The Nation

BEFORE DAWN ON FEBRUARY 28, THE UNITED STATES AND ISRAEL LAUNCHED what Donald Trump hailed as “major combat operations in Iran” but was, in fact, an undeclared, unauthorized, and unconstitutional regime-change war. As the bombs rained down on at least 14 cities, the death toll included Iran’s 86-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and at least 153 people—most of them young girls—at a primary school. The president said the mission was “eliminating imminent threats.” In reality, it killed children, provoked counterstrikes across the Middle East, and threatened the region with another of the “forever wars” that Trump once campaigned against. The attack on Iran represents the latest manifestation of an increasingly belligerent foreign policy that has seen US military interventions topple two government leaders in two months. The president who…

THE REV. JESSE JACKSON NEVER STOPPED CAMPAIGNing. Even in the last years of his life, when he was suffering from the progressive neurological disorder that slowed his steps and his speech before his death on February 17, at age 84, the reverend kept calling his Rainbow PUSH Coalition together for one more mission, one more crusade for justice. He did so with an urgency that belied his condition and drew old allies and young protégés into fights that were righteous and necessary and, frequently, prescient. Such was the case in January of 2024, at a point when few political figures were prepared to call out the Israeli assault on Gaza that has now claimed more than 75,000 Palestinian lives and has been identified as a genocide by Amnesty International, Human…

I’M NOT SURE WE’RE TERRIFIED ENOUGH ABOUT the American right’s scrapping even its own scant moral boundaries. Every segment of the Trump-backing right wing—America First nationalists, Trump loyalists, and rank-and-file MAGA activists—has unsubscribed from the idea that there is any such thing as right and wrong, much less that wrong-doing should result in consequences. In effect, there is no behavior Trump’s GOP sees as too wrong to vote for. In late July 2025, almost half of Republicans said they would keep voting for Trump even if he were “officially implicated in Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking activities.” Crime is legal, where right-wingers are concerned, however heinous the crime is. At least for themselves. The right still has morals for days when it comes to Black folks, immigrants, and trans people. Its…

THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE IS IN A CRISIS, AT A level that hasn’t been seen in decades, if perhaps ever. Not since 1975, when US Attorney General John Mitchell was prosecuted and convicted for conspiracy and obstruction of justice related to Watergate, has there been a more toxic and chaotic environment at the department. Today, under Pam Bondi, the DOJ shows a flagrant disregard for the rule of law and contempt for the Constitution. A once-exalted institution that was integral to the protection of civil rights now resembles an elite agency that serves the private interests of a president rather than vulnerable Americans. Perhaps the most troubling aspect of this state of affairs is how we got here. In January, after Renée Good, a 37-year-old mother in Minneapolis, was shot…

IMMEDIATELY AFTER DONALD TRUMP WAS SWORN IN to his second term in the nation’s highest office, he launched an aggressive rollback of critical environmental-justice protections. In just one year, his administration has eliminated the 2009 endangerment finding, the scientific and legal basis for regulating greenhouse-gas emissions; weakened pollution limits; and offered industrial polluters exemptions to the rules that were designed to protect the environment and public health. Who is Trump and his Environmental Protection Agency doing this for? I can tell you it is not for our kids. Not for working families. Not for the communities already bearing the brunt of pollution and climate disaster. They are doing it for the oil and gas executives who bankrolled Trump’s reelection campaign, contributing over $75 million after he promised he’d grant their…

“THE GREATEST TRICK THE DEVIL EVER PULLED WAS convincing the world he didn’t exist.” Apparently, this famous quote was written by the 19th century French poet Charles Baudelaire, but I first heard the line in the movie The Usual Suspects. I think about it often, as it encapsulates Donald Trump’s relationship with the Republicans on the Supreme Court. The Donald Trump who exists in the real world—the racist, fascist sexual predator who happily tweets out the illegal and unconstitutional motivations for his policies—does not exist according to the Supreme Court. Instead, the court has invented a different Trump, one who does not speak, does not lie, and adheres to the well-established norms regarding the use of executive power. It has dreamed up a normal US president, grafted this creation onto…