Only two Justices backed Trump in the Court’s ruling blocking his efforts to enlist the postal service in restricting voting by mail in the midterms. David Cole explains why this is a huge victory, but far from the end of Trump’s effforts to undermine Democratic voting.

Also: The blue state attorneys general have succeeded in blocking the efforts of Trump’s allies at Paramount-Skydance from taking over Warners-Discovery, at least for now, but their lawsuit followed months of protests organized by, among others, Jane Fonda’s Committee for the First Amendment. Rashad Robinson has our analysis – his new book is From Presence to Power: How to take on the Fights that Matter – and Win.

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Is the resistance to data centers a new kind of mass politics? David Wallace-Wells explains why the answer is “yes.” He’s a writer for The New York Times Opinion pages and author of the unforgettable book “The Uninhabitable Earth.”

Also: How to be a dissident in an age of fear – Ami Fields-Meyer has thought a lot about that. For starters: don’t start from scratch; don’t try to do it alone. Ami is co-author of the new book “On Courage.”

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The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that Trump could proceed with construction of his ballroom—they explicitly did not rule on the merits of the case, but on the issue of standing for the plaintiff. Robert Weismann has our analysis – he’s co-president of Public Citizen.

Also: The Democrats are now favored to win not only the House but also the Senate in November – they need to flip four seats, and their candidates are ahead in five. John Nichols explains.

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The Supreme Court is not a Trump court – at least not on several issues - but where do they stand on voting rights? And what exactly did the court say on Monday about the postal service cooperating with Trump in his effort to restrict voting by mail? David Cole explains - he’s the former National Legal Director of the ACLU, and The Nation's legal affairs correspondent.

Also: Colson Whitehead won two Pulitzer prizes for his novels, and then wrote three crime stories about Harlem – the latest is Cool Machine. John Powers comments--he’s critic at large for NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross.

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Indivisible’s 2,500 local volunteer-led groups are preparing for a rapid response to any threats to free and fair voting around election day, starting with plans to promote early voting, and including preparations to mobilize large-scale protests if there are attempts to undermine the results. Leah Greenberg, co-founder and co-executive director, explains.

Also: Vanita Gupta reviews the massive legal planning underway to defend the vote, the count, and the certification of the winners in the midterms – she was Associate Attorney General in the Biden administration, and has been working with the Senate Democrats’ Elections Task Force on planning and preparations for November.

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The ACLU is organizing thousands of volunteers, preparing to respond to 25 different ways Trump could try to subvert or sabotage the midterms. Deirdre Schifeling explains—she’s the ACLU’s Chief Political and Advocacy Officer. More info at https://www.aclu.org/campaigns-initiatives/people-power.

Also: Howard Zinn’s book A People’s History of the US has sold four million copies—and now we have a biography of the author, written by Dave Zirin, The Nation’s longtime sports editor - his new book is The People’s Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn.

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The Michigan Democratic senate primary provided a test of the power of AIPAC and big money, and the political talents of Abdul El-Sayed. John Nichols has our analysis.

Also: a rehearsal for the election protection groups: the California sherriff who seized 650,000 ballots from November’s referendum, claiming he needed to recount them. Zach Roth of Democracy Docket will explain how the Chad Bianco case provides a test of one key Republican strategy for holding on to the House after the midterms.

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An impressive alliance of groups have been preparing for months to counter Trump’s threats to Democrats in the midterms. Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward and a member of The Senate Democrats’ Election Protection Tast Force, explains why “we are going to have free and fair elections” in November. 

Also: Elon Musk calls Christopher Nolan’s film “The Odyssey” “part of a left-wing plan” to “destroy Western Civilization.” John Powers has a differnet view – he’s critic-at-large on NPR’s “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross.

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How are we going to defeat Trump and the Republicans and win control of Congress in the midterms? How are we going to win the White House in two years? Ben Wikler has a plan – he’s published a book with the title This is the Plan. Ben was chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin for six years, ending in 2025, where he shaped what became the most powerful and effective state political party in the country.

Plus: John Nichols on the Senate Candidates in Maine and Nebraska, and the governor’s race in Wisconsin. John of course is executive editor of The Nation.

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It’s been another bad week for Donald Trump – from the Strait or Homuz to the streets where ICE has killed more people, to the scheduled Senate hearings on Todd Blanche. Harold Meyerson comments.

Also: Trump believes the teaching of history really matters—that’s why on July 4 he issued a 162-page attack on the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Yale historian Beverly Gage comments – her new book is This Land is Your Land: A Road Trip through US History.

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Jamie Raskin, Democrat from Maryland, talks about Congress reforming the Supreme Court, and the House challenging Trump’s corruption. His article in the current issue of The Nation magazine is “We Must Restore Congress as the Predominant Branch of Government.”

Also: John Nichols assesses the Democrats’ Senate candidates in the wake of the replacement of Graham Platner in Maine.

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Trump biggest losses in the Supreme Court rulings announced this week were on birthright citizenship—widely anticipated—and the voting rights case where the majority ruled states could count ballots mailed but not received by election day. His biggest win was abolishing independent agencies except for the Federal Reserve. David Cole has our analysis—he’s the former legal director of the ACLU.

Also: The Court ended Temporary Protected Status, TPS, for Haitians (and others), but that does not mean deportations will begin immediately. Instead most of those with TPS will be given an opportunity to contest a deportation order or apply for remaining on a different basis. Amy Wilentz comments on the current responses in New York City, Miami, Springfield, Ohio, and in Congress.

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Election protection: defending Ohio’s biggest voter registration group, and blocking Trump’s attacks on voting by mail: Norm Eisen, co-counsel on the first Trump impeachment, comments.

Also: how protest pushed ICE to abandon most of its warehouse detention center plans, and pressured Georgia Republicans to abandon their redistricting plans – John Nichols explains.

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In his campaign against elite universities as centers of resistance, Trump hasn’t been able to force Harvard to submit. And it seems less likely now that they will settle. Harvard law professor Randall Kennedy has our analysis.

Also: the essential workers at our supermarkets: Ann Larson talks about poverty wages and worker solidarity. Her new book is Cleanup on Aisle Five: Essential Work, Poverty Wages, and the View From Behind the Supermarket Register.

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Democratic strength, and Democratic divisions, in primaries from L.A. to Maine—Harold Meyerson has our analysis of the week’s political developments.

Also: Can AI write poetry? Good poetry? Katha Pollitt decided to find out. She’s an award-winning poet herself, and a columnist for The Nation

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California’s jungle primary on Tuesday set the stage for the next Democratic governor of the state, and primaries in Iowa, New Jersey and elsewhere tested the strength of progressives in the party. John Nichols has our analysis.

Also: from the archives: Elmore Leonard, who died in 2013 at age 87, was unpretentious about his massive accomplishments: 45 novels, more than a dozen turned into movies, and a reputation as one of the great writers of dialogue. When we spoke in 2000, he had just published Pagan Babies, and his movies Get Shorty, Jackie Brown, and Out of Sight had been hits.

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Trump’s Billion Dollar Ballroom is a familiar kind of corruption, but his slush fund to pay the insurrectionists and paramilitary groups that commit violence in his name is an unprecedented attack on democracy. Rob Weissman of Public Citizen explains, and also talks about the immense, and immnsely unpopular, proposed Arc d’Trump.

Also: Bill Gates was once the country’s youngest billionaire and the first billionaire to come from tech. Then he became the most hated man in America; then the biggest philanthropist, and the world’s most admired man. Then we learned of his ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Ben Tarnoff explains how all happened.

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State legislatures have a lot of power in America—the States Project focuses on expanding that. Daniel Squadron explains. His new book is The Fourth Branch: How State Government can Save Our Union.

Also: this week’s polls and this week’s primaries have nothing but bad news for Trump and his followers. John Nichols has our analysis.

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Last week was one of the roughest for Democrats since Trump won the election in 2024 - the Supreme Court ended Black congressional representation in most of the South and opened the door to the creation of several more Republican House seats – and then the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that the state’s initiative that created four more Democratic House seats was invalid. Nevertheless Trump is so unpopular that Democrats remain strong favorites to retake the House in November. Harold Meyerson comments.

Also: During the first part of the 20th century, 100,000 Eastern European Jews joined a socialist organization that opposed Zionism. Their organization we call the Bund, and they believed that Jews should fight for full rights wherever they were, not for a new homeland somewhere else. Their motto was “here, where we live, is our country”--that's the title of a new book by Molly Crabapple. Adam Hochschild comments.

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Trump’s efforts to block Democratic voting in the midterms, or overturn the results, is not going to work—Ian Bassin explains the widespread preparations underway for defending the election in November. Ian is co-founder of the organization Protect Democracy and winner of a MacArthur genius grant.

Also: In the aftermath of WWII, racists and antisemites organized to reverse the changes brought by the New Deal and the war, but their organizations were infiltrated and undermined by activists from the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and the Non-­Sectarian Anti­-Nazi League. Steven J. Ross has that history – his new book is The Secret War Against Hate.

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