The Fulcrum is committed to nurturing the next generation of journalists. We asked Abbey Osborn, a Fall Fulcrum Fellow, to share what democracy means to her and her view of its current health.

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When I think of democracy, I picture the Statue of Liberty, her torch lit, arm outstretched, for those who seek the protections offered in the ...Read more

The most important measure to watch in the campaign’s final weeks is how Democratic candidates are performing among voters who disapprove of President Donald Trump.

Many are not yet hitting the benchmarks among those voters they need to put away their races — especially in red-leaning states. But the challenge Trump’s decline presents to ...Read more

In November’s election, California voters will decide on a one-time 5% tax on the net worth of the state’s roughly 250 billionaires — Proposition 40. The tax could raise an estimated $100 billion, with 90% set aside for healthcare and the remainder for food assistance and education.

This is exactly the financial help that Los Angeles and ...Read more

Radical greens and other cheerleaders for central planning are mewling about the Trump administration’s new fuel economy standards for automakers. Yet the reforms are a necessary response to Biden-era efforts to undermine the marketplace by limiting options for American consumers.

On Monday, the White House relaxed stringent fuel economy ...Read more

As the Trump administration’s deportation campaign continues, the nation’s elected leaders have a moral obligation to ensure there’s rigorous oversight when someone is killed or injured by a federal immigration agent.

Congress has not entirely ignored that responsibility. Republican-led committees held oversight hearings in February ...Read more

Proposition 41 is a constitutional amendment billed as a way to add transparency and accountability to ballot measures for special taxes.

Voters should beware. Prop. 41 is supported by Building a Better California, which is funded by Google co-founder Sergey Brin and other CEOs and entrepreneurs. These people have created Prop. 41 and ...Read more

"They're not worth the paper they're printed on."

The speaker was media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, who had accepted a sheaf of guarantees of editorial independence for the revered Times of London and the Sunday Times in order to secure government approval to take over the newspapers in 1981.

Among Murdoch's undertakings were that the newspapers' ...Read more

California’s healthcare system is in a code blue moment. Federal and state budget cuts threaten healthcare for millions. Costs are skyrocketing. Doctors, nurses and hospitals are all stretched thin, and patient care isn’t getting any better.

“Do no harm” is the core ethical principle of medicine. Yet Proposition 40 — the billionaire ...Read more

The juxtaposition was striking. On stage was Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela’s interim president, addressing the United Nations General Assembly and meeting with President Donald Trump less than a year after both considered her somewhat of a pariah. Her old boss, Nicolás Maduro, was sitting in a jail cell in Brooklyn a few miles away awaiting ...Read more

One of the most important elections in recent Latin American history will take place Sunday in Brazil. Incumbent president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has recently been emphasizing the issue of national sovereignty. One reason: The challenger, Flávio Bolsonaro, has the strong backing of the Trump administration — and the U.S. has been ...Read more

The mistrial declared on Sept. 4 in the case of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother who strangled her three children while, her lawyers argued, in the grip of postpartum psychosis, has forced the country to confront postpartum mental illness and the gaping holes in how we care for it. A jury deliberated seven days and could not agree on ...Read more

If artificial intelligence leads eventually—or suddenly—to the extinction of humankind, we can’t say we weren’t warned. Writers, scientists, academics and philosophers have been speculating since at least the middle of the 19th century about the possibility that our machines could become smarter and more powerful than we are and could ...Read more

In President Donald Trump’s world, public service pays better than being a real estate mogul.

Trump has been lining his pockets since he returned to the White House. His sons, Eric and Donald Jr., have been cashing in, too. So has his wife, son-in-law Jared Kushner, and other cronies in the Trump administration.

In just his first year back ...Read more

American politics is being hijacked not by one ideology, one party or one faith but by influential voices who have discovered that resentment attracts attention, outrage builds audiences and division produces political power.

Hasan Piker, Tucker Carlson, Zohran Mamdani and Abdul El-Sayed occupy different places in our political culture. They ...Read more

Republican candidates heading into the November midterms should feel some relief. For the first time in a long time, they have the justification to clearly break from President Donald Trump on issues with which they disagree.

What has been considered for the past five years to be a betrayal in Republican politics — disagreeing with the ...Read more

Employer-sponsored health insurance is rapidly deteriorating. In 2027, premiums are expected to see their largest single-year increase in two decades, jumping 11% and closing in on a nearly five-fold increase this century. The amount workers pay for their portion today would have covered the entire premium in 2000.

This coverage will never get ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — What’s so wrong about requiring every Californian to show a government ID before they’re allowed to vote? That’s what Proposition 39 backers ask. And it’s a fair question.

Here are some valid answers:

It would make California’s already notoriously slow vote count even more pokey.

It would be an added hassle...Read more

The midterms are just a few weeks away, and polls predict that independent voters, who broke for Donald Trump in 2024, are planning on voting for Democrats by wide margins. Among Latinos, the numbers are staggering, to the point that the Republican gerrymanders in Florida and Texas may actually result in Democratic victories.

If the Democrats ...Read more

Here is a disturbing game: Try to spot the illegal immigrant.

Is it the waitress, the winning one from Bulgaria, or is it the charming emergency room doctor from Pakistan, or is it one of the Mexican men working on the housing site at the corner? Maybe it is the Haitian caregiver in your home, whom you adore and are afraid to ask if employing ...Read more

The Fulcrum is committed to nurturing the next generation of journalists. We asked Idris Mohammed, a Fall Fulcrum Fellow, to share what democracy means to him and his view of its current health.

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Growing up in northern Nigeria has taught me that democracy is more than elections. It is also about how a country is governed every day. In my ...Read more