Today's Liberal News

The Great Conspiracy-Theorist Flip-Flop

Democrats will spend the next four years debating why the party suffered a sweeping defeat last week. Maybe it was inflation, or the culture wars, or Joe Biden’s hubris, or podcasts, that drove voters in every swing state to the Republican presidential nominee. At least one theory, however, can already be put to rest: Elon Musk did not “steal” the election for Donald Trump.

The Cost-of-Living Crisis Explains Everything

The Biden administration passed $3 trillion of legislation aimed at revitalizing the American economy and fostering green, equitable, “middle-out” growth. It sent checks to voters, canceled student-loan debt, made direct deposits to parents, showered the country in tax credits, and financed the construction of roads, transmission lines, and bridges.

There Really Is a Deep State

The reelection of Donald Trump might seem like doomsday for America’s public-health agencies. The president-elect has vowed to dismantle the federal bureaucracy. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., potentially his next health czar, wants to go even further. As part of his effort to “Make America healthy again,” Kennedy has recently promised to tear up the FDA and its regulations, including those governing vaccines and raw milk. But that effort is going to run into a major roadblock: the “deep state.

Mouin Rabbani on What Really Happened in Amsterdam Between Israeli Soccer Fans & Local Residents

Dutch Palestinian analyst Mouin Rabbani discusses the violence that broke out last week between visiting Israeli soccer fans and pro-Palestinian protesters in Amsterdam. The Dutch authorities made over 60 arrests, and at least five people were hospitalized as a result of the clashes, which local and international leaders were quick to brand as antisemitic, even though observers in Amsterdam have said it was Israeli hooligans who instigated much of the violence.

“Complete Charade”: Qatar Withdraws from Ceasefire Talks, Middle East Prepares for Trump Presidency

We speak with Dutch Palestinian analyst Mouin Rabbani about the latest developments in the Middle East as Israel continues its deadly assaults on Gaza and Lebanon. Qatar recently announced it will no longer act as mediator for ceasefire talks, saying the two sides were not serious about reaching a deal to stop the fighting. “This entire process from the outset has been a complete charade,” Rabbani says of the U.S.

“Hate Has No Place Here”: Black Americans Slam Racist Texts Promoting Slavery After Trump’s Election

The FBI is investigating a spate of racist text messages targeting Black Americans in the wake of Donald Trump’s election victory last week. The texts were reported in states including Alabama, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia, addressing recipients as young as 13 by name and telling them they were “selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation” and other messages referencing slavery.

End the Arms: Humanitarian Chief Jan Egeland Urges U.S. to Stop Arming Israel Before Trump Takes Office

Top U.N. officials are again warning that the entire Palestinian population in north Gaza is “at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine and violence.” At least 1,800 Palestinians have been killed, many of them children, since October, when Israel imposed a draconian siege and began an intensified campaign of ethnic cleansing on northern Gaza. Jan Egeland of the Norwegian Refugee Council recently spent several days in Gaza.

“Open Celebration of the Oligarchy”: Both Dems & GOP Sucked Up to Billionaires in 2024 Election

In the wake of the reelection of Donald Trump, some of the richest people in the world saw their net worths soar as stock prices rapidly shot up. “What was different about this election was how central billionaires were in the entire political discourse,” says The Lever’s David Sirota, who joins Democracy Now! to discuss the outsized role of the super-rich in U.

Democrats Deserted Working Poor: Bishop William Barber on Healthcare, Living Wages, Voting Rights

“Why is it that the issues that most of the public agrees with — healthcare, living wages, voting rights, democracy — why is it that those issues weren’t more up front?” We speak to Bishop William Barber about Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s failed election campaigns, Donald Trump’s election as president and the urgent need to unite the poor and working class.

“Communities Were Destroyed”: Mass Deportations of 1930s & ’50s Show Harm of Trump Plan, If Implemented

Donald Trump has made the mass deportation of immigrants a centerpiece of his plans for a second term, vowing to forcibly remove as many as 20 million people from the country. Historian Ana Raquel Minian, who studies the history of immigration, says earlier mass deportation programs in the 1930s and ’50s led to widespread abuse, tearing many families apart through violent means that also resulted in the expulsion of many U.S. citizens.

SNL Isn’t Bothering With Civility Anymore

Voters gave America’s rudest man permission to return to the White House; what else have they given permission to? Michael Che has one idea. “So y’all gonna let a man with 34 felonies lead the free world and be the president of the United States?” he asked during last night’s “Weekend Update.” “That’s it. I’m listening to R. Kelly again.

Mother of the Blues

The first time I felt it, I knew it was old as ancestry:
the feeling some women chase with words; some feel
out the flesh of their mouths or stomach with moans
and growls you would’ve thought was warfare. The child  
conceived of heartache, our evidence of loving.
I was with child before I ever lay with a man—an ill-mannered
girl who made a language of feeling. She rattled my insides,
making songs of heartache and lonely.

The Democrats Need an Honest Conversation on Gender Identity

One of the mysteries of this election is how the Democrats approached polling day with a set of policies on gender identity that they were neither proud to champion—nor prepared to disown.
Although most Americans agree that transgender people should not face discrimination in housing and employment, there is nowhere near the same level of support for allowing transgender women to compete in women’s sports—which is why Donald Trump kept bringing up the issue.

The Trump-Whim Economy Is Here

Donald Trump is a crypto bro who’s going to cut taxes and regulations, loves big banks and corporate mergers, doesn’t care about deficits, loves oil and hates wind and solar, and might actually let RFK Jr. do some kooky health stuff. That, roughly speaking, is the picture of Trump that you get when you look at how markets reacted this week to his reelection as president of the United States. In other words, the markets are saying that he’s pretty much who many of us thought he was.