The Power of the Poor in Trump’s America
Tom Dispatch
by Liz Theoharis and Noam Sandweiss-Back
April 15, 2025
The day after Donald Trump won the 2024 election, the 10 richest people in the world — including nine Americans — expanded their wealth by nearly $64 billion, the greatest single-day increase in recorded history. Since then, an unholy marriage of billionaire investors, tech bros, Christian nationalists, and, of course, Donald Trump has staged an oligarchic assault on our democracy.
A Battle of Theologies in the Age of Trump
Tom Dispatch
By Liz Theoharis
March 2, 2025
“There has almost always been an outright hostility that is shown towards people of the Christian faith,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said on a podcast recently. He was talking with Tony Perkins, a former Louisiana lawmaker and president of the Family Research Council, about freedom of religion and the actions of the second Trump administration.
Building a Movement for Social Justice in a Time of Peril
Tom Dispatch
By Liz Theoharis & William D. Hartung
January 23, 2025
With the return of Donald Trump to the White House, advocates for peace, social justice, racial and economic equality, fair immigration policies, climate renewal, trans rights, and other movements for change are bracing for hard times. The new administration will be doggedly opposed to so many of the values we hold dear, as well as programs that have helped keep millions of Americans above the poverty line.
How to Survive Donald Trump’s America
Tom Dispatch
By Liz Theoharis & Shailly Gupta Barnes
November 24, 2024
“If they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?” (Luke 23:31)
Before November 5th, millions of us were already struggling with poverty, extreme storms, immigration nightmares, anti-trans bills, criminalized reproductive health, the demolition of homeless encampments, the silencing of freedom of speech on campuses… and, of course, the list only goes on and on.
Looking for Hope in Hard Places and Hard Times
Tom Dispatch
By Liz Theoharis
October 17, 2024
It was William Shakespeare who, in Troilus and Cressida, wrote, “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” And yet, in the polarized news cycle since Hurricane Helene ravaged the southeastern United States and the hurricanes have kept coming, we’ve heard a tale not of shared humanity, but of ruin, discord, and political polarization.
The Homeless Crisis in America
Tom Dispatch
By Cedar Monroe and Liz Theoharis
September 8, 2024
In 2019, a group of homeless folks were living on a deserted piece of land along the Chehalis River, a drainage basin that empties into Grays Harbor, an estuary of the Pacific Ocean, on the coast of the state of Washington. When the city of Aberdeen ordered the homeless encampment cleared out, some of those unhoused residents took the city to court, because they had nowhere else to go. Aberdeen finally settled the case by agreeing to provide alternative shelter for the residents since, the year before, a U.S. court of appeals had ruled in the case of Martin v. Boise that a city without sufficient shelter beds to accommodate homeless people encamped in their area couldn’t close the encampment.
A New Pax Romana
Tom Dispatch
By Liz Theoharis and Shailly Gupta Barnes
July 28, 2024
Roman poet Juvenal coined the phrase “bread and circuses” nearly 2,000 years ago for the extravagant entertainment the Roman Empire used to distract attention from imperial policies that caused widespread discontent. Imagine the lavish banquets, gladiatorial bouts, use and abuse of young men and women for the pleasure of the rich, and so much more that characterized the later years of that empire. And none of it seems that far off from the situation we, in these increasingly dis-United States, find ourselves in today.
The Moral Response to Homelessness
By Liz Theoharis and Shailly Gupta Barnes
May 21, 2024
On April 22nd, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments for Grants Pass v. Johnson, a case that focuses on whether unhoused — the term that has generally replaced “homeless” — people with no indoor shelter options can even pull a blanket around themselves outdoors without being subject to criminal punishment.
The Failing Battle for Health and Healthcare in These All Too Disunited States
Tom Dispatch
By Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis
March 10, 2024
The slang definition of “unwinding” means “to chill.” Other definitions include: to relax, disentangle, undo — all words that, on the surface, appear both passive and peaceful. And yet in Google searches involving such seemingly harmless definitions of decompressing and resting, news articles abound about the end of pandemic-era Medicaid expansion programs — a topic that, for the millions of people now without healthcare insurance, is anything but relaxing.
The Powerful and Visionary Leadership of Young Activists Is Crucial in These Times
Tom Dispatch
By Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis
January 18, 2024
“All Americans owe them a debt for — if nothing else — releasing the idealism locked so long inside a nation that has not recently tasted the drama of a social upheaval. And for making us look on the young people of the country with a new respect.” That’s how Howard Zinn opened his book The New Abolitionists about the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee of the 1960s.
