Courageous individuals this week showed tenacity and devotion to the rule of law in confronting acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, an unapologetic presidential flunky nominated for AG who lacks rudimentary legal ethics and has consistently subverted justice to meet the whims of his boss.

U.S. Judge Kathleen M. Williams of the Southern District of Florida, in a ruling on Monday, demolished Blanche in finding Donald Trump’s IRS lawsuit a scam used to concoct a slush fund for insurrectionists and grant Trump and his family immunity from future tax audits. Williams further held that Blanche’s role in devising a collusive suit violated federal Rule 11 and warranted referring him for Florida state bar discipline.

“[T]he Court finds that this matter was brought for an improper purpose — to gain the imprimatur of judicial legitimacy for a ‘settlement’ that had no viable basis in law or fact,” Williams wrote, noting Blanche’s glaring conflict of interest (namely: having previously represented Trump personally).

In her unequivocal slap down of Blanche and the other DOJ attorneys, Williams removed any doubt about the current DOJ’s utter lack of integrity and, specifically, the unfitness of Blanche to serve in, let alone lead, DOJ.

Well in advance of Blanche’s appearance Wednesday, the survivors of pedophile Jeffrey Epstein launched a massive campaign to block his confirmation as AG. They continued their efforts the week, flooding the airwaves to urge the Senate not to reward Blanche, the architect of his scheme to illegally withhold release of the Trump-Epstein pedophile files. Their PSA was courageous and compelling:

After Blanche’s deceitful testimony in which he falsely stated he was prohibited from meeting with victims, survivor Lara Blume McGee said at a press conference:

Under Mr. Blanche’s watch, the Department of Justice has released materials tied to the Epstein investigation in ways that exposed survivors’ names, medical and financial details, and other identifying information that should have been protected.

She continued. “For many of us, the DOJ’s redactions were not merely inadequate — they were another violation, reopening wounds we had fought to keep closed.”

Survivor Dani Bensky’s gut-wrenching testimony put the blame directly on Blanche for releasing victims’ names and images:

She attested to “real and irrevocable harm” and called him out for refusing to meet with victims despite spending 9 hours to meet with Ghislaine Maxwell.

“To add insult to injury, the information that Todd Blanche gathered in the White House Situation Room last summer to curb the political fallout from the Epstein files was absolutely abhorrent. Instead of following investigative leads, our government treated and continue to treat this as a political crisis that needs to be managed,” she explained, utterly demolishing Blanche’s credibility.

Senators who vote to confirm Blanche in the face of such damning evidence of ethical depravity and professional unfitness should face the wrath of voters and the condemnation of history. By contrast, Judge Williams and the Epstein survivors deserve full credit for courageously defending truth, decency and the rule of law.

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Don’t forget about Buttigieg

Democratic fresh faces such as Texas Senate nominee James Talarico, thirty-seven, and midterm standout campaigner Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), thirty-nine, have earned praise for their media savviness and ease in connecting with voters. However, Democrats should not ignore the continued maturation of former transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg as a first-rate political leader and communicator.

Of the current batch of lithe, highly articulate, Obama-level-cool political stars, Buttigieg, forty-four, is literally and figuratively the veteran — given his military service, tenure in the Biden administration, and extended national media presence. Thanks in part to his greying beard, he no longer comes across as a precocious college kid. Instead, he brings a unique degree of gravitas and refreshing distance from the internecine squabbles between factions of the party.

As the 2020 Iowa caucus winner, he snagged the plum spot of headlining last Sunday at Iowa Democrats’ “Liberty and Justice Celebration” fundraising dinner, a high-energy affair that benefited from Democratic enthusiasm over its strong contenders for governor, Senate, and the 1^st and 3^rd House congressional districts.

Buttigieg argued persuasively that the elite corruption endemic in our politics is why “we cannot have nice things.” Reminding the crowd that “[o]ur political and economic and social systems have been letting us down for a long time,” he explained that “our economy is unfair because our politics is unfair.”

Our democracy has been hijacked by the current “carnival of corruption,” Buttigieg observed, pointing to Trump’s defective jet gifted by the Qataris and his grotesque self-enrichment, including crypto graft; the Supreme Court’s indulgence of Trump’s tyrannical whims with a grant of absolute criminal immunity; and congressmen’s participation in ethically galling insider trades and utter lack of interest in checking executive overreach. “This hurts us. This is why things aren’t working properly,” he explained. “This is why they can make you pay more at the pump for a war you never asked for; how they burned down the Department of Education while we are worried about kids who cannot do math or read like they are supposed to.”

Buttigieg conceded Democrats have too often gotten “boxed in” as defenders of the status quo. “But the answer cannot be to put everything back the way it used to be. We are not going to all this trouble to find the shards of everything they smashed up and try to tape it back together to look just like it used to,” he implored the crowd.

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Eschewing buzzy descriptors (“socialist” or “center left”), Buttigieg demonstrates that the real imperative for Democrats is boldness, the determination to offer concrete, dramatic solutions to bolster our democracy and ensure widespread prosperity for ordinary Americans.

“Don’t tell me we cannot take big swings, take real risks, do big work,” he proclaimed to rising applause, “Don’t tell me it’s bad politics to talk about diesel prices and democracy in the same breadth because they are all part of the same picture.” Buttigieg says that it is not too much to demand a political system in which everyone’s vote counts the same and the top vote getter is the winner (i.e., dump the Electoral College), or in which we redesign the Supreme Court’s size and jurisdiction to re-establish its legitimacy, or in which we end — by constitutional amendment if needed — dark money’s iron grip on our politics.

Rather than hector one part of the party, Buttigieg leans into his Midwestern values and speaks to unifying sentiments. He insists that “the American flag does not belong to one political side in this country, just as surely as we know that God does not belong to a political party in the United States of America.” And he argues that genuine aspirations for security and stability do not require we bathe in reactionary nostalgia. “We know it means to know your past without going back to it.”

Buttigieg offers a formula for unifying Democrats and forging a broad pro-democracy coalition: dramatic political reform; wages sufficient for an ordinary worker to live on one job; access to affordable childcare, worldclass healthcare, and public schools; and taxing corporations and the richest people at least as much as working people.

Whether he runs for president in 2028 (why wouldn’t he?), Buttigieg deserves kudos for his undaunted, unabashed, and unequivocal defense of America’s foundational values and commitment to pursuing our “more perfect union.” Democrats are fortunate to have him as a model for progressive, dynamic, optimistic political leadership.

Even when elite institutions appear ready to buckle, individuals and groups with modest financial resources and limited legal protections have proven that they can stand up — at great risk to themselves— and shame the accommodationists, thereby slowing the rush to collaborate with a tyrannical regime. The contrast between feeble ingratiators and principled dissenters has been especially vivid in the realm of higher education.

Penn and a batch of elite universities have compromised academic independence and thrown diversity under the bus to ward off Trump regime threats to slash funding by signing off on agreements that compromise academic independence, allow government oversight, forfeit efforts to recruit a diverse student population, and cede protection for vulnerable LBGTQ+ students.

These sorts of agreements, which have been imposed at Penn and the University of Virginia, have been roundly condemned for abrogating First Amendment rights and academic freedom, two cornerstones of our democracy. “These agreements are vague, contradictory and contain unlawful terms that subject universities to ongoing legal jeopardy,” wrote two Yale alums currently teaching at Penn. “For example, following Virginia’s policy could imperil Yale’s laudable efforts to expand access to low-income and first-generation college students.” Some of these extortionist deals have limited foreign student enrollment and forced schools to discriminate against trans students. They’ve also opened a Pandora’s box of ongoing litigation. “Provisions that conflict with the law and with one another expose institutions to liability from all directions. Also, the use of vague terms such as DEI, gender ideology, and domestic terrorism bolsters executive discretion and invites overcompliance.”

Last month, we learned that the Trump regime was “conducting a far-reaching investigation into whether Yale University’s admissions practices violate anti-discrimination laws, prompting one of the country’s most elite schools to pursue settlement talks with the government,” the New York Times reported. The Justice Department, as it has time and again, has speciously claimed that efforts to expand diversity amount to illegal discrimination. In this case, DOJ is not only attempting to bully the medical school (the focus of its original allegations of “illegal preferential treatment to Black and Hispanic applicants”), but also the law school and undergraduate programs. Not everyone at Yale, however, has been willing to roll over and play dead.

Fortunately, Yale’s law school dean and other faculty are leading the charge against the latest infringement on academic freedom and the crusade against diversity. “The dean, Cristina M. Rodríguez, and a group of law school faculty members have quietly lobbied top Yale leaders in recent days, arguing that the Trump administration cannot be trusted, and that settling would threaten the rule of law and the university’s reputation,” the New York Times reported. “They have even explored whether the law school could be excluded from any settlement with the federal government. Students, faculty, and alumni have been openly pressuring Yale President Maurie McInnis,” a sign that Rodríguez has a reservoir of support.

In an insightful interview with the Yale Daily News, Yale alum and former FTC commissioner Rebecca Slaughter (whom MAGA Supreme Court justices ruled that the president had unlimited power to fire without cause), reminded the Yale community that “it cannot be that I, Becca, normal human, had the wherewithal to challenge something that was wrong and an abuse of power, and Yale — with its $44 billion endowment — does not.” She acknowledged, “It’s not fun to push back — it’s much nicer to sort of think about how to walk away or make it go away in the short term — but it’s so much better in the long term to stand on principle,” adding that “especially as an academic institution, I think Yale has an incredible obligation to do that, and that obligation is to its students, to its alumni, to its faculty, to its employees, to its partners.”

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Courage may prove contagious at Yale, where an array of groups — including the Yale College Council, Yale College Democrats, the Yale chapter of the American Association of University Professors, and an alumni group “Stand Up for Yale” — have mobilized to put the kibosh on capitulation. Yale’s chapter of AAUP put out a letter declaring, “The choice before Yale is not simply whether to settle one investigation. It is whether to participate in a broader campaign to turn civil rights enforcement into a mechanism of political control.”

On Friday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) spoke at Yale alongside Yale students, alums, professors, and Mayor Justin Elicker to push back against collaboration. “We’re at a legacy-defining moment,” Blumenthal said. “Yale will be regarded either as a beacon and a fighter for academic freedom or as the weakling who succumbed and obeyed.”

Whether defenders of academic freedom can prevail at Yale or not, the concerted effort to object to spineless capitulation and force institutional elites to justify their actions is critical in the fight for democracy, preservation of First Amendment rights, and defense of civil society. When elites learn that capitulation will spark fierce criticism and exact lasting personal and institutional cost, they are much less likely to engage in Quisling behavior and more inclined, however reluctantly, to resist authoritarian intimidation.

As the Trump administration and its MAGA enablers now face frequent legal setbacks and edge closer to a potentially devastating midterm election, it is especially critical for democracy advocates to hold the line, refuse to give away precious democratic ground, and deny the Trump crowd any easy wins. Now, more than ever, it is time for Yale, higher education, and civil society as a whole to keep their nerve and refuse to voluntarily concede critical freedoms to a faltering fascist regime growing more desperate by the day to cling to power.

Correction: An earlier version of this column said Harvard had signed an agreement with the Trump administration. It has not. This version has been updated.

Incidents of unprovoked violence are not stray or isolated, but are now part of the regular pattern of daily life on the West Bank. “Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians and foreign media reporters in the West Bank, blocking and damaging their vehicles during the pursuit,” Haaretz reported on Saturday.

The attack on journalists was among at least 20 incidents of settler violence and incursions into Palestinian communities reported across the West Bank over the weekend, including assaults, armed threats, property damage, trespassing and clashes that led to arrests by Israeli security forces, according to Palestinian reports.

The accounts should appall anyone who claims to care about democracy and human rights. “CNN said its reporters were among those attacked by the settlers near Sinjil, where settlers lynched a Palestinian American last year. According to the channel, a group of settlers blocked the road with their car, preventing the CNN team from moving forward.”

The sense of impunity with which radical settlers now behave was on full display when settlers confronted at gunpoint and detained Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) in full sight and without objection by Israeli military personnel. The New York Times reported on Khanna’s visit to “the ruins of Khirbet Zanuta, a tiny Palestinian Bedouin village in the southern West Bank that was abandoned”:

Suddenly, a car of men holding guns pulled up and blocked the narrow road out of the village. The men began taunting the congressman and his team, swearing at them in Hebrew and Arabic and kicking the tires of their minibus, according to accounts, photographs and video footage from Mr. Khanna, an aide and his security guard. A photographer for The New York Times traveling in a different vehicle also saw the interaction.

Rather than forcefully intervene, IDF soldiers, according to Khanna, “smoked cigarettes, chatted with the men and after the settlers left, moved a car to block the road.” The culture of thuggery, unashamed even in plain sight of a U.S. congressman, should be illuminating. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as he invariably does, brushed off the incident as an aberration of stray hoodlums.

The Netanyahu government’s go-to response — rank indifference to active incitement — no longer passes the straight face test. While incidents have skyrocketed by more than 560 percent, only “6.6 percent of the cases resulted in an indictment — according to data from Israel Police.” The UK, Canada, Australia, the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium, Norway, Ireland, New Zealand, and France have barred entry of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (although the EU as a whole could not agree on sanctions) in response to the nonstop racist incitement. International condemnation, including a ban from France and Ireland, recently followed Ben-Gvir’s release of a video showing detained activists from the Gaza-bound aid flotilla kneeling with their hands tied behind their backs after their vessel was intercepted. Meanwhile, a larger pattern of horrendous Palestinian prisoner abuse and widely circulated images of apparent war crimes has emerged, with a predictable Netanyahu response: threatening to sue the New York Times for publishing evidence of abuse.

The overall picture should stun the conscience of anyone who supports democracy and the rule of law. In the U.S., such conduct has spurred more lawmakers previously sympathetic to Israel to call for stringent action. Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-CA), for example, recently announced he would cosponsor legislation that “authorizes targeted sanctions against individuals and entities responsible for violence in the West Bank that threatens regional stability and undermines U.S. national security interests and prospects for a negotiated resolution.” Panetta and other lawmakers recognize that the escalating violence is not an isolated issue, nor incidental to U.S. interests. Instead, it “risks drawing the United States deeper into broader regional conflict.”

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While Netanyahu, who brought into government and enabled Ben Gvir and Smotrich — allowing them to indulge in racist rhetoric and abusive policies — bears responsibility, his possible defeat in upcoming elections may do nothing to improve the situation, given the political positions of his opponents. Former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who rose to prominence as director of the Yesha Council, an umbrella body for the settlements, and who is running in coalition with opposition leader Yair Lapid, has denounced violent extremism. But it is far from clear he will take decisive action if he comes to power. Gadi Eisenkot, the former top commander of the Israeli military, whose centrist Yashar party has been rising in the polls, remains maddeningly vague on issues, including the West Bank.

We should not bank on the existing Israeli political system to tackle endemic abuse absent outside pressure. Fortunately, as J Street Ilan Goldenberg argues, the U.S. has an unprecedented opportunity to use its leverage to curb Israel’s egregious, lawless abuse of Palestinians and gross violations of international law. The Israeli political system recognizes it is on thin ice with Democrats, and that even its standing with Republicans is no longer so secure as to ensure it can avoid adverse U.S. reaction.

That opens the door for Congress to pass, as Goldenberg recommends, the West Bank Violence Prevention Act, “targeting violent settlers as well as the organizations and institutions that finance and enable them.” It also leaves room for wider changes in the U.S.-Israel relationship, including a phase-out of military aid and economic sanctions against illegal settlements and other human rights abuses.

The narrative long-pitched by AIPAC and a U.S. administration driven by right-wing Christian Zionists and Netanyahu apologists (epitomized by Sen. Lindsey Graham, Pete Hegseth and other outspoken Islamophobes) — namely, that Israel is simply the innocent victim of antisemitic smears — does not match reality. The attitude has prompted administrations of both parties to indulge in inexcusable Israeli conduct and now fuels an unprecedented backlash against the nation.

Facts on the ground in Israel and the changed outlook on Israel in the U.S. present the chance for a break with a status quo that is no longer acceptable to most Americans. American politicians need to confront Israel’s deteriorating human rights record, take notice of the dramatic shift in American public attitude regarding Israel, and formulate a policy that furthers our stated goals of promoting democracy and regional stability, while fulfilling the legitimate aspirations of two peoples fated to share the same land.

As the New York Times recounted, the inexcusable killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo — a hardworking, fifty-two-year old small businessman and devoted family man who had been a resident of the United States for thirty-five years — followed a familiar, loathsome pattern: A violent encounter with an unarmed Hispanic member of the community, a rush to demonize the victim, and subsequent lies that he “weaponized his vehicle.”

As we have heard in so many similar situations, ICE falsely claims the suspect “tried to run over an agent, who then fired at him.” That was a shameful pack of lies. A Homeland Security Department spokesman later fessed up that Araujo was not the intended target of the agents. As attested by Araujo’s brother and two other men in the car, they were on their way to a construction site and did not “use his vehicle as a weapon or attempt to run over the immigration officers.”

From start to finish, ICE has been in cover-up mode— body cameras were conveniently off, agents removed Araujo’s phone and wallet when he was in the ambulance (resulting in his admission as a John Doe), and DHS reportedly pressured witnesses in the vehicle to self-deport. “ICE has a pattern of lying. It is disgusting and cruel,” Rep. Pamila Jayapal (D-WA) said succinctly.

The only thing “weaponized” here is a federal agency that has an unmatched record of mayhem and violence. “Since last year, federal agents have fired on at least 21 people, many of whom were shot in their vehicles. Five people, including three U.S. citizens, were killed as a result,” the Times noted. While ICE repeatedly claims its agents were attacked with vehicles, these claims have evaporated in court.

While the agents directly involved, the ICE supervisors, and the reprehensible Trump lackey Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin have moral and political responsibility for what can only be described as a government-sanctioned killing, they are not the only ones with blood on their hands. Every Republican in the House and Senate who voted to dump more funds into an unreformed and unaccountable operation (most recently adding $70 billion to ICE and Customs and Border Protection via reconciliation) owns the death, trauma, and terror that ensued.

While Democrats do not currently control either house of Congress, they are not without immediate recourse. Harris County District Attorney’s Office Sean Teare told Houston Public Media on Thursday, “We’re going to look at every avenue, and if a state crime was committed, be it a murder, be it a manslaughter, be it tampering with evidence, we are going to investigate it.” He added that “if someone committed that crime, you don’t get to hide behind a badge.”

Democrats must proceed on multiple fronts. Every Democrat on the ballot must hold every Republican incumbent responsible for funding and enabling gross human rights violations. Just Monday, there was another reported ICE killing of a Colombian man (who was legally authorized to work in the U.S.), this time in Maine. Such atrocities underscore the need to hold Republicans like Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), who voted to continue to fund the deportation killing machine, wholly responsible for the spate of inexcusable deaths.

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Meanwhile, as in the case of the victims of Trump’s extrajudicial killings on the high seas in the Caribbean, international law has a role to play as well. Mexican officials announced two days after Araujo’s murder that they would file criminal complaints “over the deaths of several Mexican nationals during immigration operations, in the nation’s most confrontational protest yet against President Trump’s immigration policies,” according to the New York Times. Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum declared, “We cannot allow our brothers and sisters in the United States to be mistreated,” a sentiment that other countries whose nationals are similarly abused can certainly adopt. Given that the U.S. is fast becoming an international pariah for its conduct, international diplomatic and/or economic pressure may finally bring some accountability to the Trump regime.

However, domestic political pressure is the ultimate remedy for these killing sprees and the intolerable reign of terror directed primarily at brown and black people whom the Trump white supremacists want to racially cleanse from our country. (In case you had any doubt about the racist intentions of the Trump regime, thousands of Haitians in Ohio, Somalian immigrants in Minnesota, and Syrian refugees in Chicago are just some of the migrants facing complete disruption of their lives, loss of employment, and fear of deportation to centers characterized by life-threatening conditions.)

Democrats must vow to end all funding to ICE and CBP in their current incarnation and commit to comprehensive, exacting oversight to determine liability at all levels for this epidemic of death, abuse, and lawlessness (with an eye toward criminal referral to states and, once a Democratic administration is in power, federal authorities).

Democrats need no longer tiptoe around the only sensible long-term solution: Abolish ICE and CBP, redesign interior enforcement to end dragnets and gross violations of civil liberties, and reform our legal immigration system from top to bottom. The latter must entail an effort to regularize asylum claims, swiftly work through the backlog of cases, legalize long-term residents who have committed no crimes and have been productive members of the community (removing the cloud of fear that hangs over families such as the Araujos), and rebuild/rationalize our legal immigration system.

As Jayapal put it, “[I]t doesn’t matter what you want to call it, but we have to disband ICE. We have to melt ICE. We have to abolish ICE.” She added: “Whatever word you want to use, what we need to get to is the end-result: ICE should not exist as it exists. And DHS should not exist as it exists.” Every Democrat should be as definitive and matter-of-fact.

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The weaponization that Americans face does not come from mythical “car ramming” by immigrants. The weaponization of federal forces against innocent people — a weaponization we should deplore — stems from Trump’s campaign of nonstop lies and racist smears to sow fear and malicious incitement of violence against non-white immigrants. It stems from an atmosphere of impunity among federal forces who have been unleashed to terrorize fellow Americans with consequences, who are tearing apart the fabric of American life and making a mockery of the rule of law. James Talarico, Democratic Senate nominee, spoke movingly of the murder of a Texan “neighbor,” a man “who embodied the American dream.” Every elected official must decide either to enable or dismantle the despicable system that enabled this, and voters must hold them responsible for their choice.

Fortunately for the future of pluralistic democracy and the decency of American society, voters — who months ago showed majority support for abolishing ICE — are ahead of the politicians. The upcoming midterms will allow them to reject the status quo. We should not wait for future instances of murder and mayhem to push politicians to end the reign of terror that has turned American cities into killing zones and our legal system into a nightmare.

Domestically, he played a small but critical role in trying to steal the 2020 election, assisting Donald Trump’s campaign to “find” nonexistent votes to swing Georgia’s election results. His role in demagoguing and running roughshod over now Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assault victims marked a low point in Supreme Court confirmation hearings and helped steer the court toward its downward spiral into rank partisanship. More generally, his support for a corrupt, racist, conspiracy-mongering president who threatens the fiber of our democracy leaves a legacy of moral cowardice. As someone who formally supported comprehensive immigration reform, his indulgence of the rank racism and domestic campaign of terror against migrants exemplifies the rot at the core of the Republican Party.

We leave it to others to scrounge for redeeming features or accomplishments that contributed to the well-being of Americans and the advancement of our democratic values. His career should stand as a reminder that, in the end, access to power and electoral success mean little. History will judge him harshly for his role in the MAGA assault on democracy and America’s disastrous loss of international stature.

Republicans have stood by an adjudicated sexual abuser, grotesquely corrupt, and mentally deteriorating president. They nominated for Senate the scandal-drenched Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who gave a pedophile a slap on the wrist — and recently paraded around Britain on a 4^th of July jaunt with his mistress, the center of his wife’s filing for divorce on “biblical grounds.” They are steadfastly backing the chief architect of the Epstein file cover-up and the slush-fund-for-insurrectionist schemes, Todd Blanche, for US attorney general. Yet, after reading or listening to a slew of legacy media pontificators and hand-wringing Democrats, you would think the Democratic Party is the one that “cannot go on like this,” as the New York Times editorial board intoned after Maine Senate nominee Graham Platner was forced out of the race.

Republicans’ utter lack of self-reflection, dissent, or remorse for their backing of serial miscreants and their refusal to break ranks on disastrous policies — e.g., unleashing murderous, rogue ICE shock troops; enabling a disastrous Iran war; taking healthcare coverage away from millions — or challenge Donald Trump’s reign of corruption earn a shrug from corporate media. Ho hum, “Republicans acting like Republicans.” Unflinching unity in the face of manifest malfeasance shields them from the level of scrutiny and condemnation commensurate with their conduct.

Democrats operate in a different universe. Moving in unison, albeit not as quickly as one would hope, to eliminate bad actors or to balance diverse parts of a big-tent coalition might not warrant applause. But the searing criticism that has followed responsible party action boggles the mind.

Democrats certainly could have collectively defused the Platner ticking time bomb months ago. But they did move swiftly in response to a credible rape allegation to dump him, just as they promptly chased former California congressman Eric Swalwell from the governor’s race in the face of allegations of his sexual assault.

For all the caterwauling about Democrats, their position heading into the midterms remains exceptionally strong. They have broken through on virtually every policy issue, from affordability to immigration/ICE abuse to forever wars.

The furor directed at “the Party” (as if there is a single locus of power directing a sprawling party’s primary choices in hundreds of races) and constant rage at the “establishment” has become farcical. For all the grousing about “the Party,” Democrats’ electoral success over the last year (e.g., a run of special election wins, stunning turnout in primaries, sweeping victories in November 2025) suggests they are doing something right. Democratic analyst and data guru Simon Rosenberg reminds us that Senate polling shows “establishment” Democrats backed by leadership (e.g., Roy Cooper, Mary Peltola, Sherrod Brown, Josh Turek) “outperforming 2024 by double digits throughout the battleground [states],” while Gallup shows Democratic Party ID at a 35-year high.

Generic congressional polling, if anything, seems to underestimate Democrats’ advantages in the races that matter. Last week’s polling, for example, shows that in a key swing race in the NY 17^th, Republican Mike Lawler is down by 6 points, a 12-point swing from his victory in 2024. In the PA 7^th, firefighter Bob Brooks has a small but decisive lead over Republican Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, who flipped the seat in 2024. Zeroing in on swing voters (the truly persuadable), Democrats have a 12-point lead.

The actual campaign landscape bears no resemblance to the gloom-and-doom commentary that Callais was going to ensure Republicans kept the House majority or that sniping about socialists winning in safe Blue seats spelled disaster (Democrats in disarray!).

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FiftyPlusOne’s massive data analysis concludes that if the election were held today (it isn’t, so take it with a grain of salt), “Democrats would take the House pretty comfortably with a median of 226 seats — well past the 218 they need for the majority.” Not bad for a party supposedly suffering from moral and political failure (according to the compulsive hand-wringers).

On the Senate front, replacing Platner with a noncontroversial Democrat will return the focus of the Maine race to Collins, an unpopular, weak figure whose refusal to stand up to Trump and role in putting MAGA justices on the Supreme Court to scuttle abortion rights obliterated her “moderate” façade. However they got there, Democrats’ decision to dump Platner spells trouble for Collins, whose campaign lost its best shot to cling to power.

Coupled with strong polling for Sherrod Brown in Ohio (and Jon Ossoff’s pulling away in Georgia), James Talarico’s impressive campaign — as evidenced by his fundraising juggernaut — in Texas, and Mary Peltola’s success in shifting Alaska into the “toss-up” column, Democrats should be cautiously optimistic about netting 4 seats to win the Senate majority.

Furthermore, Democrats’ prospects in governors’ races continue to improve in places like Arizona, Maine, Ohio, and Iowa. If Republicans are looking to the top of the ticket to help them out in down-ballot races, they are likely to be severely disappointed.

So, why the excessive gloom and doom, moral finger wagging at Democrats, and stunning lack of exacting coverage of Republicans’ habitual deceit about everything — from the health/functionality of its incumbents (e.g., Rep. Tom Kean, Jr., Sen. Mitch McConnell) to the disastrous results of the Iran war over which they abdicated responsibility?

Well, billionaire-owned media thrives on coverage that induces Democratic doom-scrolling and attempts to reassure Republicans that they get “fair” coverage (i.e., coverage that forgoes moral judgment, indulges in outlandish moral equivalence, and reduces all issues to process/horse-race politics). There is a ready-made market for Democratic hysteria mongers. But that does not mean the rest of us should buy into the “sky is falling” narrative.

It should not be so difficult to convey the real contrast between a flawed but decent pro-democracy party that polices its own and has made tremendous strides in sharpening its message, and a depraved “blood and soil” fascist movement reliant on scapegoating, lies, and violence devoted to propping up the most corrupt presidency in history. Fortunately for the fate of democracy, voters seem to have a better grasp than much of the punditocracy on the choice we’ll face in November.

Recent litigation stemming from the unprecedented, wholly illegitimate seizure of ballots in Fulton County is a case in point. In a stellar, searing rebuke of Trump shenanigans, U.S. Judge William M. Ray II of the North District of Georgia, a Trump appointee, quashed an absurd subpoena the Trump gang tried to issue through the auspices of a grand jury. It sought the “name, position/function, residential and email addresses, and personal telephone numbers” of every election official who:

[R]eviewed Mail-in Ballots, were assigned to the Voter Review Panel/Board, assigned to any Mobile Voting Location, were involved in the transferring of results or transportation of ballot stock or media, worked in or for the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections generally, worked or volunteered on election day to review or tabulate ballots, worked or volunteered in the Risk Limiting Audit, worked or volunteered for the Recount, and/or served as precinct managers and assistant managers, for the November 2020 General Election in Fulton County.

Ray refused to play along with one of the higher-profile efforts to intimidate local officials and sow the seeds of chaos in advance of the midterms. Trump never came up with evidence to prove his cock-and-bull theory that he had been robbed of re-election — failing to get local officials to “find” 11,780 votes to make up the popular vote deficit — since, as Ray stressed, the election was long over and certified.

Even if these records led to the DOJ finding individuals who worked for Fulton County in the 2020 Election who support the theory that it was not free and fair, they would not yield “information that could be used to charge anyone with anything, at least not any viable charge,” Ray found.

Judge Ray also highlighted the authoritarian nightmare that awaits should courts permit this sort of fishing expedition: “Anyone in power (perhaps the next administration of a different party) could use the Grand Jury process similarly to subpoena personal information of citizens (perhaps that of their political opponents) with no legitimate law enforcement purpose,” Ray wrote. Were a private company to allow such information to be released, “such company would most likely be sued in a data breach class action lawsuit.”

He thus refused to become a handmaiden to Trump’s scheme to “investigate a time-barred crime, indict a defendant or defendants, and allow pretrial procedures to begin, when the conclusion is inevitable—the statute of limitations on the relevant crimes has run.”

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For months, the Trump Justice Department goons have tried to create a phony, error-filled national voter roll, meddle with the U.S. Post Office’s delivery of ballots, and force states to turn over unredacted voter rolls (losing to date 0-11 in lower courts, 0-1 in appeals courts). Tenacious lower court judges have diligently defended the constitutional system in which states and localities have primary responsibility for the operation of elections.

This crucial work is all the more critical given the slim thread by which election law sanity hangs at the Supreme Court. Yes, it struck out at the Supreme Court in Watson v. Republican National Committee, allowing states to set their own rules regarding the deadline for receipt of mail-in ballots. But the closeness of the decision was beyond alarming. As Rick Hasen explained, Mississippi’s argument that it had the right to count ballots arriving soon after Election Day may have seemed “obvious,” but the four dissenters did not think it so obvious. In other words, we are one MAGA Supreme Court justice away from “a bonkers reading of a federal statute on the basis of voter-fraud fantasies… [that] would have signaled that the court would avoid text, history, and precedent to further constrict voting.”

Trump will not relent in his ever-more desperate scramble to find excuses for discrediting midterm elections that are threatening to wipe Republicans from power. He continues to bully, threaten, and extort local officials by, among other things, vowing to prosecute hardworking public servants and withhold funds for FEMA and other urgent purposes unless authorities turn their voting procedures upside down.

Given all this, John Keller and Chelsea Rice at Just Security point to the critical role federal magistrates now play in holding the line in defense of free and fair elections. It’s these judges who will review and, if common sense and the rule of law prevail, provide the “last meaningful check before a federal investigation can disrupt an election.”

As in so many other cases, the Trump regime should have forfeited the presumption of regularity (i.e., the benefit of the doubt that the government acts in good faith) through repeated, cynical, and outrageous maneuvers to disrupt the ordinary operation of elections. Keller and Rice advise judges “to apply heightened scrutiny: to ask whether the seizure is truly necessary, whether less intrusive means would serve the public’s interest, and whether approving a warrant without limiting the means of execution to copying and/or inspection would strip election officials of materials they need to count votes and certify results.”

When the MAGA regime is out of power, there will be ample opportunity to review and hold accountable Trump Justice Department flunkies’ gross illegality, professional malfeasance, and reckless disregard for democracy. In the meantime, Americans are in debt to judges such as William Ray, whose undaunted and courageous decisions have held the line against the most ludicrous attempts by any president to subvert elections and cling to power. They deserve our gratitude for serving as a critical line of defense for the most important elections of our lifetime.

Democrats’ Maine nightmare is over. Last night, just two days after Senate nominee Graham Platner was hit with a horrendous, credible allegation of sexual assault (which he denied before swiftly agreeing to rethink his campaign), he announced he would pull out of the race, allowing the state party to devise a process for filling the vacancy. Ending an exhausting run of scandal, controversy, denial, and intraparty sniping that threatened to derail a key Senate race, Platner’s exit keeps Democrats’ hope alive for toppling the perpetually “concerned” and spineless Sen. Susan Collins and winning majority control of the Senate.

Platner, reflecting every ounce of self-absorption and flaunting the very inability to take ownership for his egregious conduct that made this outcome inevitable, released a video message, declaring, “We’re not doing it because of the allegations; we’re doing it because of the structures that are being taken away from us by those in power.” Yeah, right.

Though there is no clear favorite for a potential replacement at present, Democrats now have the opportunity to return the focus to Collins — her phony pose as a “moderate,” her role in putting decisive votes on the Supreme Court that reversed Roe v. Wade, and her maddening refusal to take on MAGA’s reign of corruption, chaos, and cruelty.

The episode underscores the perils of advancing largely unvetted newcomers and ignoring a plethora of flashing red lights about character. However, the mind-numbing inability to find a viable candidate capable of toppling Platner during the primary race also will likely fuel complaints about sclerotic, incompetent Democratic leadership.

Taking a step back, the Platner debacle also reminds us of the critical role party grownups (regardless of ideology) play if Democrats and democracy itself are to prevail in 2026 and beyond. When episodes such as the Platner fiasco pop up, or the legacy media fan flames of socialist bogeymen, or another Donald Trump outrage comes to light, Democrats with 2028 aspirations have the chance to preview their political skills and test-run their messages. How have they been doing?

In the immediate aftermath of the most recent and far more devastating Platner outrage, his most important backer, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), was oddly silent until Tuesday afternoon, after virtually all other Democrats had weighed in. Fortunately, other Democrats showed swift, proactive leadership skills. On Monday, the Maine Democratic Party told Platner to get out and rebuffed any delusion that he could play kingmaker.

Most impressive were some prominent progressive voices such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). “There can be no tolerance for sexual assault. With so much at stake, the best path forward is for Graham Platner to step aside as the Democratic nominee and address these serious allegations outside this Senate race.” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) called the allegations “serious and credible” and pulled his support, as did Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ). Rising Texas star and Senate nominee James Talarico put out a succinct statement as well: “The credible allegations against Graham Platner cannot be ignored — he should withdraw from the race immediately.”

A willingness to promptly and unequivocally “police your own side” (an anathema in MAGA circles, where nothing outweighs cultist loyalty) will help distinguish real leaders from the perennially timid pols forever looking over their shoulders. Likewise, defending a transparent replacement process and eschewing anything that smacks of a “party insider backroom deal,” as Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CN) did, shows a needed level of self-awareness about the shaky credibility of establishment leadership.

When it comes to leading a big-tent party, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has become a savvy progressive voice striving to keep the broad-based pro-democracy coalition intact. Interestingly, she never backed Platner. In the wake of two Democratic socialists’ victories in New York, she advised her colleagues not to “create a self-fulfilling prophecy by deciding who these young women are before you’ve met them.” She added, “If you are already panicking and sending little messages in your group chats about how these people need to be reined in and tamped down and shown their place, you are creating the antagonistic dynamic that we do not need.” Whether she stays in the House or runs for Senate or president, she is modeling how to lead a diverse, contentious party that should stop panicking at the first signs of healthy internal debate.

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By contrast, there are the compulsive attention grabbers who cannot resist scratching the “socialist vs. center-left” Democratic itch that guarantees legacy media attention. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro seemed oblivious to the “don’t take the bait” option when he insisted on needling Darializa Avila Chevalier, the upset winner in New York’s 13^th Congressional District. Why should anyone care that the governor of Pennsylvania has policy disagreements with a deep-blue Manhattan congressional nominee, an utter newcomer with whom he hastens to assure us he has unspecified differences on “values?”

Needling one faction of the party (thereby feeding the right-wing talking points about Democrats’ supposed extremism) does nothing to elevate a 2028 Democratic hopeful’s standing. Someone who sees himself as leader of the party and of a vast pro-democracy coalition should have bigger fish to fry.

In contrast to the small-tent-pick-a-fight crowd, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has matured as a coalition builder, with a laser-like focus on successful governance, a willingness to combat Trump’s unconstitutional overreach, and a tenacious wit when mocking the decrepit president. Newsom has admonished progressives to deliver pragmatic results and advised grouchy quadrants of the party to learn from New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani on how to connect with the base and build a brand on economic populism.

Newsom’s July 4 speech was presidential in tone and scope:

Our corrupt and unstable President is forcing us to ask a once-unimaginable question: Do we still have a government that belongs to the people? The core of our democracy, the thing that separates us from a monarchy or a dictatorship, is the fundamental right to vote. If we lose that, we lose everything.

That’s why, on America’s 250th birthday, we need a declaration of election independence — a proclamation of freedom from the manipulators and deniers, from the threat of imprisonment for refusing to go along with Trump’s schemes.

Then there is the breakthrough candidate of the 2026 primary season, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), who — like former President Barack Obama — exudes confidence that voters are entirely capable of absorbing a fact-based, serious discussion about democratic values, policy, and reform.

Ossoff’s easy command of facts to expose the egregious, stomach-turning corruption at the heart of the MAGA canard has focused the public’s ire against a regime delegitimized by its own excessive self-dealing. (Consider how well this approach worked for the pro-democracy coalition that took down Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.) Moreover, Ossoff has been able to make the critical connection between the Epstein elite’s “coin-operated” corruption — where dollars paid are returned in favors, crony capitalism, tax breaks, and impunity from the law — and the withering of economic opportunity for average Americans.

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In sum, there is no single Democratic standout or formula for success beyond the midterms. Moreover, not a lot of what these Democrats have said to date will make or break their post-2026 ambitions. However, taking a definitive role in preventing party train wrecks, refusing to engage in internecine party fights in the run-up to the most important midterm election in memory, and sketching out big-tent themes that make the case for radical progressive reform will hold 2028 aspirants in good stead.

In particular, those who can connect the dots between gangster government and the economic plight of ordinary Americans and offer a positive, alternative vision of competent and responsive government will be well positioned when it comes time to throw their hat in the 2028 ring.

Unexpectedly, Pope Leo was among those articulating the most historically genuine expression of America. Again, the leading voice to express to the world our constitutional traditions comes from the Vatican — by way of Chicago — not from the band at the White House, which remains temporarily occupied by constitutional ignoramuses and moral buffoons.

In his letter marking America’s Semiquincentennial, Pope Leo emphasized the creedal foundation of our nation: “that defining moment in the history of the United States of America, July 4, 1776, that gave enduring voice to the ideals of liberty, equality, the pursuit of happiness, justice and democratic self-government.” He explained that “among the principles that have guided the development of this country is the God-given dignity of every human life, each person being endowed with an inherent worth that calls for reverence, protection and care.”

One cannot imagine Trump grasping that concept, let alone expressing it to Americans, whom he treats as suckers and pawns in his game of self-enrichment.

Leo connected his guidance on America’s founding creed, as he has done throughout his papacy, to the defense of immigrants faced with Trump’s onslaught of abuse, violence, and dehumanization. Presumably by no coincidence, on July 4^th, Leo visited the Sicilian island of Lampedusa, “the epicenter of Europe’s migration debate to honor the tens of thousands of people who have died trying to reach Europe to find freedom and prosperity,” the Associated Press reported. His seminal point addressed the willful disregard of immigration exclusionists: that America’s founding principle relies on the inherent value of all individuals, which obligates us to treat immigrants humanely and to continue incorporating them into our democratic experiment.

Pope Leo’s letter to America reiterated:

Defending human life also includes welcoming, protecting and assisting immigrants, whose hopes, sacrifices and contribution have formed part of the history of this country from its very beginning. In every generation, those who have arrived seeking freedom, opportunity and a place to belong have helped to shape the nation’s character. To receive them with compassion and generosity is not only an act of charity, but also a recognition of the dignity that belongs to every human person.

This is a complete and effective repudiation of the mean, racist, anti-historic, ungodly vision of America that Trump and his ilk advance. MAGA’s freakout in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling on birthright citizenship — threatening to bar pregnant women from entering America (!) — speaks to the moral insanity that has gripped its already warped ideology.

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In addition to Leo’s contribution to the 250^th anniversary of America’s independence, Leo appeared remotely on July 3 to accept the Liberty Medal from the National Constitution Center. Again, the Pope’s deeper appreciation and understanding of the Constitution than the current Oval Office occupant speaks volumes about the latter’s utter unfitness for even temporary residence in the White House. With personal emotion that is entirely absent in the MAGA power elites, Leo spoke about his own connection to the Declaration:

From our youth, most of us have admired the eloquence of those words, with their resounding appeal to the law of nature and to nature’s God as the basis of their assertion that all men and women are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, including the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. While couched in the language of the Enlightenment, that claim is ultimately grounded in an understanding of the human person inspired by the great biblical vision of man and woman being created in the divine image. It is indeed here that we discover the basis of human dignity; dignity which precedes the establishment of any State, and whose custody constitutes its very purpose.

Without the arrogant denial of our nation’s imperfections or the harsh vitriol America’s critics use to skewer its imperfections — let alone rants against Communists or dehumanized migrants — Leo acknowledged that “the path to building a society that would embody those high ideals of liberty and justice for all was not always easy and, in many respects, is still a work in progress.” In calling for us to take up “anew in each generation and in the face of ever new challenges” of perfecting America, he speaks with humility about our obligations to one another, a sentiment that used to be entirely uncontroversial — until it was savaged by those who espouse a hateful, anti-democratic vision of exclusion and domination.

Leo paid a moving tribute to the message of E pluribus unum — another concept entirely beyond MAGA’s grasp and hence absent from Trump’s public discourse. “In order for a nation to flourish, it must be truly united; united not by goals bound to momentary endeavors, but by ideals that do not fade with the passing of time,” Leo explained. It’s those values, “a shared human dignity, equality and the rights laid out in the Declaration of Independence,” that Leo recognizes as the glue to bind Americans together. He understands that the American experience must be centered on values, not on power or wealth; in ideals, not personality; and in purpose, not in chest-thumping spectacle.

The core of the MAGA movement is utterly divorced from, indeed is hostile to, the uplifting, humanistic, and democratic vision that has been at the heart of the American experiment for 250 years. At the very least, many will find it karmically satisfying that an American Pope adept at public communication would come along at precisely the right time to demolish the bogus vision of a president entirely lacking in decency, humanity, or redeeming characteristics, yet who claims God spared him for the job.

On one hand, it is easy to be depressed by Americans’ folly in entrusting our precious democracy to Trump and his pack of moral, political, and intellectual dullards. On the other hand, the Pope’s ability to connect anew with millions of Americans on a plane that transcends politics (and utterly confounds Trump) gives one hope that we might find our way out of the thicket of hatred, corruption, and nonstop lies — and might one day move forward to a shared, treasured, and authentic understanding of America.

There is no such thing as “partial” or “conditional” freedom of navigation of the world’s oceans and waterways. The diplomatic contortions the U.S. continues deploying are something to behold. “Any fees in the Strait of Hormuz would be voluntary,” suggested a diplomat from Oman, recently enlisted by Iran to obtain its pound of flesh from the Trump negotiators. Iran, however, was not playing along: Of course the payments would be mandatory. (Who would pay otherwise?) The New York Times explained:

“Call it voluntary if you like — Hormuz was completely open before this war, and now it isn’t,” said H.A. Hellyer, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a research organization in London. “That is not Oman’s doing, they never wanted this. All this hassle is part of Washington’s bill for starting an ill-advised war.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, reliably disingenuous (unless he somehow believes the claptrap he parrots), insists that “the United States would oppose any scenario in which use of the strait was monetized, regardless of whether it was called ‘a fee or a toll or a donation.’” The U.S. can oppose it, but there is no reason to doubt that Donald Trump and his hapless negotiators will simply give way on this bedrock principle.

Donald Trump’s nonstop lies about our control of the Strait cannot alter the new power dynamic in the region, as Foreign Policy’s Keith Johnson details:

The United States expended a large portion of its munitions, both precision-guided bombs and missiles such as Tomahawks and advanced missile interceptors such as Patriots, in a multiweek burst of “epic fury” in order to create a situation where Iran believes it will remain in control of one of the world’s key shipping corridors (and may well do so), all while ensuring for itself sanctions relief and billions of dollars in economic oxygen.

While U.S. President Donald Trump still mulls the idea of restarting the war with Iran, few take that seriously because kinetic action achieved little except higher gasoline prices, and the U.S. midterm elections are now even closer. To get a short-term peace, Trump offered all carrots and no sticks. Even future carrots: The MOU actually commits the United States to refraining from future sanctions on Iran.

Sure enough, Trump’s flimsy memorandum of understanding has become Iran’s mechanism to exert its leverage over the Strait, angle for sanctions relief, pursue access to frozen funds, and haul in international reconstruction funds — all without making binding commitments to address the ostensible reason Trump launched his reckless war, its nuclear weapons program.

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Brookings Institution’s Burt Jones observed recently that “Iran [showed] that it can flex the major muscle that it has, which is to constrict shipping through Hormuz, and it can withstand the price that the West would impose on it.” Having accomplished that, nothing that will occur in post-war talks is likely to alter the new regional reality: Iran comes out of the war “in a stronger position than we went in.”

In reporting on Iran’s newfound negotiating partner, the New York Times reported last week:

Iran and U.S.-allied Oman are moving forward with plans to collect payment for ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, despite public American objections, according to an Iranian official and four diplomats with knowledge of the matter.

If enacted, the plans would be a significant change from the prewar status in the strategic waterway, underscoring how the American-Israeli decision to attack Iran on Feb. 28 has changed the Middle East in far-reaching and unanticipated ways.

Demonstrating Iran’s newfound confidence, “Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired missiles at two commercial ships near the Strait of Hormuz early Tuesday,” the Wall Street Journal reported. It is just the latest sign that the shift in power in the region ohas become more profound as the war played out. Kari Heerman of the Brookings Institution explained: “Iran did not only assert control over the strait, it also experimented a little bit with politically conditioned access, offering discounts to its friends and higher rates to its enemies.” Heerman noted in analyzing how “freedom of navigation” has lost any meaning. “[T]hat’s a major departure from not only the status quo ante, it also presents major challenges for international maritime law.”

We hear each week that the talks are at risk of “collapsing” or that the “fragile truce” is at risk. Bunk. Iran, with Oman’s aid, is systematically asserting long-term control of the Strait. Trump has zero interest in returning to full-scale hostilities; the economic sanctions that have constrained Iran are already being unwound; and the entire topic is a political loser for Trump. As oil prices gradually drift downward, Trump is less inclined to restart major military operations. The war is over, as both sides know. The memorandum talks are merely the means of tallying the cost to U.S.’s international standing.

Given all this, much of the Iran coverage has taken on an air of unreality. The Trump regime pretends to be engaged in grown-up statecraft; legacy media coverage regurgitates the Trump team’s assertions that Iran is desperate for a deal. The headlines take at face value the threat that the U.S. would resume a full-scale fight; but no one engaged in the talks believes that is remotely possible.

Rather than frame the news of the day around what the Trump regime is saying about events (Trump ready to destroy Iran again!), coverage of the talks should lay out the facts to educate the public about the new balance of power (Iran using muscle to extract economic benefits from Strait of Hormuz).

Meanwhile, the Republican Congress, having entirely abandoned its constitutional and oversight role in America’s disastrous war, is equally responsible for this debacle. Republicans have made the case better than the most esteemed constitutional scholars: allowing the president (especially one as ignorant and reckless as this) unchecked control of foreign policy is a recipe for constitutional chaos and national security ruin.

Democrats need to keep the pressure on, insisting on comprehensive hearings and definitive committee reports to document the serial blunders in launching and conducting the war, tally the human and financial costs, and assess the diplomatic, economic, and strategic consequences of Trump’s catastrophe. Republicans have disqualified themselves from holding power. It will be up to Democrats to reassert Congress’s role as a critical constitutional player in matters of war and peace — and deal with the consequences of the loss of freedom of navigation of critical waterways such as the Strait of Hormuz.

Plainly, Larry David is consumed with our current political nightmare. Throughout the series, he effectively drills down on a contradiction at the heart of our contemporary democracy: We lionize the Founding Fathers and fetishize our history, even as we recognize that their handiwork failed us in critical respects.

There is something deeply cathartic about watching Larry David as Democrat Samuel Tilden wig out (Episode 2) upon winning the popular vote but losing the Electoral College in 1876. “No, no, I won, I won…. What the f**k is an electoral college? …What kind of country is that? … No, it’s not a democracy! Who made this up, the Electoral College, the Founding f**cking Fathers, what a bunch of morons!”

Amid the hilarity, the point is powerful: We could do with less veneration of every aspect of a system that has led to such plainly destructive results. Democrats would certainly get credit from their frustrated base (and the country at large) if they would occasionally show genuine outrage in response to outcomes that defy common sense. Instead of treating every constitutional jot and title as sacred, they might actually suggest we are not permanently consigned to live with the Founding Fathers’ shortcomings. If we idolized the imperfect architects of our system a little less, we might utilize the amendment process (not to mention exercise some legislative leeway) to avoid democratic train wrecks.

As amusing as many of the sketches are, Larry David’s tour de force comes in a sketch (also from Episode 2) featuring George Washington’s announcement that he will not be seeking a third term. In furtherance of the cause of democracy, he states he will suggest that future presidents not serve more than two terms. David mulls about in the crowd, then asks what would happen if a subsequent president declined the suggestion. Ah, says Washington, not a problem! The Congress and the US Supreme Court could pass an amendment to prevent someone from serving more than two terms. Yeah, but we could end up with a “narcissistic asshole” who doesn’t care about the Constitution, David counters. And what if the Supreme Court turns out to be a bunch of “yes men” and Congress “a bunch of pussies who care more about party than country”?

Washington becomes mildly agitated by the notion that such future characters of such low character could upset the Founders’ best-laid plans. He recommends that after every election, we would simply have a peaceful transfer of power with the loser accepting the results and endorsing the winner! Again, David pops up to point out that this wouldn’t help if we get a “sociopath” who instead would foment a revolution, someone who would enrich himself and his family at the expense of others, send troops into cities who kill fellow Americans, attack universities and the press, and even cheat at golf. Jimmy Kimmel deadpans from the crowd that he doesn’t see how a president, like a big baby, would possibly take time to attack critics. Washington, unnerved, maintains that we would never elect a president of such poor character.

David presses on, raising the possibility that a future president could be so depraved as to have a pedophile as his best friend. David taunts the crowd: “What if he were a deeply corrupt con man; a pathological liar who preys on people’s prejudice?” Washington becomes incredulous, slow to grasp the risk that the American people could be a “collection of dupes” easily manipulated by a pathological narcissist. The crowd begins yelling at one another, a brawl breaks out, and a despondent Washington looks out on the crowd, finally concluding: “We’re f**cked.”

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The “sociopath” whom Larry David described has been popping up to torment us throughout the 250^th celebration, reminding us of voters’ folly in electing such a charlatan and flouting a system with limited, imperfect mechanisms to foil his efforts to sabotage our democracy. David’s comic brilliance helps distill the delicious interplay between, on one hand, the Founders — men of reason, skeptical of human nature…but perhaps not skeptical enough to anticipate the pure mendacity of a Donald Trump and the moral unseriousness of the masses — and, on the other hand, the realization of their worst nightmare in the person of Donald Trump.

For 250 years, we have relied excessively on the hope that democratic norms largely unsupported by legal coercion would hold the system together. But we aren’t obliged to keep gambling that our luck will hold, and that the villain at the center of our national trauma will self-destruct. We can cease to be passive observers constrained by an imperfect system that inherently favors the richest, most ruthless, and most corrupt. We would all benefit from a political system with more cranky, Larry David-esque provocateurs.

So we can thank him for a timely reminder: Greater irreverence and willingness to innovate a system created by very imperfect Founders may be precisely what we need to arrest our drift into an authoritarian dystopia.

That’s perhaps the most pathetic but accurate defense of the handiwork of a court that has entirely forfeited its credibility as a nonpartisan judicial body. Its reputation is in tatters, certain to decline further as it removes any lingering doubt as to its affiliation with the failing MAGA movement and antipathy toward modern pluralistic America.

Given its string of outrageous rulings, the public certainly does not believe our highest court is acting on the up and up. “[T]he Supreme Court is facing a crisis of confidence,” the Brennan Center explained in an April report on the collapse of the court’s credibility. “Americans’ favorable views of the Court hover at historic lows. Polling shows that only 22 percent of voters have a ‘great deal’ or ‘quite a bit’ of confidence in the Court.”

While the MAGA majority does not trample on precedent in every single case, it does engage in bad faith reasoning to justify preordained outcomes, misstate facts, misrepresent the issue before it, make hash of critical historical context, express animus toward political opponents, cause fundamental damage to the constitutional structure of our system, and aggrandize power to itself at the expense of the other branches. How much longer must the American people tolerate — as the Declaration of Independence phrased it — “a long train of abuses and usurpations. . . . design[ed] to reduce them under absolute Despotism?”

Frankly, we should be stunned that the most extreme, a-historic positions that would never have passed the straight-face test a few years back now come within a whisker of garnering 5 votes. “That some of those positions [like in the mail-in ballots case] were too extreme for the ‘middle’ of the Court doesn’t somehow prove that the Court is, in fact, ‘moderate’; it just suggests that, for as emboldened as right-wing litigants have become, the Court isn’t all the way there yet,” Steve Vladeck wrote this week. “That’s an important narrative, but it’s not one for which the justices deserve a participation trophy.”

To the contrary, the accelerating drift into judicial authoritarianism should serve as a shrieking siren: If the MAGA majority is allowed to continue down this road, all semblance of honest jurisprudence and respect for the right of the people to make ideological assessments and policy choices will vanish.

With arrogance typical of any thin-skinned despot, the MAGA justices think the problem is pesky critics calling attention to the court’s self-made credibility crisis, rather than their own insistence on imposing right-wing crackpottery on the country under the guise of legitimate constitutional interpretation. Simply because the robed MAGA partisans deign to allow us to keep a few crumbs of our liberty — the explicit guarantee of birthright citizenship, the right to count all votes cast when states deem it appropriate, the ability to maintain a central bank insulated from whims of a corrupt president, congressional authority over the power to lay tariffs (again, spelled out in the Constitution) — does not mean we are obliged to endure serial constitutional outrages.

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We are reaching the point of no return, which nicely aligns with the inflection point 250 years ago that inspired the Declaration of Independence’s indictment of the tyrannical excesses of King George III. The principles enunciated in our founding document apply whether the villain is an English monarch or a judicial majority. When either becomes destructive of the ends of freedom, the people are obliged to act.

As with King George, the current MAGA majority deserves at least a partial listing of the wrongs justifying a dramatic alteration in our government:

It eviscerated a 50-year precedent establishing women’s bodily autonomy, a fundamental component of full citizenship;

It reimposed Jim Crow in violation of the unequivocal text of the Voting Rights Act and in violation of the plain reading of the 14^th and 15^th Amendments, which empower Congress to implement the post-Civil War amendments’ promises of equality;

It doled out virtual blanket criminal immunity to Donald Trump, directly contradicting the historical and constitutional framework on which the country was founded;

It inhumanely stripped the protected status and all due process rights from hundreds of thousands of refugees whose deportation could result in torture, persecution, untold hardship, and even death;

It cooked up in the chaos-producing Slaughter decision, wiping out 90 year precedent (Humphrey’s Executor) that allowed “certain agencies tasked with certain responsibilities some independence from presidential control,” as Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, a decision so lacking in intellectual rigor that Justice Amy Coney Barrett was left to bemoan that the exception carved out of thin air for the Federal Reserve made no sense: “How can history support both a categorical rule and a carve-out?”;

Justices repeatedly failed to comply with financial disclosure requirements, received lavish gifts from parties with interests in business before the court, and refused to adopt mandatory ethical guidelines, including rules for recusal that all other federal court judges must follow;

Justices have made a variety of remarks in public settings evidencing bias against political liberalism and castigating good faith critics of the court in highly partisan and personal terms;

Justices have declined to recuse themselves to avoid the appearance of glaring impropriety stemming from spouses’ overt engagement in political extremism.

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Whether you think the current situation is simply classic corruption (i.e., capture of the court by massive corporate interests under the tutelage of dark money impresario Leonard Leo) or part of an ongoing white Christian Nationalist crusade to roll back the entire post-Reconstruction era, we undoubtedly face a standoff. On one hand, we have elite power determined to impose — by anti-democratic means — a peculiar vision of America unacceptable to most Americans. On the other hand, we have those who adhere to the commitment to self-government that was articulated 250 years ago.

Fortunately, the current confrontation between democratic self-government and judicial tyranny, as acute as it has become, does not require a violent revolution. We have the means to inform the country, compile a bold array of reforms, and push for their enactment with a Democratic president and congressional majorities in 2029. We have within our grasp the power to return the court to its constitutionally assigned role, and to reassert Americans’ responsibility for self-rule.

It will require assembling a robust, comprehensive package with attainable limitations. They include stringent ethical guardrails, term limits, court expansion, restrictions on the shadow docket, fast-tracked congressional votes to override erroneous statutory interpretation, radical transparency (including FOIA application to Supreme Court documentation), rolled back jurisdiction to prevent second guessing technical administrative rulemaking — the so-called major questions doctrine — for which the court lacks technical/scientific expertise, and restoration of Bivens, which allowed victims of governmental abuse to pursue civil remedies.

After a court term punctuated by outlandish attacks and instances of childish, injudicious conduct, no time can be spent twiddling our thumbs while our democracy burns. The timing is ideal for a Declaration of Independence from Judicial Tyranny and a new chapter in our quest for a more perfect nation.

Have a safe and joyful Independence Day, as we prepare to embark together on the next 250 years of the American experiment in self-government.

In the 125-day run-up to the midterm elections, there’s been an overabundance of legacy sanewashing and mindless hot takes that have nothing to do with real voters or with the serious demands of constructing a winning, pro-democracy coalition. So cut yourself a break, and absolve yourself of the temptation to dwell on two of the least enlightening and most annoying non-issues of the moment:

Socialists under the bed (in Manhattan; someplace): Last year, as New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani burst on the scene, juiced turnout, and comfortably won the race with a message that resonated well beyond New York City, a smattering of angst-ridden establishment Democrats, egged on by their billionaire donors, freaked out. They imagined Mamdani would somehow generate ill will toward the party, which already suffers from a good deal of ill will in swing-seat races.

How dare “socialists” win with a broadly appealing message and engage a whole generation of new voters just as the national party was revving up for the midterms! Republicans — who would never have dreamt up a pretext to discredit progressives — will now get to paint the entire party as a bunch of commies!

Instead, throughout 2026, Democrats enjoyed record turnout, overperformed in scores of special elections, put into play Senate seats in red America, and drove Donald Trump’s approval numbers into the ground. They are (still) the prohibitive favorites to win the House. Those socialists sure made life miserable for Democrats, right?

Not embarrassed by their prior freakout, centrist hysterics are at it again in the wake of two socialist primary elections in safe, deep blue Manhattan districts. The ancient James Carville, who hasn’t run an election in decades, renounced the lefties. Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) and a batch of self-identified moderates (whose names likely will not ring a bell outside their districts or the consultants’ offices they paid to help orchestrate this) wrote an outraged but vapid declaration announcing they were capitalists (good for them!), anti-crime, and for secure borders (is anyone not?). Heavy on platitudes and light on any actual policy ideas, the letter puzzled political players who wondered why the authors had bothered and why they were so disturbed about candidates with alternative views running far from their districts. (Interestingly, many of the signatories are allegedly associated with dark money groups pushing toxic AI and AIPAC proposals that have turned off voters nationwide.)

Democratic operatives who have created a brand attacking progressives insisted these wild-eyed New Yorkers’ ideas “won’t fly in places like Georgia or other, more moderate parts of the U.S.” (Where they are not running.) How two socialists’ elections give Republicans “a very potent weapon to fire at” moderates in middle America defies logic. Mamdani’s victories did not impede moderate Democrats’ gubernatorial wins in Virginia or New Jersey nor hinder Democrats from wrenching a slew of issues, including immigration, away from MAGA extremists.

Centrists’ paranoia actually reveals an acute lack of political judgement. Mamdani’s reminded them:

We’ve delivered free child care for two-year-olds for the first time in New York City history. We’ve delivered tens of millions of dollars back to tenants who were taken advantage of by bad landlords. We’ve delivered 165,000 potholes being paved. And we’ve done all of these things while also delivering the lowest recorded crime in our city’s history. That’s what it looks like to have democratic socialism.

It’s no wonder people with lackluster views freaked out when other Democrats came up with compelling ideas for governance.

What explains this bizarre impulse to attack other successful elements in the party, as the party is attempting to forge the broadest pro-democracy coalition in modern political history? Well, raising money from easily unnerved billionaire Democrats is always a motive for sending irate open letters. But this is another self-own from insular establishment figures who consistently fail to read the political moment, heap scorn on grassroots organizing, and find solace in consultants willing to tell them excessive boldness is their greatest worry.

On this, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) nailed it: “Right now the biggest threat to this country is not a handful of House candidates in New York, it is the president of the United States who is trying to destroy American democracy.”

So, do yourself a favor: Skip reaction pieces from political has-beens who haven’t run — let alone won — elections in decades. Ignore “centrist Democrats worry” pieces (they are always worried) and feel free to roll your eyes at every mention of how “New York results create new Democratic rift.”

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Who is Trump’s favorite?

We’ve also seen an unfortunate steady stream of legacy media stories concerning the decaying lame-duck president, who spends endless time fretting about his successor. He supposedly is squeamish (as are many of us) about passing the baton to Vice President JD Vance in 2028.

Trump supposedly peppers advisers and allies about their views on Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Do they prefer a socially awkward, Pope-lecturing, anti-immigrant-venom-spewing envoy to European fascists who went from Iran war objector to Iran war apologist? Or are they more inclined to line up behind the Secretary of State, who plays second fiddle to Jared Kusher and Steve Witkoff (and their mound of conflicts of interest and self-enrichment schemes), justifies the most disastrous Middle East War since the last one he supported, has helped throw Ukraine under the bus (no thanks to him, Ukraine has miraculously turned the tide against Russia), insists that ending USAID did not kill any kids (an egregious lie even for the Trump crowd), and presides over the crackup of NATO and the decline of U.S. international leadership?

Such a tough choice.

Trump’s obsessive interest in a primary fight over a year away does not make this a real or meaningful story. But legacy media remains determined — in the midst of our acute democratic crisis — to chase after every horse-race political process it can concoct.

Even for endemically frivolous, billionaire-owned political media, this story fails to pass the straight face test for several reasons:

1.) If Trump’s presidency continues to implode, no one associated with the administration is going to have any appeal;

2.) Vance is a particularly unlikeable bully and one of the least respected vice presidents in memory, so he may not run or be beyond presidential rescue from his intensely unpopular boss;

3.) Trump notoriously follows the MAGA crowd (as he did in Texas by hoisting himself on the Ken Paxton bandwagon days before the runoff), so it’s possible Trump won’t be the one making the call.

Such coverage really isn’t about who will get the 2028 nod or who Trump will pick, but rather is more evidence that the mentally and emotionally decrepit president is trying desperately to remain relevant and appear in command. Sadly, the accounts also reflect the incessant dumbing down and ongoing gamification of political media coverage. As with “socialists under the bed” catastrophizing, feel free to bypass this entire genre of political noncoverage.

One of the best in the batch of media offerings, the 2020 series Washington, is available on Netflix. Co-executive produced by Doris Kearns Goodwin, its three well-paced episodes feature remarkable commentary from top-flight Washington scholars (e.g., Joseph Ellis, Jon Meacham, JW Brands, Joanne Freeman, Ed Lengel, Mount Vernon CEO Doug Bradburn), unique insights from prominent political figures (e.g., Colin Powell on leadership amid battlefield carnage; Bill Clinton, raised by a single mother, on Washington’s childhood under a powerful single mother), and well-choreographed historical re-enactments. The series takes us from Washington’s early (and large, disastrous) military career to his considerable trials and tribulations as he rose to command of the Continental Army, through his election to the presidency, and finally to his singular role in shaping the office and the country.

This is hardly the first Washington biography to tackle the challenge of illuminating arguably the most remote, austere, and formidable of our Founders. His unsmiling visage — the result of an excruciating dental disease — has made the task of excavating a relatable figure that much harder. However, by focusing heavily on the details of his military career, including his not infrequent stumbles, setbacks, and blunders, this series successfully presents him as a three-dimensional character navigating unprecedented circumstances, rather than as a stock grade-school character. It turns out that a warts-and-all Washington is all the more impressive.

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The series begins with his blunder en route to Pittsburgh in 1754, where, in over his head in dealing with Native peoples and European political intrigue, he winds up assassinating a French officer in Jumonville who was leading a diplomatic scouting party. Washington’s blunder, which nearly ended his career before it began, helped trigger the onset of the French and Indian War. In the aftermath, Washington is trapped at Fort Necessity, loses a slew of men, signs a surrender, and confesses to killing Jumonville (amounting to a war crime). In what we hardly think of as Washington-type conduct, he then engages in a frantic PR damage-control operation to avoid reputational ruin. And yet the experience did not end his career.

Washington emerges from the ordeal sobered by battlefield chaos. When thrust into another military disaster in the making at Fort Duquesne, he maintains his presence of mind, effectively takes charge after Major-General Edward Braddock is killed, and helps extract the remainder of the British troops (gaining him the exaggerated distinction as the “Hero of the Monongahela”). The transition from a callow twenty-something obsessed with obtaining a commission as a British officer (which he never attained) to a seasoned leader is well underway.

It’s hardly Washington’s last brush with disaster that might have permanently derailed his career. His military career is pockmarked with setbacks, bad decisions, and miraculous escapes. His disastrous 1776 New York campaign, where he is forced to abandon Manhattan, foolishly divides his troops, gets defeated at Brooklyn Heights, and only narrowly escapes capture thanks to his flight from Long Island, does not finish him off. He survives, and by year’s end, stages the triumphal crossing of the Delaware and surprise victory against the Hessians at Trenton. Washington’s stature grows not because he is a flawless leader, but because he has the uncanny ability to compose himself, maintain the confidence of his troops, press ahead, and find the next opportunity to press his advantage.

Likewise, Pennsylvania’s losses the following year (e.g., his defeat at Brandywine, the abandonment of Philadelphia) do not overwhelm him. His setbacks, in retrospect, make his feat in keeping the army together at Valley Forge that winter even more impressive. His ability to withstand adversity and to inspire his men under the worst conditions only builds his reputation (as does his iron will in implementing cruel, uncompromising military justice, without which the military cannot survive).

But arguably Washington’s unique and irreplaceable contributions to the Revolution come from his supreme self-discipline and devotion to the cause of self-government (e.g., staring down the 1783 Newburgh Conspiracy, the invitation to launch a military coup, and resigning his commission at the end of the war) and his ability to inspire the loyalty of young talents, including Alexander Hamilton, Nathaniel Green, and Henry Knox. He defined public leadership in the service of democracy and thereby made America possible.

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Coming from a modern perspective, when public protestations of modesty are routinely and reasonably dismissed as phony, and grotesque ego glorification has become the norm, Washington’s rejection of an invitation to undertake a coup and later to refuse a kingship or even a third term baffles modern sensibility. But Washington’s character, coupled with his determination to preserve honor and personal reputation, turned out to be America’s providential blessing. Without those character traits forged in long years on the battlefield with considerable reversals, the American experiment would never have gotten off the ground.

Our current political agonies may help the country collectively to appreciate Washington’s true genius. We know all too well how 230 years after Washington warned in his Farewell Address to be wary of “cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men… [eager] to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government,” can manipulate their countrymen “to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual.” We have all witnessed a power-hungry conman — whose character is the antithesis of Washington’s — severely endanger our experiment in democratic self-governance. When we cast aside public virtue and give way to cynicism about public leaders, we put our freedom at risk.

The Washington series, in other words, is the perfect antidote to Trumpian nihilism. More generally, we might treat the country’s 250^th celebration and its essential collection of historical materials as a national wake-up call: Our ability to preserve democracy requires that we cultivate and elevate public virtues (e.g., honesty, empathy, self-restraint), without which we never would have gained and sustained our independence. In that regard, a crash course in the American Revolution and its indispensable founding figures could not have come at a better time.

As with any Trumpian production featuring pretensions of grandeur, this has become another ode to his incompetence and cultural cluelessness. There is something particularly feeble about the MAGA cult leader — who has long insisted he understands “real” America in a way the left supposedly is incapable of doing — seeming in over his head when it comes to an event a midsize town’s Rotary Club could have staged (and done it better).

The less-than-great fair may not make the list of infamous mass events that went disastrously wrong (in part because overcrowding would be the least of its concerns), but Trump’s latest pratfall is nevertheless remarkable. It is baffling that the Trump gang cannot pull together mundane public functions, even with years of advance notice (for which plans could have been pulled from the Bicentennial celebration files). They did have access to massive public resources and institutional knowledge over a range of federal agencies. How many more examples do we need to prove the folly of know-nothing billionaires with contempt for government being placed in charge of public functions?

Unfortunately, we have been privy to an abundance of humiliating public spectacles (e.g., the Kennedy Center defacement, the cancel-plagued concert, the sleazy UFC extravaganza, the algae sludge debacle). They follow a familiar script, punctuated by Trumpian grandiosity, contempt for expertise, attachment to money-grabbing grift, refusal to listen to critics or bad news, dismal personal taste, and jaw-dropping ignorance of logistics. We can all now appreciate how he managed to bankrupt casinos.

Like a refrigerator stuffed with weirdly-colored, past-expiration-date leftovers, Trump events should come with trigger warnings for the squeamish. His discolored palate-preference (see: repulsive orange bronzer, slathered brown hand cream, hazmat-green reflecting pool) seems a far-too apt metaphor for a rotting, fetid presidency.

Given the meager showing at the fair and its shoddy visuals, Trump’s declaration last week that the event was emblematic of the “Golden Age of America” seemed particularly ludicrous. (Whenever I hear “Golden Age,” I cannot help but think of “Golden Girls” or the “Golden Era of Vaudeville” — entertainment of a different era with meager cultural relevance or appeal.)

As Trump’s political and personal decline accelerates, even his go-to move for public pageantry — disgusting pseudo-Versailles excess — cannot save the day. “Trompe l’oeil sheets cover slapdash structures lining both sides of the Mall with an illustration of architecture that is supposed to be beaux arts but is so stripped down that it makes the nearby brutalist buildings look practically baroque,” Kesley Ables observed.

Trump’s public aesthetic (if we dare call it that) now falls into two categories. The more familiar is characterized by his gold-flocking fetish, which did not start with the Oval Office but has now exploded onto every surface of it. As his pathological narcissism has worsened, there is no hope to satiate his hunger for self-glorification and no one around to protect him from his own comically bad taste, as Slate’s Christina Cauterucci put it:

Fran Lebowitz had Trump’s number when she called him “a poor person’s idea of a rich person”; Dolly Parton got it right when she pointed out the high cost of looking cheap. Gold is garish, obvious, a rejection of respectability—the decor equivalent of Mar-a-Lago face. An overreliance on precious metals in the flaunting of one’s wealth can give the impression of protesting too much. It reveals not just an absence of original taste but deep insecurity: Trump is soothed by his gold surroundings, which remind him that his assets will protect him from the worst this cruel world has to offer.

The second category of Trump imagery now encompasses his lame attempts to imitate and reflect what he thinks represents Middle America’s taste. But of course, no one is less in tune with actual pop culture than the eighty-year-old billionaire who rarely ventures outside his own golf properties.

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It shouldn’t have been hard during the 250^th celebration activities to offer a sampling of popular culture that would have entertained millions of Americans. It’s not as if their musical, fashion, food, media, and recreational preferences are a state secret. But MAGA ideologues feel compelled to reject and demonize authentic pop culture trends and insult leading icons (from Taylor Swift to Bad Bunny to Bruce Springsteen), whom they paint as pawns of woke liberalism. They are left with Kid Rock in their own cultural wasteland, wandering around empty fairgrounds. You have to credit the candor of those at the Great America State Fair who pronounced the whole thing “shockingly boring.”

That’s the choice we now get from a presidential era that is neither “great” nor “golden”: stomach-turning orgies of bad taste and violence OR faded, crotchety displays that resemble scenes from Disney’s Carousel of Progress.

It turns out that as bad a president as he is, he is an even worse impresario of popular culture and public spectacle. It’s quite a fall for the man whose entire public image was built on reality TV.

Trump’s inability to snow over the public with his blizzard of deceit bodes well for Democrats’ chances to trounce Republicans in the midterms. Candid after his primary defeat, Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn let on: “The jury’s still out whether this MAGA populist movement can survive the midterms.” But widespread agreement that Trump is an inveterate liar offers the opportunity for something beyond a midterm victory, which would be nothing less than a reality reset.

In the late stages of any authoritarian crack, the degenerating despot’s spin, lies, and excuses eventually reach a point of diminishing returns. Each additional fabrication only reinforces exasperation with his galling mendacity. That, in turn, may whet the public’s appetite for some unvarnished truth-telling and public accountability.

Wall-to-wall lies

Trump’s horrific polling results are not simply a measure of widespread discontent with his performance. Increasingly, they serve to gauge public recognition that he is pathologically dishonest.

Voters overwhelmingly express not just disapproval of what Trump is doing, but in the face of Trump’s determination to lie to their faces — on Iran, the economy, his health, the Epstein files, etc. — reveal a rise in understanding that he has been engaged in a massive, nonstop campaign of disinformation. The Quinnipiac poll, which found that “60 percent of voters think the U.S. military action against Iran was not worth it,” amounts to an emphatic statement that the majority of voters realize that Trump’s blather about a great victory is just blather. Voters see through the constant flim-flam and bravado, and the consistent drumbeat of phony triumphal accomplishments (the Strait is open! It’s always been open!).

Likewise, the 59 percent of the public know Trump is covering up damaging facts about his health or the Epstein-pedophile files. Likewise, Americans’ disapproval of Trump’s performance on the economy repudiates the lies he has been peddling. Prices are not going down. Voters’ day-to-day challenges tell them Trump has made their lives harder.

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If the goal of strongmen is to control the information environment and persuade voters not to believe their own lived experience, and thereby inoculate themselves from accountability, then widespread rejection of state propaganda and willingness to declare “the emperor has no clothes” are sure signs the autocratic regime is unraveling.

Democrats would be wise to make Trump’s duplicity a key feature of their midterm campaign message. That would not only reaffirm voters’ own convictions that the economy is awful, but would help pre-bunk future lies, cut off excuses (it’s all Biden’s fault!), and prepare the public for the array of election shenanigans that Trump has launched to undermine the legitimacy of his loss. It would also lay the foundation for the great post-election reckoning.

Preparing for an accountability bonanza

If Democrats win the majority in one or both houses, the most extensive oversight and anti-corruption probe in history will get underway. Never have we seen any presidency so rife with financial corruption, self-dealing, self-enrichment, cronyism, and misuse of public funds for private purposes. “Following the money” will require Congress to track billions in crypto “investments,” corporate donations to Trump family pet projects, and foreign “gifts” used to gain influence. It will no doubt necessitate the most massive insider trading and market manipulation probe in history.

How much money are we talking about? Who gave it, and who got it? What government decisions were influenced? And most importantly, how can the public be made whole and the damage be undone? It may take years, but the undertaking is essential if we are ever to return to a semblance of clean, democratic government that punishes those who abused the public trust.

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However, it would be a mistake to think of accountability purely in favor of the misuse and abuse of public funds. There is not a department or disgraced operation of government (including ICE street violence and murders of detainees and bystanders; weaponization of the Justice Department against presidential enemies; the Pentagon’s participation in extrajudicial killings, gross incompetence in war planning, discriminatory promotion decisions; and the full-scale assault on our public health and scientific research systems) that should escape scrutiny.

Only when we quantify the damage in lives and dollars lost, in institutional reputation and in lost human capital, can we begin to address the hundreds — if not thousands — of flawed decisions and ameliorate the impact of malicious, incompetent MAGA rule. Once we do that, we can begin to reset the expectation for all administrations going forward: Regardless of ideology and policy preference, every presidency must be held accountable for competent, transparent, fact-based decision-making; and every administration must operate within the nonpartisan civil service’s rules. Any oversight or accountability project must emphatically reject the Project 2025 mentality that instilled a nihilist bent on destroying expertise and undermining commitment to follow the law and uphold the Constitution.

MAGA’s war on truth, namely its obsessive reliance on lies and conspiracies — no matter how outlandish — to maintain its grip on power, is breathing its last gasps. The Trump regime’s credibility is in tatters, as voters thoroughly reject its policies and the artifice of lies it has relied upon. If Democrats do their job, the MAGA movement will be swept under in a blue midterm wave sufficient to dislodge it from power. With a decisive electoral win and a national commitment to oversight, we could ensure that we never again cede power to those who see government as a vehicle for personal revenge, pecuniary gain, or full-scale assault on pluralistic democracy.

In that regard, the midterms must not only be about cleaning the decks of MAGA scoundrels, criminals, and bullies, but restoration of faith in competent, good-faith self-government, where public interest must predominate.

Her biographical details are beyond impressive: daughter of a working class Hudson Valley family, graduated in the top 2 percent of her West Point class (as the first in her family to go to college), earned advanced degrees from Harvard and MIT, served 16 years in the U.S. Army (winning 3 Bronze Stars), deployed overseas six times to combat, and served as director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council.

Impressive under any circumstances, her career honed the expertise, skills, and attributes most needed by an increasingly desperate Trump regime. (The only additional element she might have added would have been a degree in abnormal psychology.)

While not designed with a specific adversary in mind, her career reflects a deliberate choice to face challenges that forge courage, integrity, honor, and decency. She embraces the “Steel sharpens steel,” West Point mindset, which she referenced in her victory speech. That attitude is perfectly aligned with what will be required to defeat a morally squalid Trump regime in rapid decline.

As impressive as she is on paper, Conley, in an interview with The Contrarian in January, showed equally critical assets — feistiness, wit, rapid-fire delivery, and sincere affection for her Hudson Valley community. For those who struggle to reconcile with Americans who put Trump back in office, Conley provided the perspective of someone whose family has lived for four generations in the Hudson Valley (in a district that barely went for Kamala Harris in 2024):

This isn’t what they signed up for. What they heard during his campaign was hope in his lies. Hope that someone was finally going to address the affordability crisis. Hope that someone was finally going to make America work for working Americans again.

She makes clear this is a campaign of, by, and for working-class Hudson Valley families. “We are going to meet people where they are, not as partisans, but as neighbors, as New Yorkers, as Americans,” she said on election night. “You know, we say throughout this campaign, defending democracy is a team sport. This is our team,” she said, gesturing to her supporters. “Across this district, people who are not here in the room tonight, that is also our team.”

If Conley sounds like a player-coach leading a “mission we begin together and we will finish together,” her opponent, Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), invariably seems isolated, stressed (frequently hurrying down a hallway to avoid reporters), and dour. She embodies the ethos that “no one is coming to save us. We are the cavalry.” He conveys a near desperation to save himself from his own record of spinelessness, stuck justifying why his voting is indistinguishable from that of MAGA members from the Deep South.

The seat is ranked as a toss-up, but the national political environment, the advantage in candidate quality, and Conley’s effective 3-fold attack on Lawler suggest this is more akin to a “lean Democratic” seat.

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First, he is a phony moderate, insistent that voters treat his excuses credulously. Think of him as the Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) of the House — always concerned, but never courageous. Had he cast hard “no” votes against Trump when they mattered, or demanded unfit Cabinet officials be fired, or treated oversight seriously, he might have convinced voters he still had a moral pulse. But, given his track record, it is safe to assume that if voters reward him with another 2 years in Congress, he will keep bending the knee to Trump in D.C. and dissembling about his “independence” to voters back home.

Lawler doesn’t even have the nerve or smarts to develop scheduling conflicts when Trump shows up. After he appeared with Trump last month in his district, Conley slammed the duo: “Since Trump has taken office, it’s only gotten harder for families to make ends meet. But he clearly does not care and neither does Mike Lawler as he rips health care away from our neighbors and continues the illegal war in Iran jacking up gas prices.”

Second, Lawler’s duplicitous politics heighten his constituents’ economic hardship. In January, Conley told me Lawler is “a great shapeshifter,” who puts Trump, the Republican donor class, and corporate interests above fellow New Yorkers. “He is someone who serves one person, Mike Lawler. And unfortunately, the people here in the Hudson Valley have paid the price of this selfishness, and so have people around the country.” Given that the big, ugly bill passed by a single vote, she pointed out, “Mike Lawler was one vote that enabled it to become law.”

On election night, Conley let voters know this is personal. “His deciding vote gutted Medicaid, stripping healthcare from 37,000 people right here in our district. That’s our neighbors, our parents, our kids, our families,” she said. Likewise, she hit Lawler’s sellout to Trump that deepened families’ economic worries. “Mike Lawler voted eight separate times to protect Trump’s illegal, reckless tariffs. Tariffs that are raising prices on everything Hudson Valley families, our families depend on, our prescriptions, our groceries, things we can’t go without,” she said. Hudson Valley residents are paying the price for Lawler’s spinelessness.

Third, on matters of war and peace, Lawler is no patriot. Conley’s military record and willingness to risk her life for her country set up a devastating contrast with Lawler’s constitutionally and morally indefensible refusal to check Trump’s illegal, disastrous war (not to mention Trump’s extrajudicial killings on the high seas and murdering of Americans in the streets of Minneapolis and elsewhere). Conley has no patience for Lawler’s cowardice in voting “without hesitation to send our troops into harm’s way despite the clear incompetence of Pete Hegseth, Donald Trump, and the rest of this administration,” or for his using law enforcement as an excuse to justify extrajudicial murder. She blasted Lawler for blaming Alex Pretti and Renee Good’s deaths on failed immigration policies: “I will tell you as someone who started my military career as a military police officer who has conducted domestic law enforcement, what we are seeing has nothing to do with law enforcement. … We cannot afford to allow this administration to go unchecked and enabled by cowards like Mike Lawler.”

On election night, she continued hammering away:

[G]rowing up the way I did, we were taught to fight for our home. That’s why after 9/11, I went to West Point, spent 16 years leading America’s sons and daughters in defense of this nation, including six overseas tours. From combat zones to the White House situation room, I have spent my life answering the call to serve, tackling our nation’s hardest challenges. . . . And now, as I look around, I see a country that I was willing to die for become something I barely recognize.

Cait Conley remains undaunted in her battle to end the MAGA horror-scape, restore democracy, and reclaim the real meaning of patriotism: championing working-class people. The pro-democracy coalition should be very grateful she is running — and excited at the prospect of watching Lawler held to account for his cowardice.

But the New York City elections carried multiple messages. Two of the most hotly contested races were as much about what sort of Democrat is needed to safeguard democracy and secure MAGA’s defeat as they were about left vs. center-left politics — and the toxic image AIPAC has acquired.

NY-10

Former city controller Brad Lander cruised to a 30+ point victory in the 10th New York congressional district over Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY). Though he is regarded as a progressive Democrat who is frequently critical of Israel’s policies and Trump, Goldman nevertheless found himself on the wrong side of a sea change in attitudes in progressive circles toward AIPAC and U.S-Israel relations.

Lander is not a one-note anti-Israel antagonist (and at times voiced distress over the turn in vicious intra-party rhetoric, even from a Poetica coffee shop). Quite frankly, Lander’s political instincts, as much as his ideology, were responsible for his victory.

He earned Mamdani’s loyalty when he took the bold move last year of cross- endorsing the future mayor. Goldman, who never endorsed Mamdani or accepted the mayor’s efforts to mend fences with the New York Jewish establishment community, paid the price for keeping him at arm’s length.

Lander has cultivated a reputation as a pugilist, albeit one with a winning smile and a penchant for quoting Mr. Rogers. He made headlines last year for being arrested by ICE agents at a federal courthouse on charges he was “obstructing” their operations. He was recently tried and acquitted, delivering a fortuitous bump in pre-election publicity.

Though he knows his way around government, Lander pitched himself to voters not as a quiet behind-the-scenes operator or skilled committee inquisitor (as Goldman plainly is), but as an aggressive and progressive voice willing to change the tone and tactics of politics. “It is time for the Democratic Party to walk away from dark money — from PACs funded by crypto, Wall Street, A.I. and AIPAC,” he said on election night. “People can see through this. They have seen through it for a long time.”

And despite his sometimes vicious tone about Israel in the race, Lander clearly sees an opportunity to mend fences and move to higher ground. “I will be one of the Jewish members of Congress most willing to stand up for Palestinian human rights. And I will stand firmly against bigotry aimed at Jews. Those are not two different jobs. They are the same job,” Lander said. “There is so much trauma here. So much grief, so much fear. We hold onto all of it so tightly, and fear so rarely brings out our best selves.”

The bottom line: The race in the 10^th confirmed what we already knew about progressive New York politics (e.g., Mamdani is a political powerhouse, incumbency gets you nothing, AIPAC has made its support of Israel toxic in a large segment of the Democratic Party). But it also reminded us that political foresight and loyalty matter, and that Democratic voters are eager for champions who have proven they are fearless about confronting MAGA goons.

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NY-12

Meanwhile, more media attention was showered on two high-profile candidates seeking to replace Rep. Jerry Nadler in the N.Y. 12th: JFK, Jr. grandson Jack Kennedy Schlossberg; and Donald Trump nemesis, pundit, lawyer, and ex-Republican George Conway, who collectively wound up with less than 17 percent of the vote than the winner or runner-up. No one should be surprised that media fame in Manhattan does not get you that far.

Upper West Siders tend not to be overly impressed with celebrities who are a dime a dozen in their swanky neighborhoods. In this election, they never warmed to Kennedy, a thirty-three-year old political dilettante/social media influencer battered by unfavorable news coverage. The Kennedy name has perhaps outlasted its usefulness in electoral politics. When most voters hear “Kennedy” these days, they no doubt think of the crackpot, anti-science HHS secretary.

By contrast, the ever-amusing TV talking head Conway might be so engaging in that role that voters found little reason to see him relocate from TV cable panel shows to the C-SPAN-televised hearings. Voters did not have to send him to Congress to keep up with brilliant analysis and vicious skewering of Donald Trump.

Put differently, voters did not seem to find a reason why either of these two figures had to occupy a coveted House seat. Instead, the upscale 12^th district electorate chose a nominee much the way they would, say, a doctor, college prep coach, or money manager. Who does he know? What circles has he traveled in? Is he a professional who enjoys his peers’ respect and exudes quiet competence?

By those standards, Nadler protégé Micah Lasher, an Upper West Side assemblyman and decades-long political associate of elite New York politics (e.g., Gov. Kathy Hochul and former mayor Michael Bloomberg) was the unsurprising pick in a district where Democratic movers and shakers are ready to invest big dollars to elect an impactful committee chairman and likely member of party leadership.

Despite a vigorous and extremely expensive AI-centered challenge from Alex Bores, Lasher gambled and won “by running a staid, old-fashioned campaign based on his résumé and government expertise at a moment when Democrats across the country are furious at the party establishment and hungry for pugnacious new stars,” the New York Times reported.

From a distance, the Upper West Side and the Lower East Side are both progressive, wealthy enclaves, but Tuesday’s contests also reaffirmed that neighborhood identity and personality matter — and that a candidate’s particular skillset is often the difference between winning and losing.

As we approach America’s 250^th birthday, many Americans feel despondent, even ashamed about this dismal portrait. But does this gloomy narrative correspond to reality?

If you examine a broad range of polling, election returns, and recent political developments (e.g., huge Democratic turnout, mass peaceful demonstrations) since the 2024 election, a different conclusion about Americans’ values and outlook emerges. It’s not the first time that legacy media’s obsession with leveling the playing field has produced a narrative that happened to fuel progressive angst, while giving false solace to a MAGA audience that billionaire-owned media outlets are desperate to attract.

But a recent PRRI survey of over 5,400 Americans confirms that they are deeply attached to democracy. An impressive 68 percent think that “we are in real danger of losing important democratic rights and freedoms we have had in this country,” and a stunning 59 percent, including 66 percent of independents, think Trump is “a potentially dangerous dictator whose power should be limited before he destroys American democracy.” Legacy media talking heads should stop feigning surprise when Democratic politicians say Trump is an existential threat to democracy, since that accurately encapsulates the view of a supermajority of Americans.

Moreover, a high percentage of Americans reject the imposition of monolithic white Christian nationalism. “Most Americans (64%) prefer the U.S. to be a nation made up of people belonging to a wide variety of religions rather than one primarily made up of people who follow the Christian faith (34%),” the survey found. “Most Americans (77%) prefer the U.S. to be a nation made up of people from all over the world rather than one primarily made up of people of Western European heritage (20%).”

An astoundingly high percentage of Americans also embrace the cornerstones of political liberalism and pluralistic democracy — the very institutions and values MAGA has been attacking. Asked what makes us “truly” American, the top responses are: belief in individual freedoms (93%), the Constitution (91%), and the Declaration of Independence (88%); accepting diverse backgrounds (89%); and respecting American political institutions and laws (88%). This suggests Americans have embraced a healthy, pro-democracy, progressive consensus.

Taking a step back, dozens of polls (ranging from generic midterm polling to anti-ICE sentiment and Iran war opposition) and elections reveal consistent Democratic overperformance, a significant shift in midterm enthusiasm and turnout in Democrats’ favor, ongoing civic progressive engagement, and surging support for institutional guardians of democracy, such as unions and late-night comedians. Such activism casts serious doubt on the perspectives proposed by MAGA-friendly legacy media.

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Collectively, the hard data should inform Democrats as they seek to transform political consensus into electoral results. First and foremost, the cliché that we are a “divided” country is a dodge to avoid recognizing how badly MAGA is faring. In a country of more than 330M, calling us “divided” is platitudinous nonsense. The issue is whether we are irretrievably divided, i.e. paralyzed, when it comes to finding consensus on democratic values. That is not the case. Democrats turn out to be precisely aligned with a supermajority of Americans on democracy, diversity, inclusion, and personal freedom.

In a country as large and varied as ours, there will always be enough fodder for endless “fresh takes” (and handwringing Democratic consultants’ podcasts) to dwell on the millions of Americans in the roughly 30 percent of the population who don’t adhere to democratic values. However, that misses — or intends to conceal — the magnitude of the shift in momentum in favor of pluralistic democracy, or the outpouring of joyful anti-authoritarian engagement.

Democrats, therefore, would be wise to engage vigorously on the ground of shared progressive political values. The vast majority of Americans agree with Democrats on defense of the rule of law, respect for other Americans, and the right to dissent. Republicans’ compulsive reliance on mean, schoolboy taunts about transgender Americans, for example, does not mean they have the public behind them; it means they increasingly have nothing else to offer.

Democrats such as Texas Senate nominee James Talarico have it exactly right: Confront the small, dumb tactics as being beneath voters, and refocus on serious topics, while doubling down on our commitment to human decency.

The Interfaith Alliance’s Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons in March explained:

Talarico’s message is not about moderating progressive commitments to win over religious conservatives. It is about courage. It is about saying plainly that support for LGBTQ+ equality, reproductive freedom, public education and church-state separation can flow directly from Christian faith. He’s openly Christian and firmly pluralistic.

That does more than close a messaging gap: Talarico and those like him can change the terrain. When leaders speak about faith with confidence instead of defensiveness, they show that democracy and devotion are not in conflict.

Whether Democrats respond in religious or secular terms, they have a once-in-a-generation opening, thanks to Trump’s triggered backlash. It turns out Americans don’t like it when politicians mess with our democracy and try to impose a theocratic regime on our diverse and irreverent society. (They really do not react well when the government kills fellow Americans in the streets and then withholds the truth about what actually happened.)

Voters should have no confusion about which party reflects their deeply held principles, and which is desperate to conceal its own demise. The louder MAGA dead-enders screech, and the more they struggle to blame others and hide their expanding waste dumps, the more confident Democrats and the larger pro-democracy coalition will become.

If they want to prevail in 2026 and 2028, and more importantly, in the battle to secure democracy’s future, Democrats should not apologize for the progressive principles they hold, shy away from confronting authoritarian bullies, or fall into a defensive crouch. As the Lincoln Project puts it, “Stop with the self-doubt.” Democrats are winning the valiant battle for democracy — and must make certain Americans know which party stands with them on the right side of history.

The specious reasoning that you cannot criticize Israel’s current government and still be “pro-Israel” would be debunked under ordinary circumstances. But now the Republicans are in a fix: Donald Trump, humiliated by his widely panned deal, has not only agreed to a deal infinitely weaker than the JCPOA, but has also railed at the Netanyahu government in terms no Democrat administration would ever have dared utter. Surely, Trump and his Republican flunkies shouldn’t be able to retain the pretense that they are “pro-Israel”? Here is where it gets interesting.

Under unceasing criticism for its lousy Iran deal, Trump went from saying U.S. Jews should get their “heads examined” and were “disloyal” if they did not back him to denouncing Netanyahu as “crazy” in persisting with attacks on Lebanon while peace talks continued. Trump, who routinely excoriated former President Barack Obama for criticizing Netanyahu, effectively told Netanyahu to shut up and do what he is told.

At the G-7, Trump went even further, as Times of Israel founding editor David Horovitz wrote:

Using the language of Israel’s bitterest critics, [Trump] charged that “Israel is fighting Hezbollah too long and too many people are being killed.” Elaborating, he snapped that “you don’t have to knock down an apartment house every time you’re looking for somebody. Because there are a lot of people in those apartment houses. And they’re not all Hezbollah, that I can tell you.”

Vice President JD Vance followed by unleashing one of the harshest tirades ever delivered from a U.S. administration against Israel. “My message to them would be twofold. ​No 1: Donald J Trump is the only head of state in the entire world ‌who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this ‌moment in time,” he sneered. “If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left ‌in the entire world.” He continued: “You can’t just kill your way out of solving every problem.” (Too bad Trump failed to grasp the futility of killing his way out of the Middle East before launching his disastrous war.)

What does all this mean for two critical rightwing voices who think they can dictate “pro-Israel” bona fides?

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First, so much for Trump’s boast that he was the most “pro-Israel” president ever. To the contrary, no president has done more to shred the U.S.-Israel relationship, imperil both U.S. and Israel’s security (by giving Iran unprecedented leverage to control the Strait of Hormuz), or been so unconstrained about insulting an Israeli leader.

Don’t take it from me. The rightwing English-language newspaper Israel Hayom, founded by Republican donor and hotel magnate Sheldon Adelson, slammed Trump:

You made a colossal mistake. You failed by signing a surrender agreement with a murderous and cruel terror regime. You severely harmed American interests and the democratic and human values of the enlightened world, and you turned over the hourglass toward the next war, which your successors will have to deal with in the years to come. . . . You did all this in violation of every promise you made, in contradiction to the path you had followed until now, and against the values of America, which was supposed to return to greatness and has now been humiliated into the dust.

All of the rightwing U.S. and Israel apologists for Donald Trump who trusted he was Israel’s “best friend” (or had some coherent vision that aligned with Israel’s interests) blew it. Legacy Jewish organizations, such as the American Jewish Committee and AIPAC, also piled on criticism of Trump, though their tone was wimpy and nowhere near the sort of condemnation we heard about Obama during the JCPOA fight.

Second, no group has more ferociously claimed the right to police who gets a “pro-Israel” moniker than AIPAC. It has targeted those who rebuke Netanyahu and his coalition partners for human rights abuses, question its reckless military strategy, or propose limits on U.S. missile sales that do nothing more than force Israel to comply with U.S. law. In making an unconditional defense of Trump-Netanyahu policies the benchmark for “pro-Israel” credentials, AIPAC messed up big time.

The self-appointed referee in judging pro-Israel bona fides has now become “both a victim and a cause of the unraveling consensus on Israel,” Jonathan Maher recently wrote for the New York Times. In rejecting virtually all criticism of Israel (e.g., denying responsibility for starvation in Gaza) and adhering to grotesque positions on candidate endorsements (Jan. 6 election deniers are welcome…but not thoughtful critics of Israel’s policy!), AIPAC has abandoned the mainstream, become a pariah to many Democrats, and undermined bipartisan support for Israel. As J Street president and frequent guest of The Contrarian Jeremy Ben Ami told Maher: “AIPAC is playing with fire and runs the risk of burning our whole house down.”

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In sum, the bickering over “pro-Israel” never made much sense. It seemed to apply solely to one country, and worse, was designed to obliterate nuance. (Can you be pro-France but object to its nuclear power policy?) Especially now, however, no country deserves unconditional support when its policies endanger U.S. interests and offend our values.

Trump, his white Christian Nationalist allies, and AIPAC have no right to lecture anyone about what it means to be “pro-Israel.” They have done incalculable harm to Middle East stability, Israel’s security, and the U.S.-Israel relationship. The sooner the trio cedes center stage, the sooner we can have a reasoned debate about an appropriately nuanced U.S.-Israel policy that rests on shared interests and values.

On one side, Donald Trump, a fetid figure in irreversible decline, lumbered around Versailles and signed a deal capitulating to an Iranian regime he had vowed to overthrow. By Saturday, Iran flaunted the extent of its diplomatic triumph, reclosing the Strait of Hormuz on the grounds that the United States failed to stop Israel from violating the ceasefire in Lebanon.

The extent of his catastrophe — the product of his noxious vision of “might makes right,” genocidal fury, and constitutional nihilism — was in full view. (“The humiliation is the point,” wrote Graeme Wood. “Iran got the United States to sign a document that even Americans described as degrading, mortifying, a total capitulation.”) Unsurprisingly, Trump stuck Vice President JD Vance (whose own career may be another casualty of the war) with the job of defending the indefensible.

On the other side of the split screen, former President Barack Obama, looking trim and vigorous, delivered remarks opening his presidential center. Reminding us how presidents should behave, he disparaged no group of Americans, rewrote no history, recited no election results, and ridiculed no predecessors (instead, he praised the three on stage with him).

It’s easy to see why Trump loathes Obama, whose intellectual and verbal acuity, graciousness, class, and real accomplishments Trump could never match. As the unfavorable comparison to a Black man whose presidency the rabidly racist Trump tried to delegitimize becomes starker, it is no surprise Trump’s unhinged meltdowns become more frequent.

Obama addressed the key question before us: Can our democracy survive? That largely depends, Obama said, on our commitment to the “shared values that make democracy possible” (each of which Trump has savaged, not coincidentally):

A belief that our military and law enforcement owe allegiance not to any president or political party, but to the people and our Constitution.

A belief in the peaceful transfer of power after the people have spoken in fair and free elections, recognizing that in a large, complicated society like ours, no group or faction gets its way 100% of the time.

And a belief that qualities of character, honesty, integrity, kindness, compassion, a sense of duty and honor, those things matter in our public dealings, just as they do in our private lives.

Obama reiterated that these are values “we can all share, regardless of party, values every president here today, as different as we are, has tried our best to uphold, values that John McCain and Mitt Romney believed in no less than I did.” Only Trump stands apart, hostile to American values and contemptuous of those who embrace them. (Yes, I still find it unfathomable the same country could elect both Trump and Obama.)

Declining to minimize the extent of our democratic crisis (“It’s a lot…. I get it. I am not immune to anger or doubt”), Obama acknowledged that our anxiety and social isolation gets heightened by “a steady stream of distraction and outrage, as only the loudest, most extreme voices get attention, fanning our prejudices, appealing to our basest, most tribal instincts.” Obama nevertheless cautioned against giving in “to cynicism, and even despair.”

Obama made a rather compelling empirical argument that democracy is on the rebound. “In cities that have worked together to reclaim their streets from crime, in rural communities that have rebuilt their economy, in businesses that are finding new ways to make housing affordable, and those ordinary people in the Twin Cities, who brave frigid temperatures, risk their own safety, standing shoulder to shoulder to look out for their neighbors, and sometimes look out for strangers, because they knew that was the right thing to do,” Americans are rising to the occasion.

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Though the mere mention of Minnesota was enough to trigger goosebumps, stirring memories of resilience and courage in the face of intolerable lawlessness and brutality, we have seen plenty of green shoots of democracy spring up. Chicagoans protected their migrant neighbors, grand jurors refused to rubber stamp absurd indictments, a post-Callais civil rights movement staved off re-redistricting in South Carolina and Georgia, and millions turned out in No Kings peaceful protests.

MAGA cultists desperately want Americans to trade pluralistic democracy for autocratically imposed white Christian supremacy, but they have few takers. MAGA dead-enders are left to gaze on the White House squalor after the gladiator games and soothe their white resentment by reinstalling Confederate names on military bases and blocking Black and female military officers’ promotions. Increasingly, we see MAGA has nothing but Lost Cause political stunts and DEI for incompetent white males — a formula for political extinction.

As Obama told us, “America’s story isn’t frozen in the past. It has chapters yet to be written, not by one person or a few people … but by all of us” (unless you are cocooned in a dying cult with no positive agenda or compelling leader).

It’s no coincidence that the Obama center focuses heavily on ordinary citizens who helped him make change and on future leaders who will continue his life’s work. The foundation’s mission statement is not an exercise in false modesty but rather a calculated bet that lifting up regular people and developing engaged, committed citizens is the best way to ensure that Obama’s legacy continues and democracy prevails.

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Like the 19^th-century abolitionists who steeled themselves against serial setbacks to “stay true to our better selves and true to one another, and to keep fighting, to fulfill the promise of this nation,” we have every reason to eschew defeatism, Obama argued. We too can retain “a basic faith in the decency of our fellow citizens and the possibility that despite all of our differences, we can see each other and understand one another and make common cause together.”

Of late, I find plenty of evidence to support Obama’s view that Americans truly “want to find a way to turn towards each other again, not further away.” The fight to define America will be won not by embittered, decaying bullies frantically racing to rewrite the past and savage other Americans. It will be won by a multi-generational movement dedicated to constructing the most inclusive, values-based democracy possible. The future belongs to Chicago and Minnesota, not to Versailles and Mar-a-Lago.