE “DEFEND DEMOCRACY” CAMP are more worried about the ordinary forms of voter suppression, which Trump and his allies in MAGA-controlled states will surely try to take to new depths this year. This includes not only familiar tactics such as purging voter rolls, intimidating poll watchers and local election officials, changing locations where voters may cast ballots, reducing the number of polling places, and altering the rules and procedures on mail-in ballots.

…Miles Rapoport, former Connecticut secretary of the state and the present leader of 100% Democracy (and a Prospect board member), put it this way: “We can all imagine nightmare scenarios, but they are both unlikely and unhelpful. It’s more important that secretaries of state, pro-democracy legal and advocacy organizations, the courts, and an alerted citizenry push back effectively and make the elections work.”

Whether you are more concerned about a somewhat far-fetched risk of an attempted coup, or about familiar forms of voter suppression taken to new extremes, the remedy is the same. The people need to turn out in record numbers, both to vote and if necessary to face down ICE.”

More here

Ruy Teixeira, author of major works of political analysis and non-resident senior fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, explains “Why Virginia Voters have Soured on Spanberger” at The Washington Post:

Abigail Spanberger’s shtick has long been moderation. When she ran for governor of Virginia last year, she emphasized her law enforcement background, her commitment to working across the aisle (“pragmatism over partisanship”) and her laserlike focus on the issue of “affordability.” She ducked questions about controversial issues, from transgender school policy to endorsing Democratic attorney general candidate Jay Jones, and stuck to her talking points. Virginians could count on her to govern and get things done, not to be a partisan warrior.

It was a successful formula in a blue-trending, Trump-disapproving state, and she romped to a 15-point victory over her admittedly weak Republican opponent. So how’s she doing?

Not too hot.

In a recent Washington Post-Schar School poll, Spanberger’s approval rating clocked in at 47 percent. Nearly as many voters, 46 percent, disapproved. Her net approval at only +1 is lower than her predecessor, Republican Glenn Youngkin, had at an early point in his term as governor (+13). Never mind that Youngkin squeaked into the governor’s mansion by 2 points in 2021 while Spanberger won by a landslide. She’s lost altitude — fast.

This has been particularly true among pure independents, the swingiest of voters. They gave her a 20-point margin in November (60-40) but have since gone negative. According to The Post, the governor is underwater with that contingent: 40 percent approve, 44 percent disapprove.

A plurality of voters also think Spanberger’s views on issues are “too liberal” (45 percent) rather than “just about right” (42 percent). They are likewise unimpressed with her efforts on affordability: 41 percent say her policies will make Virginia less affordable, 31 percent think they will make Virginia more affordable and 23 percent think they won’t make a difference.

Why have voters cooled so quickly on a candidate they thunderously endorsed only five months ago? The answer lies in her not-particularly-moderate governance style. One might expect a candidate who so strenuously cultivated a moderate image to take some opportunities once elected to demonstrate her independence from partisan dictates. Not Spanberger.

Some nuggets mined from “Polls show rising regret among Trump’s 2024 voters” at msn.com:

Polls from YouGov/UMass Amherst and Strength in Numbers-Verasight reveal a steady erosion of confidence among Trump’s 2024 voters. In April 2025, 74% were “very confident” in their vote, but that figure has dropped to 62%, with 16% saying they would change their choice if given the chance. Regret is most pronounced among younger voters and Hispanics, doubling from last year’s levels in some surveys.

Who is expressing regret and why it matters

•Regret is highest among Trump voters under 30 years old (17%) and Hispanic voters (16%)

•Between 1 in 8 and 1 in 6 Trump voters express some measure of regret

•If these voters desert the GOP in 2026, it could trigger a wave election for Democrats

…CNN polling shows Trump’s approval among working-class white voters has dropped from 63% in early 2025 to just 49% now. Disapproval is also high among his 2024 voters on key issues: 30% on the economy, 28% on Iran, and 39% on inflation. Analysts link the decline to dissatisfaction with the Iran war, economic policies, and perceived betrayals of campaign promises.

…Gallup data shows Americans rank politics, not the economy, as the nation’s biggest problem, a divergence from global trends. Analysts say political instability—driven partly by Trump’s tariffs, trade wars, and foreign policy—has worsened economic pressures. This political dissatisfaction correlates with Trump’s high economic disapproval rating, suggesting governance concerns are fueling voter regret.

In “Trump is stepping carefully into the weeds of marijuana legalization,” James D. Zirin writes at The Hill:

Unlike England, from which we cribbed our legal system, America has a dual sovereignty system — the states and the federal government. Often, this leads to inconsistent statutory regimes.

For example, as of this year, 24 states — including a handful of red states— have legalized cannabis for recreational purposes. Additionally, around 40 states have legalized cannabis for medical use.

Congress was always suspicious of marijuana. The lawmakers bought the testimony of psychiatrists who called it a “gateway drug” used, as beat poet Allen Ginsberg put it, by “angel headed hipsters destroyed by madness starving hysterical naked … looking for an angry fix.”

…Moral perceptions change with the times. Bill Clinton, before taking office, had to confess that he once took a puff but famously claimed that he “didn’t inhale.” Barack Obama openly admitted to smoking marijuana during his youth, discussing it in his 1995 memoir “Dreams from My Father.” He contrasted his behavior with Clinton’s stating, “When I was a kid, I inhaled. That was the point.” The voters elected them anyway.

…Since December, there had been little movement to reschedule the drug, frustrating lobbyists and cannabis producers. But Trump’s executive order aims to move marijuana to the same statutory cabin where some common prescription painkillers like Tylenol with codeine reside.

The announcement did for cannabis stocks what the opening of the Strait of Hormuz did for the broad market. Shares of cannabis industry companies surged, with Canopy Growth rising 23 percent, and Tilray Brands soaring 15 percent.

…Most Americans support relaxing restrictions, but critics note that some support for legalization has eased. In 2022, polls said 60 percent of adults supported legalizing marijuana, including 46 percent of Republicans. This month, an Economist/YouGov poll  reported 53 percent of adults supported legalizing the drug, including 35 percent of Republicans.

…The push for legalization is hardly a new-found social concern. It’s all about the money. Marijuana companies donated at least $1 million to Trump’s inauguration. Industry leaders like Kim Rivers of Trulieve, known as the “Starbucks of weed,” have forged close ties to the administration.

Read more here.

The following article stub for “Trump’s Coalition is Cracking” by former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and The Working Class Project, is cross-posted from The Working Class Project:

After a big win on redistricting this week in Virginia, we’re back with another update from The Working Class Project – the largest and most-extensive effort in the Democratic Party to understand why working-class voters are trending away from Democrats, and how we can win them back.

Last fall, we published a summary of our initial research and recommendations for a practical, informed path forward. Earlier this month, we launched a slate of new research through The Working Class Project — and the timing couldn’t be more urgent.

With midterms now in front of us, Democrats face a defining question: Can we make a credible, lasting case that we stand with working people? Not just in our rhetoric, but in our policies, our priorities, our outreach, and our willingness to be honest about where we’ve fallen short?

The data coming in right now tells a complicated but, frankly, hopeful story — if we pay attention.

Democrats are winning and over-performing in elections up and down the ballot, from coast to coast and everywhere in between. Here’s what we’re watching.

Trump promised he would lower costs. He said he would end foreign wars. He said he would bring back American manufacturing.

His policies have led to the opposite. And his 2024 coalition is taking note.

In 2024, white voters without a college degree supported Trump by 34 points. The lowest-income voters (households making under $50,000) broke for Trump in record numbers in 2024, with a Republican winning that group for the first time since the 1960s. But that trend is now reversing — and it’s reversing hard and fast. His approval with voters earning under $50,000 a year is now over 20 points underwater. Today, his advantage with white non-college voters has also all but evaporated — his approval rating among this group sits barely above water.

These are the voters Trump promised to rescue. He said he would “fix it.” But they’re not feeling rescued. And the economy is surely not fixed for them.

Read more here.

Fredreka Schouten reports that “Virginia voters approve a map giving Democrats a chance at four more House seats, CNN projects” at CNN Politics:

Virginia voters approved a map that gives Democrats the chance to net as many as four US House seats, CNN’s Decision Desk projects, in a major boost to the party’s effort to win House control in the midterms.

The map set to go into effect represents one of the most extreme political gerrymanders of the 2026 election cycle, giving Democrats an electoral advantage in 10 of the state’s 11 House districts. Currently, Democrats control six of those seats.

…Supporters of the map, led by national figures such as former President Barack Obama and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, cast the change as necessary to serve as a check on President Donald Trump and Republican policies during his final two years in the White House. Trump launched the ongoing mid-decade redistricting battle last year when he pushed Texas Republicans to redraw their maps for GOP advantage.

House Speaker Mike Johnson and several former Virginia Republican officials, including former Gov. Glenn Youngkin, campaigned against Democrats’ redistricting actions in the state, as Republicans worked hard to mobilize conservatives in rural areas to oppose the map. Trump dialed into a call Monday night to mobilize opponents and posted Tuesday morning on his social media network: “VIRGINIA, VOTE ‘NO’ TO SAVE YOUR COUNTRY!”

“Virginia just kicked Donald Trump’s ass,” Virginia House Speaker Don Scott, one the leaders of the pro-map effort, told CNN Tuesday night. “We have rejected him in every state election where he has been anywhere close to the ballot.”

Scott argued Trump’s 11th-hour move to rally voters helped Democrats’ cause in the end. “All he did was wake Virginians up and let them understand the threat that he is.”

…Despite Democrats’ victory, Virginia voters may not have the last word on redistricting.

Next week, Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature is slated to meet in a special session called by GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis to consider new US House maps. Republicans have not yet released a specific plan, but some have indicated an interest in targeting as many as five seats now held by Democrats.

More Here.

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, author of major works of political analysis and non-resident senior fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, is cross-posted from the Wall St. Journal, via A.E.I.:

“Noam Scheiber, a veteran labor reporter at the New York Times, wants you to believe in the college-educated working class. Many college-educated Americans, he contends, wind up in working-class retail and service-sector jobs that don’t use their education or in professional jobs that have become more “proletarianized” and therefore more working class. That claim is more supportable than the thesis Mr. Scheiber draws from it, namely the college-educated working class is becoming a dynamic force for progressive social change.

In “Mutiny,” Mr. Scheiber makes his case by telling a series of interwoven stories about Americans who’ve found themselves part of the college-educated working class. The stories range from workers at Starbucks, Apple stores and Amazon warehouses to aspiring screenwriters, videogame designers and adjunct professors. All are dissatisfied and all wind up involved with unions.

These stories are well told—Mr. Scheiber is a fine writer—and the precarity of these young workers’ lives is vividly evoked. It’s hard to graduate and find that your painfully acquired credentials don’t translate into anything like the job you were aiming for. Instead you’re at the whim of corporate overlords. Joining a union, or helping to create one, channels your disappointment into something concrete and potentially beneficial.

One graduate-turned-unionizer is Teddy Hoffman. Mr. Hoffman, who graduated from a prestigious liberal-arts college (Grinnell) in 2014, was awarded a highly competitive Watson Fellowship after college, traveled the world (“studying the intersection between disability activist groups and the performing arts”) and came back to pursue a career in the theater. He was a theater and English major at Grinnell and widely considered a star; his mentor at the college thought he’d become an artistic director of a theater or perhaps a theater professor.

It was not to be. After a lengthy attempt to make it in the theater in Chicago, he gave up and landed at Starbucks. He found the work boring, subject to arbitrary management dictates and not satisfactorily remunerative. He found meaning in forming a union. There he had success—Mr. Scheiber connects Mr. Hoffman’s story to that of overall unionization efforts at Starbucks.

So are graduates pouring out of elite colleges, joining the college-educated working class and responding with a thunderous “Union Yes”? For the most part, no. There will be some stories like Mr. Hoffman’s, but they are not representative. Coincidentally, my daughter also went to Grinnell and graduated in the same class as Mr. Hoffman. In her experience, and that of her friends, his trajectory is atypical.

That is not to say that a certain percentage of college graduates, from elite colleges and otherwise, don’t wind up in situations similar to Mr. Hoffman’s. Mr. Scheiber relates the story of Chaya Barrett, who graduated from Towson University in Maryland and aspired to a career in tech and marketing. The best she could do was work at an Apple store, where seemingly capricious management demands and scheduling took all the fun out of being a “Genius,” as Apple calls staff, and hardly paid the bills. She also went the unionization route.

Sydney Mitchel wanted to be a screenwriter and graduated from the dramatic writing department of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. She had some initial success getting writing jobs in Hollywood, pulling down $180,000 one year and on track to earn more than $300,000 with a new promotion. But Covid-19 and structural changes in the Hollywood production system derailed her career, and soon she was running out of money. She became active in the writers’ union.

One can sympathize with the urge of these young, educated workers to rebel against their situations. The problem lies in assessing the political and cultural valence of this subset of college graduates. Mr. Scheiber believes these “mutinying” college grads’ rebellion contributes to a burgeoning movement against contemporary capitalism that could unite the college-educated and non-college-educated working class.

I’m not so sure. These college graduates are an idiosyncratic subset of college grads who wind up in frustrating working-class situations and translate their frustrations into union activities. This is not common. The private-sector unionization rate in the U.S. is still less than 6%, which incidentally is about the percentage of Starbucks stores now unionized. And even those that are unionized have a hard time getting contracts.

Frustrated career aspirations and economic dissatisfaction are common among college graduates, perhaps unusually so today. But a four-year college degree still pays off as an investment, on average, both in terms of annual and lifetime earnings, if slightly less so than at its peak in the 1990s. Moreover, there are clear differences between the prospects of those who graduate with STEM degrees and those with humanities degrees, who are likely to be especially frustrated if they want to live in expensive blue-state metros.

Also, who knows how many young college graduates translate their frustrations into political orientations other than the socialist ones so evident in Mr. Scheiber’s book? After all, 46% of white college graduate men under 45 voted for Donald Trump in 2024. Mr. Scheiber’s “working class” college graduates carry a lot of cultural baggage that will limit their ability to unite with the traditional non-college-educated working class. The views of the former are way to the left of the latter. Two of the most widely publicized activities of the Starbucks union related to gay-pride flags and Gaza—not exactly standard working-class issues.

Mr. Scheiber’s book is useful as a guide to unionization activities among recent college graduates. But it does not make a convincing case that the college-educated working class is a harbinger of broader social change. Maybe your next latte at Starbucks will be drawn by the new Walter Reuther or John L. Lewis. But I doubt it.”