Columns Archives - Ted Rall's Rallblog

MAGA’s Idea Factory Has Closed

May 14, 2026•

Trump’s three presidential campaigns were contests between establishment and insurgent, steadfastness versus change, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” against “burn it all down.” Trump did not offer new ideas. Rather, the vagueness of MAGA and America First promised an idea-generation machine powered by a pair of nationalist principles. The implicit pledge that anything would be possible was reinforced in his second term by out-of-the-box personnel picks like Gabbard and Kennedy. Intellectually exhausted, in permanent defense mode, and paralyzed by the internal contradiction between their New Deal history and their Clintonite present, Democrats tacitly conceded the framing to the opposition. 2016, 2020, and 2024 were referenda about Trump. Liberals took comfort in Biden’s win, failing to recognize that COVID was a black swan moment, that Trump’s weird disavowal of Operation Warp Speed was political suicide, and that “nothing will fundamentally change” is not an appealing campaign message under normal circumstances. Yet here we are, ten years into this current…

Scandal at the Pulitzers

May 6, 2026•

Ted Rall

The Pulitzer Prizes, administered annually by Columbia University, are the most famous prizes awarded to American journalists, authors, playwrights and others in the world of letters. A win can elevate an obscure book to bestseller status, turn a play into a Broadway hit or save a reporter during a round of layoffs. So prestigious is this honor, getting shortlisted as one of a given year’s three finalists can be leveraged into bigger paychecks and gaining new clients. Shortly after each year’s application deadline in late January, Columbia invites several jurors in each category—subjects like Photography, Nonfiction Book, Opinion Writing, etc.—to its Morningside Heights campus in Manhattan, where the panels—chosen for their expertise in their respective fields—sift through piles of entries. Generally speaking, each subject panel selects three finalists. Each trio goes to the main Pulitzer board, which picks one winner—leaving the remaining two as runners-up. (Usually. There are exceptions, but let’s not voyage too deep into the weeds.) The Pulitzers…

Gen X to Gen Z: We Salute You

April 28, 2026•

Ted Rall

Thirty years and thirty pounds ago, Workman published “Revenge of the Latchkey Kids,” my bestselling entry in the Gen X manifesto genre. I argued in snotty prose and spiky scratchboard cartoons that Americans born in the 1960s and early 1970s faced a set of challenges that made us the first generation of the 20th century doomed to face downward mobility—to be worse off economically, and by extension politically and culturally, than our parents. As the word “revenge” implies, it wouldn’t be all bad. We’d be ignored by the Powers That Be—and we’d never become full-fledged members thereof—but we’d also be left alone; we would find our way. Still, we were born under a dark star. Ours was the first postwar generation to enter a crappy job market hobbled by student loan debt and globalization. Lost, alienated and broke, we married later and had fewer kids and bought our first homes late or not at all. Whatever age we were at…

The Perniciousness of Centrism

April 21, 2026•

Ted Rall

The Left is extreme, the Right is extreme. In the middle lies truth and reason. None of this is true—but it is taken for granted, even by many of those on the Left and the Right. The Left is right about some things, as is the Right, and centrists are frequently, perhaps usually, proven wrong. But moderates control news and entertainment media and thus the narrative. In their telling, which even those of us who don’t believe when we stop to think about it, buy into because we are soaking, nay, drowning in their framing, the range of normal/sane/calm political debate lies in the middle. All else is kookery. So we are told. We have so poisoned our planet that a third of all species alive today will be extinct by 2100. We are the poorest developed country. Most people can’t afford healthcare. These are radical problems. They don’t call for a compromise, or splitting the difference, or good-enough solutions.…

Politics as Religion

April 16, 2026•

Ted Rall

The first quarter of this century in the United States saw the rise and triumph of “team politics,” in which voters view the Democratic and Republican parties less as representatives of an ideology or set of policies than as opposing teams defined by culture, style and aesthetics. Democrats follow TikTok or Threads, shop at Trader Joe’s, drive Volvos, support their children when they come out as gay and live in big cities; they vote Democratic whether the candidate is a pro-Gaza progressive like AOC or a Zionist corporatist like Josh Shapiro. Republicans display American flags, wear heavy eyeliner, shop at Wal-Mart, follow X and stay up late worrying about transwomen in sports; they vote Republican whether the candidate is a libertarian like Rand Paul or an interventionist like Lindsey Graham. Voters increasingly view members of the opposing party not just as people with different ideas, but as a direct threat to the country. Reduced engagement across the party divide makes…

America Is Fascist

April 1, 2026•

Ted Rall

It happened here. The United States is officially a fascist nation. Leftists, in the 1960s and 1970s, loved to throw around the F word. Johnson was fascist, Nixon was fascist, Amerikkka was fascist, the cops were fascist. As a history student and the son of a woman who lost her childhood to the objectively fascist collaborationist government of Nazi-occupied France, I could not ignore the chasm between the systemic racism and authoritarian tendencies of the police in this country and the goose-stepping militaristic mania of Fascist Italy and Hitler’s Germany. As I passed into adulthood and middle age, however, the United States kept moving Right—under presidencies of both political parties. As power increasingly concentrated in the clutches of the executive branch, the Pentagon launched ever more wars of choice with fewer attempts at justification and the most extreme dystopian nightmares morphed into banal reality, liberalism and leftism became distant memories. Right-wing extremism became normalized in culture, then in the press,…

What If Trump Cancels the Elections?

March 23, 2026•

Ted Rall

I could be wrong. I hope I am. When it comes to political predictions, my pattern recognition skills usually win. I predicted America’s defeat in Afghanistan, its failure to find WMDs in Iraq, how Trump would drive Americans crazy, and both of Trump’s wins, all long before anyone else. There was, however, my mistaken belief that Bernie would be the 2016 Democratic nominee. (I foolishly failed to account for DNC cheating.) Here’s a prediction: If he’s still alive and in power, Trump will try to cancel the 2028 presidential election, and also the 2026 midterms. (I’m less certain about the midterms.) My thinking goes like this. Trump has nearly three dozen felony convictions hanging over his head. Although he may never be sentenced and imprisoned for the Stormy Daniels hush-money charges, the reason that he hasn’t been held to legal account for other crimes past and present is that he is a sitting president. New charges could theoretically involve bribery,…

A Funny Thing Happened to John Kiriakou

March 14, 2026•

Ted Rall

John Kiriakou wasn’t exactly down and out. But he was struggling. Not only was John broke, he was drowning in legal fees he owed to the lawyers who’d defended him when the federal government came after him. Despite an impressive resume, whose entries included Arabic fluency, a storied CIA career and authoring bestselling books, he couldn’t find a decent job. He wound up on food stamps. Whether the hitch was his age (61) or being blacklisted by U.S. government, who could say? About those last three items: under different circumstances, in a fairer country during a better time, John would have been considered a hero. To those who knew the truth, that’s exactly what he was. John Kiriakou was the whistleblower who exposed the CIA’s Bush-era torture program, infamous for waterboarding and other atrocities. Rather than the medal and a ticker-tape parade he deserved, the government sent him to federal prison for nearly two years—for the crime of telling a…

A Message from President Trump to the People of France, June 6, 1944

March 9, 2026•

Ted Rall

Hello, Occupied France, from your Favorite Country, America! Happy 1944 or, as the late, great Hannibal Lecter put it, Steak au Poivre! It’s me, YOUR FAVORITE PRESIDENT, DONALD TRUMP! Good news, Frog People. No one ever thought anything like this could ever be thought of, much less done except by me, your favorite President, so I’m doing it: I’m bringing MY ARMY to come LIBERATE YOU from the worst, evil people, Germany (except for my father’s family)! Not that you’re grateful for everything America did for the radical Left lunatic Lafayette during your “French Revolution,” am I right? One of our great generals, Dwight D. “Ike” Eisenhower—some people say he’s better than Caesar AND Cicero—will soon be arriving in Normandy, which we have renamed after the great city of Omaha in Nebraska because who can spell “Normandy,” with thousands of soldiers and big strong ships and the HUGEST BIGGEST GUNS EVER. You’re welcome!!! MAKE FRANCE GREAT AGAIN! And welcome us…

Voter ID: Political Suicide for Republicans

March 3, 2026•

Ted Rall

It’s common sense, Republicans say. You have to show ID to buy a beer, board a plane, or land a job as a snow shoveler. Why not require proof of identity from those who seek to exercise our most sacred civic right, casting a vote? According to the polls, the GOP has won the argument. Most Americans favor a Voter ID law. What Republicans are currently pressing for, the SAVE Act, however, is not a Voter ID law, a requirement that registered voters prove who they are when they go to the polls. SAVE is a Prove You’re a Citizen law. Why is the GOP pushing SAVE? Republican voters will be hit hardest. Clearly, neither President Trump nor the Republican Party knows what’s good for them. A Voter ID law—something most states, especially red ones currently have—passes the common-sense test for most Americans because it requires a form of identity nine out of ten people have, or can obtain fairly…

MAGA’s Idea Factory Has Closed

Scandal at the Pulitzers

Gen X to Gen Z: We Salute You

The Perniciousness of Centrism

America Is Fascist

What If Trump Cancels the Elections?

A Funny Thing Happened to John Kiriakou

A Message from President Trump to the People of France, June 6, 1944

Voter ID: Political Suicide for Republicans

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MAGA’s Idea Factory Has Closed

Scandal at the Pulitzers

Gen X to Gen Z: We Salute You

The Perniciousness of Centrism

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