Dear Progressive Reader,

Former President Donald Trump has been convicted on all thirty-four counts in the New York State “hush money” trial. Trump’s sentencing is set for July 11, just days before Republicans gather in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to presumably nominate him as their candidate for President in the November 2024 elections. If Trump is sentenced to prison, he could begin serving his term immediately, thereby potentially missing his own nomination party. If he is in prison in November, he could also by barred by the laws of his home state of Florida from voting (for himself or anyone else), although Governor Ron DeSantis said on Friday that he would make sure Trump could still cast a ballot in his state. This is an unusual twist since, as investigative reporter Greg Palast has noted for years, even having the same name as a convicted felon can often get you purged from Florida’s voting roles—if you also happen to be Black.

Meanwhile, elections are currently under way in a number of countries around the world, including India (the world’s most populous democracy), Mexico, and South Africa, and in the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, in Latin America, as Jeff Abbott reports, many authoritarians are anxiously anticipating a Trump victory in November and the boost it could give their movements. And as Zach D. Roberts depicts in a photo essay from a Trump rally in the Bronx, just one week before the New York verdict, the “convict-in-chief” can still command large crowds.

Elsewhere on our website this week, Tim Brinkhof looks back at the television program All in the Family and the ways it reshaped America; Christian Thorsberg examines the water crisis in New Mexico; and Arvind Dilwar remembers the life and activism of H. Bruce Franklin who passed away earlier this month. Plus Eleanor J. Bader reviews a new book asking if education can solve poverty; and social movement scholar Atef Said pens an op-ed on why the student encampments on college campuses are indeed winning.

Finally, May 30 marked the eighty-seventh anniversary of the police massacre of demonstrators at Republic Steel in Chicago, Illinois. The killings sparked Congressional hearings led by Wisconsin Senator Robert M. La Follette, Jr. The committee’s final report read: “We conclude that the consequences of the Memorial Day encounter were clearly avoidable by the police. The action of the responsible authorities in setting the seal of their approval upon the conduct of the police not only fails to place responsibility where responsibility properly belongs but will invite the repetition of similar incidents in the future.”

This month, a new documentary film by Yance Ford looks at the role of policing in suppressing labor struggles, civil rights demonstrations, campus protests, and individuals. Ed Rampell reviews Power, now streaming on Netflix, and notes, “Power cuts through the veil of ‘copaganda’ to expose the true purpose of policing, which began before the United States was even established as a nation. . . . This powerful documentary asks the audience, where are we now, four years after [George] Floyd’s murder?”

Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.

Sincerely,

Norman Stockwell
Publisher

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