Dispatches From the Culture Wars — November 3, 2026
- Un-rigging the Election
- Islamophobia: Clear and Present
- Minneapolis Changed Everything
- How NC Justice Enforces Injustice
- Cambridge Divests from Israel
- Rightist Attacks on Union Activism
- LA Kicks Out Big Oil
- Abortion Rights Are on the Ballot
- The Ironic Saga of Samuel Sey
- Waccamaw Peoples Recognize Rights of Nature
By Elie Mystal, The Nation
When you’ve got experts on authoritarianism trying to advise state governments on how to counteract Trump’s efforts to mess with the election, you know you’ve got a very serious problem.
Islamophobia: Clear and Present
By Tim Murphy, Mother Jones
Open bigotry toward Muslims is not just a way to get ahead in President Donald Trump’s Republican Party. Increasingly, it seems to be the purpose of Trump’s Republican Party. It’s the key to understanding what’s changed in the MAGA world—and what has always been like this. The targeting and vilification of an American religious group is one of the most important stories of the midterms.
Minneapolis Changed Everything
By Eric Blanc, Labor Politics
There’s compelling evidence that Trump and his advisers had a plan with a real chance of working: provoke Minnesota into a social explosion, which would serve as a pretext for polarizing the country and escalating Trump’s crackdown on dissent and democracy nationwide. In Minneapolis, the trap failed because of the movement’s high level of organization and nonviolent discipline.
How NC Justice Enforces Injustice
By Doug Bock Clark, Pro Publica
Few beyond North Carolina’s borders grasp the outsize role Republican chief justice Paul Newby, 70, has played in transforming the state’s top court from a relatively harmonious judicial backwater to a front-line partisan battleground since his election in 2004.
By Maya Y. Fu and Risha Sinha, The Harvard Crimson
After orders to divest and boycott companies tied to Israel sparked a contentious stretch of public comment last week, the Cambridge City Council narrowly voted to divest city funds from companies named by the American Friends Service Committee as having “severe and consistent involvement directly contributing to genocide, apartheid, and occupation of Palestinians.”
Rightist Attacks on Union Activism
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By Blanca Missé, Truthout
Why are state agencies and outside political organizations seeking access to the networks through which workers organize political solidarity? In Minnesota and Michigan, that scrutiny has taken a more coercive form: undercover surveillance and federal subpoenas.
By Amanda Coulson-Drasner, Deutsche Welle
Los Angeles has become the largest city in the US to ban oil drilling, after years of lawsuits and campaigning by residents who raised the alarm over pollution and potential health risks from nearby wells. Though LA City is only part of greater Los Angeles, the move affects hundreds of active wells and thousands of inactive ones, many located in working class communities of color.
Abortion Rights Are on the Ballot
By Isabel Guarnieri and Priyanka Sookhai, Guttmacher Institute
In the November 2026 election, voters in three states (Idaho, Nevada and Virginia) will consider ballot measures designed to protect abortion rights by affirming a statutory or constitutional right to abortion. Additionally, voters in one state (Missouri) will vote on an anti-abortion measure that would undo the right to reproductive freedom previously established by a state ballot measure.
By Sophia Tesfaye, Salon
Samuel Sey spent the past two years telling American Christians that the Bible demands what Immigration and Customs Enforcement does. Now Sey, who is originally from Ghana and grew up in Canada, has found himself swept up in the very deportation apparatus he spent years cheering on.
Waccamaw Peoples Recognize Rights of Nature
By John Ahniwanika Schertow, Intercontinental Cry
The Waccamaw tribe have adopted a resolution recognizing the inherent rights of nature in South Carolina. The resolution recognizes four fundamental rights: the right of nature to exist, flourish and regenerate; to remain free from contamination; to be restored when damaged; and to be respected as a living community.