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Dispatches From the Culture Wars — June 17, 2025

Dress rehearsals for a showdown

Pat Bagley/Salt Lake Tribune
  1. Culture is the Front Line of Democracy
  2. About That Parade  
  3. Learning From 2020
  4. Huge Land Return to California Tribe
  5. Canvassing With Zohran Mamdani
  6. DOL Women’s Bureau Gets the DOGE Treatment
  7. Disability Activists: Lessons From the Pandemic
  8. CDC Workers Resist Takeover
  9. Mavis Staples’s Gospel of Resistance
  10. The Path of Francis

 

Culture is the Front Line of Democracy

By Henry A. Giroux
Z

Fascism no longer announces itself with marching boots or military coups. It now emerges through culture, through the seductive rhythms of social media, viral spectacle and the normalization of cruelty. In this age of resurgent authoritarianism, culture functions as a powerful pedagogy of domination.

About That Parade 

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By bilboteach
Daily Kos

The birthday party he deserves.

Learning From 2020

By Lex McMenamin
Teen Vogue

This summer marks five years since the 2020 uprising for Black lives — an anniversary that feels especially resonant right now, as protesters in cities like Minneapolis, where George Floyd was murdered by police, stand up against ICE agents and the Trump administration's deportation spree.

Huge Land Return to California Tribe

Western Rivers Conservancy

Totaling 73 square miles, Blue Creek project marks a milestone for Klamath River and Tribal sovereignty, more than doubling the Yurok Tribe’s land holdings.

Canvassing With Zohran Mamdani

By Liza Featherstone
Jacobin

The kind of mass volunteer door-knocking operation that New York City mayoral campaign for Zohran Mamdani has built is the way to fight rising authoritarianism and the erosion of democracy.

DOL Women’s Bureau Gets the DOGE Treatment

By Julianne McShane
Mother Jones

The Labor Department is proposing to entirely eliminate the Women’s Bureau—which it calls “an ineffective policy office that is a relic of the past”—for the first time ever. If it is, in fact, eliminated before it turns 106—which Congress would have to approve—one DOL staffer predicted that “women are going to be left behind.”

Disability Activists: Lessons From the Pandemic

By Mara Mills, Harris Kornstein, Faye Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp
Truthout/NYU Press

Disabled people hold immense expertise in navigating both chronic illnesses and moments of crisis. Yet, despite all the “lessons learned” since of the COVID-19 pandemic — from which hundreds of people in the U.S. are still dying each week — disabled people are under increasing attack by the Trump administration.

CDC Workers Resist Takeover

By Brandy Zadrozny, Aria Bendix and Erika Edwards
NBC News

Amid the roar of cowbells and car horns, protesters held colorful signs with sharp messages, including “Save CDC,” “RFK’s War on Kids” and “Who the f--- is in charge?” The protest was spurred by staff cuts over the past several months that gutted departments amid a senior leadership vacuum at the agency.

Mavis Staples’s Gospel of Resistance

By Chauncey DeVega
Salon

Mavis Staples performed her iconic song “Freedom Highway.” As she sang, I couldn’t help but think that to get through the next 1,300-odd days — or longer, if Trump “wins” a third term — the American people will need to internalize Staples’ loving command to "march for freedom's highway / march each and every day."

The Path of Francis

By Travis Knoll
Boston Review

Francis’s efforts on behalf of the “weak and the poor” immediately caused tensions with wealthy U.S. Catholics. Now the question is whether Leo is willing to use his Americanness as protection in order to go on the offensive.