Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad:
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The Washington Post says Trump is focused on foreign policy while voters worry about cost of living
President Donald Trump kicked off his midterm campaign travel this week with a bipolar economy: huge growth but plummeting consumer confidence. How he navigates that tension will determine how badly Republicans fare this fall.
This was the president’s message in Iowa on Tuesday night: “Our economy is booming. Incomes are rising. Investment is soaring. Inflation has been defeated. Our border is closed.”
There are good metrics to lean on. The economy grew at an annualized 4.4 percent rate in the third quarter. Inflation, while still above the 2 percent target, has slowed dramatically, with prices rising 2.7 percent year over year in December.
But there’s a growing disconnect between top-line growth — fueled in part by the artificial intelligence build out boom — and how Americans perceive the economy. The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index, also released Tuesday, revealed a plunge to its lowest level in 12 years. Trump’s success in securing the border has also been overshadowed by the collateral arrests and chaos of deportation operations in Minneapolis.
Polling shows 58 percent of Americans disapprove of the economy, while 64 percent disapprove of Trump’s handling of the cost of living. About 6 in 10 fear prices will continue to rise at a “high rate.” Almost 7 in 10 expect a year of “economic difficulty.”
“Affordability” has turned into overused shorthand by politicians in both parties. Trump pooh-poohed the term for a while. Now he’s determined to turn the tables. “Every time you hear the word,” he said in Iowa, “remember, they’re the ones who caused the problem.” But voters tend to blame the people they’ve elected, understandably so. They don’t blame Democrats right now, and it’s hard to see how that will change as more time passes.
The Federal Reserve kept interest rates unchanged on Wednesday after cutting rates at its last three meetings. The central bank is mindful that job growth has been decelerating, though there are indications that’s stabilizing. “Uncertainty about the economic outlook remains elevated,” the Fed said in a statement.
A looming Supreme Court decision on the legality of the tariffs adds to the uncertainty. In states like Iowa, with an open Senate race and competitive House contests, the tariffs have taken a heavy toll on agriculture. The $12 billion bailout Trump announced for farmers in December is not enough to make up for the damage of tariffs, which include skyrocketing fertilizer costs. Almost 300 farms filed for bankruptcy between January and September last year, an increase of nearly 40 percent from the year before.
Another challenge for Trump is that he appears distracted by foreign policy at the expense of cost-of-living issues. The president has increasingly tried to convey that he’s focusing on pocketbook worries, only to step on his own messaging. He talked about affordability in Iowa on Tuesday night, but by Wednesday morning, he was warning Iran of looming military strikes (“ Like with Venezuela ”) if the regime does not negotiate an end to its nuclear weapons program.
This is a problem every president navigates, but it has been especially stark during Trump’s first year back in power. For weeks, the White House promised that Trump would lay out his plans for housing policy at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, but that address was dominated instead by defusing a crisis over Greenland he created. Administration officials say Trump plans less foreign travel and more rallies in swing states. He seems to know he has a problem at home, but he cannot help himself.
ONLINE: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/01/28/iowa-trump-midterms-campaign-economy/
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Jan. 31
The New York Times says the sanctity of the midterm elections is under threat
Election integrity in the United States can be a fraught subject. Merely raising the prospect that a future election might be compromised makes many democracy experts uncomfortable. It can undermine faith in our reliable, well-run election system and amplify the false claims about fraud that often come from President Trump. Even people who respect the sanctity of elections sometimes malign them. Many Democrats, for example, have wrongly suggested that voter-identification laws undermine the system by causing large declines in turnout.
In truth, American elections have never been more reliable or accessible. For every election, thousands of principled election officials painstakingly update voter rolls, mail information to households, train poll workers, oversee voting and transport ballots with a documented chain of custody. Voter fraud is extremely rare, and voter turnout in the past two presidential elections reached higher levels than in any other over the previous century.
Yet it would be naïve to assume that the status quo is guaranteed to continue. The sanctity of the 2026 elections is indeed under threat. And the reason is Mr. Trump.
He has repeatedly demonstrated his willingness to interfere with elections to benefit himself and his party. He has broken the law to do so and broken longstanding bipartisan traditions. Since he entered politics a decade ago, he has suggested that election outcomes are fair only if his side wins. In 2020, after he lost the presidential election, he attempted to direct a sprawling conspiracy to overturn the result. As it was failing (thanks to the honesty of election administrators from both parties), he encouraged protesters to march to Congress when it was meeting to certify his defeat — and later celebrated their violent attack.
Since he returned to the presidency last year, he has if anything shown a willingness to go further. He has pushed for extreme gerrymandering of congressional districts, outside the normal 10-year cycle, to help Republicans hold the House even if most voters want them out. His Justice Department is building an unprecedented database of voter information that experts fear the administration may use to cast unfair doubt on voters’ eligibility. He signed a legally dubious executive order that could force states to reject some mail-in ballots. He recently told The Times that he regretted not sending the National Guard to seize voting machines after the 2020 presidential election.
The threat took on a new urgency this week, when F.B.I. agents searched an election center in Atlanta related to Mr. Trump’s baseless accusations of fraud in 2020. Chillingly, his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, accompanied agents on the search. As an article in The Times explained, the search “could be used to justify a forced takeover of the elections operation” in Georgia’s most populous county, which skews heavily Democratic. It is a reminder of Mr. Trump’s willingness to use the tools of state power — prosecutors, national security officials, National Guard members and F.B.I. and immigration agents — in the service of his political interests.
To look at this pattern and conclude that the 2026 midterm elections are safe is to leave American democracy exposed. In a divided country where many elections are close and congressional control could come down to a handful of races, a local disruption affecting turnout or vote counting could have national consequences. If you are somebody who has previously dismissed talk of election interference as overwrought, we understand where you are coming from. Yet we urge you not to assume that the past will repeat itself.
We are relieved to see that an array of civic-minded Americans — including Democrats, independents and Republicans — are responding to the threat and already taking steps to protect the integrity of the 2026 elections. They need help in this nonpartisan endeavor. They have far fewer resources at their disposal than the president does. Much as the editorial board makes annual recommendations of high-impact charities to support, we want to suggest several ways that you can help safeguard democracy ahead of the midterms. We ask you to consider them.
Our first set of recommendations involves actions rather than donations:
You can also support organizations that are helping to protect election officials and safeguard the process. All the ones we recommend here are nonpartisan.
In 1981, Ronald Reagan began his first Inaugural Address by observing that the orderly transfer of authority was “a commonplace occurrence” to most Americans but was “nothing less than a miracle” to much of the world. Our elections remain both commonplace and miraculous. This country should be proud that it can feel so routine for a citizen to drop a ballot in the mailbox or walk down the street to cast a vote. In 2026, we should guard that tradition.
ONLINE: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/opinion/trump-midterms-election-security.html
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Feb. 1
The Wall Street Journal says the mass deportation strategy is backfiring
How does a Republican lose by 14 points in a safe conservative Texas state Senate seat that President Trump carried by 17 points in 2024? Answer: When there’s a voter backlash against the Trump Administration, notably its mass deportation debacles.
That’s what happened Saturday in a special election to fill a GOP seat in Tarrant County in the Fort Worth area. Democrat Taylor Rehmet, a labor union leader and veteran, romped over Republican Leigh Wambsganss, who had a Truth Social endorsement from Mr. Trump and vastly outspent Mr. Rehmet.
The election timing was awful for Republicans in the wake of the two killings by immigration agents in Minneapolis. Ms. Wambsganss has been a leader in the parental-rights movement in school boards and wasn’t a bad candidate. But state politics is often national these days, and the 31-point vote swing in a little more than 14 months can only be explained as part of a rising tide of opposition to Mr. Trump’s first year and a sour public mood.
Democrats and independents came out in droves, as they did in last November’s races, while GOP turnout was down. This has been the trend throughout 2025 and the New Year, with an average swing in double digits toward Democrats in special elections for the U.S. House.
This comes amid a debate on the right over what themes to stress to avoid a GOP washout in November. Even after Minneapolis, some of MAGA’s mouthpieces are saying the GOP should run more forcefully on immigration enforcement. This was White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller ’s strategy in 2018 as he helped to blow up a bipartisan immigration reform compromise on Capitol Hill. The GOP lost a net of 41 House seats.
The Miller strategy isn’t likely to fare better this year, as the polls show voters turning against the way Mr. Trump is pursuing mass deportation. In the wake of the Minneapolis shootings, Mr. Trump has said he wants to dial back the confrontations on the street. That’s smart, but he’ll also have to dial back Mr. Miller, who is the mastermind of the mass deportation strategy.
Mr. Miller ordered the immigration bureaucracy to fill a quota of 3,000 migrant arrests a day. This was bound to result in agent intrusions into homes and businesses, since there aren’t that many criminal migrants to fill such a quota each day.
Immigration has overall been a winning issue for Republicans, but it works better as a reaction to Democratic border enforcement failures. Mr. Trump has already largely closed the border. But immigration enforcement that turns ugly in the streets is turning off the swing voters who will determine who wins the race for Congress this year.
ONLINE: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/a-texas-election-jolt-to-the-gop-f0895184?mod=editorials_article_pos4
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Jan. 29
The Guardian says military strikes won’t help Iranian civilians facing state brutality
The brutality of Iran’s crackdown on protesters is almost unfathomable. Despite the authorities cutting off communications and destroying evidence, it is clear that a regime never reluctant to shed its citizens’ blood has done so with unprecedented zeal, sensing an unprecedented threat from unrest across the country, challenging not only its policies but its very existence.
Officials have reported 3,000 deaths, but human rights groups have tallied many more, and a network of medical professionals has estimated that 30,000 could have been killed. Security forces shot people dead as they fled a fire and are arresting doctors for helping the wounded.
Alongside the fury at this vengeful regime is anger at another leader: Donald Trump, who urged Iranians to keep protesting and promised them that “help is on its way” – then played down the slaughter. Now the US president has warned via social media that “a massive Armada is heading to Iran”, and that “the next attack will be far worse” than Operation Midnight Hammer, the US strike on nuclear sites last summer. Iran’s muted response, and its weakening over the last year, has emboldened him, as has his seizure of Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, referenced in his post. But protesters were forgotten: instead his demand was “NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS”.
Mr Trump is notoriously unpredictable: in his first term, he called off an attack on Iran 10 minutes before it happened. But his newfound interventionism has wrenched the spotlight from the Epstein files, and Iran threats distract from Immigration and Customs Enforcement brutality at home and his climbdown over Greenland. Iran is a far more popular target than Denmark among his base.
Many Iran analysts now see a “zombie state” – unable to ensure even a basic standard of living or to defend its sovereignty; apparently unable to renew itself; but as tyrannical as it is frail. However, military intervention could come at huge human cost and would not bring democracy – even if that were Mr Trump’s aim. More likely would be the emergence of a strongman, perhaps from the Revolutionary Guard, or regime collapse and chaos. If he were serious about non-proliferation, the best hope – albeit now harder than ever – would be to seek a revised version of the JCPOA deal which he did the most to destroy.
Israel sees a weakened, chaotic Iran as in its interests. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and others are trying to hold the US back because they fear a strengthened Israel, a surge in migration and instability in a region attempting to sell itself as a dependable investment. As weakened as it is, a cornered regime could still do damage – particularly in the strait of Hormuz, a critical artery for global trade – if it believes that inaction would only make it look an easier target. Economic concerns seem more likely to shift Mr Trump than humanitarian considerations.
The EU on Thursday designated the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist entity – a largely symbolic measure given the extent of existing sanctions. Governments can and should press for a moratorium on executions, support attempts to reconnect Iranians with the internet, and fund NGOs documenting abuses. In the longer term they should consider how to support civil society and help to strengthen it. They should also provide safe passage to activists whose lives are in danger. Military intervention is not the answer – but neither is indifference to the suffering of Iranian civilians.
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Jan. 28
The Boston Globe says Trump can’t be allowed to silence campus free speech
Tufts University PhD student Rümeysa Öztürk had her student visa revoked and was snatched off the streets of Somerville by immigration agents last March because of speech.
If there were any lingering questions about whether Öztürk committed any wrongdoing, they were put to rest by documents unsealed last week in US District Court in Boston.
Her sole offense, the documents reveal, was to commit free speech — in a country with a constitutional right to free speech enshrined in the First Amendment. It’s the latest travesty by a Trump administration that’s shown blatant disregard for the rights of Americans and non-Americans.
If, because of the experiences of Öztürk and others like her, international students fear to speak their minds and contradict the government — or simply choose not to study here at all — our campuses will be poorer for it.
As Conor Fitzpatrick, supervising senior attorney at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told the editorial board, colleges should be a marketplace of ideas. “It’s the place where not only scientific theories but social science theories and political theories get put to the test. No idea is sacred, everything is fair game for disagreement and study,” Fitzpatrick said. “Inviting someone to attend a US university on a visa but saying you’re not allowed to express these ideas or write a paper expressing this opinion, that’s not what an American education is about.”
US government memos justifying the visa revocations of Öztürk and several other students were unsealed by US District Judge William Young in a court case that the American Association of University Professors brought against Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other federal officials. The lawsuit charges that the administration’s detention and deportation of noncitizen students for ideological reasons — because they participated in pro-Palestinian protests or expression — violates the First Amendment.
According to a memo a consular affairs official wrote to Rubio, the concerns about Öztürk, who is Turkish, stem entirely from an op-ed she co-wrote for The Tufts Daily. The op-ed criticized university administration for being dismissive of resolutions passed by the student Senate requiring the university to recognize “genocide” in Gaza, divest from Israeli companies, and cease selling Israeli products in dining halls.
The op-ed referenced several pro-Palestinian student groups that oppose the university’s response, one of which was suspended — months after the op-ed was published — for using images of weapons to promote a rally and urging “intifada.”
There’s no indication Öztürk was part of the suspended group or involved in its actions. In fact, the memo wrote that federal agencies found no evidence of antisemitic activity or support for a terrorist group by Öztürk. Yet it recommended visa revocation based on a “totality of the circumstances.”
Young ruled last week in favor of the American Association of University Professors, finding that the Trump administration implemented the president’s executive orders on visas and antisemitism in “a viewpoint-discriminatory way to chill protected speech.”
Unusually, he prohibited the Trump administration from revoking the immigration status of any student who belongs to the organizations that brought the lawsuit without a criminal conviction or other appropriate reason. The Trump administration is expected to appeal the ruling.
The US State Department has argued that studying in the United States is a “privilege, not a right” and the United States must ensure that noncitizen students don’t threaten national security. He’s right. The United States has latitude to screen visa applicants before admitting them. And there are laws to ensure that if a student commits a criminal offense — and certainly if they provide material support to terrorists — their visa can be revoked.
But none of that occurred in Öztürk’s case, where the United States granted her a visa, then revoked it without evidence of criminal activity, much less evidence of her providing material support for terrorism. It is established law, based on a 1945 US Supreme Court case, that foreigners residing in the United States have rights to freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
The Trump administration’s attempts to infringe on those rights take us back to the time when that Supreme Court case was decided, an era when the fear of communism led to a chilling of free speech. As a country, that should not be an era we wish to return to.
As Veena Dubal, general counsel of the American Association of University Professors, told the editorial board, “A central premise of freedom in the United States is freedom to speak our minds, to engage in critical debate or conversation without fear of state reprisal.”
One can — and should — oppose Öztürk’s visa revocation regardless of what one thinks of her views on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, because the ramifications of the government’s policies extend far beyond that issue. If the government can revoke Öztürk’s visa because of an op-ed, what is to stop it from revoking visas of students who publicly criticize the administration’s positions on the Russia-Ukraine conflict or fossil fuel use?
Young, who was appointed to the bench by former president Ronald Reagan, concluded his ruling with a quote from Reagan’s 1967 inaugural address as California governor: “Freedom is a fragile thing and it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended in every generation, for it comes only once to a people.”
The Trump administration seeks to abridge the right to free speech in America. Universities, their allies, and all Americans must continue to fight for that right.
ONLINE: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/01/28/opinion/rumeysa-ozturk-tufts-free-speech/
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