Uncensored Free Speech Platform

‘Not Alaska First’: Peltola’s Green New Deal allies draw scrutiny in Alaska Senate bid
Are they actually going to vote on something real?

Prominent national Democrats who back aggressive climate policies are lining up behind former Rep. Mary Peltola’s (D-AK) Senate bid, handing Republicans an opening to argue her Alaska-focused energy message clashes with the priorities of her most visible supporters.

Peltola, who launched her campaign in January to challenge Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK), is running in a state where oil revenue underpins the economy and funds annual dividend checks for residents. GOP strategists say endorsements from leading climate figures expose a tension between her energy message and the national Democratic movement backing her.

“Republicans don’t need to persuade Alaskans that national Democrats oppose fossil fuels. Alaskans already know it,” said GOP strategist Dennis Lennox. “Oil and gas are the backbone of Alaska’s economy and the Permanent Fund. Mary Peltola can brand herself however she wants, but support from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey tells voters exactly where she fits in the national Democratic Party — Alaska Last, not Alaska First.”

Republicans say the contradiction is politically unsustainable in a state where energy development is central to jobs, state revenue, and the cost of living.

“You can’t campaign as pro-oil in Alaska while taking political support from people trying to shut the industry down nationally,” said a National Republican strategist based in Washington. “Voters understand the stakes here.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) waves as she walks down the Capitol steps following the last votes of the week, on Thursday, December 4, 2025.

The Green New Deal, introduced in 2019 by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), was a nonbinding congressional resolution that never became law but outlined goals to rapidly cut greenhouse gas emissions and steer the U.S. economy away from fossil fuels through large-scale renewable energy investment. Markey has also introduced legislation to block drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Ocasio-Cortez and Markey are not the only high-profile Democrats supporting Peltola. There’s also Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), who has advanced policies to phase out fossil fuels in his state; Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has backed national climate initiatives aimed at accelerating renewable energy; and former Vice President Kamala Harris, who has supported major federal climate legislation and restrictions on new oil and gas leasing.

Peltola’s …

Hegseth says US strikes force some cartel leaders to halt drug operations
This isn't complicated—it's willpower.

War Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday that some cartel drug traffickers operating in the U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility have halted narcotics activity following recent U.S. military strikes in the Caribbean.
"WINNING: Some top cartel drug-traffickers in the @SOUTHCOM AOR have decided to cease all narcotics operations INDEFINITELY due to recent (highly effective) kinetic strikes in the Caribbean," Hegsth wrote in a post on X.
Hegseth credited President Donald Trump with directing the military actions, calling the effort a lifesaving deterrent.
HEGSETH SAYS DEPARTMENT OF WAR ‘WILL BE PREPARED TO DELIVER’ WHATEVER TRUMP WANTS FOLLOWING IRAN WARNING
"This is deterrence through strength. @POTUS is SAVING American lives," he wrote.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina praised the military action, writing on X, "Well done @SecWar and to all under your command. We must continue to verify and monitor. We can’t trust drug cartels."
PENTAGON WATCHDOG WARNS DRONE INCURSIONS REQUIRE ‘IMMEDIATE ATTENTION’ AT US MILITARY BASES
The Trump administration has been pursuing a policy of conducting deadly attacks against vessels of alleged "narco-terrorists."
SOUTHCOM announced a strike that killed two on Thursday.
US FORCES KILL TWO SUSPECTED NARCO-TERRORISTS IN EASTERN PACIFIC LETHAL STRIKE OPERATION
"On Feb. 5, at the direction of #SOUTHCOM Commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations. Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations. Two narco-terrorists were killed during this action. No U.S. military forces were harmed," Southern Command noted in a post on X.

Ballot box shocker: Progressive backed by Sanders, AOC on verge of upset in Dem congressional primary
Is this competence or optics?

A far-left candidate backed by progressive champions Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y, is close to pulling off an upset victory with votes still being counted in a Democratic congressional primary for a blue-leaning seat in New Jersey.
Analilia Mejia, a progressive organizer, has a slight lead – 486 votes out of more than 61,000 counted – over former Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski in the battle for their party's nomination in New Jersey's 11th Congressional District.
Mejia and Malinowski are the leaders among a field of 11 Democratic candidates in the race to fill the seat left vacant after now-Gov. Mikie Sherrill stepped down after winning November's gubernatorial election in the Garden State.
HOUSE GOP MAJORITY SHRINKS TO JUST ONE VOTE AS JOHNSON SWEARS IN NEW HOUSE DEMOCRAT
But Malinowski, an assistant Secretary of State in former President Barack Obama's administration who later represented a neighboring congressional district in northern New Jersey from 2018 to 2022 before losing re-election, was considered the front-runner in the race heading into primary day.
The winner will face off with Randolph Mayor Joe Hathaway, the only Republican to file for the special election, which will be held on April 16.
The special election comes as Republicans cling to a razor-thin 218-214 majority in the House of Representatives.
Hathaway will be considered the underdog in the race.
Sherrill won re-election in the district in 2024 by 15 points, the same margin by which she carried the district in November's gubernatorial showdown.
But then-Vice President Kamala Harris won the district by just eight points in the 2024 presidential election, giving the GOP some hopes of possibly flipping the seat.
The GOP may land a reinforcement in the House before the general election for the open seat in New Jersey is held.
JOHNSON WARNS HOUSE REPUBLICANS TO ‘STAY HEALTHY’ AS GOP MAJORITY SHRINKS TO THE EDGE
That's because a special election is scheduled on March 10 in Georgia's solidly red 14th Congressional District, in the race to succeed former GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. The MAGA firebrand and one-time top Trump House ally in early January stepped away from Congress a year before her term ended.
A whopping 22 candidates, including 17 Republicans, are running in the Georgia showdown.
According to Georgia state law, all the candidates will run on the same ballot. If no contender tops 50% of the vote, a runoff election between the top two finishers will take place on April 7.
WHO TRUJMP IS BACKING IN RACE TO REPLACE MARJORIE TAYLOR …

First round of February Social Security payments goes out in five days
This feels like a quiet policy shift.

The first round of February Social Security payments for retirees, now capped at $5,108, will be issued in five days.

When will payments arrive?

Retirees born on or before the 10th of a month will receive this payment on Feb. 11. 

The second round will go out on Feb. 18 to those born between the 11th and 20th of a month, and the third round will follow on Feb. 25 to those born on or after the 21st of a month.

When am I eligible?

Citizens are eligible for Social Security payments beginning at 62 years old.

How can I maximize my check?

Social Security payment amounts are determined by several factors, including age of retirement, the amount paid into Social Security, and the number of years paid into Social Security.

Payments largely depend on a recipient’s retirement age. A beneficiary retiring at the youngest age, 62, could receive up to $2,831 per month, while a 70-year-old retiree could receive up to $5,108 per month, according to the Social Security Administration.

Beneficiaries can see a personalized estimate of how much they could expect each month usingthe SSA’s calculator.

FOX NATION’S NEW HISTORICAL DOCUDRAMA ‘WHITE HOUSE’ PREVIEWS ITS EARLY YEARS

How is it financed?

Social Security is financed by a payroll tax paid for by employers and employees.

Social Security payment amounts are set to shrink unless Congress takes action to prevent it. Analysts estimate the SSA will no longer be able to issue full payments as early as 2034, due to a rising number of retirees and a shrinking workforce.

DHS says anti-ICE agitators helped child rapist, gang members evade deportation
Who's accountable for the results?

FIRST ON FOX: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is detailing cases in which anti-ICE agitators actively helped criminal illegal immigrants evade federal arrest, including suspects accused of child rape, domestic abuse and gang-related violence.
The cases point to a growing pattern of organized interference with federal immigration enforcement during recent ICE operations. 
"These are the monsters that agitators and sanctuary politicians are protecting," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Fox News Digital. "We remind the public that obstructing law enforcement is a felony and a federal crime."
FROM PROTEST TO FELONY: THE LINES MINNESOTA ANTI-ICE AGITATORS MAY BE CROSSING 
According to DHS, members of the anti-ICE Colorado Rapid Response Network alerted Jose Reyes Leon-Deras, a convicted child rapist, of ICE's presence on June 20, 2025. A Facebook post by the anti-ICE group accused by DHS of helping with Leon-Deras' evasion on June 20, indicates members affiliated with the anti-ICE group used a bullhorn that day to alert potential targets of ICE. 
The post suggested that police left without serving any warrants, while noting that agents returned in the days that followed. 
According to DHS, federal agents finally arrested Leon-Deras June 27, and he was issued a final order of removal Oct. 30 during the Trump administration's ongoing operations in Colorado.
In a separate situation in Minneapolis, an apartment manager allegedly prevented federal immigration agents from entering a building where a criminal foreign national from Somalia, convicted of violent sex crimes and previously arrested for a high-level assault, was located. 
DHS accused the apartment manager of actively protecting a sex offender, Mahad Abdulkadir Yusuf, who had a conviction for criminal sexual conduct in the first degree. He allegedly forcibly compelled his victim to perform sex acts on him on multiple occasions. 
According to DHS, Yusuf was also arrested in 2016 for first-degree assault and had an active warrant out for obstructing police.
WEEKEND ROUNDUP: CONVICTED MURDERERS, CHILD SEX ABUSERS AMONG ILLEGAL ALIENS NABBED BY ICE ACROSS US 
Yusuf originally entered the United States in 1996 and was a lawful permanent resident, but his crimes made him eligible for removal, and ICE arrested him Dec. 31. 
Another child sex offender, Jozias Natanael Carmona-Pena, was allegedly assisted by not only agitators but sanctuary city leaders in Minneapolis, according to DHS. 
Carmona-Pena had pending charges for lewd and lascivious acts with a child, but he was released onto …

Barbara Pym’s Archaic England
Who's accountable for the results?

Log In

Email *

Password *

Remember Me

Forgot Your Password?

Log In

New to The Nation? Subscribe
Print subscriber? Activate your online access

Skip to content Skip to footer

Barbara Pym’s Archaic England

Magazine

Newsletters

Subscribe

Log In

Search

Subscribe

Donate

Magazine

Latest

Archive

Podcasts

Newsletters

Sections

Politics

World

Economy

Culture

Books & the Arts

The Nation

About

Events

Contact Us

Advertise

Current Issue

Books & the Arts

/ February 6, 2026

Barbara Pym’s Archaic England

In the novelist’s work, she mocks English culture’s nostalgia, revealing what lies beneath the country’s obsession with its heritage.

Ashley Cullina

Share

Copy Link

Facebook

X (Twitter)

Bluesky Pocket

Email

Ad Policy

A World War II-themed party held by the residents of Rose Mount, Birkby, 1986.
(Staff / Mirrorpix / Getty Images)

Within a year after Barbara Pym published her penultimate novel, The Sweet Dove Died, Margaret Thatcher would assume office as prime minister of the United Kingdom. In retrospect, these two events seem not unrelated. The 1978 novel marks a shift in the British writer’s career; published shortly after her return to print after a 15-year hiatus, The Sweet Dove Died ditches the comic tone of Pym’s earlier work for a set of themes that dominated her final novels: nostalgia, festering traditionalism, the feeling of outmodedness—concerns, in other words, gathered from her measured observation of a society on whose discontents Thatcher would soon capitalize.

Books in review

The Sweet Dove Died

by Barbara Pym

Buy this book

Thatcher rose to power on the back of a campaign to Make Britain Great Again—a promise to reverse the previous two decades of austerity, imperial contraction, and stagnating modernization. By 1979, the country was undeniably in decline—not just materially but on a more ineffable level, too. Divested of the unifying effect of global superpower status, the increasingly dis-United Kingdom’s common identity was now an open, and anxious, question. What would ensure the shared future of the nation? For Thatcher and her ilk, the answer (at least rhetorically) lay in conjuring an ideal imperial past and the fantasies of Merrie England that went with it: the Crown, the Empire, green pastures and trout runs, the 12th of August, upstairs and downstairs, overseas plantations, and Gloucester cheese. With one hand, Thatcher’s government rolled out staunchly anti-traditional monetarist policies; with the other, it stoked a reactionary fantasy of once and future greatness. If Thatcher’s neoliberal solutions—privatization, deregulation, reduced public spending—helped spur a modest economic recovery, their more memorable consequence was to gut the social and built landscape of the UK. Slashed pensions, political polarization, and crumbling infrastructure were the hallmarks of an administration whose disastrous attempt at warmongering in the Falkland Islands was rivaled only by its attrition of trade unions at home.

If the economic well-being of the British citizen could not be recovered, at least some distracting totems from days of yore could be. In 1980, months of debate over the …

Speaking Out on the Insanity of Nuclear Weapons
Is this competence or optics?

Log In

Email *

Password *

Remember Me

Forgot Your Password?

Log In

New to The Nation? Subscribe
Print subscriber? Activate your online access

Skip to content Skip to footer

Speaking Out on the Insanity of Nuclear Weapons

Magazine

Newsletters

Subscribe

Log In

Search

Subscribe

Donate

Magazine

Latest

Archive

Podcasts

Newsletters

Sections

Politics

World

Economy

Culture

Books & the Arts

The Nation

About

Events

Contact Us

Advertise

Current Issue

February 6, 2026

Speaking Out on the Insanity of Nuclear Weapons

At a time when nuclear dangers are not just rising, but multiplying, we need all hands on deck in sounding the alarm and advocating for abolition of nuclear weapons.

Ivana Nikolić Hughes and Peter Kuznick

Share

Copy Link

Facebook

X (Twitter)

Bluesky Pocket

Email

Ad Policy

Over a million people gather in Central Park for the largest anti-nuclear demonstration in history on June 12, 1982.(Barbara Alper / Getty Images)

Near the end of his life, Robert McNamara wrote an essay for Foreign Policy, titled “Apocalypse Soon.” In it, the controversial former US Secretary of Defense and president of the World Bank argued that we “must move promptly toward elimination—or near elimination—of nuclear weapons.”

McNamara is known for his moderating role during the Cuban missile crisis, which might have saved us from the end of the world. In “Apocalypse Soon,” he writes about this experience and how it shaped his own views on nuclear weapons. But hardly is McNamara alone in examining his role in national security in his final years and concluding that he needed to speak out about nuclear weapons.

Others with long-time service at the highest levels of government have sounded the alarm. In 2007, former Republican secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and George Schultz, former Democratic secretary of defense William Perry, and former Democratic senator from Georgia Sam Nunn wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, titled “A World Free of Nuclear Weapons.”

Today, of the “four horsemen of the apocalypse,” Bill Perry and Sam Nunn are still alive. Nunn was involved in cofounding and leading the Nuclear Threat Initiative, while Perry, at nearly 100 years old, has his own William J. Perry Project, dedicated to “working to end the nuclear threat.” In 2014, in an interview with three Columbia University students, Perry shared that he was afraid we were already in a new nuclear arms race. More than 10 years later and with the seeming expiration of New START, the last remaining arms control treaty between the United States and Russia, we may be in an entirely new phase of this new race.

What is desperately needed is people currently in office coming to the same inescapable conclusion that these statemen had reached, while they can do something about it. It is quite shocking that of 100 senators, only Ed Markey has publicly urged the Trump administration to accept the offer of the Russian President Vladimir Putin to extend New START for another year. Markey, a veteran of nuclear policy, has championed many arms control causes during his time in Congress. But even Markey has yet to firmly stand behind nuclear abolition, by, …

How Big Gaming Is Swallowing Up the Big Game
Notice what's missing.

Log In

Email *

Password *

Remember Me

Forgot Your Password?

Log In

New to The Nation? Subscribe
Print subscriber? Activate your online access

Skip to content Skip to footer

How Big Gaming Is Swallowing Up the Big Game

Magazine

Newsletters

Subscribe

Log In

Search

Subscribe

Donate

Magazine

Latest

Archive

Podcasts

Newsletters

Sections

Politics

World

Economy

Culture

Books & the Arts

The Nation

About

Events

Contact Us

Advertise

Current Issue

Society

/ February 6, 2026

How Big Gaming Is Swallowing Up the Big Game

The Super Bowl will showcase the lords of legalized betting, even as they’ve already colonized every other reach of human experience.

Matt Alston

Share

Copy Link

Facebook

X (Twitter)

Bluesky Pocket

Email

Ad Policy

A typically tasteful online-betting ad
(Gabby Jones / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

The outcome of the 60th Super Bowl won’t be known for another few days, but here’s one surefire prediction: The game will be a bonanza for the legalized sports-betting industry. The American Gaming Association, the trade group for betting interests, forecasts that $1.76 billion in legal bets will be placed on the big game—a projected 27 percent increase over last year’s take.

Legalized gambling of course involves all sorts of hidden costs, from addiction to bankruptcy to allied social ills like alcohol abuse and intimate partner violence. But under the new regime of betting administered via the digital protocols of surveillance capitalism, the gaming industry is also poised to engulf the scarcest commodity of online life: attention. By relentlessly “gamifying” the vast range of human experience, from the incremental progress of Congress to what Mr. Beast will say next to which people are likely to lose health care coverage, legalized gambling is poised to make even the most personal and idiosyncratic features of our lives fodder for transactional prognosticating and second-guessing.

And this, in turn, threatens to transform much of our lived experience into monetized commodities, setting us on a joyless, eternally frustrated quest to realize maximum returns on things we shouldn’t be treating as profit centers. In one online ad for the omni-betting, er, “predictions” app Kalshi, a young woman thrills to the prospect of making money on mundane forecasting propositions, because, as she explains, her friends and she are constantly making predictions—without noting that anyone living life on those terms has to be a) perpetually exhausted; and b) unbelievably boring. Yet the alleged frisson of seeing a banal forecast come to life is what company cofounder Luana Lopes Lara says with a straight face is the dream of “making money out of what you know and your passions.” The company’s best-known slogan is likewise a desperate bid to upgrade glorified psephology into the height of intellectual ambition: “everybody is an expert on something.”

To get a more realistic read on how rampant and venal gamification is affecting our basic capacity to pay attention, it’s useful to revisit another recent media event that’s pretty much the opposite of the Super Bowl, in terms of overall cultural reach: the 83rd Golden …

The Pain and Glory of My Football Life
This framing isn't accidental.

Log In

Email *

Password *

Remember Me

Forgot Your Password?

Log In

New to The Nation? Subscribe
Print subscriber? Activate your online access

Skip to content Skip to footer

The Pain and Glory of My Football Life

Magazine

Newsletters

Subscribe

Log In

Search

Subscribe

Donate

Magazine

Latest

Archive

Podcasts

Newsletters

Sections

Politics

World

Economy

Culture

Books & the Arts

The Nation

About

Events

Contact Us

Advertise

Current Issue

Society

/ February 6, 2026

The Pain and Glory of My Football Life

A comic about the Eagles, fathers, incarceration, and the holes that sports can’t fill.

Christopher Blackwell and Solomon J. Brager

Share

Copy Link

Facebook

X (Twitter)

Bluesky Pocket

Email

Ad Policy

This comic was written by Christopher Blackwell, an incarcerated journalist and author in Washington State and a cofounder of the nonprofit Look 2 Justice, and illustrated by Solomon J. Brager, a cartoonist and writer living in Brooklyn, New York. It was supported by the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, a journalism nonprofit.

Keep Reading

Submit a correction

Send a letter to the editor

Reprints & permissions

Your support makes stories like this possible

From Minneapolis to Venezuela, from Gaza to Washington, DC, this is a time of staggering chaos, cruelty, and violence. 

Unlike other publications that parrot the views of authoritarians, billionaires, and corporations, The Nation publishes stories that hold the powerful to account and center the communities too often denied a voice in the national media—stories like the one you’ve just read.

Each day, our journalism cuts through lies and distortions, contextualizes the developments reshaping politics around the globe, and advances progressive ideas that oxygenate our movements and instigate change in the halls of power. 

This independent journalism is only possible with the support of our readers. If you want to see more urgent coverage like this, please donate to The Nation today.

Christopher Blackwell

Christopher Blackwell is an incarcerated writer in Washington State and a cofounder of the nonprofit Look 2 Justice. He is a contributing writer at Jewish Currents and a contributing editor at The Appeal.

Solomon J. Brager

Solomon J. Brager is a cartoonist and writer living in Brooklyn, New York.

More from The Nation

How Big Gaming Is Swallowing Up the Big Game

How Big Gaming Is Swallowing Up the Big Game

The Super Bowl will showcase the lords of legalized betting, even as they’ve already colonized every other reach of human experience.

Matt Alston

Get Ready for This Year’s Undemocratic, Debt-Ridden, and Mobster-Infused Winter Olympics   

Get Ready for This Year’s Undemocratic, Debt-Ridden, and Mobster-Infused Winter Olympics   

ICE thugs in the streets, Mafia meddling, and billions in waste—seems like the Games are off to a great start.

Jules Boykoff and Dave Zirin

Childcare Providers Around the Country Are Being Targeted by Vigilante Surveillance

Childcare Providers Around the Country Are Being Targeted by Vigilante Surveillance

In response to bogus allegations of fraud in Minnesota, strangers are filming them, knocking on their …

“We Are All Passengers on the Titanic”
How is this acceptable?

Log In

Email *

Password *

Remember Me

Forgot Your Password?

Log In

New to The Nation? Subscribe
Print subscriber? Activate your online access

Skip to content Skip to footer

“We Are All Passengers on the Titanic”

Magazine

Newsletters

Subscribe

Log In

Search

Subscribe

Donate

Magazine

Latest

Archive

Podcasts

Newsletters

Sections

Politics

World

Economy

Culture

Books & the Arts

The Nation

About

Events

Contact Us

Advertise

Current Issue

February 6, 2026

“We Are All Passengers on the Titanic”

“We Are All Passengers on the Titanic”

An interview with Grigory Yavlinsky.

Nadezhda Azhgikhina

Share

Copy Link

Facebook

X (Twitter)

Bluesky Pocket

Email

Ad Policy

Grigory Yavlinsky attends a memorial service for Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow on September 3, 2022.(Evgenia Novozhenina / POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Moscow—On January 26, The Nation’s correspondent Nadezhda Azhgikhina interviewed Grigory Yavlinsky at his Moscow offices. Yavlinsky is a member of the Russian State Duma, the leader of the Yabloko Party, and the chairman of the Center for Economic and Political Research in Moscow. An economist by training, he held a series of high positions during 1990–91 in the governments of the Russian Republic and the USSR. In June 1996, he was a candidate for the presidency of Russia. Azhgikhina is an independent journalist and writer and a frequent contributor to The Nation.

Nadezhda Azhgikhina: What do you find memorable about 2025?

Grigory Yavlinsky: Twenty twenty-five continued the winding down of an era that had lasted for 80 years, starting from 1945. We are at the start of a new era—in which human beings, their rights and freedoms, are ceasing to be the defining factors and often are altogether irrelevant. Disorganization, chaos, and cruelty are expanding while human lives are losing their value and worth.

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine goes on, with a huge number of casualties and large-scale wreckage. Thus far, the “summit” in Alaska has not led to any changes. Today’s politicians have no idea how to resolve the situation.

The new “security strategy” of the United States that is taking shape—the Monroe-Donroe Doctrine of sorts—is devoid of human values and humanistic principles. Accordingly, the role of the UN and several other international institutions is being sharply devalued. With his doctrine and strategy, Trump is radically altering the US foreign policy direction of many years and the place of the US in the world. Washington is building relationships only with those it perceives to be strong—that is, with China and Russia. Meanwhile, it has no interest in those who are of average strength or weak—such as Canada, Europe, Venezuela, Cuba, and others. Its message to them is to acclimate to this reality. It effectively rescinds globalization and transnational interests, while proclaiming that might makes right. It is altering the foundations of the post–World War II world that had been the norm and the formative experience for people.

Every ideology that we’ve been accustomed to—liberalism and conservatism, the right and the left—keeps eroding and disintegrating. We are facing political, …