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Each time I sit down to write my latest Hot Type column in Byline, I always consider how I can be most useful… what is most urgent...
In today’s column, I argue that severing the US-Russia alliance is where the work begins for the Democrats in January. Everything can follow from there.
As Dr. Michael MacKay cautioned: “The priority for Democrats has got to be breaking the alliance of the United States with fascist Russia…If Democrats aren’t radical – even revolutionary – in the next few months then the slide of the United States into fascism and a state of perpetual war is unstoppable.”
I always appreciate Michael’s perspective, and you will find the opinions of MacKay, Craig Unger, Vesna Pusić, and Tetiana Boriak expressed in today’s report.
Here is the link to my Hot Type column, which was published in both Byline Times and Byline Supplement:.
Here is a cross-post of Hot Type and, please, as always, if you appreciate the work, share and like the post from the original Byline Times news site, and consider supporting our very brave team of reporters.
Hot Type: Will US Democrats Take On the Russia Problem?
Heidi Siegmund Cuda argues that the first priority for Democrats in January is to sever the US-Russia alliance
Originally published in Byline Times and Byline Supplement on 14 November 2026
Against all hope, I hoped.
In my last Hot Type column, I wrote that if the US held a free and fair election, the Trump regime would receive a thumping. But I never expected the election to proceed without violence.
Trump and his loyalists spent the last two years capturing every federal agency, including populating his regime with 2020 election deniers in positions of formal and informal power.
To concede to US voters publicly shaming him en masse at the polls seems so very un-Trumplike.
And yet, the violence continues. We learned last week that Immigration Control Enforcement (ICE) detained a high school student with disabilities, breaking his wrist, in the latest surge of ICE violence, which includes an 8-year-old boy in San Diego and a nursing scholar in San Francisco hauled away and disappeared into concentration camps.
A recent investigation by The Washington Post reveals ICE hired at least 19 officers who had past allegations of “misconduct, violence and criminal charges” during a hiring binge under Trump in 2025. The Post ran a background check on 300 hires named in a Homeland Security Department data leak of new hires, and among the “red flagged” names was a former Detroit police officer involved in a fatal shooting that led to a wrongful-death settlement in the millions.
The Reality
After a week of euphoria where the world witnessed Americans begin to reclaim their power against the corrupt Trump regime, reality is slowly creeping back in.
As I told an audience gathered in London to discuss the fallout from the midterms at a Byline Timesevent at The Cockpit Theatre: “I have always said, ‘Diversity is America’s superpower’, and if it took high gas prices to get there, so be it.”
I was referring to the historic flipping of deeply red states – the poetic justice of Scott Colom’s win in Mississippi, making him the state’s first Black Senator in 140 years. I also shared with the audience that Kiesha Lance Bottoms, who was elected to Georgia and is the first Black female Governor in US history, is the daughter of blues musician Major Lance, who was hugely influential on the Beatles.
These are dramatic days, as Democrats take both houses of Congress in January. Their new majorities give them full investigatory powers – the ability to subpoena records and force people to testify before lawmakers. 2027 offers endless opportunities to further shame Trump in the court of public opinion, compelling people to testify about his endless shady ties and Russian dealings.
As political philosopher Dr Michael MacKay told the Byline Times: “The midterms euphoria is starting to be tempered by recognition of the way things are. For example, that a new government doesn’t actually take power for almost two months. And that’s the result of the US’s odd 18th century Constitution. And then there’s also the realization that foreign policy remains in the hands of Trump, and that there still is the imperial presidency.”
MacKay said that people are “looking for a seriousness in Democrats in Congress to tackle corruption and treason.”
“We have this horrible window where we’re starting to see some of the worst excesses,” he said, noting that this week, the Trump regime again throttled the Elon Musk-owned Starshield satellite system in Ukraine.
“This means Ukrainians no longer have early warning of ballistic missile attacks,” he said. “Zelensky said Wednesday that all of the patriot missile batteries are empty. Trump has withheld all of the Interceptors that Europe and Canada already bought and paid for. Thursday, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were in Moscow, trying to cook up a corrupt deal… Now they’re shopping this Russian imperialist talk about a new European security arrangement, which is just a repackaging of Russian imperialism.”
Ukrainian historian Tetiana Boriak, a war refugee now living in Lithuania, cautioned how dangerous these talks are.
“Russia’s plan to implement a new architecture of so-called security is a big threat,” Boriak told the Byline Times. “The final elimination of the WWII system and the Helsinki Agreement system, along with the implementation of this new ‘security architecture’ based on personal bilateral agreements, will turn the European continent into a powder keg with no security and Russian dominance in the region, not to mention conventional and non-conventional war.”
MacKay said this latest manoeuvering by the US and Russia will be difficult to turn around unless “Democrats in Congress come flying out of the gate and take this treason and corruption as their number one target, and restrain the imperial presidency that has just grown and grown and grown to the state where the worst American imaginable has the most power of any president in history.”
Up until last week’s election, MacKay said “Congress was on track to be about as ‘democratic’ and useful as the Duma in Russia. We are gonna need some extraordinary measures from Congress to reverse history.”
Russia Russia Russia
Over the past decade, Democrats have shown little interest in taking on Russian interference in any meaningful way. In fact, they seemed mostly oblivious to the reality and scale of the attacks, continually bringing policy papers to gun fights.
But on Thursday, the House Armed Services Democrats posted on X:
“Ukraine continues to inflict massive casualties on the Russian Army and cripple the Russian economy, while U.S. Special Envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff continue to undermine Ukraine’s ability to negotiate a just and lasting settlement in Putin’s brutal and illegal invasion. As if that weren’t bad enough, they are also undermining NATO, the most successful alliance in history. Their parroting of Kremlin talking points on renegotiating European security and possibly pulling back from Eastern Europe is totally unacceptable to the continued viability of NATO and the national security of the United States.”
Acknowledging that Trump’s envoys are parroting Kremlin talking points is actually a big deal, so much so that Russia watcher Ruth Deyermond, a senior lecturer in War Studies at King’s College London, wrote in response: “House and Senate Democrats are making it very clear that the Trump administration’s behaviour in relation to Ukraine is going to be a focus of their investigations.”
And that means, that finally, with their upcoming power, the Democrats may actually be taking on the Russia problem.
American Kompromat author Craig Unger said the midterm elections revealed that people are finally waking up to Russian interference, and that among those people, are the Democrats.
“In addition to rooting out Trump’s corruption, a massive task in itself, we need to restore the regulatory mechanisms, the checks and balances that have been dismantled by Trump and the GOP over the last generation,” Unger said.
“The Democrats have to use Congressional investigations to show that Trump’s corruption is inextricably tied to the pocketbook issues that afflict Americans,” he explained. “Our banking system has been massively corrupted—we live in a world where oligarchs stash $30-60 trillion offshore. The Russians have corrupted our biggest law firms. The real estate industry is left unregulated so it can act as a massive pass through to launder billions of dollars from transnational crime syndicates. Silicon Valley—again, completely unregulated— allows Musk, Zuckerberg et al to reap billions for creating high tech megaphones that spread Russian propaganda.”
He said that “Even if the Democrats win the White House in two years, it will take the repeal of Citizens United and overhauling the Supreme Court to launch a truly vital new progressive era.”
The California Democrat expected to become chair of the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Robert Garcia, simply tweeted out last week: “LAWYER UP.”
Garcia was warning Trump and his loyalists to expect a massive number of investigations and if you consider just the past two years, those might be directed at any of number of issues: the regime’s self-enriching; crypto schemes; boat killings; Epstein ties; ICE brutality; the Iran war, Elon Musk and DOGE, and his satellite assists to Russia. And of course, Donald J. Trump is at the center of all of this.
“If Democrats in Congress don’t go after Trump personally they will fail,” said Michael MacKay. “There has to be an agenda of impeachment and conviction of Trump for his high crimes and misdemeanours or removal of Trump under Article 25 due to his cognitive collapse… Incipient fascism must be eradicated if there is to be any chance for the domestic agenda – such as tackling affordability – to succeed.”
Croatian sociologist and politician Vesna Pusić, who served as First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs in the cabinet of Zoran Milanović, told Byline Times: “Trump’s relation with Putin and his horrible attitude towards Ukraine shouldn’t be investigated in the context of foreign policy… but in the context of his mega corruption.”
Pusnić, who documented the war tribunals of the former Yugoslavia at The Hague, said “the worst thing about corruption is not getting rich by using political influence and office. It is making major political decisions that will make you rich even when they hurt the country and its people. In this case it is sacrificing American geopolitical interests and allies in order to enrich a small circle of political power holders and their cronies.”
The Need for Radical, Even Revolutionary, Democrats
At the Cockpit on Monday, when an audience member asked where Trumpism came from, I retorted: “The Kremlin.”
“I have never been afraid to say the word ‘Russia,’” I told the audience.
And I hope Democrats aren’t either.
Yes, we have our domestic problems. Russia sent spies in 2014 to America to find out what they were so they could be exploited in multi-year campaigns to destroy us from within.
But in 2027, it’s time to kick the Russians in the teeth.
MacKay warned: “The priority for Democrats has got to be breaking the alliance of the United States with fascist Russia…If Democrats aren’t radical – even revolutionary – in the next few months then the slide of the United States into fascism and a state of perpetual war is unstoppable.”
Thank you as always for the support of my work here and at Byline.
If you are already a member, please register for our talk with Keir Giles on Sunday.
And save the dates: we will be back on Tuesday with Ukrainian historian Tetiana Boriak; Corruptionland director Miles Taylor joins us at our next Speakeasy on Sunday the 22nd; and we’ll be celebrating Bette 4th Birthday together on 24 November with many special guests. Thank you!
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More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter/producer, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. She is the cohost of RADICALIZED Truth Survives, an investigative show about disinformation and is part of the Byline Media team. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism.
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