News of the Week, Plus More

Our News Editor Team for the week:

Jesse Crawford, Bill Fletcher Jr., Mike Klonsky

Meizhu Lui, Harry Targ, Janet Tucker, Susan Weiss

MAGA Depravity: Vivek Ramaswamy’s

Vile Attack Ad Is Trumpism in a Nutshell

By Matt Ford

The New Republic

Oct 22, 2026 - The Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate’s ad against Amy Acton is disqualifying. It’s also precisely what you would expect from a MAGA regime that protects abusers.

President Donald Trump won Ohio by 11 points in 2024. Vivek Ramaswamy, the GOP’s candidate for governor in the Buckeye State, was trailing his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton, by seven points in a Marist poll released yesterday. Ramaswamy now hopes to revive his campaign in the most morally depraved way imaginable: by siding with the man who raped his opponent when she was 12 years old.

Ramaswamy’s campaign admitted this week that it was behind a grotesque attack ad targeting Acton that featured Donna Arthur, her mother. In the ad, Arthur calls her daughter a liar and tells voters not to vote for her in the upcoming election. “Don’t let her become your governor,” Arthur says. “If you think she’ll make your life better, you’re fooling yourself. It will only get worse.”

What the ad does not mention is that Acton is estranged from her mother and has not spoken to her since Arthur lost custody of her children in the late 1970s. Acton accused her mother’s husband, Cledith Arthur, of abusing her as a child, in 1978. Acton’s father reported it to the police, who found it credible—the man had faced prior allegations before—and a local prosecutor brought criminal charges against him.

Before he could be brought to trial, Cledith fled town. Donna Arthur sided with Cledith over her own daughter. She lost custody of her children and remained married to him until his death in 2004. Acton told the Youngstown Vindicator in 2019 that she had last seen her mother in the courthouse after he was charged. “I went to give her a kiss, and she just turned her cheek away,” Acton said. “That was the last time I ever saw her.”

A copy of the Ramaswamy ad circulated without the usual disclaimer language from a candidate, raising initial questions about who was responsible for it. The ad drew a furious response from Phillip Stearns, Acton’s brother, who denounced Ramaswamy and his mother in a statement. “After he was arrested and Amy and I were removed from their custody, our birth mother stayed married to Amy’s rapist until he died,” he said. “This desperate, disgusting attack reveals exactly who Vivek Ramaswamy is at his core—a pathetic excuse for a man who is willing to hurt anyone as long as it gets him what he wants.”

Ramaswamy has previously mocked the abuse that Acton experienced. At one rally, he told voters that as Ohio’s governor, he would “lay out a positive vision for our state, versus a governor who has none at all other than to complain about what someone else did to her.” His campaign initially demurred on whether it was connected to the Donna Arthur ad, out of cowardice, only to admit it was responsible and double down by committing $4 million to broadcast it.

“We don’t know what happened between Amy and her mother, who first spoke out about Amy in 2020, but we know that Amy Acton is a serial fabulist who has some serious problems with the truth that the public needs to be aware of before deciding who to entrust as governor,” Ramaswamy campaign spokesperson Connie Luck told reporters before the campaign acknowledged it was behind the ad.

Ramaswamy’s ad is morally reprehensible and electorally disqualifying. It demonstrates utter contempt for survivors of sexual abuse and domestic violence. It is also unsurprising. Protecting abusers is an organizing principle of Donald Trump’s Republican Party.

Ten years ago this month, The Washington Post released a 2005 video of then-candidate Donald Trump bragging to an Access Hollywood host about his penchant for trying to have sex with married women and sexually assaulting them.

“I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her,” Trump said in the clip. “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.” The footage led to widespread condemnation and multiple calls for him to drop out of the race. Trump instead defended the comments as “locker room talk,” then, a few days later, brought women who had previously accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct to his second presidential debate with Hillary Clinton.

To support Trump’s political career is to be comfortable with his abuses. Roughly two dozen women have alleged that Trump harassed or assaulted them over the last four decades. He has never been charged with a crime for these allegations, and he has disputed or denied all of the allegations over the years. E. Jean Carroll, who said in 2019 that Trump had raped her in the mid-1990s in a Manhattan department store, was awarded $5 million by a New York jury after she sued Trump for defamation after he said she was “totally lying.”

Trump cabinet members face allegations of sexual assault

Two members of Trump’s second-term Cabinet have faced allegations of domestic abuse and/or sexual assault. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth reportedly paid a woman $50,000 after she accused him of sexual assault in 2017. Republican senators threatened to vote against his confirmation over the allegations, only to bow to pressure from the White House and, in particular, Vice President JD Vance.

When a former nanny said Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had groped her in the 1990s, during his 2024 presidential campaign, he simply replied, “I am not a church boy.” The allegations barely factored into his confirmation process as secretary of health and human services last year; every Republican senator voted to confirm him except Mitch McConnell, who rejected Kennedy’s views on vaccines.

Trump even tried to install a third Cabinet member with a history of sexual misconduct allegations when he nominated former Florida Representative Matt Gaetz for attorney general. That nomination only failed because so many congressional Republicans found Gaetz to be personally loathsome. A wave of leaks followed about a then-impending House Ethics Committee report that, among other things, said Gaetz had paid a 17-year-old girl for sex when he was 35 years old. Gaetz withdrew his name from consideration the following week.

Then there’s Jeffrey Epstein. Trump had a long-standing friendship with the billionaire sex trafficker that persisted well after Epstein’s first encounter with federal prosecutors in the 2000s. (He died in federal custody in 2018 while awaiting trial on a second bout of charges.) Trump allies hoped to crack open the Epstein files in the Justice Department’s possession to implicate Democrats in a wide-ranging scheme of child sex trafficking. What they revealed instead was strong evidence that Trump was personally aware of Epstein’s activities, as well as some unverified allegations that he partook in them... ...Read More and Subscribe

Ilhan Omar SPEAKS OUT After Home Raid: ‘Their Goal Is To Intimidate’

MS NOW's Chris Hayes sits down for an exclusive interview with Rep. Ilhan Omar following the raid of her D.C. home. “I think ultimately their goal is to intimidate and like scare people from wanting to participate and vote,” says Omar.

Photo: Consiglieres —AG Blanche and Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) in The Godfather.

Blanche Is Trump’s Consigliere

When AG Blanche says, 'I work for the President,' Rep. Omar gets home raided in the middle of the night. What’s next? Protect the vote.

By Michael Klonsky

michaelklonsky.substack.com

Oct. 22, 2026 - American-style fascism looks to me more like a vast criminal enterprise (kleptocracy) than it does Germany’s Third Reich. It’s a blend of authoritarian criminal coercion and one of the most powerful mass‑ideological machines ever built. What Naomi Klein calls platform capitalism. Think ICE + Meta backed by the power of the president, the War Department, and the Supreme Court.

* * *

In that light, I’m listening to Attorney General Todd Blanche’s declaration that he “works for President Trump”, not us. He’s Trump’s consigliere, if you will. The Tom Hagen character in The Godfather is the archetype of the consigliere, the lawyer‑strategist whose loyalty is personal, not institutional.

Before becoming Attorney General, Blanche spent years as Donald Trump’s personal criminal defense lawyer, representing him in every major prosecution from 2023–2024. This included the New York hush‑money case, the federal classified‑documents case, and the federal election‑obstruction case.

I see a straight line between the predawn raid on Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home and Blanche’s declaration. You don’t need to squint to see it. You only need to take Blanche at his word.

The raid happened just before dawn, four days before early voting begins in Minnesota. Omar is on the ballot. Trump has continuously lashed out, not only at Omar, but at the entire Somali immigrant community in Minnesota. Omar is also one of Trump’s most frequent rhetorical targets, a fixture in his rallies, fundraising emails, and grievance repertoire. Federal law enforcement showed up at her door in the night, and Blanche tells the country that he does not serve the public, or the law, or the Constitution, but the president personally.

* * *

Now Blanche is warning us that he may challenge election certifications to block various states from certifying midterm election votes. He may even enlist the Supreme Court’s backing to tip the vote totals Trump’s way. Blanche said there could be some “doomsday” scenario in which the Justice Department would seek to get involved.

While private citizens and candidates can sue to challenge ballots or election results, no U.S. laws allow the Justice Department to challenge ballots or delay certification. State and local officials run U.S. elections and certify results.

But the consigliere knows how to get it done — law or no law. ...Read More and Subscribe

Student Uprising In France

An Interview With Basile Copin From La France Insoumise Youth

By Basile Copin 

Amandla! Collective

Basile Copin is a law student at Nanterre University and co-organizer of the “Jeunes Insoumis” (La France Insoumise Youth Group) of Pantin and Aubervilliers- Seine Saint Denis. 

October, 18, 202 - There are reports that this is a movement from below, originating in working-class high schools in the Paris suburbs. Is that correct? How did it start? What sparked it?

In Hexagonal [mainland] France, secondary-school students have been mobilizing since 18 September to protest against the lack of resources in the national education system, which prevents them from pursuing their studies properly and looking to the future with confidence. The first mobilization took place in Créteil, following a teachers’ strike at Saint-Exupéry secondary school. Very quickly, many other schools across the country followed suit, particularly in the poorest areas, such as Seine-Saint-Denis.

Protests had already broken out earlier in the overseas territories (Mayotte, French Guiana, the Antilles, etc.), but they had been ignored — there was no mention in the media, which now claims that the protests began in September. The erosion of the national education system, and of public services more generally, affects residents of the overseas territories more severely. They have less money to live on, problems accessing essential services such as water, inadequate infrastructure and greater social inequalities: unemployment is two to three times higher than in metropolitan France. They are also more severely affected by climate change. One of the main triggers is the increasing impoverishment of families living in areas that already lack the resources needed to guarantee decent living conditions.

How did it spread and become a national protest movement?

Through social media, many Parisian secondary schools joined the movement ‘in solidarity with the 93’. This refers to the department of Seine-Saint-Denis, a largely working-class area in the northeastern suburbs of Paris where blockades have been particularly widespread. The movement then spread throughout the country. Many other movements quickly expressed their support for the secondary-school students, beginning with university students, who had already mobilized at the start of the month to protest against the risk of universities being privatized.

In my view, media coverage and government repression raised awareness among some people who had traditionally shown little solidarity with young people from working-class neighborhoods. Many university campuses were closed, including institutions that have historically been reluctant to protest, such as the private Institut Catholique de Paris. Better-resourced Parisian secondary schools, including some private ones, also organized blockades. Public-sector trade unions, including those representing teachers and firefighters, also joined the movement. The firefighters had mobilized at the same time after having had to confront months of record summer heat and fires with ever fewer resources. Former prime minister Gabriel Attal had notably canceled an order for two new Canadair firefighting aircraft.

This is therefore an unprecedented mobilization, bringing together a wide range of people exasperated by the deterioration of French public services. A major Yellow Vests mobilization has also been called for 17 October.

What are the demands of the movement and are they evolving as the protest grows?

There are a wide range of demands, but most concern the underfunding of national education and public services, a consequence of the accelerating liberalisation of the country over several decades. Secondary schools have suffered funding cuts for several years. Urgent repairs cannot be carried out, particularly in the poorest areas on the outskirts of Paris. Buildings are poorly insulated (making indoor temperatures almost unbearable in summer and winter), and there are either not enough toilets, or they are not always available.

Where the uprisings began, secondary-school students are demanding the resources they need to study in decent conditions, particularly the effective replacement of teachers who are absent.

In the vast majority of secondary schools, most pupils are missing at least one teacher because of inadequate staffing. Even when teachers are absent for long periods (as much as several months), they are not replaced, except in the years leading up to examinations. Teachers are only recruited from within their own educational district, which means that sometimes there are fewer applicants than vacancies.

In Seine-Saint-Denis, a pupil loses an average of between 12 and 18 months of learning over the course of their schooling; that’s above the average for French pupils. Because of the increasing impoverishment of society, nearly one in four children have to skip at least one meal a day. School meals are supposed to be affordable, but the dilapidated state of schools in the suburbs makes these meals unfit to eat, with food sometimes contaminated by parasites or insects.

Access to water is also a very important demand because a considerable number of schools, especially in overseas territories, lack access to drinking water. Some schools are even contaminated, with faecal matter found in tap water. Finally, students are demanding decent premises: for example, many secondary schools and universities have mould in their buildings, which is extremely dangerous for respiratory health; cracked ceilings collapse onto pupils or staff; there are sometimes rats; and prefabricated classrooms intended as temporary solutions have remained in place for 20 years. University students are also demanding more affordable access to housing.

How is it organized? There are always challenges for such movements, with tension between horizontal and vertical forms of organizing. Is a form of national organization emerging or is this still a collection of local organizations?

What is notable about the emergence of this movement is that it was organized by the secondary-school students themselves. They organized independently and succeeded in coordinating their actions. Some, after ending their own blockade, went to support students at neighboring schools or in nearby towns.

This large-scale mobilization naturally drew organizations and trade unions into the struggle, while ensuring that they did not impose a top-down organizational structure. Social media also enabled young people throughout France to come together and create large-scale movements nationally, rather than limiting mobilization to the local level. For example, a call to ‘retake the Bastille’ emerged on social media, leading to one of the largest gatherings on Thursday 8 October. This is a reference to the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, during the French Revolution, commemorated on France’s national day.

There are some suggestions that this is broader than just about issues of schools; it is a mobilization also against the rise of the right – a youth response to that, in the light of elections coming next year. How far is that the case?

Beyond demands relating to education, the movement has also taken a stand against neoliberal and far-right policies. This is not surprising when one considers that the parties supporting President Macron have voted together with France’s largest far-right party, the Rassemblement National (RN), on as many as 86% of its measures in the National Assembly. Many slogans have been heard, including ‘Everybody hates the RN’, ‘Youth says fuck the National Front’ (the RN’s former name), and the Italian slogan ‘Siamo tutti antifascisti’ (‘We are all anti-fascists’), making clear that young people reject reactionary policies. Record youth participation is anticipated in the next presidential election, and nearly one young voter in two is considering voting for Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the candidate of France’s radical left.

There’s a lot of violence against the protestors, with reports of 215 students and 85 teachers badly injured. How are the students responding to this?

Unfortunately, the number of abuses committed against secondary-school students has increased dramatically since you asked your question. This unjustified violence has deepened the already widespread distrust of the police and other public institutions. Many elected representatives of La France Insoumise (LFI), the movement represented by Jean-Luc Mélenchon in presidential elections, have supported young people facing violence. They have even gone as far as to intervene directly against the police, as the mayor of Saint-Denis, Bally Bagayoko, did. He and other elected representatives have also been roughly treated by the police.

Reactions have varied: some young people are terrified of an institution that is supposed to protect them but instead chooses to repress them, while a whole section of the population is outraged. They include elected members of the radical left, but also parents, teachers and lawyers mobilizing to defend the children.

There are reports that university students, parents, and also workers are becoming mobilised. To what extent is this true?

Large numbers of activists, parents and workers have mobilized alongside the young people. Some have formed human chains in front of the pupils to act as a barrier against the security forces. This is very important: the mobilization has grown and is supported by a much broader section of the population than university and secondary-school students alone.

This unprecedented mobilization presents an opportunity to put intersectionality and the convergence of struggles and demands across society into practice, as people express concern about the country’s future. Although many elected representatives and trade unions are present alongside the young people, they leave the young people at the front of the demonstrations, to emphasize the desire for change expressed by Gen Z and those who are even younger.

We have heard that, unlike other youth uprisings (including ours here in 2015), political party representatives are being welcomed rather than being treated with suspicion as opportunists. Is that the case? If so, why?

Many movements and political parties have joined the movement, but it is important to distinguish between them on the basis of what they say and what they do. The vast majority of parties that have joined are on the Left or identified with the Left. But there are significant differences in how they act. On one side are movements such as La France Insoumise, whose elected representatives have put themselves on the front line to protect young protesters from police violence. This movement is committed to responding to secondary-school students’ demands and investing heavily in education. As a result, its representatives and activists are welcomed by secondary-school students and young people.

On the other side is a significant section of ‘social democracy’, represented in particular by the Socialist Party, which has long demonstrated that it is neither social nor democratic. Its elected representatives promise support for young people in struggle, but their record when in power paradoxically demonstrates the opposite. Former president François Hollande, from the Socialist Party, was responsible for the largest cuts to funding for French public schools (before Emmanuel Macron) and facilitated Macron’s rise to power by appointing him economy minister. The right and far right have not even deigned to pretend to listen to the young people, preferring to call them ‘thugs’ and ‘layabouts’ on television. There is therefore only one bulwark left against the destruction of public education in France, which is why the radical left enjoys so much support among young people today.

Of course, as activists from far away, as soon as we hear of a student uprising in France, we think of May 68. We are probably dreaming. To what extent is there any resemblance?

There are strong parallels with the events of May 1968. Although the current movement has not yet reached the scale of that uprising, it is one of the largest youth mobilizations since then. The French government has expressed fears about the movement continuing, and some people are describing the days ahead as ‘the return of the Yellow Vests’, the mass movement that brought the country to a standstill in 2018 and 2019, with a first mobilisation planned for 17 October

It is encouraging to see that France’s young people still recognise that the French people are revolutionary by nature and have always known how to rise up when those in power take away their rights. Today, Gen Z and those who follow must decide: would they prefer to continue with a neoliberal system that is preparing to put the far right in power in 2027? Or are they ready to break with the logic of dismantling public services by rebuilding a new, more egalitarian society through the creation of a Sixth Republic, as advocated by La France Insoumise and Jean-Luc Mélenchon? ...Read More and Subscribe

'Trump Is Our Bully'

Why some Americans can't quit the president

By Chauncey DeVega

Reuters

Oct 21, 2026 - The American people are preparing to vote in what will be one of the most important midterm elections in the country’s history.

Leading political analysts and pollsters predict that Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans are facing an electoral wipeout. They will likely lose control of the House — and perhaps even the Senate. Driving this is a collapse in support among Trump’s base voters who returned him to the White House in the 2024 Election.

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll puts Trump’s approval rating at a record low 31%.

But Trump has not lost all of his base.

Trump and the MAGA Republicans have inflicted a large amount of economic and material pain on the white working class and poor people in Appalachia and other rural parts of red-state America. Yet, many of these people still love him. Why?

Arlie Hochschild, professor emerita of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, has spent years exploring this question. She is the author of many books, including Strangers in Their Own Land and, most recently, Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right.

Emotional Capture

In this conversation, Hochschild warns that President Trump has “emotionally captured” many poor and working-class voters by speaking to their economic insecurity, resentment, wounded dignity and sense of lost honor. Drawing on her recent experiences in eastern Kentucky, she explores the forces behind Trump’s enduring appeal and what liberals and Democrats should do to break Trump’s hold over the region.

NBC News recently featured a harrowing, just an outright sad story, about a rural community in West Virginia that overwhelmingly voted for Trump but is now experiencing widespread hunger. People are literally starving because of his administration’s cuts to the social safety net and the MAGA Republicans’ “Big Beautiful Bill.” Help me understand how these people can continue to support a man who is actively hurting them?

For the last five years, I have been spending time in Kentucky's 5th congressional district. It's the second poorest and whitest congressional district in the country, and it used to support the New Deal Democrats. In the last three elections, it zinged to the right. 80% for Trump, 20% for Harris among those who voted. This is a region of loss.

You had coal jobs. They were tough jobs. They gave you black lung. You died early, but they were well paid in a one-industry region. Those jobs have left, and everybody knows they're really not coming back. Opiates have come in big time. Jobs out, opiates in. The rise of the right around the country has to do with a response to loss, and these guys have lost a lot.

In comes Donald Trump. I describe what he did as emotional capture.

Part one: someone comes from out of town, a type of magic man, and he makes an appeal for recognition. How did a billionaire of New York City make Appalachian unemployed coal miners feel recognized? You talk to loss. He talked about how terrible things are. He says things like how low down you are. You used to be proud, and now you're ashamed. You used to have a lot and make a contribution to the country, and now you're nothing.

The second is a persuasive narrative. I call it the narrative of stolen pride. Who took that pride? It didn't just go away. Someone stole it. Trump signals that he recognizes that it was stolen. I'll get it back with retribution, he says. Maybe someone else is responsible. Maybe it's the immigrants, people in the press, government workers.

The third thing is an anti-shaming ritual. Donald Trump says something outrageous. He says Haitian immigrants are eating people's pet cats and dogs. The pundits shame him. The comics and left-wing commentators have at him. Donald Trump becomes the victim of the shamers. “Look how they're shaming me. Don't you, my supporters, know what that feels like? You guys that used to be something. They are doing to me what they want to do to you!”

And here is Donald Trump's hidden Jesus moment: I will take the shame off of you. I take it onto myself. Welding yourself to me must feel good. I'm heavier. I have the burden that was once on you.

When the camera is not on them, and the mic is off, do these people really believe in Donald Trump?

No. I talked to people before the second term, and they'd say, "Oh, I know he's a liar and a bully, but he's good for us. Nobody else is here for us. Trump is our bully. I heard that a lot. Don't think I'm fooled. They are allergic to anything they perceive as left-wing — and they really hate that more than a lying, depriving, Republican president.

The sense I have now is that they don't think Trump is wonderful. Now I hear people who are depressed. The shine is off the magic man Trump. But the people who live in this part of Appalachia are stoics. They are used to being punished by life, and they're going into an "Okay, I can bear it" mode. There isn't switching gears, but there's a retreat, a type of depressive withdrawal, and they are prepared to be shamed for having voted for the guy that's making them miserable.

But the Democrats should not go there. Instead, they should say we have better ideas. There are real problems in your region, and we're devoted to taking them on. The Democrats have to look at themselves and make every alliance they can. The Democrats have been marginalized in this culture — and they are in danger of that marginalization becoming worse.

Under Trump’s second term, are things getting better or worse for the working-class and poor people in rural Appalachia and similar communities?

It is terrible. All the promises have not come through. Donald Trump has not brought back coal. He has not brought back well-paying jobs in other industries. Trump has not substantively addressed the opiate crisis. And of course, all of the cuts made by the “Big Beautiful Bill” have been especially lethal for people in Appalachia and other parts of rural America. Food stamps have been cut. This is a food-insecure region. So, they're in a hole.

I'm very interested in how individuals and communities cope with adversity and stress. What are you seeing in the churches, the community centers, and other places where people gather and socialize in this part of Appalachia? What are you sensing?

I think that Donald Trump has found fertile territory in the social deserts that loss and downward mobility have created. The Rotary Club meetings and small shops have been undercut by Amazon and Home Depot. There are lots of dollar stores and gas stations, but not many social gathering places. That has to be addressed and rebuilt.

Eight or nine months ago, I went back to Pike County for what the people in Stolen Pride called a “hollerlogue.” Some were for Trump, and some were very against him. I thought it was brilliant. People on the left, liberals who are living in cities and highly educated, have a lot to learn from these folks about how to talk across the political divide.

One guy who was very anti-Trump began by saying, “I think every child, whether they come from a poor family or a rich family, ought to be able to eat three meals a day.”

The Trump supporters agreed. But the anti-Trumper said, “Donald Trump is cutting food stamps, and we're the second-poorest area in the country, so I'm against Donald Trump.”

The Trump follower replied, “I thought he wasn’t cutting food. If you're able-bodied, you should be able to work 35 hours for that food. And I believe in work.”

“Look, I believe in work too,” the anti-Trumper said, “but a lot of people are caring for others who are ill, and some are mothers of small children who can't work. The jobs here only pay eight or nine dollars an hour. We all drive clunkers and live in the mountains. Once you spend money on gas you have lost money. How can you say you have to work for food stamps with no sustaining jobs?”

But it was all respectful. They would take breaks to reaffirm what they had in common. I thought it was a local model for something that should be happening nationally.

Under Trump, there's been the lateralization of resentment and hate, so that the middle class is fighting the middle class. Meanwhile, money and resources are being transferred from the poor to the rich. Divide and rule is preventing the kinds of alliances that the liberal left needs to rebuild in the absence of unions.

What would you say to liberals, progressives, Democrats, and others who, like me, are losing — or have lost — much of their empathy for the Trump supporters who are being hurt by the very policies and man they put back in the White House?

I would introduce you to people on the other side that you would like, and that you would feel are kind and who share your concerns. It doesn't take long to peel back some of this Trump-fostered hate. What it takes is recognizing them as human beings and remembering that these were Clinton Democrats. They were big New Dealers in this area. This area. Same people, same lineage, same family. They are emotionally captured by Trump.

In whose interest is it to divide and rule? It's in the interest of Donald Trump. It is not in our interests as progressives and liberals and Democrats to divide rural from urban, poor from middle class, college-educated and those who are less formally educated. We're playing into Trump's hands the more we divide and separate. We're digging our own graves in this way without reaching out. ...Read More and Subscribe

Chauncey DeVega is a politics and opinion writer whose work considers American democracy, inequality, political power, and the enduring significance of race in American society and the wider world. He was formerly a senior politics writer at Salon. His essays and commentary have been cited by The New York Times, The Washington Post, the BBC, NPR, The Atlantic, and other leading publications. He hosts two podcasts: The Chauncey DeVega Show and The Truth Report.

OUR WEEKLY ICE ROUNDUP... Edited by Susan Weiss (right).

Photo ABOVE:  Via Truthout: A protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities on October 9, 2026 in New York City. New Yorkers took to the streets a day after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent shot a 28-year-old man, 

Oscar Belgal, in the Marble Hill neighborhood of the Bronx. Stephanie Keith / Getty Images Oscar Belgal, the 28-year-old Dominican man shot by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in New York City last Thursday, has not received surgery to remove a bullet lodged in his neck for over a week.

Lawyers for Oscar Belgal have called for his immediate release, citing inadequate care.

On Wednesday, the Legal Aid Society, which is representing Belgal, filed a habeas corpus petition decrying ICE’s “flagrant abuses of authority and categorically lawless conduct.”

Video Below: Video of masked ICE arrest in San Francisco sparks outrage

ABC7 News Bay Area: An immigration arrest of a San Francisco man caught on camera is fueling protests, calls for expanded legal aid and renewed debate over federal enforcement tactics.

Photo: Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., walks through the Senate Reception Room to vote in the Senate chamber in the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, September 29, 2026. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) Secures $97.1M

for 10 Historically Black Colleges and Universities

Funds Will Put Black STEM Talent in Focus

By Ann Brown

Finurah.com

Oct 14, 2026 - Sen. Raphael Warnock announced that he is securing nearly $100 million in federal funding for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs at 10 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The investment is expected to expand research opportunities and support the next generation of scientists and engineers.

Supporting HBCUs

The Georgia Democrat and Morehouse College graduate announced the $97.1 million award through the Department of Defense’s HBCU and Minority-Serving Institution program. The funding will support research initiatives and strengthen institutional capabilities as participating schools work toward achieving Research 1 (R1) status, the highest classification for research activity among U.S. colleges and universities.

“For too long, HBCUs have gone unrecognized for their contributions to our nation’s leading STEM industry,” Warnock said. “These institutions serve as stewards of academic excellence and innovation, and this federal investment specifically in STEM programs honors that legacy of greatness and expands opportunity for the next generation of scientists.”

The 10 HBCUs receiving funding are:

North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University: $10 million

Florida A&M University: $10 million

Morgan State University: $10 million

Texas Southern University: $9,997,847

Delaware State University: $9,998,873

University of the District of Columbia: $9,982,865

Fayetteville State University: $9,905,607

Prairie View A&M University: $9,858,194

Clark Atlanta University: $9,784,632.00

Jackson State University: $7,573,527

Despite their contributions, Black professionals remain underrepresented in the nation’s STEM workforce, underscoring the importance of expanding access to research, training and career opportunities.

HBCUs have played a major role in preparing students for careers in STEM, producing approximately 28% of Black STEM graduates in the United States despite representing only about 3% of the nation’s colleges and universities, according to an August UNCF report entitled “HBCUs Still Punching Above Their Weight.”

North Carolina A&T State University is the nation’s leading producer of Black STEM and engineering graduates. Florida A&M University has a strong track record in biological sciences, mathematics and engineering. Alabama A&M University is recognized for its computer science, engineering and mathematics programs, while Howard University has educated generations of Black scientists, particularly in engineering and the biological and physical sciences.

Warnock has made federal support for HBCUs a priority since beginning his full Senate term in 2022. He has secured more than $17 billion for HBCU campuses nationwide, including nearly $275 million for institutions in Georgia.

Warnock has also worked to expand HBCUs’ access to federal research funding through the bipartisan HBCU Research Capacity Act. The legislation would establish a federally coordinated website compiling STEM research and development funding opportunities available to HBCUs.

In March, Warnock hosted more than 30 HBCU presidents at the U.S. Capitol to discuss ways to expand access to federal grants. ...Read More and Subscribe

Rare photo: Chinese Communist troops photographed after reaching the base established at Yenan in northern Shaanxi province, China, at the conclusion of the Long March, 1935. by GRANGER Rights Managed

History Lesson of the Week: The Long March at Ninety: Sovereignty and Dual Power

Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental Asia.

This month, ninety years ago, the Long March came to an end. On 22 October 1936, at Huining and Jiangtaibao, on the plateau where Gansu meets Shaanxi, the First, Second, and Fourth Front Armies of the Red Army joined forces. The last of the columns had arrived.

After two years of fighting and walking – traversing more than nine thousand kilometres, eighteen mountain ranges, twenty-four rivers, pursued from the air and by hundreds of thousands of enemy troops – the Chinese revolution arrived in Yan’an. The communists had travelled from southern Jiangxi to northern Shaanxi, making that dusty town of ten thousand inhabitants the new seat of resistance.

What arrived in the north was not only an army. Of the 86,000 who left the Central Soviet Area in 1934, some 8,000 reached the end of the road – ‘an odyssey unequal in modern times’, said US journalist Edgar Snow in Red Star Over China. Yet the marchers carried something no encirclement could destroy: the experience of the Chinese Soviet Republic established in Ruijin, Jiangxi, in 1931, an experience of building power before taking power – a state formed from below.

Never Forget Those Who Dug the Well

Long before the Chinese communists governed from Beijing, they learned to govern in the rural areas. In November 1931, 610 delegates from revolutionary base areas, Red Army units, and workers’ and peasants’ organisations gathered at Yeping, Ruijin, and founded the Chinese Soviet Republic – China’s first workers’ and peasants’ democratic government at the national level. Its outline constitution vested power in workers, peasants, and Red Army soldiers, extended the vote from the age of sixteen regardless of sex, and enacted land, labour, and marriage laws that turned the great questions of village life into matters of public right: who would cultivate the land, whether a woman could choose her husband, whether a poor family’s child could go to school.

The republic was dual power in practice: an alternative state growing inside the territory of an old and hostile order, with its own army, law, and money. Its National Bank opened in February 1932 with five staff members and began issuing the republic’s own currency – with Lenin’s face on the one-yuan note.

When the Kuomintang’s (KMT) blockade cut the base off from salt, medicine, and cloth, a Foreign Trade Bureau traded rice and tungsten for what the people could not live without. A news agency founded with the republic printed Red China, which circulated more than forty thousand copies by 1934. By January 1934, 3,052 ‘Lenin schools’ enrolled 89,710 children – about half the school-age children of the base – in classrooms improvised from ancestral halls.

Elections published candidate lists and allowed recall; in one township, voters removed a candidate who had taken good land for himself and another who could not account for donated funds. Cadres were schooled in the method that came to define the revolution: the mass line – learn from the people, concentrate their experience into policy, return to the people through organisation and action.

In the town of Shazhouba, Mao Zedong would sit beneath the old camphor tree outside his residence and talk with villagers about their daily lives. Through these conversations, Mao learned that they drew drinking and cooking water from muddy ponds also used by livestock. Mao investigated possible water sources with cadres and soldiers and argued for digging a well – overcoming local superstitious fears – and took responsibility for beginning the work. That well still stands, with a stone tablet behind it that reads: ‘When drinking water, never forget those who dug the well’.

The Long March was a strategic retreat after the communists understood that they could no longer withstand the KMT’s Fifth Encirclement, but it was not a retreat into nothing. They were carrying with them the experience of the republic – its laws, currency, schools, and method – across China. It was also during the Zunyi meeting of January 1935 – in the midst of the Long March – that Mao’s leadership of the Communist Party of China was established in practice.

Three Forms of Power

Here at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, we have been discussing different forms of power in preparation for an upcoming dossier. Social power is the organized capacity of the people to act together and shape common sense. Governmental power is the capacity to enter and use the institutions of office. Systemic power is the capacity to transform the class character of the state and bring the means of production and the social surplus under democratic authority. These distinctions matter because an electoral victory is not a revolution, and a social movement is difficult to sustain without building institutions.

Ruijin and Yan’an show the three forms built together, as one process, under the most hostile conditions. Social power was built through more than ten thousand cooperatives, women’s organisations, literacy classes that taught peasants to write, and political education that cultivated cadres. Governmental power was built through the soviet congresses, the constitution, and the commissariats of land, labour, finance, and education – institutions answerable to the mass base. Systemic power was built through land redistribution that abolished landlord property, an eight-hour day with equal pay, and a bank that placed finance under revolutionary authority.

In the base areas, social organization, armed authority, administration, land reform, and new political institutions developed together in territories contested with the old order. This is dual power as strategy in which power is understood as a process, with every institution measured by whether ordinary people increasingly gain the capacity to shape their lives... ...Read More and Subscribe

Book Review: Reading Jay’s Book Was Like a Homecoming

Outside the Box

by Jay Feldman

Ten16 Press

October, 2026

By Michael Klonsky

michaelklonsky.substack.com

So there it is: I grew up in a Communist household. I was a red diaper baby, weaned on tales of Joe Hill, Sacco and Vanzetti, and the Scottsboro Boys, and a veteran, at a tender age, of Camp Kinderland, the American Labor Party, and May Day rallies in Union Square. — Jay Feldman, Outside the Box (Ten 16 Press).

Oc 17, 2026 - Jay’s memoir hit me with a force I didn’t expect. Part of that is personal. Jay and I shared summers at Camp Kinderland in the 1950s, a place where Jewish/socialist consciousness wasn’t taught so much as lived. Reading Outside the Box felt like walking back into that world—the songs, the arguments, the sense that history was something we were already inside of, even as children.

Like me, Jay grew up in a communist family during the McCarthy period, when the old Soviet Union was more accusation than reality. His memoir captures that perfectly. The USSR appears not as a place he idealized, but as the political shadow cast over Jewish left‑wing families during the Cold War, a force shaping how others saw us more than how we saw ourselves.

Like me, Jay rejected the old left and headed west to join the new one. He went to Berkeley, got arrested during the Free Speech Movement, and became part of the youth counter-culture and commune movement of the ‘60s. I went to L.A., joined SDS, and then moved to hard-left politics in Chicago.

I lost touch with Jay after our Kinderland days and didn’t see or hear from him for nearly sixty years. Our lives spun off in different, but overlapping directions, until an old black‑and‑white photo of me and my bunkmates resurfaced. That picture—sunburned faces, crooked grins, the whole improbable world of our youth captured in a moment—became the bridge back to Jay. Reconnecting after all that time made reading his memoir feel less like picking up a book and more like recovering a shared history I didn’t realize I’d been missing.

One unexpected pleasure of the memoir is how his romance with the Brooklyn Dodgers sits alongside all the political upheavals, the communes, the folk music, and the activism. Baseball becomes an emotional home base, a reminder that even the most politically engaged lives are stitched together by private devotions. And of course, rooting for the Dodgers in Brooklyn, before the heartbreaking (for some) move west, was itself a cultural identity, a neighborhood‑bound loyalty that mirrored the tight-knit political world we grew up in.

For anyone who wants to understand the radical left from the inside — not as abstraction, but as lived experience, Outside the Box is a great read. For those of us who were there with him, back in the day, it’s more of a homecoming. ...Read More and Subscribe

The Racist Origins of Ancient‑Civilisation Myths

Lynch the Historian

Oct 11, 2026

The Ancient Aliens idea is one of the most persistent modern myths — a story that claims the great civilizations of the past were too “primitive” to build their own monuments, cities, and knowledge. But once you look closely, the real story is far more troubling. These theories didn’t arise from curiosity about the stars; they grew out of nineteenth- and twentieth-century racial hierarchies, colonial assumptions, and a refusal to believe that non-European cultures could achieve greatness on their own terms.

Seen through the lens of its history, the Ancient Aliens myth becomes less about extraterrestrials and more about the long shadow of racial thinking — and the extraordinary achievements of the cultures it tried to erase.

If you’d like to explore the scholarship behind this video, these books offer a clear and thoughtful path into the real history of ancient civilizations and the origins of pseudo-archaeology: 

David S. Anderson – Ancient Aliens, Race, and Colonialism 

Jason Colavito – The Cult of Alien Gods Kenneth

 L. Feder – Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries 

Eric H. Cline – 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed 

Joyce Marcus & Kent V. Flannery – The Creation of Inequality 

Michael E. Smith – The Aztecs

Photo: A group of village women in Uganda learn to use the Divya --The Washing Machine Project

High Design: Non-electric Washing Machine Chalks Up Big Win for Low-tech Ingenuity

The Divya washing machine is operated by a hand crank, and can be wheeled from one location to another

By Malcolm Azania

New Atlas

October 20, 2026 - Over much of the planet, women tend to do more unpaid domestic work than men do – much more. A 2025 Centre for Global Development study reported that across 50 countries, “women spend an average of 29.92 hours weekly on domestic work as a primary activity, while men spend only 9.78.”

While some men might shrug and say, “Division of labor!”, few men opt for such unpaid labor themselves.

That’s because of the massive opportunity cost such dollarless drudgery inflicts. Reduced or zero income means reduced or zero pension security, educational opportunity (including for daughters who generally must assist domestic labor), relocation freedom (to escape poverty, discrimination, violence, or other threats), leisure and personal development time, and general quality of life.

While few social problems can be solved through technology alone, some tools – especially if they’re dependable, easy to repair, available, and inexpensive – can certainly help reduce drudgery, thus freeing time to promote socio-economic advancement and personal liberty.

Enter Navjot Sawhney, a trained aerospace engineer who worked for Dyson UK, and inventor of the Divya washing machine. The company he founded, The Washing Machine Project, manufactures the device in India. It’s a zero-electricity, easily repaired, hand-cranked washing drum for clothing, aimed at people who have been expending countless hours hand-washing clothes.

After moving from the UK to a small South Indian village, Sawhney was alarmed to see how his new neighbor Divya spent up to 20 hours per week hand-washing clothes. After he offered to buy her an electric washing machine, she told him she didn’t have a dependable supply of electricity, access to a back-up generator, or even enough water for such a unit to function.

So, eventually Sawhney devised a solution.

With a capacity of up to 7 kg (15.4 lb) of clothing, his hand-cranked washing machine uses only 30 L (7.93 US gallons) of water, and a user can disassemble it with only two tools. According to the company, the analogue device cuts labor time (compared with manual washing) by 75%, reduces water use by 50%, will work for at least five to 10 years, and arrives partially assembled in a single box with easy-to-follow instructions. To honor the woman who inspired it, Sawhney named it the Divya.

Because the Divya requires no electricity, it’s perfectly suited for impoverished, remote, and/or disaster-stricken regions in which electrical utility is unreliable or non-existent. Therefore, beyond the 105,000 people that the Washing Machine Project has already reached in Iraq, Lebanon, Mexico, Uganda, and the US, the company is planning to reach a million users through development partners such as the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), Oxfam, and Plan International by 2030.

The machine has a capacity of up to 7 kg (15.4 lb) of clothing

"In our humanitarian and partner-funded programs, the machine is provided free to end users. We also work with organizations procuring machines for their own programs," Sawhney tells New Atlas. "There is no single retail price for households."

To ensure that their work met genuine local need, the Washing Machine Project says it has "conducted ethnographic research in 13 countries and interviewed more than 3,000 families in Uganda, Kenya, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Cameroon, Jamaica, Nepal, India and the Philippines to gain insight into [local] clothes-washing tendencies."

While the Divya hand-cranked unit seems like a more efficient mechanism than a simple foot-crank washing machine such as the Drumi or the Gira Dora, why not attach the Divya to something like a geared bicycle, given that leg-power could rotate a larger drum?

"We wanted an electricity-free machine that remains self-contained and portable, without needing a separate bicycle or pedal frame," says Sawhney. "Simplicity, repairability and ease of use in households and shared settings have guided the design. A communal pedal-driven system is an interesting different use case, but it is not the current Divya."

The Divya comes with its own set of instructions

That said, Sawhney does have some thoughts on future innovations for the device.

"Our immediate development work is making Divya more useful and maintainable, rather than announcing a separate appliance," he says. Such improvements include "a built-in scrub surface, a wider opening for bulky laundry, faster drainage, and more durable wheels. We are also developing local manufacture, maintenance and shared-access models in India so the benefit lasts beyond delivery of a machine." ...Read More and Subscribe

From Upton

Sinclair's 'Goose Step' to the Neoliberal University

Essays on the Ongoing Transformation of Higher Education

By Daniel Morris

and Harry Targ

Paperback USD 17.00

This is a unique collection of 15 essays by two Purdue University professors who use their institution as a case-in-point study of the changing nature of the American 'multiversity.' They take a book from an earlier time, Upton Sinclair's 'The Goose-Step A Study of American Education' from 1923, which exposed the capitalist corruption of the ivory tower back then and brought it up to date with more far-reaching changes today. time. They also include, as an appendix, a 1967 essay by SDS leader Carl Davidson, who broke some of the original ground on the subject.

Click HERE to Purchase

New Studies on the Left, October 2026

Paperback $14.95

...is a journal of socialist theory and practice. It is the successor to ‘Dialogue and Initiative, published as an annual journal of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism in book form from 2012 to 2022.

It will continue the CCDS policy of left unity, including articles with a variety of left perspectives, including debates.

This issue contains a dozen articles grouped under the headings of Analysis and Global Reach, Social movement campaigns, and Book Reviews. Some are reprinted from other sources, but many appear here for the first time.

Among the authors are:

Piruz Alemi, Maria Martin Alcoff, Marlene Targ Brill, Carl Davidson, Max Elbaum, Vince Emanuel, Jerry Harris, Jay Jurie, Francine Moccio, Rod Such, Harry Targ, Janet Tucker, Meta Van Sickle, Dong Zuozhuang, Wu Zhicheng

Table of Contents

Click HERE to purchase

Click William Ad Below to Go to Purchase Site



HOLIDAY SALE ON EVERY TITLE BEGINS TODAY!

Hard Ball & Little Heroes Press is sharing the holiday spirit by offering a 25% discount on ALL TITLES from November 15-December 25. Enter SOLIDARITY in the discount box when you order a book, 25% will be automatically taken off your cost.

Happy holidays! Tim Sheard, editor

For the children...



Good Guy Jake...An inspiring Children’s Christmas story for Labor!

Imagine young children reading a book about a union that wins back the job of a sanitation worker unfairly fired for taking toys out of the trash. That’s what they will discover in Good Guy Jake. 

For years Jake has repaired and painted broken toys he pulled from the trash on his rounds and given them to the children in the local shelter at Christmas. But when an angry motorist reports Jake to the sanitation company, Jake is fired for breaking city regulations. 

His union takes the case to arbitration. There, the union brings in a crowd of children, who show the judge the toys Jake gave them and tell her that he taught them the true meaning of Christmas.

ADELANTE#5 is hot-off-the-press.  

This attractive English-Spanish 24-page pamphlet outlines Liberation Road's analysis of ICE and the nationwide resistance. It explains Trump's ethnic cleansing/mass deportation campaign, the roots of the so-called "immigration crisis", and elaborates a comprehensive program for winning immigrant rights and more.  

It also contains a fabulous poem "No Borders" from our comrade Joe Navarro, reaffirming our commitment to the cultural-spiritual component of our struggle.  

You can view and read it here, in both English and Spanish.

We can send you files to print copies as you need them on any 11 x 17 Color printer at a version of Kinko's near you, or also on an 8.5 x 11 home desktop color printer. You can bulk order hard copies with a union bug, but supplies are limited. Contact BilG4@gmail.com

Why is it important to use ADELANTE? First, the deep answer for LR and other socialist cadres. It's designed for what we can call 'red mass work.' It's not enough for us to be deeply engaged in this struggle. Thousands of progressives and liberals are working hard to 'build a movement.' But more is demanded of us. We have to build organizations within the movement, organizations at all levels, but especially our socialist organization.

This is what's special about Adelante.

It's designed as a collective organizer and a collective educator. First, it explains the deeper nature of the ICE battles and democracy. Second, it ties that explanation to the Chicano 'national question' and to solidarity with Mexico. And third, it introduces LR as a vital organization connecting everything to the need for revolutionary organization and socialism.

In brief, it draws the most advanced fighters to us.

So share it with your contacts, friends, and family members -- either the print or digital versions. Tell them it helps to make sense of issue of immigration and exposes the MAGA lies, and explains why immigrant defense is truly a frontline of the fight to prevent Trump from imposing a fascist regime on our country.  

Use the ADELANTE series to organize discussion groups with your close ontacts. You can get support for this piece from the LR Immigrant Defense Leadership Team.  You can also create your own podcasts of the ADELANTE! with support from Carl Davidson and Bill Gallegos, who are the main authors of its content. We also have comrades who can help you do this in Spanish.  And of course you can disseminate ADELANTE! on Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms that you use.  

You can also distribute the ADELANTE! at mass events and actions, either the pamphlet itself (which you district can reproduce) or as a flyer with a QR code that folks can download to get the pamphlet.  Most of all, have a plan for how you can use this powerful publication to advance our unique politics, sharing with folks from DSA or other left organizations in your area, Please let us know if you have any questions or help outlining what support you need on this and other revolutionary literature. Hasta La Victoria Siempre!

Tune of the Week: Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy, B.B. King & Jimmie Vaughan – 'Rock Me Baby' | Crossroads Guitar Festival 2004 ... 6:15 Min

TV Review: 'The Trap,' Is an Intriguing

Mix of Mystery and Psychodrama

It's a Netflix series in six parts, in German, but nicely dubbed.

By Oene Kummer

oenek.substack.com

Oct 13, 2026 - The Trap (or: Die Falle) is a German mystery thriller series, starring Friederike Becht and Hans Löw, about a successful but reclusive female author who tries to set a trap for the journalist she believes to be her sister’s killer.

Based on the novel by Melanie Raabe, and written and directed by Isabel Kleefeld (Liebes Kind), this six-part series deals with themes like unreliable memory, isolation and agoraphobia, feelings of guilt, as well as good old obsession and revenge.

Kleefeld wastes no time setting the scene before the opening titles even appear. By the time they come around, we already know the following: Lisa Sophie Wilking (Becht) is a successful literary writer. She also had a sister, Anna (Josephine Thiesen), who she loved very much. One night, however, she found her bleeding to death in her sister’s apartment in Munich.

Lisa clearly remembers seeing a man quickly leaving the room, but unfortunately no one was ever captured.

Ten years later she has changed her name to Lisa Konrad and lives with her dog Bukowski in a luxurious villa in the country, never really leaving the premises, but still writing very successful books, and traveling to other countries, if only in her imagination, using television and internet as tools.

Imagine her surprise, though, when one night she sees the prime suspect on live television, although I guess shock would be a better word, as she immediately collapses.

The man turns out to be journalist Robert Lenzen (Low), a well-respected and award-winning reporter.

After the opening credits Lisa talks to the police, but when they’re not all that responsive she concocts a plan of her own: she will write a book about her sister’s murder and then she, as a highly reclusive author, will invite Lenzen over for an exclusive interview. Which she will use to trap him, take a DNA sample and force him to confess.

The interview, as is already teased at in the first episode, is bound to turn into a game of psychological cat and mouse, but who is what exactly? Cause Lenzen does his own investigation and comes prepared for the confrontation. And the question remains: what exactly did happen that fateful night?

Lisa’s memory may not be as reliable as she thought it was and Robert’s role may also be different to what we think it is. And what part does detective Schumer (Alexander Schubert) play in the proceedings?

The set up feels a bit contrived, but I must admit that The Trap is a decent potboiler, which takes some very interesting twists and turns. It is critical of the sensationalist turn that modern media often takes and questions the reliability of investigative reporters like Lenzen, who can use their abilities to dig up inconvenient truths just as easily as to protect their own lies and misdemeanors.

Kleefeld also uses every trick in the book to make the story visually appealing, including (but not limited to) flashbacks and distorted memories. She also brings to life fragments from the book that she is writing. In the book Lisa calls herself Sophie, a part played by Miriam Ohlmeier, which adds yet another layer to the story.

The money is definitely on the screen, and a bit of production value never hurts. Snappy editing adds extra life to the story, while the ominous score adds to an atmosphere of looming threats.

Becht is excellent in a demanding leading role, which forces her to confront her latent paranoia and mental instability quite a few times. Löw is mysterious enough as the journalist with plenty of tricks up his sleeve, while Matthias Brandt (as Lisa’s publisher), Anna Schudt (as her agent) and Malaya Stern Takeda (as her personal assistant) shine in supporting roles.

The Trap offers up an intriguing mix of crime thriller and meta fiction. I applaud its ambition and even though at times it all feels a little bit forced, most of the time it’s engaging enough to keep watching. ...Read More and Subscribe

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