IMPORTANT NEW BOOKS:

Capital and Race: The History of a Modern Hydra
by Sylvie Laurent
‎Polity 2026

[Publication date: ‎ June 16, 2026]

1492: a year that captivated the world. Columbus's "discovery" of a new continent is widely remembered for revealing both the wonders of the earth and the unprecedented capacity of men to free themselves from boundaries. But the invention of America was actually a story untold: the consecration of a new relationship between nature and mankind, which saw capital and race unite irrevocably.

Sylvie Laurent tells the story of racial capitalism as a "two-headed creature" forged by figures such as Daniel Defoe in Robinson Crusoe, Voltaire, Adam Smith, and Alexis de Tocqueville. Beneath these authors' fantasies of a free-market land of endless riches is the empire of racial capitalism. However powerful, this system has been identified and resisted by a long line of anti-colonial theorists, from Rosa Luxemburg to W. E. B. Du Bois. Against the backdrop of their thinking, and at a time when it is commonplace to oppose class struggles and racial demands, Laurent illuminates the rich and little-known intellectual tradition of overcoming the divide. It's about time, she argues, that Karl Marx and Martin Luther King Jr. get to talk to one another.

Capital and Race: The History of a Modern Hydra is a timely and gripping intellectual history that will be of interest to historians and general readers alike.

 
REVIEWS:

"One of the most important books ever written on racial capitalism. A wonderful book. A must read."

--Thomas Piketty

"Clarity and ambition rarely come together so seamlessly. Sylvia Laurent delivers a sweeping history of the last five centuries that will be compelling for both experts and newcomers."
Quinn Slobodian, Boston University

"An invaluable text. Laurent deftly shows that the construction of race and racism was always a political and economic project that served two interrelated purposes: the justification of oppression and dispossession, on the one hand, and control over the labor and produce of the oppressed, on the other."

--Bill Fletcher Jr, The Nation
 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Sylvie Laurent is a cultural historian and a lecturer in American Studies at Sciences Po, Paris. She was previously a Fulbright Fellow at Harvard University, where she was later also a fellow in the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute. Laurent's publications include Homérique Amérique (2008), Martin Luther King: Une biographie intellectuelle et politique (2015), La couleur du marché: Racisme et néolibéralisme aux États-Uni (2016), King and the Other America: The Poor People's Campaign and the Quest for Economic Equality (2019), and La Contre-révolution californienne (2025). 

 
Slavery, the Slave Trade and the Roots of U.S. Imperialism
by Gerald Horne
International Publishers 2026

[Publication date: August 2026]

In 1875 Confederate military officers from Dixie were recruited by Egypt to lead an invasion of Ethiopia, which could have led to an expansion of the slave trade.

So begins this riveting history by Gerald Horne.

U.S. imperialism has diverse roots, Indigenous dispossession and enslavement (predominantly) of West Africans not least. Yet, after the Civil War, numerous U.S. nationals decamped to Africa to resume enslavement—including the buying of Africans—often in league with Cairo. Enslavement of Africans in West Asia (the “Middle East”) actually predated the trans-Atlantic versions. Similarly, when massive petroleum deposits were discovered in today’s Iraq and Iran at the beginning of the 20th century, a budding U.S. imperialism was poised to benefit given its pre-existing role in the region.

Horne’s story begins in the late 18th century with Euro-Americans being held captive by Algiers in particular. Pre-existing anti-Semitism was boosted when the allegation was made that this North African regime was backed by Jewish elites. Of course, Islamophobia was also prevalent in that Algerian rulers were predominantly Muslims. Anti-Christianity and the roots of Zionism also figure into this story, as does religious zeal of various sorts.

Fortunately, the growing abolitionist movement flexed its muscles; this potent force was aided immeasurably by Russia—a European power whose nationals were subjected to enslavement by Ottoman Turkey—which executed slave traders at a time when these evildoers were being coddled in Washington.

Similarly, a major reason that Ethiopia was able to vanquish repetitive invasions was because of military aid from Russia. This aid increased after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, which also led to anti-colonial Africans finding succor in Addis Ababa—today’s home of the African Union.

This book is essential reading for those seeking to understand and subdue imperialism today.

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Gerald Horne is the Moores Professor of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston, His scholarly research has addressed issues of racism in a variety of social and historical contexts involving labor, politics, civil rights, international relations and war. He has also written extensively about the film industry. Dr. Horne received his M.A. Phil. from Columbia University, Ph.D. in history from Columbia University and his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley and his B.A. from Princeton University. A critically acclaimed scholar and writer Dr Horne has written over 40 books and hundreds of essays and articles for a wide variety of magazines, newspapers, anthologies, and journals in not only the United States but Europe, Asia, Latin America, the Carribean, and Africa.

A Selected Bibliography of books by Dr. Gerald Horne:

Black and Red: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Afro-American response to the Cold War. SUNY Press (1986)

Black Liberation/Red Scare: Ben Davis and the Communist Party. University of Delaware Press (1994)

Fire This Time: The Watts Uprising And The 1960s. Da Capo Press (1997)

From the Barrel of a Gun: The United States and the War against Zimbabwe, 1965-1980. University of North Carolina Press (2000)

Class Struggle in Hollywood, 1930-1950 : Moguls, Mobsters, Stars, Reds and Trade Unionists. University of Texas Press (2001)

Race Woman: The Lives of Shirley Graham Du Bois. NYU Press (2002)

Black and Brown: African Americans and the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920. NYU Press (2005)

Race War!: White Supremacy and the Japanese Attack on the British Empire. NYU Press (2005)

The Final Victim of the Blacklist: John Howard Lawson, Dean of the Hollywood Ten. University of California Press (2006)

The White Pacific: U.S. Imperialism and Black Slavery in the South Seas After the Civil War. University of Hawaii Press (2007)

The Deepest South: The United States, Brazil, and the African Slave Trade. NYU Press (2007)

Blows Against the Empire: U.S. Imperialism in Crisis. International Publishers (2008)

Red Seas: Ferdinand Smith and Radical Black Sailors in the United States and Jamaica. NYU Press (2009)

Mau Mau in Harlem?: The U.S. and the Liberation of Kenya. Palgrave MacMillan (2009)

The Color of Fascism: Lawrence Dennis, Racial Passing, and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism in the United States. NYU Press (2009)


W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography. Greenwood (2009)

The End of Empires: African Americans and India. Temple University Press (2009)

Negro Comrades of the Crown: African Americans and the British Empire Fight the U.S. Before Emancipation. NYU Press (2013)

Black Revolutionary: William Patterson & the Globalization of the African American Freedom Struggle. University of Illinois Press (2013)

The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America. NYU Press (2014)

Race to Revolution: The U.S. and Cuba during Slavery and Jim Crow. Monthly Review Press (2014)

Confronting Black Jacobins: The U.S., the Haitian Revolution and the Origins of the Dominican Republic. Monthly Review Press (2015)

Paul Robeson: The Artist as Revolutionary. Pluto Press (2016)

The Rise and Fall of the Associated Negro Press: Claude Albert Barnett's Pan-African News and the Jim Crow Paradox. University of Illinois Press (2017)

Storming the Heavens: African Americans and the Early Struggle for the Right to Fly. Black Classic Press (2017)

Facing the Rising Sun: African Americans, Japan the Rise of Afro-Asian Solidarity. NYU Press (2018)

The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy and Capitalism in Seventeenth Century North America and the Caribbean. Monthly Review Press (2018)

Jazz and Justice: Racism and the Political Economy of the Music. Monthly Review Press (2019)

White Supremacy Confronted: U.S. Imperialism and Anti-Communism vs. the Liberation of Southern Africa from Rhodes to Mandela. International Publishers (2019)

The Dawning of the Apocalypse: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy, Settler Colonialism, and Capitalism in the Long Sixteenth Century. Monthly Review Press (2020)

Sweet Science: Racism, Racketeering, and the Political Economy of Boxing. International Publishers (2020)


Cold War in a Hot Zone: The United States Confronts Labor and Independence Struggles in the British West Indies (2007)

Black and Red: W.E.B. Du Bois and the Afro-American Response to the Cold War. SUNY Press (1986)

Communist Front? The Civil Rights Congress, 1946-1956. Farleigh Dickinson University Press (1987)

Black Liberation/Red Scare: Ben Davis and the Communist Party. University of Delaware Press (1994)

Fire This Time: The Watts Uprising And The 1960s. Da Capo Press (1997)

From the Barrel of a Gun: The United States and the War against Zimbabwe, 1965-1980. University of North Carolina Press (2000)


Class Struggle in Hollywood, 1930-1950 : Moguls, Mobsters, Stars, Reds and Trade Unionists. University of Texas Press (2001)

Race Woman: The Lives of Shirley Graham Du Bois. NYU Press (2002)

Black and Brown: African Americans and the Mexican Revolution, 1910-1920. NYU Press (2005)

Race War!: White Supremacy and the Japanese Attack on the British Empire. NYU Press (2005)

The Final Victim of the Blacklist: John Howard Lawson, Dean of the Hollywood Ten. University of California Press (2006)

The White Pacific: U.S. Imperialism and Black Slavery in the South Seas After the Civil War. University of Hawaii Press (2007)

The Deepest South: The United States, Brazil, and the African Slave Trade. NYU Press (2007)

Blows Against the Empire: U.S. Imperialism in Crisis. International Publishers (2008)

Red Seas: Ferdinand Smith and Radical Black Sailors in the United States and Jamaica. NYU Press (2009)

Mau Mau in Harlem?: The U.S. and the Liberation of Kenya. Palgrave MacMillan (2009)

The Color of Fascism: Lawrence Dennis, Racial Passing, and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism in the United States. NYU Press (2009)

W.E.B. Du Bois: A Biography. Greenwood Press (2009)

The End of Empires: African Americans and India. Temple University Press (2009)

Fighting in Paradise: Labor Unions, Racism, and Communists in the Making of Modern Hawaii. University of Hawaii Press. (2011)

Negro Comrades of the Crown: African Americans and the British Empire Fight the U.S. Before Emancipation. NYU Press. (2013)

Black Revolutionary: William Patterson & the Globalization of the African American Freedom Struggle. University of Illinois Press (2013)

The Counter-Revolution of 1776: Slave Resistance and the Origins of the United States of America. NYU Press (2014)

Race to Revolution: The U.S. and Cuba during Slavery and Jim Crow. Monthly Review Press (2014)

Confronting Black Jacobins: The U.S., the Haitian Revolution and the Origins of the Dominican Republic (2015)


Paul Robeson: The Artist as Revolutionary (2016)

The Rise and Fall of the Associated Negro Press: Claude Barnett's Pan-African News and the Jim Crow Paradox 2017)

Storming the Heavens: African Americans and the Early Struggle for the Right to Fly (2017)

Facing the Rising Sun: African Americans, Japan the Rise of Afro-Asian Solidarity (2018)

The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism: The Roots of Slavery, White Supremacy and Capitalism in Seventeenth Century North America and the Caribbean (2018)

Armed Struggle: Panthers and Communists, Black Nationalists and Liberals in southern California, Through the Sixties and Seventies (2025)

 
The Cruelty of Nice Folks: Why Minneapolis Is the Story of America
by Justin Ellis
Harper 2026

[Publication date: June 16, 2026]

“In writing a book about Minneapolis, Justin Ellis has really written a book about America's favorite lie—that good intentions lead to justice. Ellis is a rigorous historian and a visceral storyteller, and he has produced something essential: a reckoning with a city that wanted to be a safe haven for all and built a foundation that made this impossible.” –Aaron Robertson, author of The Black Utopians

A Boston Globe Best Book of Summer 2026

One of The Millions’ Most Anticipated Spring 2026 Books

A revelatory look at one of America’s most progressive cities—Minneapolis—as journalist Justin Ellis returns to his hometown to grapple with the quiet history of white supremacy in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, uncover his family’s story of surviving “Minnesota nice,” and revisit the city years later as state violence again forces the question of what a real reckoning looks like.

It’s the “North,” they like to say, not the Midwest. It’s dif­ferent. Minneapolis is a city for everyone. But in 2020, George Floyd’s murder by the city’s police left many Americans stunned and wondering, “How could this hap­pen in Minneapolis?” To Ellis, the real question is: What made people think it couldn’t?

The Minneapolis Justin Ellis grew up in is not the idealistic metropolis it claims to be. The “City of Lakes” was built on discrimination— in its housing, its schools, its politics—much like all other American cities. Black families were systematically cut out of the prosperous neighborhoods, lush parks, and pristine lakes that make Minneapolis a haven of the heartland. Because of its image as a liberal ally in the fight for civil rights, Minne­apolis has rarely been forced to confront this fact. But when George Floyd's murder sparks a global protest movement with the city as ground zero, its residents must finally ask what being a good neighbor actually means.

In a powerful new epilogue, Ellis turns his gaze back to Minneapolis as the sweeping federal immigration operation once again thrusts the city into national headlines. If George Floyd’s murder forced Minneapolis to confront questions of policing, power, and responsibility, the events of 2026 ask what those years of reckoning ultimately changed. Where fear once threatened to overwhelm the city’s response to state violence, Ellis finds a community newly practiced in dissent and collective action. The crisis reveals a Minneapolis still wrestling with its identity, but also one transformed by experience—no longer shocked into awakening, but shaped by it.

The Cruelty of Nice Folks stands to be a record of a moment in time as well as a definitive portrait of America, documenting:

The Myth of Post-Racial America: Reveals how the promises of the George Floyd reckoning faded, exposing a nation still shaped by deep inequality

The Hidden Cost of “Nice” Liberalism: Shows how progressive spaces can avoid real change, allowing injustice to persist beneath a veneer of goodwill

Minneapolis as America in Microcosm: Uses one “model” city to uncover the deeper roots of segregation, policing failures, and systemic racism

A Personal Story with National Stakes: Blends memoir and reporting to explore what it means to be Black in a place that sees itself as fair and just

REVIEWS:

“In writing a book about Minneapolis, Justin Ellis has really written a book about America's favorite lie—that good intentions lead to justice. Ellis is a rigorous historian and a visceral storyteller, and he has produced something essential: a reckoning with a city that wanted to be a safe haven for all and built a foundation that made this impossible.” –Aaron Robertson, author of The Black Utopians

“In this penetrating and moving debut, journalist Ellis examines past and present African American life in his hometown of Minneapolis . . . Ellis’s affecting research into his own family’s history forms the book’s emotional core, as he traces multiple generations who 'thrived in spite of the continued failures of the state.' The result is a searing account of Black survival in a city built on broken promises, and a damning view of liberalism as willing to pick and choose when equality is a virtue.” —Publishers Weekly

“An urgent critique of “polite” racism that demands attention.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Ellis grapples with the quiet history of white supremacy in so-called nice Minneapolis in this highly recommended book for readers interested in social justice.” —Library Journal

“In a sobering blend of family memoir and urban exposé, journalist Ellis reveals the contradiction between Minnesota’s reputation for niceness and its consistent acceptance of anti-Black racism, culminating in the murder of George Floyd. Juxtaposing more than a hundred years of de facto segregation, police violence, and unfulfilled promises and the experiences of his own relatives, he examines the toll of polite racism on a family and a community . . . with relentless precision.” —Booklist (starred)

“Minnesotans have always liked to think of themselves as nice folks—but how far does that take you in a society built to benefit only some of the people living in it? Justin Ellis deftly situates the state’s paradoxical history of outwardly progressive politics and quietly regressive policies within the epoch-making tumult of the past six years, as the Twin Cities became ground zero for America’s great “post-racial” reckoning in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and then, just a few years later, became a test case for how a city might resist an overtly authoritarian federal takeover." —Literary Hub, “Ten Great Nonfiction Titles to Read in June”

“Ellis’ passionate, elegantly written dive into the history of Minneapolis uncovers a place that’s widely considered liberal, where people say they want to do the right thing but where they repeatedly fall short.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune

“[Ellis] tells a huge story, including his family’s history moving between the Black districts of Minneapolis, his strong female relatives, and the long stop-and-start efforts to integrate Black neighborhoods . . . . And he does all this in just 350 pages with the intimacy of a writer who has lived these experiences as a Black man…. Ellis offers statistical proof of how Black citizens paid the price for progress. . . . but the text never feels like a lecture as he weaves in the tender story of his hours sitting with this mother as she shares memories while undergoing cancer treatments.” —Pioneer Press (Minneapolis)

“This is an emotional, cultural, historical, and racial history of a city that cuts through what it wants to be and reveals it for what it truly is. It’s devastating, but also so smart, insightful, and absolutely brilliant. I can’t recommend it enough. –Lyz Lenz, Literary Hub, “40 Great New Books You May Have Missed”

“Minneapolis has long been a stronghold of progressivism: slavery was banned there upon Minnesota’s statehood, and it was an early adopter of public housing. But, as Ellis demonstrates in this survey of the city’s racial history, liberal policy achievements tend to obscure more insidious forms of exclusion. A Minneapolis native, Ellis returns to his home after the murder of George Floyd. His resulting exploration tracks the ways in which Black residents were effectively segregated, through racial covenants and redlining, and overpoliced. Though Ellis’s long view of the city is tinged with cynicism, its response to last winter’s ICE invasion creates, he contends, an opening for hope.” —The New Yorker, “Briefly Noted”


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:


Justin Ellis is a journalist and co-owner of Defector, a worker-owned media company. His work has appeared on ESPN, and in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and GQ. His TV credits include the Netflix docuseries How to Fix a Drug Scandal and Wyatt Cenac’s Problem Areas on HBO. He lives in New York City.

FASCIST AMERICA 2026: At Home & Abroad All American Domestic and Foreign Policy Is Deeply Rooted in and Heavily Focused Upon Censorship, War, and White Supremacy And the Systematic Destruction of Free Speech Rights, Constitutional Protest Protections, and the Structural, Institutional, and Systemic Oppression, Exploitation, and All Citizens Who Categorically Refuse To Be Politically Intimidated, Terrorized, Slandered and Tyrannized by the Government

https://truthout.org/articles/us-declares-palestine-action-terrorist-group-in-latest-mccarthyist-crackdown/

News
Politics & Elections

 
US Declares Palestine Action “Terrorist” Group in Latest McCarthyist Crackdown

The “clear goal” of the move is “targeting a few to silence the many,” said UN human rights expert Francesca Albanese.

by Sharon Zhang
August 26, 2026
Truthout

 

A supporter of Palestine Action demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice as the government appeals the high court ruling that the ban on the activist group Palestine Action is unlawful on April 28, 2026.Dinendra Haria / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images

The Trump administration announced that it is designating U.K.-based Palestine Action and two other left wing groups as global “terrorist” groups on Wednesday, escalating its McCarthyist crackdown against the left and the Palestine solidarity movement.

The administration is placing sanctions on Palestine Action, a direct action group that has worked to disrupt the pipeline of arms shipments to Israel amid the Gaza genocide. Trump has also targeted Italian tech collective Autistici/Inventati, which the State Department claims has ties to U.S. activists, and Masar Badil, an international group that works toward Palestinian liberation.

The sanctions are being issued under an executive order signed by President George W. Bush, which declared a national emergency to give the government the ability to target terrorist groups shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The sanctions freeze the assets of the groups in the U.S., including bank accounts, as well as prohibit individuals and institutions in the U.S. from doing business with them. International officials who have faced similar financial sanctions have described being completely unable to access any financial goods and services because of the U.S.’s heavy influence on the global banking and finance systems.

The Treasury Department described the sanctions against Palestine Action as a “complement” to the U.K.’s ban on the group in 2025 under Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Human rights groups, including the UN, warned at the time that the U.K.’s designation of the group as a “terrorist” entity was an extremist act meant to chill dissent. The U.K.’s proscription is still being reviewed by the country’s Supreme Court under an appeal by the group’s co-founder, Huda Ammouri.
 

Related Story:



News Analysis

Prisons & Policing
The State’s War on the Left Didn’t Begin With Trump — But He’s Escalating It

Trump’s war on the left blends “war on terror” language with Cold War McCarthyism.

by Chip Gibbons
July 24, 2026
Truthout

“By banning a direct action protest group under terrorism legislation for the first time in British history, Keir Starmer’s government has created a blueprint for authoritarian governments around the world to suppress political dissent, and to criminalise British citizens who travel or live abroad,” said Ammouri, per The Guardian.

The Trump administration’s action is the newest assault in an all-of-government campaign to silence, dismantle, debank, and criminalize left-wing dissenters, as part of the fascist National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7) and anti-“political terrorism” initiatives that administration officials have accelerated in recent months. The administration has pledged to dismantle all left-wing groups under a wide-ranging definition of “criminal” speech that includes such broad categories as “anti-Americanism” and “anti-capitalism.”

“Far-left extremists, their fronts, and their enablers should be on notice: We will bring the full weight of our economic tools to bear,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in a statement. “Political terrorism has no place in our society, and we will continue to cut the financial lifelines of these groups until they are eliminated.”

There is not a formal mechanism to designate groups as “domestic terrorist organizations,” but the administration has been targeting international groups as a seeming work-around.

Indeed, the State Department claimed that Portland, Oregon-based anti-fascist group Rose City Antifa has ties to the Autistici/Inventati collective, supposedly using the group’s tools to “disseminate doxing lists and release illegally obtained personal information of Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”

Advocates for Palestinian rights decried the designations, saying that they are the latest attempt by the administration to silence anyone opposed to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The “clear goal” of the move is “targeting a few to silence the many,” said UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine Francesca Albanese.

“They’re desperately trying to destroy every effective movement against genocide to protect Israel,” said Palestinian journalist Abubaker Abed. “There’s no democracy in the West.”


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Sharon Zhang

Sharon Zhang is a news writer at Truthout covering international affairs, politics, and labor. She has a master’s degree in environmental studies. She can be found on Twitter and Bluesky.


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Op-Ed
War & Peace

 
We’re Half a Year Into Trump’s War on Iran. Congress Has Tools to End It.

The clash over whether the US has a functioning constitutional process for starting and ending wars is coming to a head.

by Hanieh Jodat
August 25, 2026 

Truthout

Two people embrace on the shoreline as ships are seen anchored in the Strait of Hormuz on August 10, 2026, off the coast of Bandar Abbas, Iran.Ali Saeedi / Getty Images

The U.S.-Israeli war on Iran is entering its seventh month after a series of attempts at diplomatic negotiations moderated by Pakistan and other countries in the region. The U.S has embroiled itself in a conflict without a clear exit strategy, and Iran has shown no interest in bending under President Donald Trump’s pressure. As Washington and Tehran continue this agonizing yo-yo of threats, the growing reported number of casualties feel heavy. More than 3,400 Iranians have reportedly been killed, while over 26,000 have been wounded, including at least 4,000 women and more than 1,600 children. On the American side, the Pentagon currently reports that 14 U.S. service members have been killed and more than 700 wounded. However, one Department of Defense (DOD) official accused the Pentagon of “an accounting trick” in order to misrepresent the true casualty figures.

By now it has become obvious that Benjamin Netanyahu played a key role in convincing Trump to start this war of choice, after decades of pushing the United States to attack Iran. In recent years, Israel’s lobby, in collaboration with opposition leaders from the Iranian diaspora — including the son of Iran’s late Shah Reza Pahlavi and his monarchist advisors — and a group of hawkish American officials pushed the U.S. to the brink of this war.

Until recently, those attempts were unsuccessful — that is, until they finally found a U.S. president who would risk a strategic disaster and economic collapse for one of the most quickly unpopular wars in U.S. history. But after half a year of war, the question is no longer how we arrived at this war, but more so how Congress might limit the executive branch and force an end to the military hostilities.

Poll after poll reveals that people in the U.S. are increasingly questioning the motivation and cost of the war. After decades of U.S. military interventions across the Middle East and West Asia that have cost trillions of dollars without any sign of success, Americans have expressed their exhaustion with the financial and human toll of another conflict. A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in late July found that only 33 percent of people in the U.S. supported the war with Iran, the lowest level of support measured since the conflict began. Sixty-nine percent said President Trump had failed to explain the objectives of the military operation in Iran clearly.

Diplomacy and negotiations between the U.S. and Iran have repeatedly faltered since Trump entered office for the first time and pulled out of a landmark nuclear deal engineered by the Obama administration. The possibility of a lasting political settlement remains buried beneath the weight of the bombs dropped on civilians, sanctions, military threats, and political calculation. And the consequences of the war of choice with Iran are not confined to the Middle East. Rising food and energy prices, inflation, regular attacks on U.S. bases with an unknown number of U.S. casualties, and the uncertainty over the war’s future have shifted the way both Americans and the rest of the world view U.S. recklessness. And the frustration has only gotten worse; by August, roughly two-thirds of people in the U.S. opposed the war outright, according to Reuters polling.

August 3, 2026

The question now is whether the United States has a functioning and democratic constitutional process for deciding when a war begins, how long it continues, and when it ends.

In the face of clear American opposition to the war, the question now is whether the United States has a functioning and democratic constitutional process for deciding when a war begins, how long it continues, and when it ends.

While Trump and his war cabinet have swung back and forth between the promise of diplomacy and peace or the threats of further military escalation, Congress has unsuccessfully attempted several times to reassert its constitutional authority. Only Congress has the power to declare war, and the 1973 War Powers Resolution gives the president a 60-day clock to terminate hostilities without congressional approval. The president has now blown through that deadline — bringing about several constitutional questions for lawmakers.
 

An Ever-Expanding War

Once the U.S. and Israeli military hostilities began in February, Iran retaliated with missile and drone strikes. The conflict quickly spread beyond the battlefield the U.S. and Israel likely imagined as the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important maritime corridors, became central to the war. The U.S. imposed a blockade as Iran restricted shipping through the waterway. The conflict drew Gulf states and other regional power brokers deeper into the conflict by threatening energy markets. What was originally framed by Trump and Netanyahu as a military campaign against Iran alone now became a broader regional conflict, with consequences that continue to reach far beyond Iran’s borders. The cost of the war and the Trump administration’s failure to articulate or achieve political objectives forced the United States back to the negotiating table.

In June, with Pakistan serving as the facilitator, Washington and Tehran reached an interim agreement intended to halt military operations and establish a framework for negotiating a broader settlement. The agreement addressed the nuclear dispute, the Strait of Hormuz, sanctions, and other issues at the center of U.S.-Iranian hostilities. But the agreement was temporary, and its 60-day deadline expired in August without a long-term settlement. The two governments now offer fundamentally different accounts of why the agreement collapsed.

The 1973 War Powers Resolution gives the president a 60-day clock to terminate hostilities without congressional approval. The president has now blown through that deadline.

Washington demanded that the Strait of Hormuz be reopened and argued that Iran had failed to fulfill its commitments. Tehran argued that the United States had failed to uphold its own obligations, including easing sanctions, releasing Iranian assets, lifting the blockade, and respecting the terms of the interim agreement, which now include Iran’s insistence on authority over the Strait. Iran has said the Strait will remain closed until the United States meets those conditions.

The costs of the Israel-U.S. war have been steep for the U.S. military in terms of both destruction of its bases in the region and the amount spent on dwindling munitions, without even taking into account the strategic embarrassment. Negotiations may look bleak, but they are necessary. And this is where serious discussion about war powers begins.

 
Congress’s Role During the War

The constitutional confrontation began almost immediately after the war began.

The Trump administration submitted a report to Congress under the War Powers Resolution in early March. As congressional records from that time acknowledge, Congress had neither declared war against Iran nor established a specific Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) authorizing the hostilities.

To halt further military action, members of Congress introduced resolutions invoking the War Powers Resolution and called for the removal of U.S. forces from unauthorized hostilities against Iran. One House resolution explicitly stated that Congress had neither declared war nor provided a specific statutory authorization for the conflict.

The Trump administration, however, has used a dubious legal argument to suggest that the president possesses independent constitutional authority under Article II to use military force to defend the United States and its forces. Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the U.S. military operations against Iran and explicitly invoked Trump’s Article II authority. Rubio argued that the president, as commander in chief, has constitutional authority to enter a war without congressional approval.

That disagreement lays the foundation for the current constitutional crisis.

After all, the War Powers Resolution was designed to give Congress a mechanism to restrict presidential military action when U.S. forces are placed in harm’s way without congressional authorization. But when the existence of the law does not, by itself, resolve the larger constitutional dispute over the scope of presidential power, what else can Congress do?

 
A Path Forward Beyond More War Powers Resolutions

Congress can strengthen congressional oversight over the war by requiring mandatory reporting, conducting investigations, and using the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to audit the executive branch. How can Congress exercise its war powers if it doesn’t know what the Trump administration seeks to do?

Congress can strengthen congressional oversight over the war by requiring mandatory reporting, conducting investigations, and using the Government Accountability Office to audit the executive branch.

In the past, the Government Accountability Office has examined the Department of Defense’s use of war-related appropriations and requested additional reporting on funding costs. GAO found that during the post-9/11 wars there were significant shortfalls and problems with DOD’s cost reporting, which led the GAO to request that Congress expand its requirements and assessments of the adequacy of war spending and address the gaps. Neither the Department of Defense nor Congress could reliably determine how much the war cost the country or how the appropriated funds were being used.

Congress can also condition appropriations — this is the strongest alternative to a War Powers Resolution. Congress controls federal spending and has the power to pass appropriations legislation specifying what military activities particular funds may or may not support. This creates a much more concrete mechanism than a symbolic resolution that attempts to curtail Trump’s actions, which have already flouted the law. For critics who challenge whether or not this approach limits military spending — which is already inflated — the answer is that Congress can actually fund the military without funding any operation the president chooses to undertake. For example, Congress could allocate money for protection of all U.S. bases and personnel; for force protection; for missile interceptors; for medical capabilities and evacuation; and for replacement of munitions and replenishment of stockpiles while simultaneously restricting funds for offensive operations.

Congress can also establish statutory conditions controlling the continuation of military operations by enacting legislation that requires congressional authorization for continued offensive hostilities. For example, Congress could enact legislation providing that appropriated funds may not be used for specified offensive hostilities against Iran unless Congress enacts a specific AUMF.

Congress could also implement restrictions directly through the National Defense Authorization Act, which can establish mandatory reporting requirements concerning military operations and costs, restrict transfer of military resources, require congressional notification before a specific operation, and prohibit particular military activities.

Additionally, Congress can also exercise its power over U.S. arms transfers and military assistance to Israel. Under the Arms Export Control Act and related foreign-assistance laws, Congress has a role in reviewing proposed arms sales and can pass legislation to prohibit or modify a proposed transfer. The Trump administration has approved billions of dollars in military sales to Israel. When Republican Congressman Thomas Massie introduced what became known as the “Massie Amendment,” which sought to cut 3.3 billion in annual military funding to Israel, the amendment was defeated 314 to 104.

Congress can also use the power of the purse to force negotiations by using appropriations to condition continued funds for certain offensive operations on requirements such as compliance with a ceasefire, submission of a diplomatic or military strategy, or congressional authorization. Congress has the power to decide how appropriated funds may be used and impose statutory conditions on their expenditure.

Lastly, Congress has the constitutional power to impeach the president. Potential grounds for impeaching the president over his conduct and starting an unpopular war could be abuse of executive power, misuse of military authority, defiance of federal law, concealing or misleading Congress by withholding information, and usurpation of Congress’s war powers by knowingly continuing hostilities toward Iran despite congressional restrictions. The House can impeach a president by a majority vote, which leads to the Senate conducting a trial that could remove the president by a two-thirds vote.

This step might just be one of the most complicated, with the U.S. House and Senate being controlled by the Republicans. Indeed, all of these require congressional majorities to pass. With the war’s continued unpopularity, though, it’s important to put members of Congress on the record about both their support of the war as well as the funding of it. And ahead of the upcoming midterm elections, it’s crucial to put forward ideas that a new Congress could adopt immediately to constrain Trump’s illegal military actions wherever they occur. It will take movements pushing these demands forward to make them a reality.

Beyond the halls of Congress, beyond appropriations, resolutions, and arguments over who upholds the Constitution and who does not, there is a psychological and human cost to this war. In Iran, decades of sanctions and economic hardship, combined with the fear of another war expanding within the country, have enacted countless harms on the lives of innocent people. For those living abroad, the terror of not knowing whether their loved ones are safe has painted a stark picture of what war means. In the United States, the costs, while less dire, manifest differently: higher grocery prices, a lack of social programs, military casualties, and rising gas prices place the burden of this war on Americans who pay for it. Two sets of people, separated by borders and politics, live under the shadow of the same conflict. And while governments debate strategy and national interest behind closed doors, ordinary people carry the weight of a war they had no say in entering. Perhaps this is the moral question Congress must confront above all else: not simply its obligation to uphold the Constitution, but whether it dares to end the war before another generation is asked to pay its price.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Hanieh Jodat

Hanieh Jodat is a political strategist and a key strategist with Defuse Nuclear War, an initiative of RootsAction. She also serves as the Chair of Progressive Democrats of America – Middle East Alliances, focusing on fostering dialogue and progressive policies on critical global issues.

 
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https://truthout.org/articles/backlash-against-anti-racism-is-a-constant-force-shaping-us-politics/

Interview
Racial Justice

 
Backlash Against Anti-Racism Is a Constant Force Shaping US Politics

Philosopher George Yancy analyzes the contemporary expression of what W.E.B. Du Bois called the “entrails of whiteness.”

by Josh Friedberg
August 26, 2026
Truthout

 

Blank walls and empty brackets mark the spots where National Park signs memorializing historical facts about slavery were once mounted, before they were removed by the Trump administration, March 14, 2026, at the Independence National Historical Park in downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Andrew Lichtenstein / Corbis via Getty Images

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In the United States, the presidential administration is actively working to erase past gains in civil rights and environmental justice. This tendency is manifesting in many ways, including curtailing voting rights, whitewashing U.S. history teaching materials, and rolling back social services that disproportionately affect people of color. In this context, one of the most important books I’ve read from the last decade is George Yancy’s Backlash: What Happens When We Talk Honestly About Racism in America. I strongly believe that every white person needs to read and reckon with the ideas in Yancy’s book. Backlash is a tougher but more necessary book than most popular books on race, especially in the context of 2026 being the 250th anniversary of the United States’ independence. At a time when many cling to the myth of this nation as fair and equal while white supremacy continues to dominate national and global politics, Backlash is a stern yet compassionate reminder of the importance of defining racism in terms of power. Within this context, I conducted this exclusive interview with George Yancy, who is the Samuel Candler Dobbs professor of philosophy at Emory University, a frequent contributor to Truthout, and the author, editor, and coeditor of over 25 books.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Josh Friedberg: Let’s start with the letter you wrote in 2015, “Dear White America.” What motivated you to write it?

George Yancy: In terms of context, the letter itself was my essay contribution to a series of popular interviews that I conducted with philosophers on race for The New York Times philosophy series, “The Stone.” The motivation had to do with the desire to find a critical discursive format for addressing the issue of whiteness. How does one speak to white people about something that is so familiar to them, like water is to fish, so normative and yet opaque, and thereby invisible? Indeed, how does one deploy a mode of address that attempts to speak the truth about their whiteness without resulting in forms of irrational defensiveness on their part? I wanted to communicate something about whiteness that critiqued its normative structure and how it falsely equates itself with humanity per se.

In his book Performing Purity (2003), whiteness scholar John T. Warren argues that “like layers of sand constituting a rock, the repeated enactments of [white] identity become sedimented and seemingly fixed, as if they had always been there.” I wanted to communicate to white people that their identity as white — along with the tropes of whiteness as “superior,” “virtuous,” and “pure” — was historically constructed, and that it is through their complicity that whiteness is sustained as a process of racial privilege, domination, and oppression. And I wanted them to own this hard truth. I thought that through my own show of vulnerability — where I talk honestly about my own sexism — I could perhaps touch the souls of white readers. I wanted to get them to use my capacity to expose my own complicity with sexism as a bridge that encouraged their own capacity to be honest about their whiteness and its link to anti-Blackness.

 
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Interview
Racial Justice

 
Trump Relies on Centuries-Old Notions of Whiteness to Activate His MAGA Base

Whiteness is baked into the US’s DNA. Can it be structurally dismantled?

by George Yancy
April 4, 2026 

Truthout

I saw the letter as one grounded in love. Like James Baldwin, I wanted to demonstrate a form of love “not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.” I was asking for nothing short of self-confrontation. As you know, the invitation was met with hatred and denial. I was called by the n-word more times than I would like to remember. Being called that word, and so many other despicable words, lends credence to my pessimism vis-à-vis white America’s honesty with itself and its history of anti-Black violence. Like W. E. B. Du Bois, I possess “a hope not hopeless, but unhopeful.”

You later wrote a book titled Backlash about the responses you received to your letter. In my blog, I related your book to America 250 and our current incarnation of white supremacy in the U.S. Do you think Donald Trump’s presidency has affected the presence of racism in the U.S.? In other words, is racism worse with him in office or is it more of the “same old, same old?”

Writing Backlash was cathartic for me. I’ve been told that the book is hard to read — not because of its philosophical jargon, but because I don’t withhold sharing the raw vitriol that was directed at me by so many white readers. The responses were vile projections spewed from the historical formation of the white imagination — an imagination imbued with myths of “white purity.” Racialized xenophobia and white fear and resentment were unambiguous:

“He should f*** off to Africa if he doesn’t like living in a white country.”

“You’re going back to Africaaaaaa!”

“Deport him to Africa to ponder racism there.”

The irony is that I never asked white people to bring me here, to take me from Africa, to enslave me, to brutalize me, to lynch me, to make me the object of white anti-Black fantasies and desires. It was never about me, about Black people. It was about whiteness and the historical fact that white people created a fictionalized conception of Blackness to conceal their own lack. Whiteness is a structural lie that underwrites and perpetuates its delusions of ontological supremacy.

Linking Backlash to the U.S.’s 250th birthday and to Donald Trump’s presidency (2.0) is important as neither one speaks to the eradication of the toxicity of whiteness. This country’s founding is predicated on the genocide of Indigenous peoples and the denigration of Black people. Those realities speak to the ontological binary structure of whiteness. In short, whiteness creates conditions of ontological apartheid.

For me, whiteness is not anti-Black or racially xenophobic because it has gone awry; whiteness is anti-Black because its very being is anti-Black; this is how it thrives. Racism is not “worse” because of Trump. He is just its latest manifestation, the latest conduit through which the ugliness of white supremacy expresses itself shamelessly. The U.S. is either a white supremacist state, or it isn’t. There is no in-between.

For Black people, this doesn’t mean that juridically there has not been any progress. But what is juridical progress when one remains part of a white state — that reinforces collective white psychic life — that needs you to remain abject? Let’s face it. Trump’s white nationalist xenophobia and anti-Blackness — from his discourse about Black “shithole countries,” to his expressed desire for the U.S. to accept more immigrants from Norway, to his false claim that there is genocide against white South Africans, and to his claim that Haitian immigrants are eating the cats and dogs of their neighbors — is unashamed. I can easily imagine Trump saying to me: If Yancy doesn’t like America, which is the greatest country the likes of which we’ve never seen before, then he should take his woke and radical left ideas to one of those shithole countries. In short, for me, contemporary white supremacy is more of the same old, same old.

Something that struck me in your book was your compassion and empathy, as well as tough-mindedness, for whites, as you acknowledged your own sexism as a man. You see racism as being about power and privilege, not value — your approach is not,“This person is a racist and is therefore a bad person.” Can you expand on that, addressing the tension between the compassion and the toughness in your writing?

Sure. My position is grounded in the prophetic love of James Baldwin when it comes to critiquing whiteness. This doesn’t mean that I love white people because of their whiteness. That is part of the lie and seduction of whiteness, that somehow BIPOC people are expected to love whiteness, its symbolism, its aesthetics, its tropes of “greatness.” I refuse to be a consumer of that poison, to wear a white mask and forget the fact that I’m seen as a “problem” by the white state. That seduction — that act of mask-wearing — can cost me my life.

Baldwin didn’t forget that he was Black. Rather, he resisted the derogatory definitions that white people imposed upon him. So, I would say that the compassion or empathy that you’re talking about is, for me, a manifestation of Baldwinian love that will, as he says in The Fire Next Time, “force [white people] to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it.” That is Socratic to the core. When white people begin to truly interrogate their whiteness, this will place them within a state of danger. Why danger? Because this will or should generate a powerful form of disenchantment with themselves and the world that has come to accept the lie that whiteness is innocent.

I have had BIPOC students ask me, “Why do you spend so much time talking to white people about their whiteness, when you should be talking to Black people and people of color?” Well, I can do both. More importantly, I talk to white people — I place the ethical burden upon them — because they must take responsibility for the violence of whiteness and its structural binary, its us-versus-them mentality. To get white people to face the lie of their white innocence is to — perhaps — save the lives of Black people.

Also, I would add that it is too easy to say that to be racist is to be a bad person, but white people must, because of their complicity with white supremacy, carry the weight of how their whiteness denigrates me and how they are thereby positioned within a network of social relations that holds them collectively responsible. In this way, white people don’t escape the unethical dimensions of whiteness.

With the current controversies around ethnic studies and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), how do you think the ideas in Backlash have held up since its publication? Is there anything you would change or add to them now?

I think that Backlash captured the unmitigated aspirations that white people possess when it comes to desiring “white purity” and evading the reality of structural white anti-Blackness. Hence, since its publication, I’m reminded that whiteness will do anything to survive, especially through the deployment of the social, political, and existential chimera of being a target of “anti-white racism.”

In his book Ethnic Studies at the Crossroads (2026), George Lipsitz — writing about the fiction of reverse racism — writes: “Once affirmative action was invalidated by the Supreme Court and [critical race theory] lost its luster as privileged villain, it quickly became supplanted by opposition to DEI programs. Beneath the surface, this succession of moral panics about an imaginary ‘reverse racism’ entails opposition to the project of ethnic studies and indeed to any visible manifestation of larger antiracist social formations.” Lipsitz goes on to mark the difference between what I would call a form of political patchwork vis-à-vis racism as opposed to something far more substantive: “It is not that nothing ever changes in history, but that when it comes to racism the changes are often more cosmetic than substantive. W.E.B. Du Bois compared white supremacy in the U.S. to a crack in a plate that was once broken but had been patched up. Whenever the plate was dropped again, it broke along the lines of the patched-up crack because the weakness was structural, not surface.” If I was to add anything different, I would make explicit the insights of historian Jeanelle K. Hope regarding the historical and contemporary ways in which U.S. whiteness and U.S. fascism are inextricably linked.

Does your work in Backlash relate to any current or upcoming projects you are working on? Are there any parts of it that you’d like to see other thinkers and scholars reckon with?

I am currently editing a book under contract with Temple University Press that explores how Black and white philosophers and public intellectuals interpret James Baldwin’s view that white America invented the N*****. So, I continue to explore and expose what W.E.B. Du Bois, in “The Souls of White Folk,” called the entrails of whiteness. In terms of other scholars, I would especially like to see more white philosophers come to terms with their structural positionality as white and how their whiteness manifests as anti-Black. Perhaps how I write — bringing the pain and suffering close — might inspire that kind of deep psychic work, the work of lived experience, that is courageous and honest without resulting in white “innocence” framing race/racism as a distant conceptual object, buried in arcane philosophical works written by Anglo-American and European philosophers of the past.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Josh Friedberg

 

Josh Friedberg is an author, TEDx speaker, storyteller, and music historian. He has over 100 articles published, including as a staff writer at the web magazine PopMatters. He has won many awards from Illinois and national communications contests since 2017. He holds a master’s degree in English from Northeastern Illinois University and lives in Chicago, where he tutors college students in writing.