With just four weeks to go until the 2026 midterm elections, democracy watchdogs are warning that President Donald Trump is breaking the law in a desperate bid to retain Republican control of the US Congress.

A Monday report in USA Today highlighted the unprecedented steps that Trump is taking to rig the midterms for the GOP, ranging from his promises to pay every American $5,000 if Republicans retain Congress, to his efforts to get the US Postal Service to not deliver ballots to voters, to his push to have Republican-led states redraw their electoral maps in the middle of the decade.

Adav Noti, executive director of the Campaign Legal Center, told USA Today that the president has shown he is willing to behave lawlessly to keep power.

“I think the president is trying to use all of the powers at his disposal to control the election results, and almost all of those efforts are illegal,” Noti said, “but that has not deterred the administration.”

Noti added that Trump has gone well above and beyond what any past president has done to meddle in elections.

“We’ve never seen anything like this before,” he said. “The issue of the president of the United States using the powers of the presidency to try to control the election. That is a new development with this election.”

In an analysis published by Democracy Docket on Monday, election attorney Marc Elias warned that Trump in the coming weeks could take even more extreme steps, many of which he has already mused about publicly.

“Trump is once again in power, and he is again telling us his plan,” Elias explained. “He has weaponized the entire federal government—including the Department of Justice and the US Postal Service—to make voting more difficult.”

The “most dangerous” threat Trump has made, Elias continued, has related to the counting, tabulation, and certification of votes.

“Despite what the US Constitution says, he has repeatedly claimed the power to direct this process,” Elias warned. “This is not a new idea. It has been his plan all along.”

Elias also slammed the US media for continuing to downplay Trump’s authoritarian attacks on democracy, arguing that the press has learned nothing since the president incited a violent attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Elias isn’t alone in his concern about another January 6-style event.

In an interview that aired on CBS News Sunday, retiring US Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) was asked about the potential for Trump to try to overturn Democratic victories in this year’s elections, and he expressed real concern.

“I think there’s a risk,” Tillis said. “I really do. It would be another political unforced error if we do that.”

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The first round of Brazil’s 2026 elections held this Sunday ended with a resounding victory for the far-right Liberal Party (PL). Flávio Bolsonaro, the son of the jailed former president, Jair Bolsonaro, came out ahead of the current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, with more than 47% of the valid votes. His party also secured the largest blocs in both the Chamber of Deputies – the lower house of Brazil’s Congress – and the Senate, in addition to five state governments.

Political scientists had already predicted such a scenario. Even with polls showing better numbers for Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT), we saw a shift in votes in the final days of the campaign driven by anti-PT sentiment and discontent fueled largely by unmet consumer expectations. This came even at a time of low inflation and low unemployment.

Still, the race remains wide open, as the two candidates now head to a runoff on October 25.

So far, the electoral process has proceeded without serious incidents

Elections alone do not build democracy. But, to cite just two essential figures in political science, Joseph Schumpeter and Adam Przeworski, free elections are one of the necessary conditions for its existence: an arrangement in which leaders compete for votes periodically and the defeated candidate accepts their loss.

Notably, this is an instrumental view and, as such, is strongly contested by those who expect more from democracy than just elections. But that is precisely why it is worth remembering the day after the first round of voting in Brazil. Being able to choose governments through the ballot box, respecting the outcome, without anyone taking up arms or staging a sit-in at a military barracks, is no small matter.

Since 1989, the year of the first direct presidential election in Brazil after the end of the military dictatorship, the Workers’ Party has been one of the main political contenders, consistently finishing among the top two parties.

In seven of the ten elections, PT’s presidential candidate was Lula. He won three of them and is now once again in the runoff election.

In the last three elections (2018, 2022 and 2026), the other side of the race has been contested by the far right, represented by Jair Bolsonaro in the first two and — now that he is under house arrest — by his son, Flávio.

In 2018, Jair Bolsonaro emerged victorious. The right reorganized itself around him, primarily centred on conservative moral agendas, such as the defense of Christian values, support for the military dictatorship, and opposition to sexual and reproductive rights, with a strong emphasis on reinforcing traditional gender roles.

In 2022, Lula, who had been arrested on charges of alleged involvement in corruption scandals, ran for office again and, this time, emerged victorious, defeating Jair Bolsonaro, who was seeking reelection. In a blatant disregard for even the most basic principles of democracy, Bolsanaro’s far-right supporters occupied roads and military barracks the day after the election — a clear sign of their refusal to accept defeat.

Restrained at first, they returned after the inauguration in an orchestrated act on January 8, 2023, when organized groups of Bolsonaro supporters stormed and vandalized the headquarters of the three branches of government in the Federal District, mirroring the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The acts of vandalism at the National Congress, the Planalto Palace, and the Federal Supreme Court led to hundreds of Bolsonaro supporters being convicted.

Given the severity of the act, Bolsonaro himself was sentenced to prison by the Federal Supreme Court (STF) as the leader of the criminal organization that attempted the coup, alongside high-ranking military officers and a federal deputy.

Erratic polls

This will be the third election in which PT supporters and Bolsonaro supporters will engage in a fierce race for the presidency that goes all the way to the runoff. Throughout the entire campaign this year, poll predictions have not held up consistently for more than a week at a time. Studies in political science offer some clues as to why.

It is well known that the PT has a hard-core base that guarantees about 30% of the vote, while the anti-PT camp accounts for another 30% or so. Not every leftist is a PT supporter, and not every anti-PT voter is a Bolsonaro supporter, but the groups often overlap.

Recent articles report that identification with the right has also taken hold among voters, beyond just support for Bolsonaro. And some evidence shows that women have a stronger preference for Lula, while evangelicals have an even stronger preference for Bolsonaro — whether the father or the son.

Runoff elections rarely alter the outcome of the first round (even if it is possible). The pattern in which incumbents had a better chance of winning has been changing. And in Latin America, the “pink tide” has been replaced by a wave of victorious far-right candidates, as has occurred in Argentina and Chile.

Once the elections are over, we must ensure the strength of our institutions far beyond simply guaranteeing fair elections to preserve democracy. This is especially true in a context where the far right — which has attacked institutions on numerous occasions and is a persistent denier of science (as we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic) — will hold the largest blocs in Congress and may also secure the presidency.

Thus, the work of these institutions — composed of people with different political preferences — becomes even more crucial. It is up to them to ensure rules that apply to everyone and that allow, even if only minimally, for the independence of the three branches of government, as well as fair, periodic elections with political opponents who can win or lose.

Upholding democracy, in victory or defeat

With an eye on Latin America but deeply concerned about the situation in the United States, Przeworski — the scholar known for his minimalist conception of democracy — drew attention to two points at a conference in Paris last May. According to the political scientist, we cannot assume that democracy ceases to exist when a candidate we do not like is elected; on the contrary, this demonstrates that the system is functioning properly.

On the other hand, he noted that in the U.S., the erosion of democracy during Donald Trump’s second term has been threatening the possibility of fair, periodic elections in which defeat is accepted. This serves as a warning for Brazil.

We will not know who Brazil’s next president will be until October 25. Whoever emerges victorious, the rule remains the same: the election must be fair, and the loser must accept the result.

On this point, the two sides do not have the same track record. Lula lost three consecutive presidential elections, and yet members of the Workers’ Party did not go to Brasília to ransack Congress. The same cannot be said of the far right. The last time it lost, the January 8, 2023 riots broke out, during which not even the most basic concept of democracy was respected.

For this reason, the commitment expected of the Brazilian far-right now is twofold.

If it loses, it must accept defeat. If it wins, it must govern within the rules that enabled its victory, respecting the Judiciary, the press, the opposition, and the possibility of being defeated four years from now.

A democratic government must go beyond this, ensuring that different groups have access to power and that inequality is reduced. But without this first step, no other step is possible. It is this step that the far-right must guarantee.

This piece is the result of a partnership between The Conversation Brazil and Brazil’s National Association of Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences (ANPOCS). Débora Thomé will present one of her papers at the 50th ANPOCS Annual Meeting, taking place October 7–9. Check out the full program here.

Débora Thomé, Professora, Instituto Brasileiro de Ensino, Desenvolvimento e Pesquisa (IDP) ; Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV); Associação Brasileira de Ciência Política (ABCP)

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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A family can live happily in a two-bedroom rental for years, then watch the math change the spring before kindergarten registration. Suddenly, the address decides which public school a child attends, how long the morning drive takes, and whether a parent still gets to work on time. That shift explains why housing decisions become more complicated once children reach school age. Price and square footage still matter, but they now share the table with attendance zones, transfer rules, and long-term affordability.

Why Housing Decisions Become More Complicated Once Children Reach School Age

The main reason is that most U.S. public schools still assign students by home address. An attendance boundary is the line a district draws to decide which school serves each street. Before children enroll, parents can pick a home mostly on cost, commute, and space. After enrollment, the same move may also mean a new teacher, new friends, and a new set of district rules.

The time horizon also stretches. Parents of a five-year-old are often planning for thirteen years of schooling, not the next lease renewal. That longer view pushes many families toward buying rather than renting. It also makes them more hesitant to move again once a child has settled into a classroom.

What Trade-Offs Come With Buying Into a Strong School Zone?

The biggest trade-off is cost. Homes inside well-regarded attendance zones tend to sell for more, so families often pay a premium for the school as much as the house. Some parents accept a smaller yard or an older kitchen. Others take on a longer commute to reach a district they can actually afford.

These pressures hit hardest in high-cost states such as California, where rising prices keep nudging households toward cheaper regions. Population shifts caused by housing costs can have effects beyond the housing market, which is part of the broader discussion around why where people move matters in 21st-century elections. For parents, the question is rarely abstract. It comes down to whether a stretch mortgage today leaves enough room for childcare, activities, and savings later.

How Should Families Compare Cities in the Bay Area?

Families comparing cities in the Bay Area usually make better choices when they weigh the whole community rather than one school rating. Fremont, which WalletHub named the best U.S. city to raise a family in both 2024 and 2025, shows how schools, parks, and local jobs can reinforce each other. Other parents look at Pleasanton, San Ramon, or Albany for similar reasons, at very different price points. A useful comparison usually covers:

• Commute times during school drop-off hours
• Access to parks, libraries, and after-school programs
• Housing stock with room for a growing family
• Enrollment trends and district budget stability

A shortlist saves time when a move is on a deadline. Families narrowing down family-friendly Bay Area cities can use that shortlist as a starting point, then visit the neighborhoods in person and test the school commute on a weekday morning. Driving the school route on a weekday morning reveals traffic, crossing guards, and neighborhood rhythm that no listing can show.

Can School Choice Loosen the Tie Between Address and School?

School choice can loosen that tie, but it rarely breaks it. Charter schools, magnet programs, and open enrollment give some families options beyond their assigned campus. School-choice rules can also become tied up in legal and constitutional disputes. The controversy surrounding Oklahoma’s approval of the nation’s first religious charter school is one example of how quickly the landscape can change. In most districts, though, residents of an attendance area still get first claim on available seats.

That makes choice a backup plan rather than a housing strategy. Lotteries can fall through, many districts offer no transportation for transfer students, and siblings may land on different campuses. Buying a home around a hoped-for transfer can leave parents with a long daily drive and no guarantee.

What Do Families Gain by Moving Somewhere Cheaper?

Moving to a lower-cost area often improves a family’s finances, even when local wages are lower. Housing costs are often the clearest financial reason families consider leaving California. The California Policy Lab’s Priced Out report found that people who moved out of the state ended up in neighborhoods where monthly housing costs were about $672 lower. Seven years later, those movers were 48% more likely to own a home than people who stayed.

The cost shows up elsewhere. Families give up nearby relatives, long friendships, and schools they already know. Middle and high schoolers often feel that loss more sharply than younger siblings. For that reason, many parents find a long-distance move easier to justify before kindergarten than in the middle of eighth grade.

How Much Should Test Scores Drive the Decision?

Test scores deserve weight, but they should not settle the decision alone. Ratings reflect student demographics as much as teaching quality, and they reveal little about whether a specific child will thrive. Family engagement matters too. School performance also depends on factors that a rating cannot capture. One discussion of conservatives and education recounts a teacher’s observation that stronger parental involvement tended to go along with better student performance.

Visiting classrooms, talking with current parents, and asking about class sizes often tell parents more than a single number. A slightly lower-rated school with strong arts, language, or special education programs may suit a child better than a pricier zone.

When Is the Best Time to Move With School-Age Children?

Summer is usually the easiest window, because children can start fresh alongside everyone else in August or September. Mid-year moves work too, but they take more planning. Families should confirm enrollment documents, proof of residency, and transfer deadlines before they sign a lease or close on a home. Before moving, California families can also review the Department of Education’s overview of statutory school attendance alternatives to understand how intradistrict transfers, interdistrict agreements, and the district of choice program work.

Parents can also ask the old district whether a child may finish the term at the current school. Some districts approve that request for families who move late in the year, and it can soften the transition considerably.

Planning a Home Around the School Years Ahead

Housing decisions become more complicated once children reach school age because a single address now carries financial, educational, and emotional weight. Families who compare whole communities, understand transfer rules, and time their moves carefully tend to avoid the most expensive surprises. Before the next enrollment season arrives, sit down with a realistic budget, a shortlist of neighborhoods, and the school calendar. Then decide which trade-offs your family can comfortably live with for the years ahead.

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The initials EPA stand for Environmental Protection Agency. The Agency is supposed to protect the environment and the American population from harmful substances. Under the Trump administration, however, the EPA is not doing its job.

The EPA headed by Lee Zelden ruled in February 2026 that climate change did not endanger public health despite scientific evidence to the contrary. Trump agrees with this decision, his administration rescinding the 2009 endangerment finding that greenhouse gases were driving climate change, including carbon dioxide and methane. The EPA also reversed regulations that limited hazardous air pollutants from coal-fired plants, including mercury, other heavy metals and toxic substances. Under Trump’s aegis, the EPA has abandoned its obligations to protect Americans’ health and the environment. 546 polluting facilities have been given exemptions from Clean Air Act rules, permitting toxic air pollution to be uncontrolled. It is estimated that 4.6 million Americans could be exposed to higher cancer risks, some of whom already have air-pollution risks 80 times greater than EPA standards.

In addition, the EPA repealed some limits on forever chemicals in drinking water. These have been shown to cause cancer and other serious diseases. The weedkiller atrazine which poses an extinction risk to some wildlife and has been linked to cancer and hormonal diseases has also been certified as safe by the Fish and Wildlife Service. The Trump administration is easing restrictions as well on climate ‘Super Pollutants”. These include hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) used in refrigerators and air conditioners which will be phased out more slowly than was anticipated.

To go along with the new pollution regulations from the EPA, the independent chemical referee who for decades made decisions on which chemicals were hazardous to human health is being sidelined. There will no longer be a neutral chemist assessing which substances are dangerous. Current and past assessments will be subject to review within the EPA and decisions will take into consideration jobs, importance of chemicals, policy, etc, besides the substance’s hazard. All harmful chemicals will be reevaluated using more lenient criteria.

In addition to changes in place at the EPA, the ideas behind MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) have been eliminated to a large degree by other Trump government employees aligned with big business. Problems with food and pollution are not controlled by Kennedy and HHS. Dangerous substances like glyphosate, mercury, other airborne particles, forever chemicals in pesticides and drinking water are allowed by the Trump administration. The staff at HHS was cut by 25 percent last year.

For the EPA, HHS and the Trump Administration, money and business are all that counts, with health and the environment taking a back seat to profits
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America’s health system is poised to rise to another divisive issue at the mid-term elections following publication of new global health data that ranks the US 62nd for overall life expectancy and 40th for healthy life expectancy, despite spending more than any other nation on healthcare at $13,473 per person.

The World Health Organization (WHO) placed American healthy life expectancy (HALE) at 66.2 to 67.3 years and overall life expectancy at 76.4 to 77.5 years in data published on Friday in its latest Global Health Estimates.

In a positive note, WHO reported that global life expectancy has bounced back to 73.3 years, which is just shy of the historical peak of 73.4 years before the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. Global HALE — the number of years a person can expect to live in full health without severe disease or disability—has recovered to 62.8 years, just 0.4 years below its pre-pandemic high.

But WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that simply increasing lifespan without securing physical and mental well-being only shuffles the cards in healthcare systems instead of improving them. “Now we must make sure people don’t just live longer, but live those extra years in good health,” he pointed out.

The flagrant gaps between American health performance and other rich countries could draw attacks against Trump for further widening the near complete decoupling of financial health spending from actual biological health outcomes. The WHO report could provide a numbers-driven indictment of America’s healthcare framework.

Using different measures from WHO, expert estimates by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and others placed US health care spending per person at $14,775 to $14,885, American HALE at 67.8 to 68.5 years and overall life expectancy at 79 years with 76.5 years for men and 81.4 years for women.

It turns out that health spending per person in the US was almost $5,000 more than in Switzerland, the next highest peer country. Other highly developed nations like France, Canada, and Britain spent $7,367, $7,301, $6,747 per person respectively, which is half of what the U.S. spends. The U.S. spent more tax dollars per citizen on healthcare programs like Medicare and Medicaid than Britain or Japan.

America’s low HALE ranking suggests that its massive health expenditure does not buy proportional health benefits. A core goal of modern medical systems is not just to keep sick bodies alive but to ensure that people stay healthy as close to the end of their lives as possible.

Top-performing nations in the WHO report seem to achieve this, e.g., a Singapore citizen enjoys a HALE of 73.6 years on average, meaning she faces just a short window of late-life decline. The American system favors high-cost, late-stage treatments over lower cost early prevention. It keeps chronically ill patients alive for decades but fails at keeping them healthy for much of their lives.

WHO measures health data a little differently because it applies a uniform tracking model across its 183 member states to allow for accurate international comparisons and smoothen currency conversions. It incentivizes health systems that maximize average national life expectancy and equitable treatment of all categories of people.

In contrast, the U.S. health system is a global leader for those with premium insurance or independent wealth because it focuses on medical innovation, rapid diagnostics and access to cutting-edge subspecialty care, such as advanced oncology or complex gene therapies.

In light of WHO ideals, the U.S. does not have a healthcare system designed for the collective population; it has a highly sophisticated, hyper-expensive medical marketplace stratified by income, social stratum and locality.

American figures are a little different from WHO because they are adjusted locally for Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) and real-time national healthcare consumption. They use metrics published by the advanced nations’ OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) and the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker. WHO uses those metrics as well but analyzes them differently to take account of all countries, rich, middle-income and poor.

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By: David Anderson
Columnist

In this column I write about what I think is the most successful country in Africa, Somaliland. On Wednesday I got to meet some more Somalilanders at “UN Week” and what a day it was!

Understand this is not “Somalia”, a failed state of “Black Hawk Down” fame, “Al Shabab” terrorists, famine, khat and misery. Somalia is a superlative in failed statedom, they give Afghanistan a run for its money. Our president has a name for these countries.

But Somaliland is an entirely different matter: a democracy with peace, free capitalism and freedom of speech. The difference is like the difference between North and South Korea which I’ve written about in these pages previously.

This is U.N. Week in New York, a big deal here and even President Trump turned up to entertain us. Always a treat.

I used to live in Midtown and UN Week is very disruptive to locals. But, after a $50 (I know, right?) cab fare from my home in Chelsea I joined the Somalilander demonstration as planned at a plaza opposite the iconic UN building.

Their mission is to get international recognition – particularly American – for their country. They’re close allies with Taiwan and as of this year Israel. All the best people and I say that in a non-ironic manner: friendships matter, get the best friends you can and the Somalilanders are doing just that.

Being de jure not just de-facto “recognised” matters a great deal for a country. It means embassies, passport acceptability and travel rights. It means membership in vital international organizations (like the U.N.). It means being able to buy insurance, sign treaties, issue debt, print a currency that isn’t laughed at and even control one’s own borders. With recognition they could better plan their own future as their elected — don’t skip that word – elected – leaders can negotiate as equal partners with other countries.

What Somaliland needs most is official American recognition because then others will follow. South Sudan had a similar path – an American sponsored new country – though South Sudan got independence before a functioning state which was a disaster. Somaliland has had a functioning state for 35 years. Even without recognition they’ve done an impressive job of building a peaceful democracy.

They don’t have a lot of dough but they’ve got all the right ideas.

Whether you like Trump or not he is a master of the big surprise. Witness (former, now) President Maduro of Venezuela who is enjoying the best NYPD accommodations we can offer at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Brooklyn.

And the mullahs, those still alive, in Tehran are on the run. If anybody can make the bold move of recognition it is Trump though I told my friends Jared Kushner is the best route to “the top” in these matters.

The demo was in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza opposite the U.N. Building which frequently plays host to our First Amendment rights for all sorts of international aspirants, like London’s “Hyde Park Speakers’ Corner” but with skyscrapers.

One of the many protesters in the plaza was the Falun Gong sect. They are ferociously anti-communist so they got my attention, mainly by their group exercises and rigid meditation. Most were older East Asians, nice folks for sure but I’m not joining.

In the middle of the Plaza were “my” Somalilanders, on the other side first Syrians (my Arabic isn’t good enough to know which side they were on!) and then a huge number of Ghanaians and Guineans arrived, annoyed about something. A middle aged bald white guy like me sticks out in a large crowd of young Africans so I made quite a splash socially. Unlike the other African and Arab camps the Somalilanders had a pretty equal sex ratio.

There was also a HUGE Iranian dissident demo with great, dramatic drum skills.

The contrast between the old Chinese meditators and the all young – all male – African parties next door was quite profound.

Midtown is crazy during U.N. Week: “frozen zones” aplenty and I had to “Pull to the side of the sidewalk and STAY STILL, sir!” as a badged and armed Secret Service agent ordered as he (legally) “halted” me. I think the Peruvian president and his entourage walked by.

Some years ago there were scandals as various official motorcades drove into each other, lots of accidents. Imagine: you’re a chauffeur for your President, King or Emir, visiting NEW YORK DAMN CITY! – the big leagues – you’re not yielding for any other motorcade so they used to collide in a diplomatic game of motorcade chicken. It was hilarious.

I noticed a pretty young hijabi with many fancy shopping bags alighting from an SUV motorcade on East 46th with diplomatic plates: Some Gulfies’ girlfriend or wife no doubt. Tiffany’s is fun with an unlimited credit card I’m sure.

The traffic was terrible. I’ll have to talk to my editors here about that $50 taxi fare, but that’s U.N. Week. And it is inspiring that our planet’s big shots can visit, spend their money and argue peacefully in a common forum, irrespective of the U.N.’s many faults.

Further, my Somalilander friends could demonstrate with the kind of freedom of expression enjoyed both in the US and Somaliland to argue their valid case.

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Universities have been trying for years to cut back on the abuses among fraternities, with limited resources and limited success.

A new lawsuit, filed by a former Cornell University student in September 2026, is now rattling higher education and drawing national attention.

The person, identified as Jane Doe, has alleged that seven Chi Phi fraternity members drugged and gang-raped her at an on-campus fraternity house when she was a sophomore in 2024.

Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten declined to pursue criminal charges against the fraternity members in 2024. Following the filing of the case and emergence of new information, however, Van Houten said on Sept. 26 that he is planning “to discuss new evidence that exists” with the former Cornell student about her sexual assault claims.

The high-profile Cornell case is just one of the latest fraternity scandals. In August 2026, Pennsylvania announced charges against current and former Penn State fraternity members for their involvement in a criminal narcotics operation.

As an education scholar who researches the experiences of undergraduate college students and fraternities, I believe that universities and colleges have not devoted enough resources toward curtailing the hazing, sexual assault and other kinds of dangerous behavior that sometimes happens at fraternities or other student organizations.

But there is only so much they can do – in part because beneath it all is a hypermasculine culture of proving one’s worth.

A need for more enforcement

In 1984, the National Minimum Drinking Age Act pressured states to set 21 as the minimum age to purchase and consume alcohol. All states made 21 the minimum age by 1988.

The change meant that most college students could no longer legally purchase alcohol, leading some of them to drink in more private settings, like fraternity houses.

Some universities felt concerned about the alcohol-related injuries and deaths occurring at fraternity houses. Schools also faced the possibility of lawsuits over underage drinking.

Harmful binge drinking remained a major problem on college campuses throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. A lot of the documented hazing incidents at fraternities during this time also involved alcohol.

Sexual assault on college campuses, including at fraternities, was another major issue during this time.

A lot of universities started to respond to students’ excessive alcohol use, in part through social norming. This term means correcting people’s mistaken beliefs about what their peers normally do, like regularly drinking excessively.

They also tried other harm-reduction strategies, like sharing direct information with students about the negative effects of consuming alcohol, as well as peer-led interventions to try to reduce unsafe drinking or encourage alcohol moderation.

But they didn’t necessarily respond to related problems surrounding hazing, such as substance misuse or addiction.

Some of the students’ parents, including those who had children who died as a result of hazing, were concerned. They developed a large, nationwide parent lobby to advocate for changes in hazing laws across states. These groups, not the universities, have been the most influential in advocating for changes in hazing laws.

Some prevention efforts

It’s not that some universities haven’t tried to reduce hazing on their campuses. These efforts include practices such as hosting educational sessions, workshops, speakers and even placing moratoriums on social fraternity events that include alcohol.

Recent approaches have included teaching students how to recognize when their peers are emotionally distressed and need help.

Some universities have started research centers on hazing or hired full-time staff members whose jobs involve prevention and response work following a harmful incident such as hazing or sexual violence.

Limited responses

Universities can kick fraternities off campus and kick out athletes who are charged with hazing or sexual assault.

But fraternities can also exist as private organizations, independent of a university. A university can withdraw recognition from a fraternity chapter and prohibit it from hosting events on campus, but that does not necessarily prevent the organization from hosting gatherings off campus.

Another issue is that universities and colleges like Cornell have a civil process for dealing with hazing and other crimes, including sexual assault, but not a criminal one. Schools cannot launch a criminal investigation, but they can levy educational sanctions, including banning students from campus or taking away students’ scholarships.

Expelling students for illegal misconduct such as sexual assault and hazing is a really common approach, but that is about as far as these schools can go in terms of discipline.

Schools may also cooperate with criminal investigations. Campus police, for example, can share their evidence and records with outside law enforcement. Or university staff may testify against students in court. But universities themselves cannot bring criminal charges.

After Jane Doe reported the incident to university police, Cornell says it took action.

In a September 2026 statement, Cornell said its range of sanctions included “expulsions and suspensions.” A few students were asked to write essays, but Cornell says this wasn’t “as a sole consequence of their involvement.”

The Chi Phi chapter involved in the incident was also closed in 2024, according to Cornell.

Following the lawsuit and recent national attention it received, Cornell agreed to bring in outside lawyers to determine whether it properly conducted the 2024 rape investigation.

The role of masculinity

Proving your masculinity can become a central part of proving your worth and fit at a fraternity.

This hypermasculine culture – combined with a culture of secrecy – could be a powder keg for sexual violence. It’s a dynamic also seen in the military and on sports teams.

Hypermasculinity is not simply tied up in an individual’s behavior, but can become embedded within organizational cultures that reward toughness, dominance, risk-taking and silence.

In fraternities, these expectations may shape how members understand belonging and status. These issues may also discourage students from expressing vulnerability and seeking help.

Understanding these gendered and cultural dynamics is, I believe, essential to developing prevention efforts that address not only individual conduct, but also the organizational norms that allow harmful behaviors to persist.

Pietro A. Sasso, Associate Professor of Education, Old Dominion University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Gann is a Jew with roots in Baltimore, but pretended to be, alternately, Black, Tunisian and Palestinian, cosmetically altering her appearance and adopting a certain way of speaking that led people to believe she was “one of them.”

The “them” was clearly “not white.” The ruse worked for a while, but as most lies tend to do, it unraveled. And then the melodrama ensued.

Blacks, Palestinians and I’m assuming one or two Tunisians were apoplectic they had been fooled, that the Keffiyah had been pulled over their eyes, so to speak. The pain and anguish of her Free Palestine buddies was palpable on social media and in news articles, where they breathlessly expressed shock, anger, and a sense of betrayal that Miss Gann was, horror of horrors, a Jew.

As I read the reactions from Gann’s former friends, it struck me how incredibly narcissistic they were. They had no problem when she was spouting anti-Jewish and anti-Israel propaganda as a member of the tribe.

They welcomed her with a touching naivete. Who knew that not combing your hair and wearing a foundation two shades darker than your skin color could gain entrée into an exclusive club.

We can call it “Tan Face,” a different version of the Black Face that white people employed in the early part of the last century for entertainment at the expense of minorities.

But when these people who traffic in anti-Semitic lies realized she was actually from a very different branch of the Tree of Abraham, they choked.

“All mistakes and deceptions are mine and mine alone. Please do not let them affect how you engage with any people, organizations, causes, or communities to which I was connected,” Gann said on Instagram. “Please reach out if you know me and want to have a direct conversation about how I hurt you. I will regret causing this hurt for the rest of my life.”

After taking a sip of tea and a nibble of falafel, she continued on another post:

“I lied about my identity and have been lying for years. I have no Palestinian or Tunisian heritage. I am a white woman of significant privilege and wealth,” Gann said. “Anyone who supported me was manipulated and should not be judged as a result of their support for me.”

It’s doubtful anyone is judging Gann because of the people who support her. They are as bad as she is, only they don’t need to lie.

They are brutally honest about their bigotry, marching in the streets screaming anti-Jewish slurs and calling for the annihilation of Israel while celebrating the deaths of Jewish children and women on Oct. 7. They are open about their bigotry, and embrace it.

Gann is being judged by both her former allies and the people who were against her from the beginning, only no one actually knew how justified that anger really was.

It is one thing to have an enemy who is clear about who she is and why she hates you, it is quite another to have someone fromyour own tribe try and destroy you.

There is nothing worse than a self-hating creature, whether it be an Italian from South Philly who actually swallows the idiocy that Columbus was a genocidal maniac, a Catholic who supports Planned Parenthood or a Jew who gives comfort to the people who celebrate her ancestors’ deaths.

The psychology of that sort of person is difficult to gauge, but it has something to do with a sense of self-loathing and a desire to belong to the “in” crowd.

I call it “identity suicide,” and I attribute it to the fact some people are so desperate to be loved that they will sacrifice their ownfamilies, and their own souls, to gain entrée into the desired club.

It is very much like the light-skinned Black woman Sarah Jane in “Imitation of Life,” who tries so hard to pass for white and only learns when it is too late that you cannot run away from your roots. They are incredibly elastic, and will always pull you back home, even against your will.

Hannah Gann did not betray the Black, Brown, Palestinian and Tunisian folk by whom she so desperately wanted to be accepted.

She betrayed the young Jewish students who cannot walk down the street without looking over their shoulders in trepidation, who are afraid to wear the Star of David around their necks, who are forced to listen to lies about their heritage and their people, and who are gaslighted into accepting that there is a genocide in Gaza, but that the Holocaust is a myth.

Perhaps Hannah should take to Instagram and, in this somber time after Yom Kippur, and beg forgiveness for being a traitor to her family, to her people, and to the truth.

Copyright 2026 Christine Flowers, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Christine Flowers is an attorney and a columnist for the Delaware County Daily Times, and can be reached at cflowers1961@gmail.com.

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Catherine A. Sanderson, Amherst College

As an undergrad student decades ago, I attended a dorm presentation describing the importance of giving and receiving sexual consent. The workshop leaders explained that if your partner said “no” or “stop” but you proceeded to have sex anyway, it was considered rape.

A high-profile athlete on campus raised his hand and said, in utter disbelief, “That can’t be right. By that definition, everyone I’ve ever had sex with I’ve raped.”

I was horrified by his comment, but most students laughed. He clearly saw nothing wrong with the view he’d expressed, presumably believing it was widely shared.

I immediately thought of this experience when I heard about the alleged sexual assault committed by seven fraternity members at Cornell University. As a social psychologist, and the author of a book examining why so-called good people stay silent in the face of problematic behavior, what I find most tragic about the events at Cornell is that reportedly over 50 men on a group chat learned about the assault as it was happening. Yet there’s been no public report that any of them tried to stop the assault, help the victim or contact campus or local police departments.

This type of inaction is very common. In about one-third of sexual assaults, at least one other person is present who potentially could intervene but in most instances chooses not to. Why?

Misperceiving that you’re the only one

Data suggests a minority of men actually commit sexual assault. Researchers estimate about 6.5% of male college students in the United States and Canada have committed rape. Yet many men who find sexual violence offensive mistakenly believe that other men do not.

Undergraduate men in one study reported their beliefs about common rape myths, such as “If a girl doesn’t physically fight back, you can’t really say it was rape,” and “If a girl goes to a room alone with a guy at a party, it is her own fault if she is raped.” Researchers then asked participants how they thought both their close friends and average male college students would answer these same questions.

The results provided clear evidence that college men have skewed views of what those around them are thinking. Most students saw their classmates and friends as more supportive of rape myths than they themselves were.

Unfortunately, believing that other men generally accept sexual violence – even when this belief is wrong – inhibits their willingness to intervene to stop such behavior when they encounter it. In fact, men’s beliefs about their peers’ attitudes are a stronger predictor of their willingness to intervene than their own stated attitudes about sexual aggression.

What’s behind these mistaken beliefs

Men who underestimate their peers’ discomfort with sexually aggressive behavior often fear the consequences of calling out problematic views or intervening in the face of inappropriate behavior. The most common reason male college students give for failing to intervene in situations involving sexual violence is a fear of being laughed at or ridiculed – in particular, a desire not to appear weak to other men.

Men who actually commit assault also tend to overestimate support for such behavior. Not surprisingly, men who report having committed sexual assault believe that other men are more accepting of such behavior and have engaged in such behavior themselves.

This assumed support leads them to feel comfortable describing problematic behavior, which leads other men to believe that sexual violence is more common, and more accepted, than it actually is.

Resetting a social norm

Given the consistent evidence that men wrongly believe that most men are more comfortable with sexual violence than they themselves are, the challenge is not to change the social norm. It’s getting people to see what it actually already is.

Correcting such misperceptions can go a long way toward reducing sexual violence. First-year male college students who participate in a 90-minute sexual assault prevention program – focused on refuting rape myths, increasing awareness of the importance of consent, and correcting misperceptions about other men’s attitudes and behaviors – report reduced levels of sexual aggression themselves four months later.

These programs work in two ways. First, men who receive accurate information about what other men actually believe are less inhibited about speaking out and intervening. Second, men who are at risk of engaging in sexual aggression may change their intentions after learning that their peers do not support such behavior.

At the same time, men in tight-knit groups feel considerable pressure to show loyalty to other group members, which may lead to ignoring bad behavior committed by their peers.

But the underlying dynamics of peer influence can help shift group norms from protecting group members by staying silent to stepping in to prevent bad behavior. One college football player described looking out for his teammates, even if that meant interrupting a potential sexual encounter: “Maybe you don’t get the girl, but you’ll keep your scholarship and still be on the team.”

Learn strategies for intervening

Another approach for preventing sexual assault is to learn strategies for intervening. Bystander intervention programs emphasize the importance of stopping bad behavior before it escalates, teach specific skills for intervening, and remind people that everyone has a responsibility to prevent sexual violence.

Students who participate in such programs are more confident in their ability to intervene and more willing to do so. Most importantly, rates of sexual violence are markedly lower on campuses that have implemented these programs. For example, one study found that experiences of sexual harassment and stalking were 11% lower and that instances of unwanted sexual activity with women who were too drunk or high to stop them were as much as 17% lower.

It’s tempting to read about the Cornell case and assume the apparent inaction in the face of problematic behavior is uniquely a problem at one college, or only with members of fraternities, or only college students. But the reality is that pretty much everyone has been in situations where they’ve seen potentially problematic behavior and failed to speak up.

Understanding the very normal psychological factors that lead people to misperceive what others are actually thinking and feeling – and learning specific strategies for intervening – can make a real difference.

Catherine A. Sanderson, Poler Family Professor of Psychology, Amherst College

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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“Show me your nuts.” That double entendre is spoken by Lenka Novak in The Kentucky Fried Movie, at which time singer-songwriter Stephen Bishop replies by demonstrating that he is nuts.

It’s your turn to be nutty. Do you dare?

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I recently wrote this personal essay for San Diego Jewish World about an unexpected change in my life. I’m sharing it here with TMV readers as well.

And there I was on Yom Kippur 2026 at Chabad of Rancho Penasquitos , as Rabbi Yechiel Cagen led the service. I was fasting.

It was the manifestation of a series of events that had transformed a non-observant Reform Jew into an observant Jew who loves prayer. Suddenly, in my old age, I’d become religious.

How religious am I now? I’m so religious I want to be circumcised again.

It’s quite a journey from the days when my religious grandfather, Abraham Ravinsky, once asked me: “Do you have tefillin?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “I have a couple of rolls of Kodak film upstairs.”

My grandfather, who immigrated to the United States after the Russian revolution, looked a bit startled but politely didn’t pursue it.

Our family belonged to Mishkan Israel in Hamden, Connecticut, the 14th oldest continuously operating synagogue in the United States. Its legendary Rabbi, Robert E. Goldberg, challenged McCarthyism, supported the civil rights and anti-war movements, invited Martin Luther King, Jr. to speak at the temple, and was even arrested at a civil rights gathering in Georgia. He officiated at my bar mitzvah.

I attended Hebrew school, but the main thing I retained was my teacher repeatedly saying “sheket, bevakasha” to me. I thought it was my Jewish name. I later learned it meant “quiet please.”

As a student at Colgate University I attended one High Holy Days service. But in another way, Colgate became a major launching pad in my religious journey. I took a course in Hinduism that sparked a longtime fascination with theology. I began visiting Chapel House, a secluded interfaith retreat and meditation center nestled in the woods on campus. For years after graduation. I periodically returned to spend several nights there praying, reading about theology and meditating.

After receiving my master’s in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, I spent five and a half years freelancing in India and Spain for newspapers, Newsweek, and later National Public Radio. I lived with a Hindu family in New Delhi and participated in their holidays, and spent a wonderful week living with a Muslim family in Bangladesh.

In Madrid I was a special correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor. I immersed myself in key Christian Science books because I wanted to understand the theology behind the church and the newspaper. Meanwhile, I rented an apartment with a huge crucifix hanging over my bed.

In 1982, after working as a reporter in Wichita, Kansas, the San Diego Union brought me to California. Among other assignments, I covered the border and Baja California. While doing a feature on the Jews of Tijuana, I met Jose Galicot, one of Tijuana’s prominent business and Jewish leaders, who invited me to celebrate Passover with his family.

I joined a Conservative synagogue in San Diego but left after several years because I never feel fully accepted or part of the community.

Then tragedy began changing the direction of my religious journey.

After I left the San Diego Union in 1990 to become a full-time ventriloquist, my foster son, Thomas Powell, learned shortly before his planned wedding that his wife-to-be had AIDS. He went ahead with the wedding.

I was devastated. I made an appointment with Tifereth Israel’s late Rabbi Leonard Rosenthal. At one point I asked him: “Why are we here? What does it mean?”

His answer stayed with me. We are here to do prayers, he told me, but also to enjoy life and make the world a better place. He gifted me a Conservative prayer book.

Meanwhile, my ventriloquism career increasingly brought me into Jewish life. I performed for Jewish groups and was amazed at how different Judaism seemed from what I remembered as a child. Services then had seemed staid, sometimes boring and almost perfunctory. Now I encountered Judaism presented with energy, warmth and joy.

I was particularly drawn to Chabads. I performed at Chabads, met wonderful rabbis and their families, read Chabad-related books and occasionally attended services, although I couldn’t read or understand Hebrew.

Then came the seismic shift.

In 2020, Tom – the boy I had been matched with in the Big Brother program—was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. By late 2024 his condition had become incredibly grave and he only had a few months left before dying at age 52. He lived with me; I was his principal caregiver. I felt a stronger-than-ever need to pray.

By then a new Chabad had opened in Rancho Penasquitos. I had been hired to perform there and eventually began attending services.

Rabbi Cagen urged me to read the English translations during the service because I couldn’t follow the Hebrew.

I had never thought of doing that.

It changed everything.

During the long services, I began reading every word in English. The prayers that had once seemed remote became personal. I began to see prayer not simply as words Jews had been instructed to receive, but as a conversation with God and a connection to generations of Jews who had said those same prayers before me. The spiritual search that had taken me through Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and years of reading about theology had, in an unexpected way, brought me home.

Rabbi Cagen asked me whether I owned tefillin.

This time I knew he wasn’t talking about Kodak.

I didn’t. He gave me a set and invited me to come early in the morning to put them on and pray.

I began becoming part of the Chabad minyan, attending its events and expanding my Jewish reading. The Shema became part of my daily life.

And today?

I still can’t read Hebrew, Long-term COVID memory fog has made learning it not an option. But I read and ponder the English words of the prayers. I attend services and special events at the Chabad of Rancho Penasquitos and have accepted invitations to spend some Shabbat weekends at Chabad of Beverlywood. Six days a week I put on tefilllin and pray.

The grandson who once thought tefillin was Kodak film now wraps it around his arm most mornings.

Abraham Ravinsky must be smiling.

ID 123122486 | Journey ©
Ilovewinter | Dreamstime.com

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For the first time in his life, Ken Paxton may have said something true. No, not his wedding vows. No, not the oath of office he took to represent Texas. No, not when he claimed to believe that Donald Trump won the 2020 election. And no, not when he was defending himself from accusations of massive heaps upon massive heaps of corruption.

Ken Paxton, the attorney general of Texas and the Republican/MAGA nominee to become senator of that state, admitted on a hidden audio recording that Donald Trump’s midterm emotional support convention hurt his election chances.

Republicans, I know that you’re worried about the Democrats springing an October surprise on you, but you’re not supposed to create that surprise for them.

I’m sure you recall Trump’s two-day circle jerk in Dallas last month that posed as a political convention. Trump spoke both nights in an arena that contained a lot of empty seats, despite Trump pointing at those seats and telling us how full they were. Some of the more intelligent Republicans, such as Susan Collins, stayed away as if it was a Jeffrey Epstein party being held in a leper colony with musical entertainment provided by Kid Rock.

One of the candidates featured at this midterm convention was Ken Paxton, who was basically required to attend. Last week, during a fundraiser for Paxton, he told a group of donors and lobbyists that the convention had actually hurt his campaign to become the state’s next senator.

Paxton defeated Senator John Cornyn and the Republican primary for the Senate seat, and he is now trailing Democratic nominee James Talerico in every poll. In every. Single. Poll.

During this fundraiser, an audio recording later provided to the New York Times captured Paxton explaining that the convention had hurt him.

The recording, which is muffled at times, captures Paxton being asked, “Do you feel like he’s a little bit of a drag?” The questioner is obviously referring to Donald Trump.

Paxton responds: “So to be honest with you, the numbers — when we did that convention — it dropped our numbers. Everybody’s numbers dropped. Right now, yeah, not good.” He might as well have said his numbers made a big ploppy splashy sound like a big turd into a toilet. Too much?

The audio of Paxton was shared with The Times by an attendee who recorded him speaking at a private fundraiser in Washington attended by roughly a dozen people. The person, who opposes Paxton’s campaign and provided the recording to The Times, was granted anonymity because Paxton’s remarks were private, and MAGAts are violent lunatics who would probably murder him. Three other people with knowledge of the event confirmed Paxton’s attendance. Two of these people recalled that Paxton had been posed this question, and one recalled his response about the negative consequences of Trump’s convention.

The event was hosted last Thursday by two Republican lobbyists, Susan Hirschmann and Chris Brinson, in a conference room near Capitol Hill.

During the convention, Trump said Paxton “may not dress right, may not talk exactly perfectly and may not be the best-looking guy I’ve ever seen, but you know what, he is — he’s the greatest attorney general in America.”

Gee, I don’t know why Paxton thinks that hurt him. Why didn’t Trump also say he has breath that smells like a burnt diaper full of Indian food? Trump has given higher praise to Kim Jong-un.

Asked about the remarks, Nick Maddux, a senior Paxton adviser, said, “This is more manipulated nonsense from The New York Times to create a story that doesn’t exist.” Except the Times did not manipulate it, and the story does exist.

Maddux continued, “Our latest poll from the last week has Ken Paxton leading by three points, and every serious pollster will tell you that our numbers have improved since early September. Ken Paxton is going to win this race, and he looks forward to closing strong alongside President Trump, including when he comes to Texas this week.”

Sure, you have secret polls no one else can see that have Paxton leading. Why they are so strong for Paxton, they probably have Paxton breathing into a paper bag for an hour.

A new poll by Big Data Poll has Talarico leader Paxton at 43.6% to 39.3%. Other recent polls by Texas Southern University, ReconMR Texas Poll, Emerson College, Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, SoCal Strategies, AARP, and N+ Univision each have Talarico leading by one to five points.

TO READ THE REST GO HERE

Visit Clay Jones’ website and email him at clayjonz@gmail.com

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When Ron DeSantis was first elected governor of Florida in November 2018, he won with a margin of just over 30,000 votes – less than four-tenths of 1% of all the votes cast in the election.

At that time, Florida was the biggest swing state in presidential politics, and DeSantis had hitched his wagon to Donald Trump, a president who had only narrowly won the state two years earlier.

Immediately after the election, DeSantis requested that his staff assemble a binder of information about the powers afforded him as governor.

I’m a political scientist with firsthand experience in state political campaigns. My research with colleagues on Florida elections will be published in a forthcoming book in January 2027.

Over the past eight years, I have observed how DeSantis has mastered the powers of his office. While the governor leaves behind countless new conservative policies, perhaps his most lasting legacy is how he wielded and expanded those powers.

Veto power

Throughout his time in office, DeSantis benefited from a Republican majority in the Legislature, which became a supermajority at the start of his second term in 2022.

But he didn’t rely on partisanship alone to ensure his legislative agenda would pass. He held lawmakers in check by wielding line-item veto power over their pet projects. This allowed him to control the legislative agenda with little pushback for most of his tenure.

One illustration of this is what happened in Republican stronghold Manatee County in 2025: The county faced DeSantis’ wrath after local officials criticized his pro-development legislation and voters rejected his handpicked candidates at the ballot box in November 2024. Months later, DeSantis vetoed all US$4 million in budget requests by county lawmakers and placed the county under a state DOGE audit.

The pandemic years

No issue has defined DeSantis’ image and political legacy more than Florida’s response to COVID-19. The governor used the pandemic to enhance his authority with emergency powers, an expanded budget with personal control over federal funds and, later, a popular reversal of pandemic restrictions on public life.

Initially, DeSantis followed the lead of the Trump administration’s public health authorities and ordered emergency lockdowns in March 2020. But by August of that year, Florida had mostly reopened. DeSantis recounted in his memoir how he concluded that reopening was safer than commonly assumed, based on his own reading of public health research.

Ultimately, Florida’s public health record during COVID was mixed. The state initially ranked 26th in COVID-related deaths per capita during the first wave, due to vaccine promotion and protective public health measures for older adults. But after the delta and omicron waves of the virus in the summer and fall of 2021, the state climbed to eighth in deaths per capita.

By 2025, Florida had recorded over 100,000 COVID-related deaths.

Many newcomers moved to Florida during the pandemic, with some seeking the state’s less restrictive COVID-19 policies and many registering as Republicans.

Expanding executive power

Partly in response to COVID-19, in 2022, the state Legislature created a special $500 million emergency fund that the governor could access in response to a declared emergency without needing to wait for legislative approval.

On Jan. 6, 2023, DeSantis declared a state of immigration emergency over an influx of migrants to the Florida coast. For the past three years, he has renewed this emergency declaration every 60 days.

During that time, DeSantis has used his emergency powers to spend more than $1 billion on federal immigrant detention centers. This includes Alligator Alcatraz, a detention center built on protected land in the Everglades, where detainees were kept in conditions that U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schulz, D-Fla., described as “cruel and unnecessary” after her visit to the site.

The emergency declaration allowed DeSantis to use no-bid contracts and funds that the federal government has yet to reimburse to construct the facility.

The declaration of emergency has also allowed the governor to deploy the Florida National Guard to work with federal authorities to stop immigrants from landing on Florida shores. During the second Trump administration, DeSantis has required state and local law enforcement authorities to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement officers.

Immigration-related arrests have quietly surged in Florida since Trump took office in January 2025.

A conservative warrior for policy change

While speaking to conservative audiences nationwide, DeSantis has called on his audience to put on the “full armor of God.” This quote from the book of Ephesians invokes themes of Christian nationalism.

He has delivered on those priorities by enacting the enshrinement of parental rights in education, universal vouchers for private schools, a six-week abortion ban and a series of bills targeting the LGBTQ community.

He even took on the Walt Disney Co.’s private fiefdom in Florida, dissolving their special district after they opposed him on policy and creating one of his own in its place.

Higher education reform

DeSantis, who attended Ivy League universities, also used the powers of his office to remake the Florida state university system through appointments to the Board of Governors and boards of university trustees.

In January 2023, DeSantis announced that he was appointing six new trustees to the board of New College of Florida in Sarasota. Several had ties to conservative think tanks. DeSantis’ commissioner of education announced his hope that they would remake the college into the “Hillsdale of the South,” referencing the conservative Christian college in Michigan.

Many of the initiatives begun at New College have become a model for the entire state university system. DeSantis has called for a less “ideological” university system, which, in practice, has meant closing diversity offices, censoring sociology courses, post-tenure reviews for professors and more administrative oversight over faculty hiring.

He has also begun the process of creating a new system of higher education accreditation for Florida and like-minded states.

Partisan remake of the state – and elections

After two terms as governor, DeSantis leaves Florida much more conservative than he found it. The once-purple state is now much redder, with Republican voter registrations outnumbering Democratic ones by 1.5 million voters statewide.

And the governor has taken measures to ensure that the trend will continue.

In 2022, DeSantis created an Office of Election Crimes and Security to investigate allegations of voter fraud, though there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the state. Voting rights groups view the office’s enforcement actions as a form of voter intimidation, raising doubt in the minds of eligible voters as to whether they can vote.

DeSantis signed legislation that tightened restrictions on voting by mail, a method that has become especially popular with Democrats since the pandemic.

DeSantis made it harder for groups to register new voters and easier to purge voters from the rolls if they do not vote regularly. In addition, he has made it more difficult for citizens to amend the state constitution by ballot initiative.

He also delivered on Trump’s demands for unprecedented mid-decade congressional redistricting. He pushed partisan gerrymandered maps through the Florida Legislature that were allowed by a Florida Supreme Court stacked with judges he had appointed. The new maps were drawn in hopes of winning Republicans as many as four new congressional seats.

What’s next for Florida

But while DeSantis’ conservative policies cement a legacy that will be difficult to overturn, the political fate of Florida remains less fixed.

DeSantis has officially endorsed U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., in the 2026 gubernatorial race against Democratic candidate David Jolly, a former congressman. The rising number of independent voters, in particular, could make the election competitive. And it’s hard to predict how Republicans’ current unpopularity on the national stage will affect state and local races.

So it’s an open question as to whether Florida will remain the red “Free State of Florida,” where law and order come first and, as DeSantis put it, “where woke goes to die.”

Liv Coleman, Professor of Political Science and International Studies, University of Tampa

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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