Keisha Lance Bottoms was the first Black woman elected governor in U.S. history.
Chris Pappas was the first openly gay man elected to the U.S. Senate.
Abdul Al-Sayed was the first Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate.
Scott Colom became the first Black U.S. senator elected in Mississippi since Reconstruction and the first Democrat to win the seat since 1982.
Deb Haaland was the first Native American woman elected governor in U.S. history.
Penny Flanagan was the first Native American woman elected to the U.S. Senate.
Gina Hinojosa was Texas’s first Latina governor-elect. Republicans have had control since 1995.
James Talarico won Texas’s first Democratic U.S. Senate seat since 1988. Texas also elected a Democratic governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general.
Trump’s extremism prompted deep-red states to turn blue and, in several cases, elect progressives.
The political divide in the U.S. is no longer Republican versus Democrat but between those willing to defend democracy against the MAGA movement that threatens its very foundations.
Donald J. Trump is not a Republican but an authoritarian who confuses serving in public office with having personal sovereignty. He is everything that would make our Founding Fathers roll in their graves. Unlike the previous modern U.S. presidents, Trump is the first to openly admire brutal dictators, while alienating the U.S. from its democratic allies.
Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 election.
Trump urged his supporters to march to the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, as he promoted the idea that the election was fraudulent, leading to the needless deaths of many, including law enforcement officers who spent their last days protecting the man who created the conditions for their deaths.
When Trump returned to office for his second term, he issued clemency to people convicted of the Capitol attack.
Trump has pardoned allies unrelated to the Jan. 6 attack who attempted to overturn the election.
Trump has asserted expansive presidential powers, including the claim that Article II of the Constitution gives him the right to do pretty much whatever he wants as president.
Trump has repeatedly described the press as the “enemy of the people,” undermining principles of a free press enshrined in the First Amendment. The Founding Fathers recognized that a free press was pivotal to holding those in power accountable.
Trump has targeted universities, law firms and protesters who criticize his policies.
Trump has described immigrants as “poisoning the blood” of this country, even though the United States of America would not exist without immigrants. Trump himself is the son of an immigrant mother, the grandson of an immigrant grandfather and the husband of an immigrant.
Trump’s administration has undermined due process for immigrants, deporting immigrants to countries they have no ties to or places that they fled to out of fear for their lives.
As I previously reported on former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Trump’s administration has subjected our immigrant neighbors to unimaginable barbarity. To witness such suffering and choose to support the man responsible is not a political difference, but a failure of basic human decency.
Our Founding Fathers did not revolt against a king only for a president to turn the White House ballroom into what looks like “Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory,” as Barack Obama put it. To bypass congressional funding for his outlandish renovations, Trump utilized private donations.
Our Founding Fathers did not revolt against unrestrained power only for a later president to delegitimize the constitutional restraints established to prevent autocracy.
What many Republicans and Democrats alike fail to understand is that the U.S. struggle has always gone back to the working class and the elite. It’s easy to ignore or ignorantly remain loyal to policies that do not affect your life.
Poverty is perhaps the most suffocating reality of all. For families struggling to afford necessities, political promises meant nothing as rising costs affected their most basic abilities to survive. As of Oct. 2026, nearly half of Americans (49%) belong to families struggling to afford life’s necessities.
The vile disregard for human life that Donald J. Trump’s administration has modeled will be detailed in history textbooks for our future generations to study and ask the same question we ask when examining history’s darkest chapters: How did so many people witness such cruelty and choose to defend it?
Every American’s heartfelt yearning for equality and a commitment to “loving thy neighbor” has found renewed hope in the midterm elections. Hate may seize power, but history will never mistake it for nobility. History will also never confuse allegiance to Donald J. Trump with moral courage.
America finally listened to the Pope’s warnings, the wisdom of its Founding Fathers and the cries of its people.
Trump supporters fell for a man on Epstein’s list who calls his supporters poorly educated, undermines our Founding Fathers while claiming to be the most patriotic of all Americans and uses his power in the most evil ways to harm his own constituents.
Many of us never did fall under his spell. The Trumpies should feel ashamed, reflect and learn to do better.
Sending the MAGA movement the same thoughts and prayers it offers children who go to elementary school and never make it home, while making sure the NRA never has to miss a paycheck. It’s time to impeach the wannabe monarch and indict his family and friends.