The World Federation of Democratic Youth condemns the abduction of Comrade Hassan Shehadeh, a leader of the Palestinian Democratic Youth Union (PDYU), the official responsible for the West Bank and Jerusalem, and a former Palestinian prisoner, by Zionist forces on September 17, following an attack on his home in occupied East Jerusalem. The abduction of Comrade Shehadeh comes within the broader repression faced by Palestinian youth, activists, and political organizations under occupation. It is part of the ongoing attempt to suppress the Palestinian people’s struggle against occupation and colonial domination and to silence those organizing for liberation, self-determination, national rights, and the Palestinian people’s legitimate right to liberation. The World Federation of Democratic Youth reaffirms its internationalist solidarity with its Palestinian member organizations and with the Palestinian people and youth in their struggle for liberation, for their national rights, and for the release of all Palestinian prisoners held in occupation prisons. For WFDY, solidarity with Palestine is inseparable from the broader struggle of the people and youth of the world against colonialism, imperialism, occupation, and oppression. The Palestinian struggle is part of the common struggle of people everywhere for freedom, sovereignty, social justice, liberation, and the right to determine their own future. WFDY therefore calls upon its member organizations to denounce the abduction of Comrade Hassan Shehadeh, to demand his immediate release and the release of all Palestinian prisoners, and to strengthen their solidarity with Palestinian youth and their organizations through political mobilization and solidarity actions. Freedom for all Palestinian prisoners! Long live Palestine! Long live international solidarity! #wfdy #fmjd

Give em hell!

Sign the petition > https://actionnetwork.org/letters/shut-down-ices-warehouse-detention-operation/?link_id=1&can_id=123fc834f1ae17aa0fd2379804b79604&source=email-ice-is-holding-people-at-a-warehouse-shut-it-down-2&email_referrer=email_3450732&email_subject=ice-is-holding-people-at-a-warehouse-shut-it-down&=&fbclid=PAb21jcAU9MelleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBwZG9mAnNydGMGYXBwX2lkDzU2NzA2NzM0MzM1MjQyNwABpzOZFcWPL6dVCY_KFHgYtJdpqH66xx29yT81vXM5HvP0fpkUKMnaEesYgDnN_aem_SK8ggs2xTnT3gfc9Dio7QA

On various social-media platforms it has come to light that MAGA/GOP is using PSL candidate for Ohio Senate Greg Levy to encourage dissatisfied Democratic voters and/or progressive voters to split their vote on a 3rd Party candidate.

As the Communist Party develops its electoral platform if feel we should take this into consideration. What does this mean for the Party when we can be used as a strategy for asymetical class warfare? I feel worried that this has a three-fold effect. One, we can anger progressive voters by being an unwitting tool of the GOP and drive people away from joining the Communist Party. Two, unless we're widely popular we more or less can become a weapon of reactionary populists to wield when they're weak. Three, the two former approaches could kneecap us running candidates in the future

Where do we go from here comrades?

Enemy of Labor #12: Fred Hartley Jr. Rep. Fred Hartley Jr. of New Jersey was the House sponsor of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which placed major new restrictions on unions. The law banned the closed shop, restricted secondary boycotts and jurisdictional strikes, allowed states to pass right-to-work laws and gave the president new power to halt certain strikes. Hartley helped reshape federal labor law—and not in workers’ favor. ❌

From the USW Instagram

Statement of Condemnation The World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY) strongly condemns the suppression of peaceful protesters who gathered at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi, on 10 October 2026, to raise legitimate concerns over alleged electoral irregularities, the deletion of eligible voters' names, and the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Their struggle is a common cause for all those who believe in free, fair, and transparent elections. We unequivocally condemn the police action against demonstrators, including the reported manhandling, detention, and injury of AIYF National President Comrade Raushan Kumar Sinha, AIYF National General Secretary Comrade Sukhjinder Mahesari, AISF National General Secretary Comrade Dinesh Seerangaraj, MP Comrade Santosh Kumar, and other leaders and activists. The arrests and use of force against youth, students, and political leaders exercising their democratic right to peaceful assembly are unacceptable and must be held to account. WFDY demands the immediate release of all detained comrades and an impartial investigation into the police action. We firmly condemn the suppression of peaceful protest in India. We stand in full international solidarity with AIYF, AISF, and all protesters defending voting rights, constitutional freedoms, and democratic accountability. Protect Voting Rights! Ensure Free and Fair Elections! Long Live International Solidarity!

The people of the United States owe a debt of gratitude to Major General William T. Sherman, for it was he, his men, and their scorched-earth rampage through the state of Georgia that helped hasten an end to the Confederacy. And yet many still believe the South will rise again, and they hold the Confederacy aloft as some sort of talisman to ward off Northern aggression. At the same time, they think the Confederacy is a long-neglected paradise on earth that has yet to be realized. “Heritage, not hate” is the nonsensical phrase they use, and racism is what fuels them. Sherman should have kept going. 

History books tell us that the Civil War ended in 1865, and accurate history books tell us that the Civil War was fought because the South wanted to preserve the institution of slavery. Ideally, history books written in the post-Trump era will note that many in the MAGA crowd are still fighting the Civil War. While MAGA and the rest of the far-right crowd think Sharia Law will be a consequence of the midterm elections, they also gleefully usher in the age of the Christian Taliban. 

Much like Southern clergy used the Bible to justify their pro-slavery stance, the modern right-wing clergy continues the tradition. The repeal of Roe v. Wade and the abortion restrictions that followed, at the request of the Christian Right, have led to a doubling of the deaths resulting from ectopic pregnancies. Women are merely incubators under Christian Nationalism. Several prominent pastors have expressed their desire to repeal the 19th Amendment, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has shared that sentiment on social media. From taking away SNAP benefits to kidnapping immigrants to taking away healthcare, the Bible has been perverted beyond recognition. 

The new civil war—if we can call it that—isn’t much different from the North vs. South conflict. The old Civil War was, to put it mildly, essentially a right-versus-wrong war, and that is what we have now. The rich and powerful hunger for more and can never be satisfied, so they keep taking from the poor in a reverse Robin Hood. To help them steal our surplus value from our labor, the 1% need an act of subterfuge. They need scapegoats and an existential threat that is never properly articulated. Immigrants, Muslims, feminists, communists, welfare recipients, etc., are all used to inflame the far-right MAGA crowd as examples of those who want to take away our way of life, whatever that means. The American dream is perpetually out of reach, and the only thing standing in its way is a group of minorities. It’s divisive, and it works. 

In yet another instance of the modern, ongoing civil war, Trump recently held a rally in which he added fuel to the fire to further the divide between our two separate nations. While referring to the Iran War and his alleged success in preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, Trump had this to say: “They can take out a city. Let them take out Los Angeles, let them take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay…” That’s bad enough, but worse still, some at the rally clapped and cheered. Hearing cities full of innocent people described as targets to be “taken out” should instill concern. Instead, we heard celebration. 

Hating someone you don’t know because they live in a state you were told to hate is turning geography into a personality disorder, and this is something that should concern us all. The enthusiasm for cruelty coming from Trump’s biggest fans was instantaneous, and the deplorable lack of empathy for someone with a different zip code was disgusting. The midterm elections have turned into a political pep rally, where both teams are essentially playing for the same side, and the people in the stands are the ones who will lose. 

The damage control after Trump’s words went into high gear, but whether he said what he meant or meant what he said is erroneous, for MAGA will interpret his words however they wish. California is a Blue State, and anyone living there is the enemy, just like Jesus taught us. 

While the Civil War was about upholding white supremacy and continuing slavery, much of what is happening in the U.S. can also be described that way. The Trump administration has successfully convinced MAGA that people who don’t look like them, have a different religion, or are a threat to the status quo in any vague way need to be “taken out,” and the only way to do that is to “vote red.” Mediocre straight, white men are in danger of not being listened to anymore, and this is an affront to the American way of life. Socialists and some left-leaning Democrats think we work too much for too little, and this is an affront to the capitalists who rely on wage slavery for their existence. 

While the Bible tells us to welcome the stranger, MAGA supports ICE and their murderous rampages, disguised as law and order, which is just racism with extra steps. MAGA holds drag queens as the epitome of the decline of Western civilization, while maintaining that Donald Trump is a paradigm of moral superiority. The hypocrisy is consistent, expected, and never ceases to amaze. History shows that oppressed people rarely start civil wars. Those in power, or on society’s highest pedestal, start them when their power is threatened. Remind me of the demographic that stormed the Capitol building on January 6? It wasn’t immigrants or transgender folks or antifa. 

What Major General William T. Sherman got wrong is that you can’t burn white supremacy to the ground. By not punishing those responsible for the Civil War and the Confederacy, by not pulling up the roots, the U.S. allowed white supremacy not only to continue, but to flourish. Now we have a garden full of weeds. 

As with all op-es published by People’s World, this article reflects the views of its author.

Meet Ella, Lebron, Anthonie, and James: JFK8 workers and members of the Safety Committee they formed under the NY HERO Act. As worker-leaders in our union, they’ve been educating their coworkers about their rights under the law and helping them file complaints with the NY State Department of Labor over Amazon’s violations of the NY Warehouse Worker Injury Reduction Act at JFK8. Now, we need the Department of Labor to do its job: investigate these violations and hold Amazon accountable. Workers are standing up for their safety. It’s time for New York State to stand with them and enforce the law.

October 15, 1987, Thomas Sankara, “The Upright Man” was assassinated in a coup. He was 37. In his few years as president, he renamed his country Burkina Faso, “land of upright people,” vaccinated millions of children, launched mass literacy and tree-planting campaigns, banned forced marriage and female genital mutilation, and refused to pay the debts imperialism imposed on Africa. Rest in Power, Thomas Sankara, a revolutionary hero.

New book tells story of 1980s working-class band The Redskins

Editor’s note for U.S. readers: This article is reprinted from Morning Star, Britain’s daily socialist newspaper. In the United States, “skinhead” is often shorthand for neo-Nazi, and “Redskins” is rightly recognized as a slur against Native Americans. Neither meaning is what the band The Redskins, the subject of this book review, intended. The skinhead subculture began in late-1960s Britain among working-class youth, both Black and white, who borrowed their music and style from Jamaican immigrants: ska, rocksteady, reggae, and soul.

When the subculture revived in the late 1970s, far-right groups like the National Front and British Movement actively recruited skinheads, and the image of the racist skin took hold. Many skins resisted that takeover, and among them were left-wing and anti-fascist skinheads who called themselves “redskins,” with “red” meaning socialist or communist.

The band took that name to declare their politics and to reclaim a working-class youth culture from the far right. At the time, British listeners would have heard no reference to Native Americans in the name. Today, though, the word’s racist meaning in the U.S. is impossible to ignore, which is why it appears here only as the band’s name.

Marxism In Music by Gregor Gall hits bookstores this month. It is an important study of the seminal left-wing band The Redskins (1982-86), who formed to inject a much-needed revolutionary socialist message into Thatcherite Britain.

Gall’s book captures the zeitgeist of the era and the cultural and political environment into which the band inserted themselves. This was an era of mass unemployment under a government that was hell-bent on seeking confrontation with trade unions and embarking on post-imperial adventures in the South Atlantic.

The band’s first single, “Lev Bronstein” (London, 1982), whose title referred to Leon Trotsky’s birth name, signalled its musical manifesto. They were tenuously aligned with the Socialist Workers Party, so nods to Troskyism peppered their work at times. The band’s political ties with the SWP were often strained, however, due to the party’s rather austere views of working-class culture and its possibilities.

It was the follow-up single, “Lean on Me” (Decca, 1983), that really marked The Redskins’ breakthrough into the pop mainstream. It reached number three on the independent charts.

Gall provides a very good analysis of the band’s attempts to mix politics with pop music during the 1980s. He makes the broader observation that it is difficult to use music explicitly to convey left-wing messages, even during a decade when pop music was more overtly political and left-leaning.

In his thorough research, he reminds us of the band’s involvement in Billy Bragg’s Red Wedge project. Despite its political idealism, Red Wedge was nevertheless an unsuccessful attempt to turn Britain’s youth culture towards supporting the Labour Party and its diluted form of social democracy.

Regardless of the difficulties involved in using three-minute pop songs to convey political complexity, The Redskins made some highly danceable political pop. Songs such as “Keep on Keeping On” (Decca, 1984), which supported the miners’ strike of 1984-85, filled dance floors while also serving as a political anthem for young people on the left during that period of working-class crisis.

If you want to learn about The Redskins, the band that aimed to “sing like The Supremes, walk like The Clash,” then Gall’s Marxism in Music is an excellent starting point.

Marxism in Music: Constructing a Communist Contra-Culture with The Redskins, Rock’n’roll, and Revolution

By Gregor Gall

Bloomsbury Publishing

Available here

Morning Star

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(Detroit, MI October, 17th, 4pm)

Book Club Fridays at 5:30 in Seelye 109!! Interested in Communist theory? Dont know where to start? Want to get involved? Want to learn about labor issues and class war? COME TO BOOK CLUB!!!!! :D This weeks reading is the Communist Manifesto, link here https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/download/pdf/Manifesto.pdf?utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bio&fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAcGRvZgJzcnRjBmFwcF9pZA81NjcwNjczNDMzNTI0MjcAAaeTNJ_YlP0_Zv9itbYtY-TecJZ0U5unnHrmBQrYsFGTl3iNL_kuK7Tdg3S2Ug_aem_C7G9kfNqQSgEFI5TnFRB7w

Boo!

Police detain Communist Party of India (Marxist) lawmaker John Brittas during a demonstration demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar during a protest in New Delhi, India, Oct. 11, 2026. Brittas was hospitalized due to injuries sustained from this police attack. | Sanjeev Rastogi / AP

DELHI—The United States isn’t the only country where a right-wing government is working overtime to purge the voter rolls to fend off a loss at the polls. After initiating what was called a “Special Intensive Revision” (SIR) of voter registrations in 2025, the Election Commission of India moved to strip over 130 million people of their right to vote.

Mass protests, organized by democratic forces ranging from the youth protest Cockroach Janta Party to left parties like Communist Party of India (Marxist), have stepped up to resist the ruling, facing illegal police brutality and state crackdowns as they demand the restoration of voter registrations.

The Election Commission’s decision disproportionately targeted Muslim and ethnic minority populations—constituencies which often vote against the ruling far-right Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The attack echoes the U.S. Republican Party’s strategy of voter purges targeting Black, Latino, Native American, and other minority voters. The Modi government continues to work closely with far-right allies in the United States and Israel, exchanging ideas on how to maintain power. In 2025, Modi joined President Donald Trump for a press briefing in which he declared his support for the MAGA movement and called for a “MEGA” bilateral partnership between the two governments.

In response to the unfolding crisis, the left opposition in India has demanded the full restoration of voting rights and the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar. Hundreds of thousands have rallied in defense of democratic rights across the country, while police have detained more than 7,000 protesters—including CPI(M) General Secretary M.A. Baby and most of the party’s national leadership, who were arrested on Oct. 10.

The ascending extreme right

The BJP, the primary force of the Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) movement, has led the federal government in India since 2014. Its path to power ran through its close links to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a far-right paramilitary organization with historic ties to Nazi fascism, and the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), its international fundraising wing.

In coordination with the RSS, the BJP has sanctioned political repression and communal violence against Muslims and other ethnic and religious minorities. The 2002 Gujarat pogrom, in which the BJP state government conspired with violent mobs to kill thousands of Muslims, was a key inflection point in Modi’s rise to power.

In recent years, the BJP and its allies have leveraged a wide range of violent, illegal, and corrupt methods to take over state governments from other parties. Even when the party has lost elections, it has found ways to buy off legislators of other parties, cobbling together majority governments through graft and backroom dealings.

The BJP’s victory in West Bengal’s 2026 legislative election was underpinned by an earlier stage of the SIR process, which delisted more than nine million registered voters. The election ousted the Trinamool Congress and led to the first BJP government in the history of the state—15 years after the Trinamool Congress ousted the CPI(M) legislative majority which had governed the state since 1977.

As of October 2026, the BJP governs in 22 of India’s 31 states and union territories.

Progressive opposition 

Though the BJP has continued to gain ground in state elections, the Modi government has faced headwinds from a massive opposition coalition, organized across the country in the factories, streets, and fields, and at the ballot box. A movement led by peasants and farmers in the All-India Kisan Sabha (AIKS, the CPI(M)’s peasant wing) reversed a set of regressive agrarian reforms in 2021 after hundreds of thousands marched and occupied public spaces in Haryana and other states.

Brinda Karat, a member of the CPI(M) Politburo and leader in the All-India Democratic Women’s Federation, identified the geographic proximity of the protests to the federal capital as part of their power.

“In the surrounding states of New Delhi in 2021 and 2022, we led the successful Kisan or Farmer’s Movement protests, which blanketed [the region],” she said. She emphasized that the defeat of the reforms was a key turning point in the broader struggle against the BJP, one which confronted “ever-greater dispossession by the state.”

In the lead-up to the 2024 federal election, a diverse coalition of dozens of opposition parties, including the left parties, the centrist Congress Party, and others, joined together as the Indian National Development Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) electoral bloc. Though it fell short of unseating Modi and the BJP from government, it denied the BJP an outright majority for the first time since 2019, forcing the party to turn to its coalition partners to keep Modi in power.

In 2026, the Cockroach Janta Party has emerged as a new force powered by youth and students, working with the Student Federation of India (SFI, the CPI(M)’s student wing) and other progressive organizations to challenge the BJP’s economic and education policies. Taking its name from the derisive comments of Chief Justice Surya Kant, who called unemployed and underemployed young people “cockroaches,” the party has channeled a new wave of youth to the streets.

After a series of scandals around the national standardized testing and post-secondary entrance examination system, the CJP campaigned for the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and reforms to the system’s integrity. Though met with violence by Delhi police, it rallied a nationwide solidarity movement and won on both demands, giving a jolt of energy to the opposition.

“The CPI(M) and left parties fully support and join the activists in the CJP who have inspired large numbers of young people who were totally disorganized before this,” Karat said. The unity of the CJP with the SFI and other sections of the organized student movement has proven to be a durable challenge to the BJP, and it has carried the opposition’s momentum.

However, Karat noted a disconnect between different dimensions of the political struggle. “This uprising is a turning point in India, but it also reveals how elections are more and more divorced from social and economic realities,” she said.

“The right wing has learned how to win elections through gerrymandering, patronage, voter disenfranchisement, and other means. At the state assembly level and the local level, they are still winning by-elections, which does not reflect the depth of the struggles in the outcome. We have to translate wide-scale discontent to our electoral contests.”

Escalating repression

As part of its crackdown on the Cockroach Janta, left parties, and other opposition forces, the BJP has leveraged its control of state governments to impose de facto curfews, arbitrarily close public transportation, and ban protests from the federal capital entirely. No government has implemented a blanket ban on demonstrations in New Delhi since “The Emergency,” a state of exception imposed by Indira Gandhi in 1975 in which thousands of CPI(M) leaders and affiliates were kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by state forces.

The BJP’s measures have reached an unprecedented scale of brutality within the past week, as thousands of members of CJP, CPI(M), and other parties have been arrested for participating in the protests. Though the demonstrations are nationwide, the mobilization of Delhi police has been especially extensive, with more than 40,000 officers cramming into a two-mile radius around Jantar Mantar, a historic site for demonstrations and the center of the CJP’s successful education protests months before.

CPI(M) leader John Brittas was hospitalized after he was attacked by police. While some journalists and political leaders—including all members of CPI(M) national leadership—were later released, leaders of the CJP remain jailed.

The wave of democratic opposition to the Election Commission’s anti-democratic maneuvers has seen the broad participation and leadership of women, who have faced targeted violence by Delhi Police and other state machinery. Participants in the protests have documented systematic sexual harassment by police, as part of an effort to intimidate women out of joining the demonstrations.

Though the repression has intensified, it has also galvanized the opposition and illustrated the BJP’s weakness to democratic movements on multiple fronts. Its de-registration of over 130 million voters reveals its fear of losing future elections if they are allowed to vote, while its attempt to ban protests in the capital demonstrates the power of the mobilizations to challenge the government. Meanwhile, both Communist-led and unaffiliated labor unions have signed on to the movement’s demands, circulating them among their millions of members.

Communist parties voice solidarity

The Communist Party USA reacted strongly to the repression of the protests, issuing a statement in support of the CPI(M)’s demands. The statement reiterated the party’s condemnation of the alliance between the Trump and Modi administrations, emphasizing that “the coordination of far-right forces in India and the United States has intensified the scale and severity of [anti-democratic measures] in both countries.”

Communist parties from around the world rallied behind the slogan of “Hands off India’s communists!” Parties in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Greece, Turkey, Britain, and elsewhere offered statements of solidarity with the protests, helping to turn the world’s eyes to a pivotal moment in the global struggle against the extreme right.

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Northern Queensland today is often seen as the conservative heartland of Queensland. However, it was once the Red North of a burgeoning United front helmed by the Communist Party of Australia. From 1935 the Sugar Cane cutters in northern Queensland began striking for the right to have Sugar Cane burnt before harvest to stop the spread of Weil’s Disease. The Australian Workers Union demanded that the workers return to work in abhorrent conditions, in defiance they went on strike for 9 weeks. These workers where overwhelmingly immigrants from Spain, and Italy with little understanding of English. The Communist Party of Australia assisted these workers throughout the strikes, gaining the trust of the workers that the party was there to struggle with them for their rights. At its peak, northern Queensland was the only region to ever elect a Communist party member to parliament, Fred Paterson (Red Fred). With the end of World War 2 the national bourgeoisie quickly sharpened their knives, armed with McCarthyism, and red scare propaganda the “independent” electoral commission subdivided Paterson’s electorate of Bowen. Although he ran again the new demographics favored owners, leading to Red Fred’s electoral loss in 1950 The anti-communist machine quickly took hold over the country. Multiple attempts to ban the communist party including an attempt by referendum that ultimately failed. The federal government continued to take punitive measures, including discussions regarding stripping immigrants of their citizenship if they were members of the Communist Party. The Communist Party of Australia has learnt many lessons from the Red North. One key takeaway is that a multicultural workers movement is integral to the struggle for socialism in Australia. Socialism with Australian characteristics is one built on the multicultural history and future of the Australian working class. #communism #history #queensland

At first glance, it shares characteristics with other off-year votes: An economy that doesn’t work for workers, a president whose popularity is in the tank, and voters’ voices drowned by billionaires’ dollars and lies.

But in other critical respects, this election is different, thanks to the unprecedented efforts being undertaken by the White House and its MAGA allies to stack the deck. That means, in addition to the usual question of who will turn out, we also have to ask: Who will be prevented from voting, and who, out of fear, won’t vote at all?

The latest attacks

Start with the obvious point that Trump is taking extraordinary measures to skew the election’s outcome in his favor. His schemes are both “legal”—gerrymandering blessed by the Supreme Court’s GOP-named majority—and illegal and unconstitutional. In that latter category, he is laying the groundwork for sending troops into polling places to grab people on a variety of trumped-up charges or to literally seize ballot boxes and voting machines.

The people in his first administration who might have stopped him from doing that are no longer around. This time, he is surrounded by sycophants who will greenlight whatever he wants.

Only this week, for instance, he sent his Department of Justice to raid the home of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, who has been an outspoken opponent of his policies for the ten years she has been in Congress. The raid is not only a punishing revenge attack on her but a warning to other lawmakers that they might be better off if they cease pushing for maximum participation by their constituents in the coming election.

The Department of Homeland Security even says it is pursuing the goal of deporting Omar, an incredible escalation of the fascist policies of this White House.

Then there is the unprecedented attempt by the president to bribe the U.S voting public by promising that if the GOP wins the election, each person will receive a $5,000 check from him. The money will come, he says, from the tariffs he’s imposed on the American people.

In hopes of improving his party’s chances in the election, he started an unconstitutional and illegal war on Iran, which has resulted in further crushing prices on almost everything.

Constitution in danger

The future of democracy and the U.S. Constitution hangs in the balance. The constitutionally stipulated role of Congress as the primary law-making body, above the executive branch, not just “equal” to it, is being sidelined. Guarantees of free speech are dismissed, and rulings by courts that override Trump’s limitations on the First Amendment are ignored.

The right to privacy—including reproductive rights—and even the right to a fair and free trial before a verdict are all under threat. So are workers’ rights on the job and the right to form unions.

In a TV interview before he returned to the Oval Office on Jan. 20, 2025, Trump said he’d be a dictator “on day one.” Many people laughed, thinking it was just usual Trump braggadocio, said tongue in cheek.

It wasn’t. He was serious. Congressional Republicans bow to and carry out his dictatorial edicts. So, for the most part, have five of the six GOP-named Supreme Court justices. Day 1 of the dictatorship has now stretched to Day 633 and counting.

AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler called Trump “an authoritarian who says he can make things great again,” when in reality, things have just gotten worse. “We wanted cheaper groceries, and we got tanks in our streets,” she declared.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, a New York City civics teacher who also holds a law degree, was even blunter when her union joined civil rights and other organizations in September to sue to stop Trump’s plans to send troops into the streets and polling places.

“Deploying federal agents to strike the fear of God into voters at polling places is a tactic straight out of the authoritarian playbook,” Weingarten said. “It’s intimidation pure and simple and has no place in a true democracy. No matter your politics, citizens need to be able to exercise their basic democratic right without running the gauntlet of an armed, masked militia.”

Trump has stretched executive authority to a breaking point and beyond. If Congress passes a law he doesn’t like, he doesn’t faithfully carry it out, as the Constitution commands. He ignores or evades it instead. So do MAGA governors, notably Greg Abbott in Texas and Ron DeSantis in Florida.

Trump threatens or exacts retribution on so-called “enemies” in unions, academia, the media, law firms, among individuals, and even GOP politicians who dare to challenge his will. Just ask GOP Sens. John Cornyn of Texas, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky.

If lower-court judges rule against Trump’s unilateral edicts on elections or firing federal workers or anything else, he snubs them or contests them in “emergency appeals” to the Supreme Court. There, Republican justices—three of whom Trump nominated himself—often dutifully obey.

It is a Trump dictate that sent ICE into the streets of the nation to kidnap and deport people with no violent criminal history. It is that same Trump who ordered federal agents to conduct massive roundups, agents who killed observer Renee Good and Government Employees (AFGE) member Alex Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis.

It is a Trump dictate that has defaced much of D.C., not to mention wrecking the East Wing of the White House in favor of an unauthorized monster ballroom. Not to mention 3,000 National Guards patrolling the capital’s streets, intimidating residents and dragging Latinos out of their cars, stores, and elsewhere, to be deported to virtual prisons here or abroad.

It is a Trump dictate, carried out by Office of Management and Budget Director, Russell Vought, which illegally stripped union contracts from one million federal workers. When a federal judge in San Francisco ruled against that, Trump and Vought ignored it.

It is Trump who pledged not to get us into more eternal wars, but has done so against Iran, without even consulting Congress, much less seeking a declaration of war.

All of this, though unstated, is on the ballot, too. The war certainly is, as Republicans are finding on the campaign trail. So are the tariffs, which hurt U.S. consumers and poison U.S. relations worldwide. And so is the baleful presence of the troops, not just in big cities in blue states but in rural areas everywhere, seeking out, roughing up—or shooting—people.

Resisting repression

And yet, Trump pushes for even more repression.

That is what makes the 2026 off-year election so unique and so vital. It may well be our last chance to prevent, through a massive pro-Constitution landslide from coast to coast, a permanent descent into fascist dictatorship.

We still can and must end the power of the fascists over our government; it’s the main job for all of us between now and the election.

John Wojcik contributed to this story.

As with all op-ed and news analysis articles published by People’s World, the views represented here are those of the authors.

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Palestinians inspect vehicles that were burnt during an early morning attack by Israeli settlers, that left at least 18 burnt vehicles, on the outskirts of the West Bank city of al-Bireh, Nov. 4, 2024.| Nasser Nasser/AP

Let’s start with the good news. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has added 61 companies to its database of businesses involved in activities linked to illegal Israeli settlements, expanding the list from 158 to 214 companies.

Why is this good news? Because it further illustrates a degree of seriousness within the international community to move its position on Israel from the realm of language to that of action.

Yet more good news: five previously listed companies were removed after the Office determined that their involvement in the relevant activities had ended.

This matters because it suggests that the mechanism can work: sustained scrutiny can influence corporate behavior, and supporting Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine can carry a price.

Expectedly, the updated list has been welcomed by Palestinian and international human rights organizations, though, rightly so, they insist that such lists are not enough unless followed by direct government action and expanded to other facets of the Israeli military and economy.

But before focusing on what else needs to be done, we must acknowledge the significance of such reports, especially when placed within the larger context of global initiatives aimed at isolating Israel and its extremist leadership.

First, the 2026 update demonstrates continuing institutional commitment by the UN Human Rights Office. The database was not a one-off initiative issued under temporary political pressure. Its continued expansion and revision show that corporate involvement in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise remains subject to international scrutiny.

Second, the addition of 61 companies reflects extensive research and follow-up by the UN, supported by information from Palestinian civil society and human rights organizations. The database is therefore not simply symbolic: it documents the international corporate networks that sustain and profit from Israel’s settlement project.

Third, the removal of five companies suggests that the mechanism can produce results. Its impact remains far below what Palestinians need, but the removals indicate that companies can end relevant activities and subsequently be removed from the database.

The list also provides civil society with credible material for accountability and boycott campaigns. More importantly, it can help move such efforts beyond individual consumer choices toward action by governments, financial institutions and regulatory bodies.

This is particularly relevant as Western governments begin taking measures of their own.

On September 8, twelve countries—Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom—announced their intention to introduce national restrictions or support European restrictions on trade with illegal Israeli settlements. Britain went further, banning settlement goods and moving against companies involved in settlement construction.

The significance was difficult to miss. Heavyweights such as Britain, France and Canada were no longer merely condemning settlement expansion; they were beginning to attach economic consequences to it.

But here lies the challenge: reports, databases and sanctions remain insufficient—and risk becoming meaningless—unless they are followed by sustained monitoring and practical action.

What is the worth of sanctions if they are not enforced, expanded and accompanied by political pressure capable of changing Israeli behavior?

Decisions, lists and threats are double-edged swords. They can become launchpads for sustained and meaningful political action. Or they can be used to mollify civil society, allowing politicians to buy time and votes while avoiding any fundamental policy change.

However, there is a way to help distinguish between the two.

An independent international monitoring group, composed of and supported by civil society figures with recognized moral authority, could systematically track governments that have committed to sanctions, boycotts or trade restrictions: what was promised, what was implemented, what loopholes remain and whether measures are producing tangible consequences.

Monitoring these governments is becoming almost as important as monitoring Israel itself.

The same principle applies to UN reports. Palestinian and international civil society organizations must incorporate their findings into the growing global boycott and accountability movement, while governments must ensure that companies under their jurisdiction are not contributing to illegal settlement activities.

Considering that Israel continues its genocidal assault on Gaza while accelerating settlement expansion and annexation measures in the West Bank, none of these steps can ever be sufficient on their own. They are, however, meaningful steps in the right direction.

Palestinians expect—and deserve—far more than the bare minimum. The situation in the occupied territories is simply too urgent for symbolic politics. Every passing day should bring another measure of accountability: another restriction, another divestment, another sanction, another political or economic consequence.

Israel has operated for decades on the assumption that it is effectively untouchable—that condemnation will remain rhetorical, reports will gather dust, and Western governments will ultimately retreat when meaningful pressure becomes politically costly.

That assumption must end.

For the Israeli mindset to change, the consequences of occupation, annexation and genocide must become unmistakable. Sanctions cannot merely be announced; they must be enforced. Boycotts cannot remain symbolic; they must carry an economic cost. International law cannot simply be invoked; it must have consequences.

The real measure of these initiatives, therefore, is not how many companies appear on a list or how many governments announce sanctions. The real measure is whether these actions can finally impose a political and economic price on Israel high enough to make occupation, annexation and genocide unsustainable.

As with all op-es published by People’s World, this article reflects the views of its author.

No paywalls at People’s World

We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!

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