More Than A Magazine, A Movement
On Sunday, former President Donald Trump shared multiple fake images of mostly young, White blond women clutching iced coffees wearing “Swifties for Trump” T-shirts.
Swift had not endorsed Trump, but he declared “I accept!” in his post, implying that maybe she had. The message couldn’t be further from the truth, as the pop star made her support for the Biden-Harris campaign clear in 2020 and tweeted at Trump “We will vote you out in November.”
Project 2025’s plan to train an army of political appointees who could battle against the so-called deep state government bureaucracy on behalf of a future Trump administration remains on track.
Dozens of never-before-published videos coach future appointees on everything from the nuts and bolts of governing, to how to outwit bureaucrats. There are strategies for avoiding embarrassing Freedom of Information Act disclosures and ensuring that conservative policies aren’t struck down by “left-wing judges.” Some of the content is routine advice that any incoming political appointee might be told. Other segments of the training offer guidance on radically changing how the federal government works and what it does.
There’s a reason Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign is working hard to evoke nostalgia: People who are nostalgic—meaning, people who long for America’s “good old days”—were more likely to vote for Republican candidates in the 2022 midterm elections.
Trump’s nostalgia is more than simple retrospection. Trump’s appeal isn’t just about a better economic past or a more stable society. It serves as an evocation of a time in America when women and minorities had less power.
Monday was a day bookended by reminders that Donald Trump expects and rewards obedience—from Cannon’s Florida ruling, to Trump’s VP pick of JD Vance.
Regressive ideas about manhood underlie the anti-democracy movement plaguing the U.S. Men whose politics are to the left of center can do their part to counteract the right’s success in playing identity politics with white male voters.
Here’s where we start.
(This article originally appears in the Spring 2024 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox!)
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has succeeded in getting Donald Trump’s co-conspirators—especially key insiders Sydney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro—to plead guilty and testify against the former president and others.
This move is the latest example of Black women leading the way in defense of our endangered democracy.
While the U.S. is making slow progress toward political parity, other countries are making more significant gains over time.
This month, RepresentWomen released the Golden Year Analysis, which identified the factors influencing global progress toward gender parity in politics in 2021 and 2022. Of 85 countries that held elections in these years, 43 achieved a “golden year” by electing a record-high number of women to their national legislatures.
While this is certainly cause for celebration, gender-balanced governance remains far from reach for many countries, including the United States.
As a young girl in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Iran, I never expected to be fighting for democracy in the United States.
We are linguistic and ethnic strangers, yet we are family and are at home in the United States. And we are one among many here. That spirit of welcome is the spirit that should propel us toward the new democracy we want—and need. It’s what should animate us as we build a new democracy that we can all call home.
“If someone is willing to block their partner’s access to political information in front of volunteers at their door, what else could they be doing, behind that door?”
This excerpt from Survivor Injustice: State-Sanctioned Abuse, Domestic Violence, and the Fight for Bodily Autonomy by Kylie Cheung, out Aug. 15, details how domestic abuse can lead to coercion or denial of voting rights for women.
As soon as next month, a grand jury out of Georgia will be tasked to consider charges against former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies for trying to overturn the 2020 election. Already, the Department of Justice has indicted former President Trump with 37 felony counts related to the mishandling of classified documents, obstructing justice, making false statements and conspiring.
“The worst thing you can do for a democracy is just let it slide when people try to do a coup and undermine democracy. That is how democracy dies. It is worth pursuing the fight to keep people accountable under the laws for undermining our democracy,” said Leah Litman, a professor at the University of Michigan Law School, on a recent episode of Ms.’ On the Issues With Michele Goodwin podcast.