Skip to main content

Dispatches From the Culture Wars — June 16, 2026

Are you on the list?

Kevin Lamarque, REUTERS
  1. Where Pride Won’t Be Happening This Year
  2. The Truth About ICE Detainees
  3. Fascism Fingers Muslim Republicans
  4. Resisting the World Cup
  5. Hegwichs Army of Crime
  6. Domestic Terrorism Watchlist
  7. Shareholders Revolt at Target 
  8. Minneapolis is Still Under Siege
  9. The Far Right’s Anti-Feminism
  10. Needed: Political Education

 

Where Pride Won’t Be Happening This Year

By Nick Fulton, Prism

Pride events have been canceled in several states as LGBTQIA+ organizers point to a hostile political landscape.
 

The Truth About ICE Detainees

By Maggie Green, Laura Romero and Matt Rivers, ABC News

Only 3% of individuals detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the first 14 months of the second Trump administration had a violent felony conviction, according to an ABC News analysis of government data. The findings, based on data tracking the current Trump administration's immigration crackdown, come after Trump had pledged to target the worst of the worst. 

Fascism Fingers Muslim Republicans

By Renzo Downey, The Texas Tribune

Muslim delegates and attendees hoping to participate in the Texas Republican convention were shunned and rejected by members as they espoused themes of party unity ahead of the November election. Members of the party have railed for months about the urgency of ending Sharia Law and the so-called “Islamification” of Texas.
 

Resisting the World Cup

If you like this article, please sign up for Snapshot, Portside's daily summary.

(One summary e-mail a day, you can change anytime, and Portside is always free.)

By Madeleine Wattenbarger / The Baffler

Since November, anti-gentrification activists and residents of Santa Úrsula Coapa, the neighborhood around the World Cup stadium, have made a weekly soccer game part of their ongoing campaign against the tournament, which they see not as an opportunity for joy and international unity but as a spectacular boondoggle.

Hegwichs Army of Crime

By Matt Kennard, Novara Media

US counterterrorism analysts frequently warned that the centre of gravity in domestic terrorism had shifted decisively toward racially and ethnically motivated violent extremists, especially white supremacists, and that a slice of those actors had military ties. Domestic terrorist incidents linked to active-duty and reserve personnel rose in 2020 to 6.4%, up from 1.5% in 2019 and zero in 2018.

Domestic Terrorism Watchlist

By Schuyler Mitchell, Mother Jones

Does photographing ICE agents make you a domestic terrorist in Donald Trump’s America? That’s the question being asked by a growing chorus of activists and legal observers who fear they’ve been placed on a government watchlist for exercising their First Amendment rights.

Shareholders Revolt at Target 

By Bil Browning, Tummy Ache Nation

Target’s reputation has gotten so bad that its own investors are rebelling. Ahead of the company’s annual shareholder meeting on June 10, a group of major investors is pushing to vote out the board members responsible for years of fuckups that have left consumers furious and stakeholders watching their money evaporate.

Minneapolis is Still Under Siege

By Bryce Covert, The American Prospect

The need for rental assistance didn’t abate even after Trump called off the intensity of the surge and many, although not all, ICE agents left the area. If anything, it’s only getting worse as families continue to go without income.

The Far Right’s Anti-Feminism

By Nina Burleigh, American Freakshow

What do trad wives, Erika Kirk, and the Tate brothers have in common? After a weekend at Turning Point USA’s Women’s Leadership Summit, we find that they’re part of the same effort to sell young women on submission as empowerment. 
 

Needed: Political Education

By Fouzia Chaparro-Bencheikh, Convergence

Democracy is under attack in our schools—but political education can equip us to defend it and build something stronger.