The Fulcrum
Overdue Last read · last published · next check
Last read 20 hours ago, longer than this feed's 4 hours schedule.
When Graham Platner’s senate campaign imploded last month, the first thing that came to mind was a comment by one of his campaign strategists, who also advises many other major political figures today. They said , “Part of our thesis here is that people do not want their candidates grown in vats… they want people who do not look and sound like the vat-grown people who’ve been leading this country…
Trickle-down policies facilitated the transition from the mid-20th century "Great Compression “characterized by low-wage inequality and strong labor unions—to the "Great Divide" by shifting the economic focus from mass purchasing power to capital accumulation through massive tax cuts and deregulation. The Great Compression Following World War II, the United States experienced an unprecedented…
This nonpartisan policy brief, written by an ACE fellow, is republished by The Fulcrum as part of our partnership with the Alliance for Civic Engagement and our NextGen initiative — elevating student voices, strengthening civic education, and helping readers better understand democracy and public policy. What Happened at the May 2026 Trump-Xi Summit? The May 2026 Trump-Xi summit signaled a…
When Carmen De Backer was a toddler, she would sit on the couch staring at photos of wildlife in the worn pages of National Geographic magazines her mom bought at the thrift store. She couldn’t read the articles so she would ask her older sisters to tell her about the wildlife in the photos. That’s where her love for and curiosity about nature started. Throughout grade school, she would revisit…
While America is suffering a mental health crisis, the good news is that tens of millions of people are getting help. In 2023, 60 million adults reported having sought counseling or treatment in the previous year, and the numbers continue to rise . Psychotherapy works because of what’s known as the therapeutic frame, a set of boundaries that create safety and structure for patients and clinicians.…
I liked what I knew about the DSA. I liked what Democratic DSA candidates were saying (with some exceptions). Because I believe strongly that our government must be more about the people in order to be true to our founding principles, and industry should have less power. And so I was in agreement with Democrats who are socialists (with a small "s"); indeed, none of the Democratic DSA candidates…
The partisanship of the Roberts Supreme Court Republicans violates the neutrality central to the rule of law's legitimacy. Moreover, the Founding Fathers, including James Madison, Thomas Jefferson , John Adams, and Alexander Hamilton, viewed avaricious oligarchs and seditious demagogues as the two gravest threats to democracy. They would doubtlessly view the Roberts Republicans – with rulings…
Independent voters now represent the largest share of the American electorate, and yet they remain mostly unrepresented in federal office. Both major parties have spent decades optimizing for their bases, almost always leaving the near majority of Americans who identify as independent with the choice of either voting for a party candidate they don't fully support or staying home. A handful of…
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan easily won Minnesota’s Democratic primary for a U.S. Senate seat, according to Decision Desk HQ, putting her a step closer to becoming the first Native American woman elected to the chamber. Flanagan, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, is not the only Native woman who could make history this year: In New Mexico, former Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, a…
The crew of the USS Abraham Lincoln has been at sea for over 265 days , and over 200 days without a port call. The aircraft carrier left San Diego on November 21, 202 for a routine Pacific deployment, only to be redirected to the Middle East instead for a war Congress never declared and voted not to authorize. Carriers are supposed to pull in every 30 to 45 days for resupply, maintenance, and…
