If. That’s where my pro-democracy litigation colleagues and I come in.

As the great David Ignatius explained in his Friday column in the Washington Post, Trump’s “multifront campaign to rewrite the rules for the 2026 midterm elections” is faltering under legal onslaught. Trump “has failed in nearly every phase of his assault” on our elections.

Ignatius credited our legal work for helping achieve those strikeouts. We’ve stopped both of Trump’s anti-voter executive orders in court, fought back against his redistricting schemes across the country (helping limit the theft to a likely net of just two congressional seats stolen), and continue to challenge ballot-seizure efforts from coast to coast. We do that work hand in hand with a nationwide coalition of civil and voting rights advocates, labor allies, and partners across the broader pro-democracy movement.

Our efforts are thanks to our Contrarian paid subscribers. That support helps make the work possible. If you are a paid subscriber, thank you! If you haven’t taken out a paid subscription, please consider doing so.

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Your subscription will also help fund our big push that comes next, as described by Ignatius:

“We know the playbook of Trump and the election deniers. We’ve sued them before, and we’ve beaten them before,” Norm Eisen, the head of Democracy Defenders Fund, told me in an interview. His group is organizing a $20 million effort that he calls Project 126, an implicit pledge to double the 63 legal victories that blocked Trump’s push to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Eisen shared a list of 10 midterm election threats his lawyers have mobilized to stop. They include attempts to purge voter rolls of supposed noncitizens, impose new rules for mail-in voting, deploy federal agents to polling places, seize ballots or voting machines and intimidate election officials.

“We’ve been preparing all year,” explained Seth Waxman, a former solicitor general under President Bill Clinton. Waxman is helping Eisen coordinate litigation strategy for volunteer lawyers at his firm, WilmerHale, and a dozen other prominent law firms. They will be ready to file complaints, requests for restraining orders, affidavits and other legal documents if Trump’s allies try to obstruct voting or ballot counting.

On Friday we did just that, with a court filing fighting back against Trump’s effort to deny ballots to tens of thousands of California voters. This latest election sabotage effort began on Tuesday, when the Trump regime sent California elections officials a thumb drive supposedly containing a list of about 20,000 noncitizens registered to vote in the state. Trump had two years to raise this but instead sent a purge list just two days before mail ballots were due to go out — and on Thursday Trump’s DOJ sued the state, demanding action on the list.

We at DDF and the Campaign Legal Center immediately intervened on behalf of our wonderful clients, including two of our nation’s leading civil rights groups, the NAACP and LULAC. The Trump DOJ’s lawsuit is a nakedly unconstitutional and illegal ploy. We will shut down this overreach.

The Trump regime’s election interference this week didn’t stop there, and neither did our work. On Tuesday, we filed a Hatch Act complaint against several administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Attorney General Todd Blanche, regarding the early-morning raid at Rep. Ilhan Omar’s house. There appears to be no legitimate reason for doing this search so close to the midterm elections — the case involves immigration issues dating back decades that have previously been passed over by law enforcement. With election day speeding toward us, the timing of the raid evinces illegal political intent — and we are calling it out.

We also helped lead the way this week in exposing the latest unqualified Trump appointee, now-former White House Press Secretary Katie Zacharia. After her disastrous first day, I went on MS NOW to evaluate her catastrophic fail — including her history of holding herself out as a lawyer even though she never passed the bar.

We then submitted letters to the State Bar of California and the state attorney general, asking that they immediately investigate whether she had practiced law without a license in California. As we allege in the complaint, Zacharia served as general counsel to a California nonprofit without a state bar license. No one is above the law, not even those standing at a White House podium (even if you only lasted five days and gave exactly one briefing).

Thanks to the help provided by your paid subscriptions, we are able to protect our elections — and to hold this administration accountable in a myriad of other ways. Of course, that includes through our outstanding Contrarian coverage every day! See for yourself in this week’s round up of the best of the Contrarian.

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Midterm Watch

Meet the Democrats’ Working Class Wave

Tim Dickinson looked at the blue-collar vanguard of this year’s blue wave — a group that includes a teacher, an ironworker, a nurse, a logger, a pastor, and urban- and wildland firefighters, all of whom hope to change the fact that only 2 percent of members of Congress have spent any part of their adulthood in the working class. Are these Democrats “the answer to the faux populism of MAGA and Musk?”

What Dems Can Achieve in the States

Jennifer Rubin wrote on the Democrats with a chance to flip governorships from red to blue — including in Iowa, Georgia, Alaska, Ohio, Nevada, Texas, and Florida — and what else is up for grabs and at stake in the states. “A patchwork system of civil right enforcement is not ideal, but it is preferable to civil rights deserts.”

Is 2026 the Year That Independents Can Break the Two-Party System?

Natalie Fertig wrote on how Americans are clamoring for more choices on the ballot and why backers of the independent movement say just one or two wins this year will change the game. “These groups feel that Democrats are leaning into a message this year that most will not follow through with long-term.”

How MAGA Is Codifying Voting Oppression

April Ryan spoke with Martin Luther King III and Arndrea Waters King on building Black and Brown political power, midterm turnout, and the fight after November. “We’re literally at the point where oppression is being legislated. [And] we are very focused on activating these young people who have lost their rights.”

The World Stage

Marco Rubio’s Descent into Darkness, and the True Meaning of the West

Tom Malinowski wrote on Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent speech at the Parthenon, a commentary on nationalism and “the West” that was less a dog whistle for fascism than a wolf whistle. “Where have we heard such a worldview before?”

Trump’s Strategic Genius on Display Again

Brian O’Neill gave Trump’s proposed deal of an “energy ceasefire” between Russia and Ukraine less than full marks — on strategy, feasibility, and everything else. “For a president who boasts about his unmatched intellect, negotiating prowess, and singular ability to end wars, Trump continually demonstrates an inability to think more than one move ahead.”

Godzilla Returns

Max Stier did not mince words about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision to invite Elon Musk to the Pentagon to help strategize about the future of warfare. “[It’s] akin to inviting Godzilla back to your home after he wrecked it once before.”

Rights Under Threat

How the ACLU Is Safeguarding Immigrants and Elections

On the podcast this week, Jennifer Rubin and I chatted with Mike Zamore about the ACLU’s new report on Trump’s mass deportation agenda and how the ACLU is working to safeguard mail-in voting against the administration’s potential threats to the midterm elections. “When authoritarians are looking to hack a democracy, immigration is their phishing attack.”

Hiding Until After the Mid-Terms Won’t Work

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf wrote that it’s “no surprise” the FDA is waiting to release its “so-called safety review of mifepristone, the drug most often used in medication abortions, until March 2027, when the midterms will be safely in the rearview mirror” — but the reality is that women’s reproductive rights are still very much on the ballot this November.

Fighting Back

Ready, Set, Vote: No Kings 4 Is Here

Find a No Kings event near you today to help mobilize voters and ensure that the midterms are TOO BIG TO RIG! Also in this week’s roundup of actions for democracy: where you can cast your ballot early; how to join “the movement” to end gender-based violence; door-knocking (or dialing) for democracy in Florida; and more.

The Contrarian Covers the Democracy Movement

This week, we saw protests in Washington, Maryland, Texas, Minnesota, Georgia, and more local actions for democracy nationwide. As always, you can get help organizing from Indivisible, find protests in your area at mobilize.us, and please send us your protest photos at submit@contrariannews.org.

Sen. Andy Kim Reveals How He Will Root Out Government Corruption

Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) joined Jennifer Rubin to discuss the anti-corruption legislation he has introduced in the Senate and how Americans pay a “corruption tax” every time Trump and Co. profit from illicit financial agreements.

Cartoons, Culture, & Fun Stuff

This week, our cartoonists took on bad strategy (At the Reins, Michael de Adder), bad spin (New and Improved, RJ Matson), a bad deal (Driving the Deal, Michael de Adder), and the worst president (Tom the Dancing Bug, Ruben Bolling).

‘30 Rock’ Once Seemed Too Absurd to Be Real. Instead, It Predicted the Future

Meredith Blake wrote on how 30 Rock, which debuted on NBC 20 years ago, imagined a world that seemed too stupid and ludicrous to be real — and ended up just being ahead of its time. “While other sitcoms from the era, like The Office, have lived on via endless rewatches on streaming, 30 Rock has endured in a different way.”

An Inside Look at an Exiled Russian Journalist Targeted as a ‘Foreign Agent’

Meredith also wrote on the documentary My Undesirable Friends: Part II — Exile, which follows Russian reporters trying to work in exile after the invasion of Ukraine. “You have the consolidation of the media and all these different pressures before journalists start getting thrown in jail,” says the director, Julia Loktev. “But how do you know when that tipping point is?”

Share This Cookie Brittle — and Voting Plans — with Your Neighbors

Marissa Rothkopf offered us her own personal, deliciously cookie-shaped campaign to encourage friends and neighbors to vote.

Contrarian Rescue of the Week

And last but never least: Meet Waylon!

Culture CLASH

Media Center

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You might have seen his constitutional explainers for The Contrarian, making an issue in the news or a statute of the Constitution easy to understand.

The trio talked about why understanding the Constitution is more important than ever and about “Civics Made Easy,” a show Ben hosts which just had its second season premiere on PBS.

You can join Coffee With Contrarians. Live every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 9:15 AM Eastern time.

Name: Waylon

Age: A whole year!

Breed: Hound and mix of cuteness and sweetness

Hobbies: Observing birds and squirrels to make sure they aren’t up to any plotting (I suspect they are), eating treats, and impressing you with no tricks!

Best moment: Falling asleep on the job while my foster parent is working.

Fun fact: I am available for adoption at Rural Dog Rescue!

To learn more about me and other available rescue animals, visit Rural Dog Rescue.

Ciera Stone is an editorial associate at The Contrarian.

It might be President Trump careening around the country on Air Force One for his rallies-a-go-go, where he performs live pardons, amazes audiences with his rendition of “lion, bear, giraffe and snake,” and encourages voters to just lie back and pretend they’re voting for him.

Maybe it’s watching the wife of Michigan’s U.S. Senate candidate Mike Harris hand out $10 gift cards at a gas station in black stilettos. (Let them eat diesel!)

Perhaps it’s the ping, ping, ping! of requests for ka-ching that the Democrats pack into my text feed.

Or it could be the continued determined effort to upend any faith in the elections by the Department of Justice suing states over alleged non-citizens voting.

(And between you and me, I’ve heard rumor that all the bathroom air fresheners in Congress have been updated with the all-new-for-fall Scent of Desperation.)

With so much genuinely riding on this election, I have decided not to sit helplessly by gawping at the news — and have created my own personal campaign to encourage friends and neighbors to vote. Of course cookies are involved. Please join me if you can.

Here’s my plan:

1. Make a batch or two of chocolate chip cookie brittle. The recipe is below. It’s easy to make big pans of it and also happens to taste extremely good – like a cross between buttercrunch candy and a chocolate chip cookie.

2. Package the brittqale up in small plastic bags.

3. Stick a label on each bag with the following information:

• When and where to vote. You can find a polling place locator at Vote.org.

• Whom to call if if you see or experience vote intimidation:

  • Call the Election Protection Hotline: English: 866-OUR-VOTE (866-687-8683).

  • Spanish or English: 1-888-VE-Y-VOTA

  • Asian languages or English: 1-888-API-VOTE (including Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Urdu, Hindi, Bengali/Bangla, and Punjabi)

  • Arabic or English: 1-844-YALLA-US

Note: It is illegal for ICE officers or military troops to be present at polling stations. The Brennan Center has created a PDF on how to protect yourselves and others when voting this year, which you can also print out and distribute with your cookies.

If you decide to get involved, please post a photo of your cookies and tag me on Substack @marissarothkopf.

Marissa Rothkopf Bates writes about food for the New York Times, Newsweek (RIP) and Publishers’ Weekly among others. Her newest book, “The Secret Life of Chocolate Chip Cookies,” is available wherever fine books are sold. Find her on Substack here.

Hi Contrarians,

Welcome to Issue #2 of Culture Clash, the newsletter in which, every other week, I’ll bring you exclusive interviews, deep dives on what is happening across the cultural sphere, and recommendations for what to read, watch, and listen to next.

If you’ve been anywhere near the internet this week, you’ve probably heard more than you ever thought possible about two celebrity controversies — one involving an American Idol winner and a $15,000 animatronic bird at a twee Brooklyn magic shop, the other involving a schlubby comedian and his thoughts on how women should dress when they’re working out.

Since the Kelly Clarkson vs. the Art of Play discourse has already been exhausted, I’ll focus on the latter.

Over the weekend, comedian Shane Gillis hosted Saturday Night Live for the third time. The thirty-eight-year-old stand-up was hired to star in the sketch comedy show back in 2019, then quickly fired when offensive remarks from his past resurfaced. Getting axed from SNL somehow propelled Gillis and his regular-guy schtick to far greater popularity: in July, he set a record for the largest audience ever for a solo comedian, drawing more than 70,000 people to a show in Philadelphia.

Lorne Michaels, who said he was “angry” that NBC made him fire Gillis in the first place, has since invited him back to host SNL multiple times, with each appearance drawing both strong ratings and heightened scrutiny.

In his monologue Saturday night, Gillis was riffing about his efforts to get in shape when he went off on a tangent about women’s clothing. “I haven’t been to the gym in so long, I didn’t know women just dress like whores now. Look, I’m sorry. There’s no other way to describe — have you seen it? The shorts — have you seen the shorts?” he asked, going on to describe a style of butt-hugging shorts worn by a small subset of female gym-goers.

The monologue was an awkward misfire for many reasons, including a pointless story about hanging out in Joe Rogan’s sauna. But Gillis’s decision to take a misogynistic swipe at women, especially at a time when many of us are feeling outraged and deeply vulnerable, was particularly bad. The joke was not only sexist — it wasn’t remotely funny. Numerous celebrities, including Dan Levy and some SNL alumnae, have spoken out critically about the monologue, while Weekend Update co-anchor Michael Che tepidly defended it.

Alas, all this attention and free publicity will probably ensure that Gillis will return to host SNL next year.

Instead of spending more time dissecting one mediocre comedian, I wanted to highlight the work of performers who are a) funny, and b) not prone to using demeaning slurs to describe half the population. Maybe SNL can call up one of these talented comedians the next time they’re looking for a host?

Here are a few suggestions. (Please weigh in with your own!)

Julio Torres, a former writer on The Tonight Show and SNL, is known for his delightfully eccentric comedy (he is the genius behind the “Papyrus” sketch starring Ryan Gosling, easily one of the funniest things on SNL in the last decade). Check out his HBO series Los Espookys and Fantasmas.

Kate Berlant is another comedian known for her absurdist style. As luck would have it, her new stand-up special, Parmesan, premieres today on HBO. You should also check out her collaborations with the equally brilliant John Early, including the special Would It Kill You To Laugh (on Peacock) and the surreal influencer satire Maddie’s Secret.

Jaboukie Young-White first gained notice as a correspondent on The Daily Show and a favorite on pre-Musk Twitter, where he got in trouble for impersonating the FBI and CNN. He is currently on tour in the U.S.

Chris Fleming gained an online following through the web series Gayle, in which he starred as a middle-aged suburban mom. More recently, he starred in a stand-up special, Chris Fleming: Live at the Palace for HBO.

Ziwe blew up during the pandemic by conducting pointed interviews with celebrities on Instagram Live, then moved to Showtime with a variety show that lasted for two seasons. These days she’s still doing her iconic thing on YouTube and Substack.

Gus Heagerty does brilliant, hyper-specific characters on Instagram and TikTok (think: “Long Island Mom moving through something before her son’s game”) and is also on tour right now. Follow him; you won’t be sorry.

Highlights from The Contrarian

• An interview with Julia Loktev, director of the gripping documentary My Undesirable Friends: Part II — Exile, which follows a group of young Russian journalists forced to flee their country after the invasion of Ukraine. They face peril at every turn, including assassination attempts, while continuing their vital work from abroad. Loktev describes the film as a “living history” chronicling the rise of fascism in Russia. “So much of what happened in Russia is now being echoed in the U.S.,” she said.

• 30 Rock turned 20 this week. Here’s a look at how the absurd comedy turned out to be eerily prescient.

• Musk, a four-hour documentary about the world’s richest (and arguably most powerful) man, is tough but essential viewing. (It’s also expanding to theaters nationwide this weekend.)

• Patricia McCormick, author of the YA novel Sold, talked about having the most banned book of the year in American schools. “I am really quite mystified as to why this book is banned,” she said.

  ---

Other news from the culture front:

• In a statement released Wednesday, Faber announced it would no longer be able to sell novels by Sally Rooney in the United Kingdom. One of the best-selling and most acclaimed writers of her generation, Rooney has vowed to donate proceeds from her books to Palestine Action, which has been designated a terrorist group by the U.K. government. (The U.S. recently followed suit.) Faber is therefore unable to pass along the earnings from future book sales in the country, which it described as an “unconscionable” situation. “We remain the proud publisher of her remarkable body of work, which we will continue to sell in other territories,” said Faber.

• In other Irish news, Mark Zuckerberg was roasted online this week for his apparent inability to enjoy a pint of Guinness like a normal person. Ironically, the viral clip of the Facebook co-founder barely masking his distaste for the bitter stout got far more attention than The Social Reckoning, Aaron Sorkin’s follow-up to The Social Network, which flopped at the box office last weekend.

• This week, Lena Dunham announced that she’s bringing Girls back to HBO for a limited, five-episode run a decade after the series finale. The revival will reunite Dunham with original cast members Zosia Mamet, Jemima Kirke, and Allison Williams. Much like what happened the last time HBO brought back a generation-defining comedy about four women in New York City, fans are both excited and apprehensive.

• This weekend marks the premiere of You Can See Everything, the wild Elizabeth Holmes documentary that’s getting rave reviews — or so I’m hearing. (I’m avoiding reading anything about the movie until I get the chance to see it for myself.)

• Also in theaters this weekend is Once Upon a Time in Harlem, an absolutely spectacular documentary chronicling a 1972 gathering of artists and writers from the Harlem Renaissance. I’ll have a piece about it next week.

Thanks for reading! Culture Clash will be back in two weeks.

Michael de Adder is an award-winning editorial cartoonist. You can find him on Substack here.

Donald Trump’s war and tariffs and deficits = new inflation highs. “US wholesale inflation jumped in September to its highest level in more than four years, marking the second hotter-than-expected inflation reading this week and adding to concerns about the economy just weeks before the midterm elections,” CNN reported. “The Producer Price Index rose 1.3% from the month before and 6.3% from the year before, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Thursday morning. It’s a sharp upswing from August when wholesale prices rose 0.5% to an annual rate of 5.6%.”

The DOJ is desperately trying to suppress voting, discredit expected losses. Former Maricopa County, Arizona, Recorder Stephen Richer took apart DOJ’s letter making unsubstantiated allegation of noncitizens on California’s voting rolls, noting possible violations of the Supreme Court’s order in the SAVE case, and reminding the Trump regime “voter roll–wide citizenship checks within 90 days of the election … would violate the NVRA [National Voter Registration Act].” DOJ’s suit is a last gasp of a losing, corrupt regime.

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It makes sense that Americans would be confused about the three independent Senate candidates in Montana, Nebraska, and South Dakota — respectively. The only independents currently in the Senate, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine, caucus with Democrats.

Parties control which lawmakers get to sit on important committees and which bills come to the floor. Not playing within the system can make it harder to get legislation passed, receive funding for your state, or ensure that your policies are included in a larger bill, so independents often choose one side or the other.

But Bodnar, Osborn, Bengs and a handful of other independent candidates around the country are trying something new this year: win, and then refuse to pick a side.

“We’re trying to do something that’s not been done before,” Bengs said during a virtual press conference I attended on Monday. “We’re going to figure out how we can do this without falling in as a foot soldier for either Team Red or Team Blue.”

A record number of Americans identified as politically independent in 2025: 45 percent, according to Gallup. At the same time, the Democratic and Republican Parties are experiencing record lows in popular support. A Pew Research Center poll conducted between September 28 and October 4 showed that 61 percent of Americans view the Republican Party unfavorably, while 58 percent view the Democratic Party unfavorably.

The growing interest in independents and disillusionment with the two-party system has inspired the creation of new groups, like the Independent Center and the associated Independent Leadership Council, two nonprofit organizations working alongside a political action committee, Independent PAC, to get more independents to Congress.

“It’s now a government of the party, by the party, and for the party,” former West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat-turned-independent, said in a September interview with The Contrarian. Manchin is one of the founders of Independent Leadership Council. “The parties aren’t going to change. They’re doing quite well with their business model. They’re very happy with the outcomes that they’re getting.”

Independent candidates are running competitive races nationwide. In addition to Bodnar, Bengs, and Osborn, there’s former state legislator Todd Achilles in Idaho, who has forced Republicans to invest more to protect GOP Sen. Jim Risch. Others are running for the House of Representatives. Rep. Kevin Kiley in CA-06, for example, left the GOP last year and has pledged not to caucus with them if he wins his race. He’s joined by Chris Getty in IL-04, Michael Bridgford in IA-01, and Bill Hill in Alaska’s at-large district.

Kiley, Getty, and Bridgford are all backed by the Independent Center, which plans to spend around $20 million by November, according to Brandon. IC has put nearly $1 million in the CA-06 race in support of Kiley to date, about $150K in IA-01 in support of Bridgford and just over $260K in IL-04 in support of Getty, according to independent expenditure filings. IC also backed an unsuccessful independent primary challenger in Washington’s first district, home of DCCC chair Rep. Suzan DelBene. The lion’s share of the IC’s funding, though — to the tune of nearly $5.7 million — has gone to back Bodnar in Montana.

Not all independent candidates have pledged to remain fully independent, if elected. Hill has refused to answer questions about whether he’ll caucus with either party — calling it “important leverage” in a June interview. It’s one of the reasons he is not endorsed by or financially supported by the IC, which requires the candidates it backs to pledge they will not caucus with either party.

In 2026, independents also face an unexpected challenge: Democrats commandeering their message.

Iowa’s 1st Congressional District, for example, was a top early target from the IC. Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks was elected on her fourth attempt, and Democratic former state Rep. Christina Bohannan is challenging Miller-Meeks for the third time. It was one of the closest races in the country in 2024, but the exact same candidates were expected to face off for a third time, and the Independent Center saw an opening. They recruited Michael Bridgford, who grew up on a farm in the district, to offer voters a third option.

But then, tariffs, beef imports, and diesel prices sent Miller-Meeks’s approval plummeting while Democratic candidate Christina Bohannan leaned in hard on her long-held positions against corporate money in politics and stock trading by members of Congress, policies that are popular among the growing anti-partyism sentiment.

“The reason I’m running has nothing to do really, fundamentally, with Republican versus Democrat,” Bohannan said during a campaign stop that I attended in Sigourney, Iowa, in late September. “That argument, that debate, that feels a little old and tired to me at this point.”

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Bohannan is not the only Democrat using overtly independent language on the trail. Kansan Adam Hamilton considered running for Senate as an independent before ultimately choosing to run as a Democrat, and talks regularly on the trail about how both parties offer good things. And Iowa gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand, a breakout star of these midterms, openly tells voters he first registered as an independent and promises to reform his state’s primary system.

“I understand that I got a D behind my name, but that doesn’t mean that I have to leave my independent mind behind,” Sand said during a gaggle with reporters that I attended ahead of a town hall in Cedar Rapids, IA. He runs as a Democrat because of “the special legal privileges of the Democratic and Republican parties,” he added.

The success of independent-minded Democrats, however, has undercut the actual independents. Democrats and Republicans have, at many times over the years, claimed independence from their party — but groups like the Independent Center and ILC argue that once the overwhelming anti-partyism anger that inspired these candidates to act more independently subsides, most elected officials typically fall back in line with the national party agenda over their own districts. That cycle then perpetuates until voters get fed up again.

IC and ILC want to break that cycle permanently and give voters candidates who will never be pushed and prodded by a national party agenda or party apparatus. These groups feel that Democrats are leaning into a message this year that most will not follow through with long-term.

“Frustrating is not the word,” Independent Center co-founder Adam Brandon said, joking that four-letter words come to mind. But, he adds, “It’s the winning message … we saw all this, we knew all this.”

Brandon said they need to win just one or two seats this year, comparing that to Americans winning the Battle of Saratoga, which prompted France to jump into the American Revolution on the side of the U.S. Similarly, one or two wins can “prove the point” and increase fundraising for future races.

“Some people I’ve talked to said that we’re still too early. We need to let this ruminate for a few years before we win,” Brandon said. “Maybe that is the case, but I don’t think we’ve got time as a country.”

Follow Ruben Bolling on Substack; join Tom the Dancing Bug’s Inner Hive subscription club; and please visit the Tom the Dancing Bug website, with information about The Complete Tom the Dancing Bug collection of books.

Every day (Monday-Friday), we’ll update this space with protests, signs, and other public demonstrations against the actions of the administration. Keep checking to see how Americans all across the country are protecting and defending democracy. Get help organizing from Indivisible, find protests in your area at mobilize.us, and send us your protest photos at submit@contrariannews.org.

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Hegseth has proven himself utterly unfit to uphold his oath of office or to defend the rule of law, the honor of the U.S. military, and the storied tradition of decency, nonpartisanship, and excellence that made it the envy of the world. But in this case, Hegseth went too far even for many Republicans — including Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). Public revulsion was immediate, bipartisan, and widespread. “Only 18% of Americans strongly or somewhat favor having executions broadcast live to the public, while 69% oppose this,” The Economist/YouGov poll reports. In fact, the majority of Republicans (52% oppose / 31% favor), MAGA Republicans (48% / 36%), and death penalty supporters (55% / 32%) opposed such a spectacle.

Most noteworthy were the objections from the military itself, as WTOP reported:

More than 60 soldiers have stated they don’t want to be involved in the livestreamed firing squad execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, according to a religious freedom organization that assists members of the U.S. military.

Mikey Weinstein, founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, told WTOP he expects up to 180 soldiers stationed at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, will ultimately seek guidance to avoid being a member of the team that will execute Hasan at 1 p.m. on Dec. 3, on the basis of their religious beliefs….

Weinstein said a wide variety of soldiers have expressed their religious objections to being part of a live-streamed spectacle.

As a preliminary matter, no one should minimize the courage it took to register objections of any type to this abusive, cruel, and vindictive regime — which has retaliated against senior officers by denying promotions, firing Stars & Stripes journalists for writing negative accounts, and attempting to prosecute members of Congress for telling military personnel to reject illegal orders. To stand up to Hegseth and Trump on religious grounds, revealing the degeneracy of a White Christian nationalist secretary who revels in death and oozes Islamophobia, showed extraordinary character.

The military personnel’s aversion to carrying out a stunt so at odds with the traditions of the military and of the moral sensibilities of our democracy (at least those that existed before the descent into MAGA debasement) spoke well of their moral fiber. “It’s one thing to carry out an order of execution. It’s quite another to have it streamed, where every second grader, at this stage in 2026, with the ability to get to the internet, can watch it happen,” Weinstein told WTOP. “It’s grotesque and barbaric.” He added, “Most of them that have come to us are Christians, but we have Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, we have agnostics and atheists — they feel this is an example of the sinful pride of execution.”

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The troops’ objections came on the heels of a public statement released on October 12 by Archbishop Timothy Broglio, responsible for the spiritual guidance of Catholics in the military. He declared that “it is my duty to express my disapproval of what is proposed regarding the execution of the terrorist Hasan in the Archdiocese entrusted to my spiritual care to be done by those for whose salvation I have been constituted as the Archbishop for the Military Services, USA.”

After reiterating the Catholic Church’s opposition to capital punishment — he issued a heartfelt plea:

[D]o we really want to imitate the terrorists of this world and make a public spectacle of barbarically killing our adversaries? The crime committed by Nidal Malik Hasan was heinous, but does exposing the public to his execution serve any purpose? Has the potential moral injury, which the members of the firing squad might experience, been considered? Will the exposure of a live-stream to the young and impressionable during the 250th anniversary year of our independence be able to be repaired? The US military generally enjoys a good reputation in the world. Is there really a value to throwing them in the same boat with terrorists by broadcasting the image of the execution of a man in a wheelchair to the whole world? Does this decision reflect the dignity of the human person?

Broglio asked for the decision to be “reconsidered” and, in any event, to do whatever “is possible to keep the exposure to the live-streaming of the proposed execution from the vision of the young and impressionable.” That, as the archbishop undoubtedly knew, would have been virtually impossible in an era of ubiquitous screens, which only underscores the moral insanity of putting out such images. In a noteworthy analogy that should have touched a nerve with those in the Trump regime who identify as pro-life, Broglio concluded by asking that “[a]s I would in the case of a procured abortion, I oblige any Catholics assigned to the firing squad to request to be excused from this action contrary to the teaching of the Church.”

On one level, as heinous as this may be, Hegseth has been guilty of much greater sins and crimes against humanity (e.g., ordering reckless strikes that killed nearly 240 people on the high seas, and 156 innocent people at an Iranian school). However, the gratuitous barbarity and determination to drag junior personnel into a travesty of this sort marked, in some respect, a new debasement of the military.

By stark contrast, we should herald the decency and ethical resoluteness of military personnel who — at risk to themselves and their livelihoods — refused to participate in this depraved act. We salute those, including the archbishop, who provided spiritual and religious guidance. And those who resisted may have been instrumental in forcing Trump’s about-face.

At a time when the president and a flock of his minions, indeed an entire political party, so abjectly fail to serve as decent role models, we are particularly appreciative of the undaunted moral bravery of those who serve in the armed forces, risking their lives to maintain our freedom as they maintain the highest, truest tradition of military honor and human decency.

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Julia Loktev didn’t set out to capture history when she traveled to Russia in the fall of 2021, with the idea of documenting the experiences of her friend Anna “Anya” Nemzer, who was then a host at TV Rain, the country’s last remaining independent TV channel.

In the summer of 2021, Nemzer and about two dozen reporters were designated “foreign agents” by the Putin regime. Anything that they wrote, said on the air, or posted online — no matter how banal — was required to include a huge disclaimer about their officially “undesirable” status.

“They had to put it on all their work, their articles, their broadcasts, their podcasts, their Instagram cat pictures. Anywhere you appeared in public, you had to announce yourself: ‘Hi, I’m a foreign agent,’” says Loktev, a Russian-American filmmaker whose family fled the Soviet Union when she was a child.

Loktev had no inkling of what lay around the corner. But she found it disturbing that reporters were “being forced to suddenly label their work with a giant, all-caps paragraph, saying in very legalistic terms, ‘This is brought to you by a foreign agent.’”

So she began filming these journalists, most of them young women, as they continued to work amid an increasingly dire political climate, like the proverbial frogs in the slowly boiling pot.

“I thought it was going to be a film called The Lives of Foreign Agents. What I didn’t know then was that, four and a half months later, Russia would start a full-scale war, and this was all a lead-up to that,” says the director.

She captured that tense four-month period of steadily escalating repression in My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow, a documentary released to great acclaim in 2024, winning the best documentary prize from critics’ groups in both New York and Los Angeles. (It’s available to watch on Mubi, a streaming service that specializes in independent and international cinema.)

Loktev is back with a follow-up, My Undesirable Friends: Part II — Exile, which recently screened at the New York Film Festival and is currently playing at the Film Forum in New York. Executive produced by Meryl Streep, the film opens at the Laemmle Royal in Los Angeles this weekend, at the Roxy in San Francisco on November 1, and will be available to stream on Mubi in the near future. It follows a group of dissident journalists, many of whom appeared in Part I, as they move from country to country, attempting to continue their work despite intense danger from the Russian government — including stealth poisoning, in-absentia arrests, and other retaliatory efforts.

“During the first week of the full-scale war, Russia shut down all independent media, criminalized calling it a ‘war,’ and basically made it impossible to work in Russia,” Loktev says. “All the journalists were facing a choice: we can go to jail, we can shut up and not talk about the war (which didn’t seem like a choice at all), or we can leave the country. And so all the characters that I was filming fled in a matter of hours.”

“Russia’s turn to fascism is one of the big stories of our century,” she adds. “We tend to think ‘Well, Russia, it’s always been terrible,’ but this actually was a huge change.”

The subjects include Nemzer, co-director of the film, who hopscotches from Israel to Georgia to New York City while trying to raise her young daughter and salvage her strained marriage. Through Nemzer, Loktev was introduced to other people featured in My Undesirable Friends, including Elena “Lena” Kostyuchenko, a long-form journalist and out lesbian who worked at Novaya Gazeta, a leading opposition newspaper, until the war started.

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As soon as the war begins, Kostyuchenko travels to Ukraine to report from the frontline. When she learns that Russian soldiers in Mariupol are under orders to shoot her, she and her girlfriend are forced to go on the run — where more danger awaits. “There’s no need for more Navalnys,” a concerned friend tells her. Yet Kostyuchenko longs to return to her country, rather than let Putin and his ilk destroy it.

Then there’s Ksenia “Ksysuha” Mironova, a reporter at TV Rain, who initially hopes to stay in Russia to be near her fiancé, a jailed journalist awaiting trial. But within a few hours of the invasion, she is on a plane to Turkey with Valeria Ratnikova, a twenty-two-year-old anchor at TV Rain, who goes by Lera (because this is Russia, and most people have a nickname). She’s awoken at 2 a.m. to a flood of messages telling her to get out of the country.

The co-workers move around repeatedly, heading to Tbilisi, Georgia, then Riga, Latvia, as TV Rain relaunches in exile. The network doesn’t really have an equivalent in the United States, Loktev says, but it had enormous reach when it was still on the air (and still does, despite the efforts of the Russian government, with nearly 5 million subscribers on YouTube).

TV Rain “was the center of opposition life,” Loktev explains. “It was like a public plaza, but it started out as a youth channel that was much lifestyle oriented. But then protests started in Russia, and it became a very political news channel focused on the news.” When opposition leader Alexei Navalny returned to Russia in 2021, supporters watched the event live on TV Rain. “By the time I got to Russia in the fall of ‘21, there were almost no protests in the streets. But you could still go on TV Rain and talk about your opposition to the government — until you couldn’t.”

Now, the channel operates from Amsterdam but is constantly “playing cat and mouse with the Russian authorities” who try to block access to YouTube, Lektov says. Russians can’t repost TV Rain videos on social media, and granting an interview to its journalists is also considered a crime. Watching it in public would be wildly reckless, if not criminal.

Despite an eye-popping six-hour runtime, the film — which is structured episodically, like a docuseries — is intensely engrossing. (You also can watch without having seen Part I.) Loktev allows the audience time to get to know and care deeply about the subjects. My Undesirable Friends has been called “a hangout film about authoritarianism,” a description that Loktev appreciates. An article in the New York Times might give you the facts about Russia, she says, “But you will have absolutely no sense of what it feels like to live through it, and what it feels like as a journalist, as a person who believes in the truth, to have to flee your country, what it is like for your family, for your friends. That’s what the film was about. It’s living history.”

Filming mostly on an unobtrusive iPhone, which creates a heightened sense of intimacy, Loktev follows her subjects as they wrestle with high-stakes danger but also mundane concerns, such as what to do about a beloved pet chinchilla left behind in Moscow, or setting up a Tinder profile.

Exile “affects everything,” Loktev says. “It’s about marriages falling apart. It’s about people falling in love. It’s about what to do when your parents are back in Russia, and you can’t go back when they get ill because you will get arrested. That’s what exile is made of. It penetrates every cell of your body, and every part of your life.”

While the journalists in My Undesirable Friends face oppression that is far worse than anything their counterparts in the United States have (so far) confronted, there is much that American viewers will recognize in their plight, like having to answer for the heinous actions of their country while also reporting on them. There are frustrating calls with politically brainwashed family members and allegations of “fake news,” all of which feel ominously familiar.

Loktev began making the film early in the Biden era. She and Nemzer wondered if Americans would care about something that seemed so far away, both geographically and politically. “Then the world really caught up with the film,” she says. “So much of what happened in Russia is now being echoed in the U.S.” Loktev points to two recent examples of Putin-like behavior that should serve as a warning sign: Donald Trump’s attempt to ban press from the White House for printing “purposely negative stories” about the administration; and Pete Hegseth’s claim that journalists reporting on classified information are guilty of “treason.”

“Russia did not start out by arresting journalists. It started out by pressuring advertisers. It started out by pulling licenses. It started out by threatening to sue for libel. You have the consolidation of the media and all these different pressures before journalists start getting thrown in jail,” she says. “But how do you know when that tipping point is?”

Meredith Blake is the culture columnist for The Contrarian. The second installment of her newsletter, “Culture Clash,” will arrive in your inbox tomorrow!

Here are our top suggestions for getting involved in the days ahead. These are heated times; we encourage non-violent and lawful activism.

Participate in No Kings 4, the Early Vote

The No Kings coalition is getting its gang of millions back together on Saturday, October 17, to promote early voting where available and voting plans everywhere else.

The idea is to help make the 2026 midterm election “too big to rig” by banking huge numbers of early votes — allowing get-out-the-vote campaigns in November to be more targeted and effective. Find an event near you or plan to host one using this toolkit. To gear up for the weekend, participate in a “Safety & Security Training” today, October 15, at 8 p.m. eastern.

There will be some larger events, including a Votefest NYC in Washington Square Park, featuring Rev. Al Sharpton, and this rally at Gloria Molina Grand Park in downtown Los Angeles. But rather than mass demonstrations, organizers write, “we’re expecting events to vary from block parties to cookouts to human chains to walks to the polls.”

Watch Indivisible cofounder Ezra Levin’s Contrarian interview on No Kings 4, outlining how to channel people power to the polls on Saturday. And learn more about the sky-high stakes of the midterms in this explainer.

Partner events are already populating the schedule:

• No Kings, Comix Action, and Hands Off NYC are hosting a virtual No Kings ComicCon tonight, October 15, at 7 p.m. eastern. The event promises “a constellation of stars from the world of comics and the geekier side of Hollywood” as well as “interviews, art, music, and surprises.” Register here to champion voting rights while partying with your favorite comics.

• Stand Up For Science is hosting a virtual nationwide rally at noon eastern on October 17, including speeches by democracy champion Stacey Abrams and bestselling author Michael Lewis and “a mass get out the vote action.”

• Black Voters Matter is partnering with No Kings in Atlanta on October 17. Starting at 10 a.m. eastern, this Party at the Polls will celebrate voting power with food, music, speakers, and community. Attendees can learn about voting options, finding rides to the polls, and how to strengthen election protection efforts. Black Voters Matter is taking this show on the road with a “We Got Us” tour; check out the schedule here.

On the heels of the No Kings events is a pair of next-steps video seminars airing on October 21 and 22 at 8 p.m. eastern. Topics include “the final push for voter turnout” and post-election strategy, including how activists can ”plan now to be ready to protect the results of the election.”

Cast Your Ballot Early

Channel the enthusiasm of No Kings into real votes. In-person early voting begins within the week in more than a dozen states.

• October 15: North Carolina

• October 16: Washington

• October 17: Nevada, Massachusetts

• October 19: Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, South Carolina, Texas

• October 20: Hawaii, Louisiana, Missouri, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Wisconsin

• October 21: West Virginia

(States where early voting will be under way by October 21. Nb: Alabama, Mississippi, and New Hampshire require an excuse to vote early.)

Vote by mail also will be under way nearly everywhere that option exists within the week. (Sorry, Utahns, you have to wait until October 27.) Check out ElectionInnovation.org for a state-by-state breakdown of how to cast your ballot early. Vote.org also offers an early-voting calendar.

Vote with Confidence

There’s plenty of misinformation swirling around the 2026 election. Don’t let doubt dissuade you from exercising the franchise. Know that law is on your side: Read up on the ACLU’s voting rights guide. And cast your ballot with confidence after reading the SPLC’s voter safety guide.

Join ‘the Movement’ to End Gender-Based Violence

October is Domestic Violence Awareness month. YWCA USA is holding its annual “Week Without Violence” campaign from October 19 to 23. WWV aims to “raise awareness, inspire action, and advance solutions to end gender-based violence.” This year, WWV will focus on the exclusion of young people from discussions of gender-based violence, despite their being disproportionately affected. Join “the Movement” to participate in WWV storytelling, education, and dialogue events, including a flagship town hall on October 20 at 3 p.m. eastern.

Celebrate Election Heroes… and Become One!

Tuesday, October 20, is Election Hero Day, a celebration recognizing election officials, county clerks, and poll workers for their contributions to making voting safe and secure. Share your support for election workers on social media or write a thank you note to your local election officials. One of the best ways to celebrate is to become an election hero yourself. Sign up to become a poll worker, help other voters get registered with VoteRiders, or learn how to be a poll watcher in your district.

Harness the Power of the ‘Sister Vote’

The National Coalition on Black Civic Participation and its partners are embarking on a non-partisan, multi-state voter engagement tour through November 3. This GOTV and democracy defense tour will travel through nine states and aims to bolster Black voter participation and protect voting rights. Check out poll monitor training, text banking, and canvassing events on its Georgia stop, through October 25. See which affiliate and partner organizations are operating in your state here.

Fight ‘Oligarchy’ in Florida

Florida Contrarians, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is bringing the tax-the-billionaires agenda of his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour to Florida, where he will be appearing in four events with progressive Senate candidate Angie Nixon. Sanders and Nixon will appear at stops in Tampa and Melbourne on October 17 and in Gainesville and Tallahassee on October 18. (Learn more about Nixon’s embrace of democratic socialism from her interview with the Contrarian.)

Door Knock (or Dial) for Democracy

Swing Left is recruiting canvassers to knock on doors to boost turnout in the midterms. Click here to find or organize a canvass for “must flip” races near you. The group also has phone bank campaign to support the group’s target House, Senate, and state-level races. Similarly, Indivisible has phone bank events to boost candidates in 40 target races — 31 in the House and nine in the Senate.

Keep Gun Safety Central in November

If limiting gun violence is a priority election issue for you, find dozens of ongoing actions across the country organized by gunsensevoter.org, a project of Everytown for Gun Safety — which is also organizing a Weekend of Action from October 16 to 18.

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RJ draws several editorial cartoons each week for his substack, e pluribus cartoonum, and for Roll Call, the newspaper of Congress and Capitol Hill. His work is widely syndicated to print newspapers by Cagle Cartoons.

Real talk on the economy. From Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA): “Inflation data came in and Donald Trump’s failed economic agenda has raised prices for Americans by 5.9%. That means families are paying $3,772 more thanks to inflation under Trump.”

The inflation number is truly worrisome. “Headline inflation is up again, as expected given the ongoing energy crisis induced by the Iran War,” said former car czar Steve Rattner. “Equally concerning, core inflation is up too, indicating that high energy costs are beginning to bleed into everything else.” Moreover, “Real wages are shrinking year-over-year for the sixth month in a row. The Iran War brought an end to three years of real wage growth.”

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It wouldn’t be surprising to read about a university “robbing Peter to pay Paul” in 2026, but what the men’s basketball program at Mississippi Valley State University (MVSU) is doing goes beyond mere financial juggling. The Delta Devils aren’t just moving money around to survive; they’re sacrificing their desire to win just to endure.

When MVSU released its schedule last month, the internet was quick to point out how head-scratching the calendar looked. Out of the 32 regular-season games the team will play this season, only nine are on home court. The Delta Devils’ first 16 games are all on the road; the first home game is January 9.

Of those first 16 games, 14 are referred to as “buy games” — non-conference contests in which larger schools/programs with big budgets pay smaller schools to come get blown out in an unfair matchup for a set price. It’s a payday for David and a guaranteed win for Goliath. This model explains why the reigning national champion Indiana Hoosiers hosted Howard in football this season, or why Southern Illinois University Edwardsville will travel to Durham to face Duke next month.

“I don’t love the model and at the same time understand the things that we have to do financially to run this athletic department, because we do have a great opportunity to impact the lives of young people. And we can only do that if we are meeting our budgetary demands and needs,” Kent State Athletic Director Randale Richmond explained in a 2024 AP article about the science of the system. It’s believed that a school like Ohio State paid around $1.5 million to programs like Akron, Western Michigan, and Marshall that were on their schedule that season. Kent State was winless in 2024, and its schedule included games against Tennessee and Penn State. According to the report, Ohio State pulled in $127 million in revenue from football alone in 2023, compared with Kent State’s entire football budget of less than $10 million. By comparison, MVSU spends less than $3,000 per year on its recruiting budget for its entire athletic department out of a little over $4.1 million in expenses on sports and making under $4.5 million in revenue, according to the Equity in Athletics Data Analysis from the U.S. Department of Education.

“It makes it very difficult to gain momentum when you have three guarantee games. I can’t answer whether it’s fair or not. I can answer that it does make it difficult,” Richmond admitted.

Facing power conference opponents like Oklahoma, Oregon, Arkansas, UConn, Texas Tech, Baylor, and defending national champions Michigan, MVSU is likely to begin the season 0-14 before entering conference play in the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) against rivals Alabama State and Alabama A&M.

“Here’s the part that’s everybody’s missing. In those 14 games, we will play games on ESPN, FOX, FOX Sports, USA Network, and the SEC (Network),” MVSU Men’s Basketball General Manager Cyril White said in a response video pushing back on the viral criticism of the program. “In those 14 games, we will have a chance to play in front of an estimated viewing audience of six million people. (That’s) six million eyeballs on our first-class athletes. Also, six million eyeballs on our jersey patch partners.”

However, not all exposure is good exposure. Though MVSU’s administration has been compelled to make tough choices, its basketball program faces serious challenges. Recently, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained a team member over an allegedly expired visa. Qingfang Pang, who transferred to MVSU from a junior college in New York, is being held at the Richwood Correctional Center in Lousiana.

“He’s tired of being detained,” said Pang’s lawyer, Marcus Session. “He’s tired, you know, of feeling that he’s a criminal. … He wants to resume going to school. He wants to play college basketball. He wants to be a 21-year-old kid who’s just trying to make a life for himself.”

Pang joins fellow HBCU athlete Amina Seck (Kentucky State) and Deng Deng (Southern Connecticut State) as college basketball players recently detained by ICE.

Last month, it was estimated that Howard made approximately $475,000 in one afternoon by traveling to New Jersey to lose to Rutgers by 51 points on the football field. The controversial “Protect College Sports Act” is supposedly creating a grant program of $180 million to support improvements in HBCU athletics, but nothing has been appropriated, authorized, or guaranteed. HBCUs exemplify the imbalances the bill is allegedly going to fix. However, given that HBCUs have been underfunded to the tune of over $13 billion across three decades, compared with how smaller athletic programs at lower-tier conferences compete in the business of sports, one thing is undeniably clear:

The game has always been rigged.

Carron J. Phillips is an award-winning journalist who writes on race, culture, social issues, politics, and sports. He hails from Saginaw, Michigan, and is a graduate of Morehouse College and Syracuse University. Follow his personal Substack to keep up with more of his work.

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