A CURIOUS MIX OF BRITISH FOLK MUSIC AND AMERICAN POLITICS
June is accompanied by her regular band featuring Huw Warren on piano, Tim Harries on double-bass, Mark Emerson on viola and Mark Lockheart on saxophone. They are joined by guitarist Martin Simpson and accordionist Andy Cutting
By Robert Reich
Last Thursday, populist Democratic candidate Graham Platner shook up the Democratic establishment when his primary competitor, Maine Governor Janet Mills, suspended her Senate campaign amid polls showing her badly trailing Platner, an oyster farmer who had come out of nowhere to win a national following.
Platner is the latest example of the rise of anti-establishment outsiders in the Democratic Party — a trend that also includes self-proclaimed democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, who last year defeated former Gov. Andrew Cuomo for New York City mayor.
Yet the Democratic establishment — corporate Democrats, wealthy Democratic donors, entrenched Washington “centrists,” the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic National Committee, and Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer — still don’t get it.
Hell, the Democratic establishment didn’t get it a decade ago when Hillary Clinton was the presumptive Democratic nominee (and, not incidentally, Jeb Bush was considered a shoe-in for the Republican nomination).
I remember interviewing voters about their political preferences in the late spring of 2015, in the Rust Belt, Midwest, and South, for a book I was then writing. When I asked them whom they wanted for president, they kept telling me Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump. Often the same individuals offered both names. They explained they wanted an “outsider,” someone who would “shake up” the system, ideally a person who wasn’t even a Democrat or a Republican.
The people I met were furious with their employers, with the federal government, and with Wall Street. They were irate that they hadn’t been able to save for their retirements, indignant that their children weren’t doing any better than they had at their children’s age, and enraged at those at the top. Several had lost jobs, savings, or homes in the financial crisis or the Great Recession that followed it.
They kept reiterating that the system was “rigged” in favor of the powerful and against themselves. They didn’t oppose government per se; most favored additional spending on Social Security, Medicare, education, and roads and bridges. But they hated “crony capitalism” — large corporations using their political clout to gain special favors and changes in laws that often hurt average people.
The following year, Sanders — then a 74-year-old Jew from Vermont who described himself as a democratic socialist and wasn’t even a Democrat until the 2016 presidential primaries — came within a whisker of beating Clinton in the Iowa caucus and ended up with 46 percent of the pledged delegates to the Democratic National Convention from primaries and caucuses. Had the DNC not tipped the scales against him by deriding his campaign and rigging its financing in favor of Clinton, Sanders would probably have been the Democratic nominee in 2016.
Trump, then a 69-year-old egomaniacal billionaire reality TV star who had never held elected office or had anything to do with the Republican Party and who lied compulsively about almost everything, of course won the Republican primaries and went on to beat Clinton, one of the most experienced and well-connected politicians in modern America. Granted, he didn’t win the popular vote, and he had some help from Vladimir Putin, but he won.
Something very big was happening in America: a full-scale rebellion against the political establishment.
That rebellion continues to this day. Yet much of Washington’s Democratic elite is still in denial. They prefer to attribute the rise of Trump and, more broadly, Trumpism — its political paranoia, xenophobia, white Christian nationalism, misogyny, homophobia, and cultural populism — solely to racism. Well, racism is certainly a part of it. But hardly all.
In 2024, Democrats didn’t even get to choose their nominee from the primary process, since Biden dropped out after a dreadful debate performance and was replaced by Kamala Harris — leaving some Democrats feeling like higher powers were picking their nominee.
The anti-establishment groundswell has by now spread to independent voters — who are now a whopping 45 percent of the electorate and have moved sharply against Trump. It’s one of the most dramatic shifts in recent political history.
Trump’s approval rating among independents now stands at 25 percent, while 68 percent of independents disapprove of him. In 2024, independents were evenly divided, with 48 percent voting for Harris and 48 percent for Trump. In 2020, independents favored Biden by 9 percentage points.
The Democratic establishment still doesn’t see the groundswell — or is actively fighting it.
In Iowa, whose primary is June 2, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is quietly backing state Rep. Josh Turek against state Sen. Zach Wahls. That’s probably a mistake. Turek is a good candidate, but Wahls is a young, dynamic progressive — similar to Platner in his ability to inspire and rally. (In Iowa, independents who want to vote in the Democratic primary need only declare themselves Democrats by June 2.)
In California, whose primary is also June 2, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee just rejected Randy Villegas as its preferred nominee for the 22nd Congressional District and instead endorsed doctor and assemblywoman Jasmeet Bains. Villegas, known as a strong progressive, has been endorsed by the congressional progressive caucus and the congressional Hispanic caucus’s campaign arm. “This is about party leadership and D.C. elites putting their thumb on the scale for who they know will bend the knee to party leadership and corporate interests,” Villegas says.
In Arizona, whose primary is July 21, the DCCC has endorsed Marlene Galán-Woods in a Democratic primary to replace Representative David Schweikert, the Republican who is leaving Congress to run for governor. The DCCC rejected Amish Shah, a doctor and former state legislator who won the primary in 2024 and came within a few points of defeating Schweikert. (That year, Ms. Galán-Woods finished third in the primary.) Shah has been leading Galán-Woods by a 3-to-1 margin in the only public poll of the race. Shah says Democrats should stop backing the party apparatus if they want to win the House majority.
In Michigan, whose primary is August 4, the DSCC is backing Rep. Haley Stevens, who’s in a tight race against rival Abdul El-Sayed. Also probably a mistake. El-Sayed is another young progressive who’s showing a remarkable ability to galvanize Democrats and independents. (Michigan has open primaries in which any voter can participate.)
I could go on, but you get the point.
If Democrats fail to connect with the frustrations of average hardworking Americans and decide instead to side with big corporations and Wall Street, they’ll have given up the most crucial opportunity in a generation both to take back control of Congress and to lead the way on a new progressive agenda.
What does this anti-establishment surge — including the remarkable growth of independents and their sharp rejection of Trump — mean for the presidential race in 2028?
For one thing, it suggests that the current presumed Democratic frontrunners — Kamala Harris and Gavin Newsom — are frontrunners only because of their name recognition. As voters find out more about the alternatives, it’s unlikely that either of them will make the cut.
For another, it suggests that anti-establishment candidates are the ones to watch.
Obama chief of staff and former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel told a packed crowd at the Milken Institute Global Conference this week that the biggest challenge both parties have faced over the last quarter-century has been the battle between establishment forces and anti-establishment forces.
Emanuel was correct. But he then went on to suggest, absurdly, that he’s anti-establishment. Emanuel’s cozy ties to corporate America, his closeness to Citadel founder Ken Griffin (who praised Emanuel from Milken’s main stage), and even Emanuel’s presence at the Milken conference, belie his claim.
But the mere fact that Emanuel thinks it important to claim anti-establishment creds underscores that the biggest force in American politics today — and in the Democratic Party — is anti-establishment rage at political insiders.
Despite the Democratic establishment, a younger and more charismatic generation of populist and progressive Democrats is on the way to winning primaries and general election races across America. If Graham Platner beats Republican Senator Susan Collins in Maine, which seems likely, he’s the kind of candidate who (in my humble opinion) will be the future of the Democratic Party.
Source: Meet the Future of the Democratic Party – Robert Reich
May 7, 2026
Today Tennessee state representative Justin Jones burned a Confederate battle flag in the rotunda of the Tennessee State Capitol in protest of the legislature’s redrawing of the state’s congressional district maps to erase the majority-Black 9th Congressional District. By cracking the city of Memphis into three pieces and joining them to white suburbs, the legislature turned all the state’s districts into Republican seats.
The actions of the Republicans in the Tennessee legislature are a direct response to the Supreme Court’s April 29 decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which found that in creating a second congressional district to enable Black voters to elect a representative of their choice, as mandated by the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the Louisiana legislature unconstitutionally took race into account when drawing the district lines. Although the Supreme Court’s clerk normally waits 32 days to finalize an opinion, the Supreme Court made the decision effective immediately to allow Louisiana, where the primary election was already underway, to redraw its maps.
Immediately, Republican-dominated state governments rushed to redistrict their states to eliminate majority-Black districts, thus slashing through Democratic representation in their states. As Khaya Himmelman of Talking Points Memo explained today, Louisiana’s Republican governor, Jeff Landry, immediately suspended a congressional primary election that was already underway in order to give Republican legislators a chance to change the maps to give at least one of the state’s two Democratic seats to Republicans.
Although a federal court injunction forbids Alabama from redrawing its maps before the 2030 census, Republican governor Kay Ivey called for the state to do so, and Republican attorney general Steve Marshall has filed an emergency petition with the Supreme Court to let the state revert to a map struck down in 2023 because it was racially gerrymandered.
Trump began this gerrymandering arms race last year, pressuring Republican Texas legislators to redistrict the state to help Republicans win the midterms and protect him from investigations and possible impeachment. As of today, Patrick Marley of the Washington Post noted, Republican-dominated legislatures in Ohio, Missouri, North Carolina, Texas, and Florida have redistricted to pick up Republican seats, while Tennessee, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Alabama are engaged in that process. In retaliation, Democrats have temporarily redistricted the states of California and Virginia.
Tennessee is now expected to send only Republicans to Congress. Just minutes after the Republicans cut Memphis into thirds to get rid of the voices of Black Democrats, Republican state senator Brent Taylor announced he was running for the new seat “to stand with President Trump and cement Tennessee’s conservative legacy for generations to come.”
In Tennessee, Representative Steve Cohen, who currently represents Memphis and who is the only Democrat in the Tennessee congressional delegation, posted: “And just like that, the TN GOP voted to enforce a racial gerrymander of Memphis and strip our city of effective representation for decades. Trump knows he HAS TO rig the game to keep his majority in November. And the TN GOP was willing to go along with it. It’s shameful. Next stop is the courts.”
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has already sued to block the redistricting.
Cohen is right that the Republicans recognize the only way for them to win going forward is to skew the maps so that Democrats can’t win, because right now, at least, the administration is a dumpster fire.
This morning, Warren P. Strobel, John Hudson, and Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post reported that the Central Intelligence Agency delivered a confidential analysis of conditions in Iran that suggests the administration has been badly off the mark in its public statements about the war.
Although Trump insists that the war had been an overwhelming military victory and that Iran is suffering so badly from the U.S. military blockade it will have to cave to U.S. demands quickly, the CIA report assesses that, in fact, Iran can survive for at least three or four more months before having to deal with more severe economic hardship. The report also assesses that Iran still has about 75% of the mobile missile launchers it had before the war and about 70% of its missiles.
Trump has told reporters that Iran’s economy is “crashing” and that Iran was down to 18% or 19% of its former missile stocks.
The content of the analysis is important, and so is the fact that CIA analysts are sharing it with reporters, suggesting they are disturbed by the administration’s current trajectory.
The administration insists the war has “terminated,” meaning that it does not have to honor the 1973 War Powers Act that requires the president to either withdraw troops or get congressional approval for continuing military actions. Today the U.S. and Iran exchanged fire in the Strait of Hormuz, with Iran firing on three U.S. destroyers and the U.S. firing on two ships entering the strait.
While the Iranian military called the strikes a violation of the ceasefire, a U.S. official told Barak Ravid and Dave Lawler of Axios that the exchange did not mean the war had resumed. This evening, the president told Rachel Scott of ABC News in a phone call that the ceasefire is still in effect and “the retaliatory strikes against Iranian targets are just a ‘love tap.’”
As the national average for a gallon of gas hit $4.56 today, the British energy giant Shell announced its profits were up 24% in the first three months of 2026. This amounted to almost $7 billion, more than twice what Shell made in the previous quarter.
In the Wall Street Journal, John Keilman reported today that Whirlpool, which makes refrigerators and washing machines, said the Iran war has caused a “recession-level industry decline” and that Americans should expect to pay higher prices for appliances going forward.
While experts say there were about 14 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. in 2025, Trump border advisor Tom Homan told the Fox News Channel today that there are “well over 20 million” undocumented immigrants in the U.S. and “we’re going to do everything we can to arrest as many people as we can.”
But a new Pew poll shows that 52% of Americans already think Trump is cracking down too hard on undocumented immigrants. Politico adds that that number includes about a quarter of the people who voted for him in 2024. It also includes 67% of Latino voters, who had swung toward the Republicans in 2024.
Those poll numbers came before today’s story by Lisa Song, Maya Miller, Melissa Sanchez, and Mariam Elba of ProPublica identifying 79 children injured by tear gas or pepper spray during immigration encounters. While the reporters documented federal agents throwing tear gas and shooting pepper spray into crowds, the Department of Homeland Security said the fault for the children’s injuries lies with “agitators” and parents who put their children in harm’s way. “DHS does NOT target children,” it said.
The journalists assess that their count of 79 injured children is “likely still a vast undercount.”
Americans are paying dearly for the administration’s detention of immigrants. Just today, Patricia Mazzei and Hamed Aleaziz of the New York Times reported that the administration of Florida governor Ron DeSantis is talking with the Trump administration about closing the Everglades detention center known as Alligator Alcatraz. The center has been called unsanitary and inhumane since it opened about ten months ago, yet the cost of housing its 1,400 detainees is more than $1 million a day. DeSantis has asked for $608 million to run the camp for a year.
And then there are Trump’s increasingly high profile attacks on the pope. Pope Leo XIV is the first pope from the United States, and Trump seems determined to challenge him. The pope has spoken out against inhumane treatment of migrants and has called for peace through diplomacy, an observation Trump has taken as criticism of his war on Iran. Last week, Pope Leo appointed Bishop Evelio Menjivar-Ayala to become the new bishop of West Virginia. Menjivar-Ayala was once an undocumented immigrant himself.
Trump posted last month that Pope Leo was “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,” and he has continued his attacks, saying Monday: “The pope would rather talk about the fact that it’s OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and I don’t think that’s very good. I think he’s endangering a lot of Catholics, and a lot of people, but I guess if it’s up to the pope, he thinks it’s just fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”
As Sarah Ewall-Wice reported in the Daily Beast, Pope Leo responded indirectly, noting that “[t]he mission of the Church is to preach the Gospel, to preach peace. If anyone wants to criticize me for proclaiming the Gospel, let them do so truthfully.” He continued: “The Church has spoken out against all nuclear weapons for years, so there is no doubt about that.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was at the Vatican today to ease tensions. The visit did not go particularly well. While Rubio gave Pope Leo a crystal football with the seal of the State Department, Pope Leo gave Rubio a pen made from the symbol of peace: olive wood. The Vatican’s statement did not suggest the men found much common ground, saying the meeting included “an exchange of views regarding the regional and international situation, with particular attention to countries marked by war, political tensions, and difficult humanitarian situations, as well as to the need to work tirelessly in support of peace.”
And finally, today the president himself is in the news…or, rather, out of it. Trump, both of whose hands have been covered in makeup lately, apparently to hide bruises, was supposed to have a meeting today with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil at 11:15 that was open to the press. The reporters waited three hours, but the event never happened. At 1:22, Trump’s social media account simply posted that “[t]he meeting went very well” and that representatives from the two countries would continue to meet.
Source: Heather Cox Richardson | Letters from an American
Singer-songwriter was known for collaborations with former husband John Martyn as well as star-studded 1960s singles and 2014 comeback album
By Ben Beaumont-Thomas
British folk singer Beverley Martyn, known for her collaborations with her former husband John Martyn as well as spirited, sublime solo work, has died aged 79.
A statement from the family of the late John Martyn announced the news, saying she died peacefully at home on Monday. “Beverley was a remarkable woman of great inner strength,” the statement continued. “She was beautiful, intelligent, warm and kind.”
Born Beverley Kutner near Coventry in 1947, she moved to London in her mid-teens to attend drama school and worked her way into the city’s folk music scene, which was flourishing in the early 1960s: she learned to play guitar from British folk legend Bert Jansch, an early boyfriend.
She released a single with her band, the Levee Breakers, the stridently jangling Babe I’m Leaving You, and also recorded solo songs including the enduring Happy New Year, a fuzz-guitar romp written by Randy Newman and featuring a pre-Led Zeppelin Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones among the session musicians. Page later said: “It was a remarkable session, at the time it was recorded I knew that she was a shining talent in the world of performance and songwriting.” Another single, Museum, was written by Donovan.
After becoming romantically involved with Paul Simon during his developmental years in London – “He had a Napoleon complex. Very intelligent. Moody, but witty,” was her assessment of him in a 2014 Guardian interview – she travelled with him to perform at the Monterey pop festival in 1967 (the culture-shifting event where Jimi Hendrix famously set his guitar on fire) and briefly appeared on the Simon & Garfunkel album Bookends, a US and UK No 1
She became a single mother to a son, Wesley, from another relationship, then met John Martyn in 1969, soon marrying him. Immersed in the folk-rock counterculture in the US, they recorded a duo album, Stormbringer!, in 1969 in Woodstock, with the Band’s Levon Helm on drums and Joe Boyd producing. It was released in 1970, and later that year they recorded and released another, The Road to Ruin (its opening track Primrose Hill would later be sampled by Fatboy Slim).
Beverley also came to know British folk star Nick Drake, who would babysit for her children; they wrote a song together, Reckless Jane, which Beverley completed in 2014.
She and John had two children of their own, but after he pursued his solo career, “my career was over”, she said in 2014. “I had my hands full. I did the odd gig with John, and the odd one on my own, but I had no future.”
Their marriage soured; John, who struggled with alcohol and drugs, became paranoid and threatening. “There was love there – it was the drink and the bad drugs, the very heavy ones, that changed his disposition, and they made life unbearable for anyone around him,” she later said. “I wouldn’t stay with a man who was killing himself.”
She escaped the marriage and moved to Brighton, fitfully making music including with Loudon Wainwright III and Wilko Johnson, but it wasn’t until her 2014 solo album, The Phoenix and the Turtle, that she made a more emphatic return. “It was a great relief to finally do something on my own terms. That was a dream I’d almost given up on,” she said of that project.
That would be her final collection of new material, though in 2018 she released a compilation of her 1960s songs, entitled Where the Good Times Are.
.Source: Beverley Martyn, spirited British folk singer, dies aged 79 | Folk music | The Guardian