Dear Progressive Reader,

I recently had an opportunity to re-watch the 2007 film Charlie Wilson’s War, which chronicles the secret arming of Afghan rebels against the 1979-89 Soviet invasion. As the film points out, a major part of the U.S. strategy in that war was to attempt to “bleed the Soviet Union dry” by drawing them deeper into the conflict and forcing them to spend their resources on military weapons and equipment. Many argue that it worked. The Soviets withdrew from the conflict in February 1989, and nine months later the Berlin Wall came down, and two years after that, the Soviet Union disolved.

It occurred to me that in many ways, the Trump Administration seems to be engaged in a similar fiscal frontal attack on all of the progressive public programs built over the past century. Cutting funds for things like public broadcasting, arts and humanities, so-called DEI programs, and even a tiny grant “that teaches first responders how to use the lifesaving overdose reversal drug naloxone.” And, as more and more government support is being cut, private foundations are scrambling to try and fill the gaps.

In 2011, Wisconsin’s newly elected Republican Governor Scott Walker levied a similar attack against public sector unions in effort to “defund and defang” organized labor. The immediate result of Walker’s Act 10 budget bill was to curtail public sector union bargaining rights, but the longer term effect was to limit the resources of those unions to participate in other activities—including providing support for Democrats running for political office—and to “kill progressive political efforts” nationwide.

It would not be a stretch to postulate that Trump and his acolytes see the possibilities of this strategy (perhaps even reading and following the “Grand Chessboard” analysis of Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor and former CIA Director William Casey’s Cold War ideology). If the progressive foundations and Democratic-Party-supporting donors are spending all of their funds filling the gaps left by cuts in federal support, will they have any resources left to put toward electoral politics in 2026 and 2028?

In 2016, on the eve of Trump’s first Inauguration, Aaron Dorfman, president of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy posited a series of five steps that foundations and donors could take to most effectively combat the Trump agenda (in its earliest version). Dorfman concluded by imploring: “Our nation needs foundations and wealthy individuals to be part of the resistance. It's time to get busy.” Now that the Trump Administration is actively targeting both nonprofits and the lawyers that might defend them, it increasingly seems like time is running out.

This week on our website, Lily Spanbauer looks at the importance of public libraries; Mike Ervin examines the problems of letting private corporations make a profit from public health; Hank Kennedy shines a light on the way tariffs hurt union workers; and Marc Martorell reports from Germany on the strains in U.S.-Europe relations, even as we commemorate unity in the fight to end fascism in World War Two. Plus, Tanya Greene of Human Rights Watch pens an op-ed on the impacts of making police less accountable; Sarah Bobrow-Williams makes the case for racial equity in public health; and Eric Protein Moseley opines on the importance of listening to the voices of unhoused people.

Please keep reading, and we will keep bringing you important articles on these and other issues of our time.

Sincerely,

Norman Stockwell
Publisher

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