Politics

Latino voters played a decisive role in the 2026 midterm elections, sending an unequivocal message to leadership in both parties: their support is earned, not guaranteed. “We may not always march, but we are the silent majority – and that is exactly what we demonstrated on Tuesday night,” said Maria Teresa Kumar, President and CEO of Voto Latino. An analysis of voter trends by the New York Times found that Latino voters shifted 29 points toward Democrats between 2024 and 2026 – the largest movement of any major demographic group. The shift was even more pronounced among younger Latinos, who moved 43 points toward Democrats, and Latino men, who shifted 31 points. In Texas, the change was especially visible along the southern border.

What does the rise and fall of Russell Brand say about our culture, especially or moral and religious culture? A few different things, I suggest. First, it highlights our deep confusion about sex, and our fear of thinking about it in any serious sense. Brand, who will be sentenced today for raping a fan at his house in 2009 and three sexual assaults, was a test case: what do we think of an outright sexual hedonist? The liberal orthodoxy is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with such an approach to sex, and maybe something good about its honesty. Only Phyllis Schlafly-type prudes seek to scorn such self-expression. In relation to sex, it seems that we are scared. We are scared of sounding old-fashioned, moralistic.

We keep being told that Michigan is the key battleground in the midterms, so where better to begin a rip through the swing states? Americans love to paint Britain as a sectarian hellhole, but if you want to see what Balkanization really looks like, head to Detroit. Black and white workers live separate lives on separate streets, while the nearby city of Dearborn is fiercely proud to be a Muslim enclave. Nearly a third of its population is foreign-born, and community leaders revel in their bloc vote power. And they are really put out about Iran... but, then again, so is everyone else, as a president who promised to get prices down kicks voters squarely in the pump.

Marco Rubio, the so-called "Secretary of Everything" in the Trump administration, has vigorously rejected the idea that he is about to resign. "I don’t know where these things come from, to be honest with you," he told the New York Times, following reports in the Independent and Bloomberg that, after the crushing midterms, he would be stepping down to work on his 2028 presidential bid. "I love the work I’m doing… And plus I always laugh when they say he’s going to leave his job. I go, 'Which one?'" But where did those reports come from? The Independent story, which came first, cited "senior party sources and senior figures in the UK government." The UK government? That seems a bit rum.