by Zeeshan Aleem | Aug 12, 2026 | Congress, elections, Opinion
On Sunday, ABC News anchor Jonathan Karl asked Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., to weigh in on how Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong — a fellow democratic socialist who was leading the polls ahead of Tuesday’s Democratic primary — might struggle to “get around” some of her past progressive positions on abolishing policing and canceling Thanksgiving.
Ocasio-Cortez’s response was both surprising and opaque. She noted that Hong has moved away from those positions before saying, “I have a local city councilman that has this saying, ‘Woke one was crazy’” — and let out a hearty laugh.
Karl followed up, “Did the movement go too far, with some of those positions? You briefly supported the idea of defunding the police.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s response is worth quoting at length:
During this time and especially during Covid, there was a huge opening of the Overton window. We were shut down. There was some of the highest unemployment rates that we have seen because of those shutdowns, and I think that the doors were really open in trying to entertain any and every policy that was going to get us to a better place, and I actually think that the discussions that had that were had in that time were quite fruitful. I think that when we talk about crime today, it’s fundamentally different than the way that we talked about crime in bringing crime down, right? And I think that we all share in the goals of having as low a crime rate as possible. I think that you know during lockdown, of course, rhetoric in that time is not rhetoric that we would use today.
The congresswoman’s longer response
by Ibrahim Hirsi | Aug 11, 2026 | 2026 election, 2026 Elections, Alex Pretti, Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, elections, ICE, Immigrants, immigration, Minnesota, News, Operation Metro Surge, Renee Nicole Good
In Minnesota, glossy political mailers, sensationalized television ads, and campaign stunts meant to animate voters in this year’s primary elections all focus on one common theme: immigration. The August 11 elections come as Minnesotans are learning more about the devastating impacts of “Operation Metro Surge,” which brought thousands of federal law enforcement agents to the state on a…
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by Brad Reed | Aug 11, 2026 | Article, elections, midterms, Politics and Movements: US, Reprint, Voting Rights
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Aug. 11, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
A right-wing talk show host on Tuesday pushed President Donald Trump to declare a “national security emergency” that would let him meddle in the 2026 midterm elections—and the president did not rule it out.
In an appearance on Real America’s Voice, Trump listened as host Wayne Allyn Root rattled off actions he would like to see the president take ahead of the midterms.
“Let me put an idea in your head,” Root told Trump. “Because it’s so hard to get the Senate to do anything, now they’re on recess, they never get anything done. If they never get the SAVE America Act done, you have the right to declare a national security emergency for elections.”
🚨🚨🚨WAYNE ALLYN ROOT: You have the right to declare a national security emergency for elections. If you do this in the next month, we will get photo ID, proof of citizenship, and a limit to mail ballotsTRUMP: Let me just say stranger things have happened. I’ll leave it at… pic.twitter.com/SvXYoYI0lQ— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 11, 2026
Root then told the president that “if you do this in the next month” it would allow for the implementation of photo identification and proof of citizenship requirements, as well as restrictions on mail-in ballots.
“Let me just say that stranger things have happened,” Trump said in response. “I’ll leave it at that.”
The US Constitution does not give the president power to declare a “national emergency” that would allow him to unilaterally rewrite states’ election laws.
Regardless, ABC News reported in February that a group of pro-Trump attorneys were circulating a 17-page draft order that
by Zeeshan Aleem | Aug 11, 2026 | Congress, elections, Opinion
As of 4 p.m. on Monday, Ohio Rep. Max Miller officially passed the deadline for being replaced by party leaders on the ballot following domestic abuse allegations and calls from a handful of Republican senators to step down from office as he seeks re-election. (He has denied the allegations.)
And so the GOP is stuck with him in November.
But there are few signs that the Republican Party as a whole is all that broken up about it. Despite the severity of the allegations against Miller — which include claims that Miller threw hot water on his ex-wife, held a gun to her head, and may have broken their young daughter’s collarbone — the party did not pile on to the longtime Trump devotee. (An investigation into claims of child abuse found there was not enough evidence to bring charge.)
The foremost example of how accusations of violence against women are tolerable on the right is Trump himself.
In the days leading up to the deadline, President Donald Trump praised Miller as a “good person” and said he wanted “to let the families figure that out.” House Speaker Mike Johnson said he preferred a House ethics committee investigation play out (which can be a slow and drawn-out process), while Senate Majority Leader John Thune called it a “House matter” and a “family issue.” While some GOP senators did express concerns about the allegations, their numbers did not come close to achieving a majority view within their caucus.
The objections to Miller in Washington were so restrained that right-wing pundit Erick Erickson wondered last week on X why Miller wasn’t getting “the Graham Platner treatment,” a
by Hunter Woodall | Aug 10, 2026 | Congress, elections, News
CHICAGO — Among democratic socialists, Donald Trump is seen as a symptom of a dire political system, a liar and a failure of a president twice over.
And there’s an understanding that he took advantage of the Democratic Party’s failures and a sense of abandonment from the working class that helped his rise and return.
“You can’t deny that if Democrats had delivered, if people had been taken care of, I don’t think that Donald Trump would be back in office,” said JP Lyninger, a democratic socialist and local elected official in Louisville, Kentucky.
The blame directed at “the establishment” by the Democratic Socialists of America faithful is meant to be a harsh rebuke that Democrats’ approach is flawed and broken after a decade of Trump dominating politics even when he isn’t in power. But for whatever opportunity that gives democratic socialism, there’s a clear risk at alienating people that already have a poor view of the Democratic Party as weak and out of touch.
The democratic socialist blame game
This is a nation where a real estate mogul and former reality television star leads a party whose conservative ruling class once laughed him off, where the opposition managed to beat Trump a single time before divisions over age, electability and aid for Israel fractured coalitions and helped the former president return to power even after he tried to overturn a free and fair election.
All this has given the DSA a delicate path out of the fringes.
“People have become disillusioned with a party that has failed to prevent this sort of fascist insurgency within American politics, not just once, but now two times,” said Bobby
by Anthony L. Fisher | Aug 9, 2026 | elections, Opinion, White House
“This is the last of the prosecutions seeking to hold accountable those responsible for the events of January 6. That book is now closed,” U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta wrote in his opinion last week as he “reluctantly” dismissed charges in the last eight criminal cases against Jan. 6 rioters.
They, along with six others, were the only Capitol rioters or conspirators not fully pardoned by President Donald Trump on the day he retook office. (On that day, Trump commuted their sentences instead.)Because Trump’s Justice Department filed a motion to dismiss the cases against Stewart Rhodes and his fellow Oath Keepers, Mehta had to oblige. But not before he wrote: “Today’s epilogue diminishes the gravity of that day, denigrates the work of the prosecutors and law enforcement officers who secured these convictions, and excuses criminal acts that caused a centuries-long pillar of our democracy — the peaceful transfer of presidential power — to buckle.”
It’s a remarkable and tragic conclusion. The final chapter of Trump’s Big Lie began with his victory in 2024, and this dismissal almost certainly marks its culmination: The anti-democracy thugs won, decisively.
The system barely held on Jan. 6, but it hasn’t held since. And the next time MAGA Republicans lose a national election, they’re in a much better position to successfully pull off the coup that only narrowly failed.
Since Trump issued his mass clemency, at least 97 of the roughly 1,500 pardoned rioters (about 1 in 16) have been arrested, prosecuted or convicted for other crimes, according to a June 2026 Lawfare study. At least 14 of those “have been charged with sex crimes or crimes related to
