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Dispatches From the Culture Wars – March 25, 2025

A win for trans rights... in Montana!

  1. More Than Just Conservative
  2. Midwife Arrested in Texas
  3. AAUP Organizes for Academic Freedom
  4. Behind the Case Against Mahmoud Khalil
  5. Montana: Trans House Members Sock it to GOP
  6. The Successful Extortion of a White Shoe Law Firm
  7. The (First) Big Boycott of 2025
  8. Privatization on Steroids
  9. Here Comes Trump’s Kennedy Center
  10. A Sociologist Explains ComicCon Culture

 

More Than Just Conservative

By Craig Johnson
Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung

Trump’s new coalition marks uncharted territory both for the Republicans and the US as a whole, making it hard to predict how it will wield state power over the medium term. Rifts between the different factions began forming even before Trump took office. There is no telling how long the coalition can hold. Should it blow up, how great the fallout could be is anybody’s guess.

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Midwife Arrested in Texas

By Schuyler Mitchell
Truthout

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced the arrest of Maria Margarita Rojas on March 17. The Houston-area midwife faces up to 20 years in prison for allegedly performing illegal abortions — a second-degree felony — and practicing medicine without a license. The announcement marks Texas’s first criminal case against a health care provider since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022. 

AAUP Organizes for Academic Freedom

By Eleanor J. Bader
Ms.

Project 2025 put forward an agenda that includes broadscale book bans and curricular limitations on classes in African American, Latinx, LGBTQ+, Feminist, Ethnic, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. In addition, they support the cancellation of the federal student loan program. Now unions, including the 110-year-old American Association of University Professors (AAUP), are fighting back. 

Behind the Case Against Mahmoud Khalil

By Debbie Nathan
Boston Review

The plenary power doctrine has created a situation in which the mere mention of the word “immigration” “has been enough to propel the Court into a cataleptic trance.” How did this trance originate? And how does it affect Mahmoud Khalil—and the many other immigrant critics of Zionism whom Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have promised to go after next?

Montana: Trans House Members Sock it to GOP

By Arin Waller
LGBTQ Nation

In a shocking turn of events, Republican House representatives in Montana decided to cross the aisle and vote against two anti-transgender bills, following powerful speeches delivered by transgender Reps. Zooey Zephyr and SJ Howell. These votes would’ve been remarkable in their own right, but this wasn’t the only occurrence of aisle-crossing on trans issues this session.

The Successful Extortion of a White Shoe Law Firm

By Paul Blumenthal
Huffpost

Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton and Garrison, a nearly 150-year-old law firm, bent the knee to President Donald Trump Thursday evening when it struck a deal to get rid of the president’s executive order apparently punishing the firm for once employing a lawyer who worked on a case targeting the president. 

The (First) Big Boycott of 2025

By Daniel Hunter
Waging Nonviolence

The economic blackout on February 28 was an important first step. But to have a greater impact, future boycotts will require more organizing grounded in real strategy. The event was called by one person and organized nearly entirely online through memes and varying descriptions of its goals.

Privatization on Steroids

By Nathan Meyers
Common Dreams

Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has aggressively moved to shrink the federal government. While certainly dramatic, these actions reflect a longer trend of privatizing government. The government has steadily withdrawn from economic production for decades, outsourcing many responsibilities to the private sector.

Here Comes Trump’s Kennedy Center

By Rebecca Ritzel
MSNBC News

Most Kennedy Center audiences are in the middle of these demographics: They are federal workers who enjoy classical music, NGO lobbyists with undergraduate theater degrees and labor leaders with affinities for modern dance. And they are exactly the people now weighing whether to boycott Kennedy Center performances, because they are laid off, they oppose Trump’s takeover, or both.

A Sociologist Explains ComicCon Culture

By Michael Elliott
The Conversation

Die-hard fans tend to have a detailed, intricate knowledge. They collect, display and cherish memorabilia. They flock to iconic “pilgrimage” places: King’s Cross Train Station in London for “Harry Potter” fans, or Graceland in Memphis, Tennessee, for Elvis devotees. This level of devotion seems to go well beyond entertainment. Indeed, it may seem, well, almost religious.