FEBRUARY 27, 2026

The State of the Union Was a Rally for an Ailing Strongman
An increasingly unpopular Trump lurched from plodding teleprompter readings to gothic MAGA fantasies in his long-winded speech. When Trump was sticking closely to the script in his teleprompter, his delivery had a flat and grudging feel. “The spirit of 1776 keeps shining through,” he intoned at one point as something of an infomercial afterthought. When he veered off script into his preferred mode of sneering, insulting, and mob-baiting, he was in his element — calling out Democrats promoting a new affordability agenda for promulgating “a dirty rotten lie,” or defaming “Somali pirates” in Minnesota whom he again accused without evidence of engineering a multibillion-dollar scheme of welfare fraud. The Nation

How to organize safely in the age of surveillance

“The truth,” says Distribute Aid’s Taylor Fairbank, “is that all organizing that runs counter to the interests of the powerful, digital or physical, carries a threat of surveillance and its consequences. There’s always going to be some inherent risk to helping other people, unfortunately … That’s the reality that we live in, so think about what you’re doing. Build your own threat model. And if you’re not willing to accept the inherent risks of doing something, then don’t do it.” But Fairbank also says that those considerations shouldn’t prevent people from acting. “Look at the risk in context, make informed choices, try to be as safe as possible,” says Fairbank. “But, my God, go out there and help people. Because we need it.” WIRED

Losing two voices for justice: Reverend Jesse Jackson and Reverend Graylan Scott Hagler

One of Reverend Jesse Jackson’s close advisors on labor, Gene Bruskin, remembers Jackson for understanding the links between class/race and US foreign policy in a way that few labor leaders do in an article from Portside. And on the local DC scene, Reverend Graylan Scott Hagler is remembered by members of the Left across DC for his unwavering commitment to protecting and fighting for DC’s most vulnerable residents in an article from The Washington Informer.

DNC Finding: Biden’s Israel Backing Cost Harris Votes for President
As sympathy for Palestinians grows among Democratic voters, party leaders wrestle with what comes next

Senior Democrats who worked on the party’s 2024 presidential election autopsy concluded that the Biden administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war was a “net negative” for Democrats and cost Vice President Kamala Harris critical support among younger and progressive voters, according to a new report published Sunday. The Democratic National Committee has so far withheld the findings from public release. Forward via Portside

Harrington Centennial Observed, Celebrated

Michael Harrington, DSA’s founding co-chair, was born 100 years ago. In an article from 2019, Maxine Phillips, volunteer editor of Democratic Left, wrote a tribute and reminiscence of Harrington that speaks to the nature of his living legacy. “He championed ‘visionary gradualism,’ what later DSAers would call ‘non-reformist reforms’ — think Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act [which still frames the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate]. Mike, after all, never forgot that real people suffered under capitalism and needed help right now, right here, not in some future workers’ paradise. He could talk to auto workers and doctoral students in economics, to talk-show pundits or rallies of thousands. And when he was through, every one of them had a broader vision of the ‘left wing of the possible.’” Jacobin