‘How Small They Are’: Mamdani Takes Apart MAGA’s Vision of America in July 4 Address
Article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“At every moment in our past, those who led through exclusion and isolation have tried to win power for themselves by turning us against one another.”
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Friday delivered a speech commemorating the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America that drew a sharp contrast with President Donald Trump’s vision for the country.
Speaking from New York City Hall, Mamdani recounted how his city had long served as a refuge for people from across the globe who came seeking a new life an opportunity.
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It was these immigrants who ultimately shaped New York and made it into what it is today, said Mamdani—who is an immigrant and among the rising number of democratic socialists who have recently won at the ballot box.
The mayor then moved to the present day, where he took aim at the anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies emanating from Trump and his MAGA movement.
“The story of America has been written by those who have so often been told by those with power and influence and wealth that they were anything but exceptional,” Mamdani said. “For generation after generation, we have been told that when the world has sent its people to our shores, it has not sent its best.”
Mamdani took aim at the ideology espoused by many rich and powerful people who see America as “an arena of supremacy, where only a select few are allowed freedom, where not all are created equal.”
“America, if you ask them, becomes less the more people it welcomes,” the mayor continued. “America, they will tell you, belongs only to those with the right accent or the right shade of skin. The rest of us, they insist, should be grateful for merely being allowed to visit.”
“How small they are,” Mamdani remarked. “How weak, how unoriginal. At every moment in our past, those who led through exclusion and isolation have tried to win power for themselves by turning us against one another.”
The mayor then pivoted to a more hopeful tone by arguing that “time and again, including 250 years ago, those forces of division have been vanquished by the forces of progress.”
Mamdani insisted that the greed shown by American oligarchs and the division sown by its current political leadership are “not all we see when we look for America.”
“We see it too in the nurse who works a double shift and then stops on her way home to check on her ailing neighbor,” he said. “Yes, we see in America corporate landlords for whom negligence is a business model. We see it too in the father who tucks his children into bed in a ceiling stained with leaks, who wakes before dawn to go to work, and who still believes this country can do better by his family.”
In his conclusion, Mamdani paid tribute to “those ideals upon which our nation was built,” which he described as “strong enough to endure any authoritarian regime, but only if we reach for them.”
“Ours is a nation working each day towards the perfection in which it was conceived,” he said. “A nation striving each day to better itself. Therein lies the work of America: The striving, the bettering, the reaching towards perfection. What a privilege each of us has to live in a nation that every one of its inhabitants can shape.”
Article by Brad Reed republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
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As Premiums Soar and Millions Lose Coverage, Over Half of Americans Say End Private Health Insurance
Article by Jessica Corbett republished form Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“As working families continue to get squeezed left and right by GOP-driven healthcare cost hikes and bureaucratic red tape, millions more Americans will lose the care they rely on to stay alive and healthy.”
On the heels of data revealing that millions of people have lost health insurance coverage during US President Donald Trump’s second term amid a series of GOP attacks on access to care, polling published Monday shows that a majority of Americans support eliminating private insurers.
The 1,606 adult US citizens surveyed by The Economist/YouGov June 26-29 were asked: “Do you support or oppose a national health plan in which all Americans get their health insurance from the federal government and private health insurance companies are eliminated?”
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Fifty-two percent expressed support, and the proposal was even more popular than that among respondents under age 45 as well as registered Democrats and Independents. Just 30% of those polled were opposed, while the rest said that they were “not sure.”
The polling follows the administration’s quiet release of data showing that 4.2 million lost Affordable Care Act (ACA) coverage as of February. Trump and his Republican allies in Congress have come under fire for letting ACA subsidies expire at the end of last year—as well as for enacting the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is expected to leave more working-class Americans uninsured over the next decade. Already, Protect Our Care estimates that 3.8 million people have lost coverage under Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, bringing the total for Trump’s term to around 8 million.
“A mind-boggling number of Americans have found themselves joining the ranks of the uninsured,” Protect Our Care president Brad Woodhouse said in a Tuesday statement. “And this is just the beginning. As working families continue to get squeezed left and right by GOP-driven healthcare cost hikes and bureaucratic red tape, millions more Americans will lose the care they rely on to stay alive and healthy.”
“These are diabetic patients rationing insulin and parents skipping cancer screenings,” he continued. “These are small business owners and farmers shutting down their life’s work because they can no longer afford to buy insurance on their own. These are moms, veterans, and seniors. These are the millions who will hand Trump and Republicans in Congress a withering rebuke at the ballot box in November for making healthcare unaffordable so they could make billionaires and big corporations richer.”
As premiums soar and Americans begin to endure the consequences of the national Republican healthcare agenda, a sweeping coalition of groups that support a universal single-payer system declared earlier this month that “now is the time for Medicare for All.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) have repeatedly introduced the Medicare for All Act in Congress, and support for it has grown among elected Democrats and the US public—as suggested by the new polling.
In a statement about the healthcare findings, the pollsters explained:
While eliminating insurance companies may sound like a radical change to healthcare, the share of Americans who want to replace private insurance with a government health plan (52%) is larger than the share who want to expand the existing Obamacare (the health coverage system established by the Affordable Care Act) (38%). The share who favor repealing Obamacare (28%) is about as large as the share who oppose replacing private insurance with a government plan (30%).
Americans who support a national healthcare plan do not universally see expanding Obamacare as a step in the right direction. Only a little more than half (56%) of the Americans who support creating a national health plan also support expanding Obamacare. On the other hand, most Americans who support expanding Obamacare would also support a national health plan that replaces private insurance (77%).
Although “only 8% of Americans would describe themselves as socialists,” which is “smaller than the shares who describe themselves with several other ideological adjectives offered in a poll question, including progressive (17%), liberal (23%), and conservative (34%),” the pollsters also noted, “many policy proposals championed by democratic socialists draw significant support from Americans.”
For example, majorities of respondents endorsed the government covering the cost of college tuition for all students (55%) and building public housing (57%).
When asked, “Do you think Donald Trump has had the right priorities or hasn’t paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems?” 60% of respondents said the president “hasn’t paid attention to the most important problems.”
The polling comes just over four months away from the November midterm elections, in which Democrats hope to reclaim majorities in both chambers of Congress. Some Democratic candidates, including US Senate hopefuls Graham Platner in Maine and Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, are explicitly running on support for Medicare for All.
After multiple progressives running to represent various New York districts in the US House of Representatives won their primaries last week, Sanders called their victories proof that Americans “are sick and tired of status quo politics,” while Jayapal similarly celebrated that “bold, people-powered candidates took on the Democratic establishment and won.”
“They ran on Medicare for All. On a public option for housing. On a foreign policy that centers human dignity over political convenience. And they won,” Jayapal said. “This is what happens when movements build power. People-powered movements win.”
Article by Jessica Corbett republished form Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
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Yanis Varoufakis calls prosecution after admitting taking ecstasy 40 years ago ‘ridiculous’
Greek leftwing intellectual and former minister says his indictment is indicative of far-right turn in western politics
Yanis Varoufakis, the leftwing firebrand who briefly served as Greece’s finance minister, has criticised his “ridiculous prosecution” for allegedly promoting the use of recreational drugs after his public admission that he once took an ecstasy pill almost 40 years ago.
The 64-year-old, who reminisced about the experience on a podcast, was charged on Wednesday with “inciting others in the illegal use of narcotics”. If convicted he faces a prison term of at least six months and up to €50,000 (£44,000) in fines. A court hearing has been scheduled for December.
On Friday, Varoufakis described the indictment as indicative of the far-right turn in politics across the west.
“My ridiculous prosecution must be seen within the wider, west-wide surge of an insidious new form of fascism,” he wrote on X, highlighting what he claimed was the appointment of “neo-fascists” to top posts in the centre-right Greek government.
“In this context, I am honoured by their determination to persecute me – as it grants me the privilege of calling upon people of good conscience, from around the world, to stand together, to oppose them.”
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Article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/28/yanis-varoufakis-calls-prosecution-after-admitting-taking-ecstasy-40-years-ago-ridiculous