In March, Donald Trump issued an executive order barring the U.S. Postal Service from delivering mail-in ballots to people who are not on federal lists of eligible voters. It also directs the Department of Homeland Security to create that list of eligible voters. That’s not all he’s done to disrupt our elections, but I’ll get to that later.

Two lawsuits sought to stop Trump’s executive order and a Federal District Court judge, Indira Talwani, imposed two injunctions blocking it. But then on a technicality the Supreme Court paused one injunction and Talwani removed the other. Meanwhile, late last week a postal worker whistle blower revealed that the Postal Service had been secretly developing a plan all along to use bar codes to implement Trump’s order beginning as early as today, September 1.

The New York Times reports that, according to the whistle blower, if the Postal Service plan goes into effect, it will have been implemented so hastily that the bar code verification system could easily reject tens of thousands of ballots in a bulk-mailing batch by mistake. Millions of voters could be disenfranchised as a result. This will all likely return to the high Court very soon.

At issue is whether the federal government has the Constitutional authority to interfere with state-run elections. Can the Postal Service deliver ballots to the usual recipients or does it need to somehow screen them for eligibility first? In addition to being unconstitutional, the lawsuits contend that changing voting procedures like Trump wants to do so close to an election will confuse voters and create chaos. We are only 63 days away from the midterm elections. And some states begin mailing ballots to voters within a few days.

As the map below shows, all states permit mail-in ballots in one way or another. The the District of Columbia and eight states (dark blue on the map below) have universal mail-in ballots, which means that all eligible voters automatically receive a ballot by default. That includes Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Hawaii, and Vermont. Note that except for Utah, they all tend to lean Democatic. The thirteen orange colored states provide mail-in ballots to those who request them with a legitimate excuse. And the rest provide them to eligible voters simply upon request.

In fact, roughly one third of American voters vote by mail-in ballot. That was about 48 million voters in the 2024 election! And as Figure 1, based on data from the States United Democracy Center shows, most of them were not Republicans. 38% of Democrats and 31% of Independents voted by mail-in ballot.

So, Trump’s executive order is just another attempt to sway the election in favor of the Republicans. His assumption, without a shred of evidence, is that far too many people vote illegally by mail in federal elections—notably, undocumented immigrants, other non-citizens, felons, and dead people. Furthermore, he believes that they all tend to vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. So, blocking them from voting will improve the odds of Republicans winning in November. Put differently and in terms Trump can understand, he’s trying to rig our midterm elections!

Of course, this isn’t Trump’s only attempt to rig the midterms. He encouraged Texas to redraw its congressional electoral districts in favor of Republican candidates, which it did. This triggered similar efforts in other states. According to Ballotpedia, seven states—California, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, and Texas—have passed new congressional maps since the 2024 election. Litigation led to new maps in Alabama, Louisiana, and Utah too. Note that most of these are Republican-leaning states.

But the Trump administration hasn’t stopped there. According to the Center for American Progress, its tactics to subvert the midterms also include, but are not limited to, weaponizing federal departments controlled by loyalists, gutting election security programs, encouraging states to purge voter rolls, and pressuring Congress to pass legislation that would suppress eligible voters. The administration has also encouraged states to stop using certain kinds of voting equipment, tried to seize election-related materials, and erected massive hurdles for eligible Americans to register to vote and to cast their ballots. The administration has assailed state and local election administrators to do its will.

Worse still, Trump has mused publicly about deploying National Guard troops and federal agents to polling places or demanding that state officials not certify elections, presumably only if Democrats win. He has intimated that he might declare a national emergency to take over or postpone the midterms. He’s also suggested pressuring the Senate or House to block seating duly elected members.

So, messing with mail-in voting is only the tip of a very deep iceberg that threatens the integrity of the midterm elections. We’ve never seen anything like this before in American history. And it’s scary. I hope that the Postal Service doesn’t knuckle under to the Trump administration’s efforts to curtail mail-in voting. Like the Marvelettes, I hope that people who expect those letters to arrive in their mailboxes finally get them—and then vote Trump’s minions out of office.

Thanks for reading this. Please share it with others.

Among other things, union membership dropped dramatically. Unionization rates in the United States were never as high as in many European democracies. In America they peaked shortly after the Second World War and have been declining ever since.

Roughly one third of the U.S. labor force belonged to a union in 1954. But, as Figure 1, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data, shows, by 2000 only about 13% did. That number has continued to drop since then across all sectors of the economy. One relatively bright spot is government workers of which about 33% still hold union cards. But these aren’t conventional working-class workers because many government employees are college educated.

Why does union decline matter? On the one hand, unions used to be a source of education for their members helping them define their interests and, as a result, why they should vote for Democrats. On the other hand, unions used to organize workers politically to advocate for Democratic candidates. Thus, unions helped deliver the working-class vote to the Democratic Party. With the demise of the labor movement, the ability of unions to do that diminished leaving the working class open to whatever potentially appealing alternatives might come along—includng Donald Trump and the MAGA movement.

What is to be done? People like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have long pounded the drum for working-class issues like higher wages, affordable housing, less expensive education, better social programs, and higher taxes on the rich to help pay for it. But, despite occasional victories, such as tougher financial regulation following the 2007-2008 financial crisis, not much has come of their efforts.

Now, political candidates endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) have taken the field standing up for working-class interests. They’ve had enough success lately so that many pundits ask whether the DSA is becoming the new face of the Democratic Party’s progressive wing. Conservatives go even farther. Last night Sean Hannity on Fox News charged that the entire party is being hijacked by socialists and even communists! I doubt it all.

First, ironically, DSA candidates aren’t always from the working class but rather from the middle- or upper-middle classes. For example, Zohran Mamdani, Mayor of New York City, was born to a university professor father and filmmaker mother. He graduated with a BA from Bowdoin College, an expensive elite liberal-arts school in Maine. According to his Wikipedia page, he has called his upbringing “privileged,” saying, “I never had to want for something, and yet I knew that was not in any way the reality for most New Yorkers.”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and DSA, was born in the Bronx to an architect father and house cleaner and school bus driver mother. When she was a kid, her parents moved the family to a small house in upscale Westchester County. She graduated with a BA from Boston University, another expensive school.

Francesca Hong, another DSA member, who just lost the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Wisconsin, was born in Madison to Korean American immigrants. She dropped out of UW-Madison eventually becoming an executive chef and restaurant owner with her husband in Madison. She also helped found the Culinary Ladies Collective alongside two other fellow business owners. Business owners don’t belong to the working class.

It isn’t clear that DSA standard bearers for working-class interests who don’t come from the working class can appeal to most working-class voters—at least not outside liberal hotbeds like New York City or Madison, Wisconsin. We just don’t know.

Second, that said, the rise of people like Mamdani, AOC, and Hong does signal that the progressive wing of the Democratic Party is gathering strength. But at least until now that strength is limited insofar as DSA’s contribution is concerned.

Figure 2 shows the Brookings Institution’s tally of this year’s Democratic primary elections through mid-August. DSA-endorsed candidates won far more often in races for local and state-legislative offices than in statewide and congressional races where they lost twice as often as they won.

I like some of the things that DSA stands for, many of which the Sanders/Warren wing of the Democratic Party stand for too, and that are within the realm of possibility if Democrats win enough elections. But let’s face it, proclaiming yourself to be a “socialist” in working-class America is often the kiss of death for a political candidate. And that’s what makes me nervous.

Especially if the Democratic Party wants to stop the Trump administration and its congressional allies from doing even more damage than they already have, then it needs to win statewide and congressional elections in November. To do that they need to win back working-class voters. Unions can’t help as much as they used to. But running under the DSA banner won’t help much either.

Thanks for reading this. Please share it with others.

As a member of the American Sociological Association for decades until I retired, I can attest to the fact that the discipline has embraced a degree of “wokeness” in certain quarters. And sociologists do teach courses and conduct research on these issues, although many work in other subfields too like demography, social psychology, and economic, political, medical, and educational sociology. Many sociologists have also embraced what one of ASA’s former presidents called “public sociology,” by which he meant rigorous scholarship that informs public debate on important social issues.

But condemning sociology for these things misses four important points. First, sociology isn’t the only social science engaged in “activism” if by that we mean research and scholarship designed to inform public debate and policymaking. For instance, political scientists’ bread and butter has long involved research not only on how government operates but also what our public policies should be. This is obvious in the areas of foreign policy and international relations where political scientists often work for the White House, State Department, other government agencies, and various congressional committees.

If you don’t believe me, look at Figure 1, which is based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It shows that in 2023 there were 590 sociologists employed in federal, state, and local government in the United States (excluding schools, hospitals, and the US Postal Service), but there were over 3,600 political scientists in government. The disparity is even greater when it comes to economists. Economists employed in government outnumbered sociologists nearly 8-to-1.

More than any other social science discipline, economists hold sway over key—that is, activist—policy-advising roles in government. According to Investopedia, economists play a critical role in shaping policies like interest rates, tax laws, and employment programs. The Federal Reserve alone employs more than 400 PhD economists, helping to set monetary policy. Economists also make up the President’s Council of Economic Advisors as well as its research staff, which is instrumental in shaping fiscal policy.

Incidentally, there’s never been a Council of Sociological Advisors. However, during Bill Clinton’s presidency he invited a small group of prominent sociologists to the White House to discuss the possibilities for welfare reform with him. It was such an unprecedented outreach to the discipline that it made national headlines.

Second, when conservatives condemn sociologists for being too liberal and politically biased they fail to recognize that sociology isn’t the only left-leaning social science discipline. In a recent article in the interdisciplinary social science journal Theory and Society James Manzi, an Oxford University sociologist, analyzed roughly 600,000 social science abstracts published between 1960 and 2024. He found that in all social science disciplines there was a leftward drift in ideological orientation. The leftist orientation was somewhat greater in sociology than political science and economics—but it was evident in them all. As he put it, “the mean political stance of every social science discipline was left-of-center every year during the period.” (My emphasis.)

For economists there’s a good reason for this leftist tilt. Since the 1930s economists throughout most of the discipline and federal government have subscribed to Keynesian economics, an economic view that advocates government intervention in fiscal and monetary policy to promote economic growth, limit unemployment, and control inflation. Beginning in the late 1970s Keynesianism was challenged by alternative viewpoints, notably much more conservative supply-side economics. But according to my own research with Ove Pedersen in The National Origins of Policy Ideas, Keynesianism remained influential with modifications well into the 2010s.

Third, there’s another reason why economics as well as the other social sciences all tend to be left leaning. Their data often support left-leaning viewpoints. The chief economist we interviewed at the Council of Economic Advisors, for instance, explained that his statistical models tended to support Keynesian policy prescriptions—precisely the sort of prescriptions that conservatives today condemn for being too liberal because they call for government intervention into the economy. It’s also worth noting that Donald Trump’s efforts to cajole the Federal Reserve into lowering interest rates failed thanks to the Fed’s insistence on following the data to balance economic growth and employment against inflation.

Finally, perhaps sociologists should wear the “wokeness” label as a badge of honor. Why is it so bad that sociologists study issues like inequality, racism, and sexism among other social problems? Income and wealth inequality, for example, continues to grow in America to a degree reminiscent of the Gilded Age of the 1920s. Racism and sexism haven’t been eradicated either. There isn’t anything wrong with drawing attention to important social problems like these as long as the research involved is data driven, methodologically sound, and socially relevant.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that everything sociologists study is necessarily worth studying. It isn’t. But some of it is. The same is true for the other social sciences, which, by the way, also occasionally study issues of inequality, racism, sexism, and the like.

The point is that some social science disciplines are far more “activist” than sociology in terms of their policy impact. They all tend to be left-leaning. And maybe that’s because that’s what the data support—not because they’re inherently biased and “woke.”

Thanks for reading this. Feel free to share it with others.

It’s true that plenty of Americans will benefit from a tax cut. But the dirty little secret, as Figure 1 shows with data from the Yale Budget Lab, is that under the new law almost half of American households will see an income tax cut of less than $100 in 2026. That includes a third of households who won’t see any benefits at all. Meanwhile, about 20% of households will see a tax cut of more than $1,000. These are concentrated in the upper-middle income range.

In other words, the tax cut most Americans get won’t amount to much, if anything at all. The benefits will be skewed significantly in favor of richer households. We won’t hear anything about this from Republicans during the campaign.

Republicans also won't talk about the costs of those tax cuts. For example, to help pay for them, the Big Beautiful Bill reduced subsidies for people receiving health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. KFF, the health policy think tank, estimates that nearly 5 million people will lose ACA coverage this year thanks to these subsidy reductions. According to the Congressional Budget Office, cuts to the Medicaid budget, another cost-cutting move, and new eligibility requirements mean that another 7.5 million people will soon lose health insurance coverage.

The Republican Congress moved quickly to pay for their tax cuts by slashing budgets elsewhere too. For instance, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that budget cuts led to more than 4.5 million Americans losing SNAP benefits, which help low-income families put food on the table.

And don’t forget that the Trump administration also established the Department of Government Efficiency to help pay for its tax cuts by trying to improve government efficiency and reduce waste. As a result, the Veterans Administration lost about 28,000 employees, including over 2,700 nurses, 1,000 medical officers, and 1,000 psychologists and social workers—the largest one-year decline in VA staffing ever.

CBPP also found that many federal agencies have fared even worse than the VA. Overall, ten Cabinet agencies suffered double-digit percentage reductions in staffing in 2025. This was the largest one-year reduction in the federal civilian workforce (excluding post-census years) since the demobilization that followed World War II. CBPP concluded that “Cuts of this magnitude will have significant consequences for agencies’ abilities to carry out their missions.”

Then there's the Internal Revenue Service itself. By the end of 2025, DOGE had cut over 27,000 IRS employees—a nearly 50% reduction that rolled back staffing levels to those not seen since the 1960s! Funding was reduced too. As a result, the Budget Lab estimates that over the next decade the size of the “tax gap” (the amount of taxes legally owed that are not paid in a timely way) will approach $7 trillion.

All of this adds up to something else no Republican wants to admit. Figure 2, based on data from the Bipartisan Policy Center and released shortly after Trump signed the Big Beautiful Bill, projected that despite all of its spending cuts the net effect of the bill’s tax cuts over the next decade would be to add about $3.4 trillion to the national debt.

Republicans scream bloody murder whenever Democrats call for more government spending on just about everything but defense. Why? Because they claim that it will add to the national debt. But that’s eactly what their tax cuts do!

Of course, Republicans will deny this for two reasons. First, they claim that Trump’s tariffs will help cover the revenue lost by their Big Beautiful Bill. But the conservative Tax Foundation estimates that over the next decade the tariffs will likely generate only about one third as much revenue ($1.2 trillion) as will be lost from those tax cuts.

Second, Republicans claim that the revenue lost in the short run by cutting your taxes will be more than made up for in the long run because lower taxes will stimulate so much economic growth that the Treasury will eventually collect more revenue than it loses initially. Reagan tried this when he was president and it didn’t work. The same was true for George W. Bush’s tax cuts. Kansas tried this too and ran such huge budget deficits that its Republican legislature had to raise taxes again within two years. There’s no reason things will be different this time.

So, there’s plenty that Republicans don’t want you to know about the tax cuts in their One Big Beautiful Bill. When they tell you that you’ll benefit from their tax cuts, don’t believe them. They are wrong and they know it. It’s far more complicated than that. They just aren’t telling you the truth.

Thanks for reading this. Feel free to share it with others.

As an isolated case, this seems only like an injustice done to a few innocent Americans. But it’s part of a much larger and more pathological pattern. The Trump administration and the Republican leadership have a propensity to lie repeatedly to the American public.

Consider Trump’s personal grudges. He still maintains that special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference into Trump’s 2016 election victory was an unsubstantiated witch hunt. He still maintains that the 2020 election was stolen from him. He still maintains that former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and others are his personal enemies and have done him wrong. He still maintains that special prosecutor Jack Smith was out to get him for squirreling away classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. And he still maintains that vandals wrecked the Reflecting Pool. There’s no evidence to support any of this.

And just last week federal authorities announced that Iran had probably orchestrated a cyberattack on dozens of municipal water systems in Minnesota, Michigan, and a few other states. But Trump refuses to believe it. He still accuses Minnesota Governor Tim Walz of being responsible. Walz, of course, was Kamala Harris’ running mate opposing the Trump/Vance ticket in 2024. Trump said that he didn’t believe Iran had anything to do with it but that “the Governor’s behind it.” There’s no evidence for this personal vendetta either.

Making matters worse is that it isn’t only Trump that’s lying. So are other top-ranking Republicans. You don’t have to take my word for it.

For example, Politifact, a well-known fact checking organization, checked hundreds of public statements by Trump, his Vice President JD Vance, and the Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. As Figure 1 shows, they all lied more than three quarters of the time. By contrast, Politifact found that Joe Biden lied less than half the time during his presidency. We should always take things that politicians tell us with a grain of salt, but much, much more so when it comes to Trump and his minions.

It’s bad enough to lie about something as innocuous as defacing the Reflecting Pool. It’s much worse to lie about important matters of public policy. According to NBC News, by mid-July, Trump had said the war in Iran was won or almost won dozens of times. Last week he agreed to share nuclear technology with with Saudi Arabia but backed out a day later. Yesterday he announced that he wanted to renegotiate the USMCA trade agreement with Mexico—an agreement he made with Mexico and Canada just last year. Trump doesn’t tell the truth or keep his word when it comes to foreign policy.

Speaking of tariffs, the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, noted that Trump claimed that his tariffs have brought in over $18 trillion in investment to the United States and that this will soon yield a 7% economic growth rate. If it did, foreigners would have to acquire an extra $18 trillion in U.S. dollars to finance all that new plant and equipment in America. It hasn’t happened. Furthermore, the growth rate has been hovering around 2% since Trump took office.

So, when it comes to important policy matters as well as Trump’s personal grievances, neither Trump nor his administration can be trusted to tell us the truth. Congressional Republicans have been silent about this too. They never call him out for lying. In fact, they often dodge the issue. This is the sort of “leadership” voters have elected recently. Unless they wake up, unless this changes, and unless our leaders start telling us the truth, it’s impossible to have well-informed public discourse—and our democracy is in grave danger.

Thanks for reading this. Please share it with others.

In real estate there was nothing truthful, innocent, or harmless about Trump obtaining hundreds of millions of dollars in loans using financial statements that a New York court deemed fraudulent. In 2024, the presiding judge ordered Trump to pay $355 million for lying on those statements about the values of his properties and banned him from serving as a company director or taking out loans from banks in the state for three years. So much for truthful hyperbole in his real estate dealings. What about politics?

That same year Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying more business documents—this time to influence the 2016 election by hiding hush-money payments to a porn star to keep her quiet about their sexual affair. There wasn’t anything innocent or harmless about that either.

Now we have Operation Epic Fury, Trump’s unprovoked war on Iran. It’s bad enough that Trump told us the war would be over in a few weeks. It’s now going into its sixth month with no end in sight. Worse still, he keeps telling us that we’re winning the war even though we haven’t “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program, destroyed its missile and drone capabilities, or sparked regime change as he promised. Nor have we kept the Strait of Hormuz open. We also haven’t prevented Iran from launching strikes against our allies and military bases in the region. So much for winning.

And last week, the Pentagon began doctoring the data on U.S. casualties in the war. The New York Times reported that the Pentagon’s website had suddenly reduced the number of war casualties it reported. As Figure 1 shows, rather than lumping them all under the category of Operation Epic Fury, some of them were moved into the vague “Overseas Operations” category. The result was a 33% reduction in the number of wounded personnel attributed to the war as well as a 22% reduction in the number of deaths. Why the switch?

Military officials said the administration scrubbed the data of some of the most recent casualties—including four fatalities—because they occurred after Trump declared a ceasefire in April.

This is nonsense. These deaths and many other recent casualties were due to Iranian strikes against U.S. bases in the region. Ceasefire or not, these people were hit by hostile forces during a war that Trump started. So, massaging the data is nothing less than a deliberate cover-up!

This sort of deceit is dangerous. And we’ve seen something like it before. It’s called Vietnam where Lyndon Johnson’s and later Richard Nixon’s administrations persistently lied to the American public about how the war was going and that we were winning! The same thing is happening again with Operation Epic Fury.

There is, however, at least one important difference between the two wars. In the early months of Vietnam, there was little public opposition to the war. But opposition to Epic Fury has already been overwhelming.

Figure 2, based on data from Nate Silver’s website (for Epic Fury) and Statista (for Vietnam), shows national polling at about six months into both Epic Fury, which began in February 2026, and the beginning of major U.S. ground combat in Vietnam, which began in March 1965 after Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Nearly two-thirds of Americans supported the Vietnam war whereas the same percentage opposed Epic Fury.

Of course, opposition to Vietnam increased dramatically over the years but it wasn’t until 1971—six years later—that it reached 59%. As Figure 3 illustrates, significant opposition to Trump’s war was evident from the start and grew quickly, hitting that same number in less than six months! It’s likely that if Epic Fury’s casualties continue to rise—and the American public finds out about them—opposition to the war will increase further.

Whether Trump and his lackies will continue trying to con us by fudging the data on the human cost of Epic Fury and insisting that we’re winning despite evidence to the contrary remains to be seen. So far, it hasn’t quelled opposition and, if anything, may have exacerbated it since The Times’ revelation was published. It won’t help calm the public that Trump hasn’t received congressional authorization for the war—something Johnson got thanks to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

But one thing is clear. Johnson eventually realized that he was fighting a war that he couldn’t get out of much less win. Trump has managed to paint himself into a similar corner. We’ll see how much more “truthful hyperbole” he and his administration spews before he—or another president—finally wakes up and gets us out of this war.

Thanks for reading this. Feel free to share it with others.

I’ll get to that soon. But first, let’s be clear about what we already knew about election vulnerabilities in the United States.

To begin with, when it comes to foreign interference, years ago the Mueller Report proved that the Russians had tried to influence the 2016 presidential election. The Chinese have tried to influence our elections too. We've known all this for a long time.

When it comes to fraud and cheating, there’s nothing new here either. Scholars have been studying this for years and most agree that voter fraud is virtually non-existent in America. For instance, researchers at the Brookings Institution, using data from the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation, found that instances of voter fraud as a percentage of votes cast were almost zero! Table 1 shows some of their results. In each case the number of times voter fraud was discovered in these and other states was only a very tiny fraction of one percent of the votes cast!

So, if we’ve known all this about election interference and fraud for years, why suddenly all the fuss? Why the need for a prime-time speech on TV right now? There are two likely reasons. One involves the politics of deflection. The other involves the midterm elections.

The Politics of Deflection

Trump likes to raise issues to deflect our attention from things that make him look bad. First, his war on Iran is going terribly. It’s hurting our economy. Iran is attacking U.S. military bases in the region causing numerous casualties. And Trump hasn’t figured out how to get out of the war and save face for getting us into it in the first place.

Second, despite his promises to lower prices and solve the affordability crisis for millions of Americans, he hasn’t delivered the goods. Inflation has not improved. Most groceries aren’t cheaper than they were before he returned to office. Nor have the costs of housing, health care, or college education come down.

Third, on a more laughable note, Trump's attempts to resurface the reflecting pool in Washington and put his name on the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts both backfired causing him considerable embarrassment. His plans to replace the East Wing of the White House with an enormous ballroom have met with considerable criticism. So has his plan to build the “Arc de Trump” near the Lincoln Memorial.

Fourth, Trump’s job approval rating is seriously underwater. The Economist reported last week that his net approval rating is -23. Only 36% approve while 59% disapprove and 4% aren’t sure. There are only four states in which his approval rating is above water.

So, Trump may have wanted his speech last week to deflect attention from his many failures. He hates to be embarrassed or accept responsibility when things go wrong.

The Midterm Elections

Trump may have had another far more sinister and dangerous motive for using his speech to claim that our elections are susceptible to interference and fraud. He may be laying groundwork for seizing control and overturning the midterm elections. This is not hyperbole. Why?

It appears that the Democrats are poised to regain control of the House if not also the Senate in November. Never mind the blow this would be to Trump’s ego. If the Democrats win, that will cripple the remainder of his presidency. It could also lead to another impeachment trial and eventually worse if he is held to account for breaking the law either before or after he returned to office. So, he can’t afford to have the Democrats win this election. But if they do, it wouldn’t be the first time he tried to meddle with an election.

Trump has often spoken about wanting to “nationalize” elections. The SAVE act, now languishing in Congress, is one of his efforts to exert federal control over state election procedures. He sent the DOJ to seize old ballots from Fulton County Georgia. He asked states under Republican control to gerrymander voting districts to give Republicans an edge in the midterms. He considered seizing voting machines after losing the 2020 election. He tried famously to get Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes” so that he could win Georgia and flip that election. And on January 6, 2021, he urged his MAGA supporters—and vice president—to stop Congress from certifying the votes in that election. There’s no telling what Trump might try to affect the upcoming midterms.

In sum, Trump’s speech was likely designed to distract us from his many second-term failures and set the stage for federal intervention into the midterm elections. Contrary to what he said in his speech, he didn’t sound the alarm about election vulnerabilities because he cares about America. He did it because he cares about himself.

Thanks for reading this. Feel free to share it with others.

People tend to suffer from cognitive decline to varying degrees as they get older. It follows that their grasp of basic facts about the nation’s political system and its institutional underpinnings might also deteriorate with age. However, according to the Cato survey, that’s generally not true.

For example, Figure 1 shows that younger people were less likely than older folks to know which country America declared independence from in 1776 (Britain), how many branches of government the Constitution provides for (three), and who the first president of the United States was (George Washington). This is very basic stuff that all adult Americans should know.

Equally alarming is the fact that younger people are less likely to believe in the balance of power among the three branches of government. Figure 2, for instance, shows that roughly a third of younger people believe that the president should ignore decisions made by the Supreme Court if he (or she) disagrees with them. In other words, they thought it was okay for the president to ignore the Constitution regarding the checks and balances of American government. I wonder if they feel the same way about other parts of the Constitution.

But why are younger Americans more ignorant than the rest of us about how our political system is supposed to work? Maybe it has something to do with them spending too much screen time on their phones and tablets or playing video games. Perhaps. But some of the blame must surely be placed on the nation’s educational system.

The Atlantic reported last year that beginning around 2013 American students’ performance on standardized math and reading tests started slipping. For instance, by 2025, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, 33% of eighth graders were reading at a level that was “below basic,” meaning that they struggled to follow the order of events in a passage or to even summarize its main idea. With deficiencies like this it’s no wonder many of them don’t understand the basics of American government and history.

This isn’t just the result of inadequate funding for schools or lousy pay for teachers. According to The Atlantic, it’s also a problem of not holding students accountable in elementary and high school—that is, not maintaining rigorous educational standards.

But secondary schools aren’t the only guilty ones. There is also evidence of this at the nation’s elite colleges and universities where, for example, grade inflation is a reality. I’ve seen that firsthand at the Ivy League schools where I taught for decades. An increasing number of my students also lacked decent writing skills. A growing number of them also objected to being assigned books rather than short chapters or articles to read—another reflection that they have grown accustomed to their teachers pampering them.

My point is this. Not knowing the basics about how our democracy works opens the door for politicians and others to say and do things that violate the laws and norms of our political system—and then get away with it. Put differently, it creates the dangerous possibility for authoritarianism, such as we’ve seen during Donald Trump’s second term in office.

Trump has ignored the emoluments clause of the Constitution by accepting gifts from foreign governments like the luxurious Qatari jet that has become the new Air Force One. His administration has ignored court orders regarding the treatment and deportation of undocumented immigrants. It has gone to war with Iran without appropriate congressional approval. It has unjustly persecuted dozens of Trump’s perceived adversaries and fired countless civil servants throughout the federal government whom he and his lackies suspected of working against his agenda. This is scary.

Scarier still is the possibility that the future of our democracy will fall into the hands of younger generations that are increasingly oblivious to its rudimentary facts, history and institutional underpinnings.

I don’t mean to put all the blame on young people and other victims for America’s drift toward authoritarianism. Those who seek power and want to ignore the guardrails of our democracy bear much of the blame. Nor do I want to let my own generation, the Baby Boomers, off the hook. Afterall, according to the Cato poll, some of us are ignorant about these things too.

But if Gen Z and more recent generations are even more oblivious than the Boomers to the basics of our political system, what chance is there that they will defend American democracy from Trump or another tyrant if one comes along someday? I worry that our democracy can’t afford what appears to be a gradual descent into blissful ignorance. We need to take responsibility for maintaining our democracy before it’s too late.

Thanks for reading this. Feel free to pass it along to others.

The same week The New York Times reported that Donald Trump made at least $2.2 billion last year—four times more than he made the year before when he wasn’t president. $1.4 billion of that came from Trump’s investment in various cryptocurrency deals, such as transaction fees paid by people trading the $TRUMP meme coin and revenues from World Liberty Financial, a crypto finance company that he and his two eldest sons founded three days before he returned to the White House.

All these people are among the wealthiest people in America—people who own most of the stocks, bonds, real estate, and other assets. And like others at the top, their wealth has been increasing a lot lately.

Figure 1, based on reporting by the Congressional Budget Office, shows that for over three decades those in the richest 10% (the 90^th percentile) of American families have gained much more wealth than everyone else. Those in the bottom half of that distribution haven’t gained much at all. As a result, the gap between those at the top and the rest has increased dramatically.

A recent report from The Federal Reserve found that the top 1% of American households owns almost one third of all U.S. wealth—the highest share on record since the Fed started collecting these data in 1989. Collectively, the wealthiest 1% held about $55 trillion in assets last year.

To put this in perspective, Forbes finds that there are 989 billionaires in the United States today. Meanwhile, Census Bureau data show that there are nearly 40 million people living below the poverty line in this country.

The wealth disparity is far worse when it comes to race. Figure 2, based on Federal Reserve data, shows that well over three-fourths of all wealth in the United States is owned by white people. Blacks and Hispanics own only a tiny fraction. You don’t have to believe in critical race theory to know that over the years whites have somehow benefited systematically from the nation’s political and economic system to help skew the distribution of wealth so heavily in their favor.

One reason for the rising disparity in wealth is that the stock market has been soaring and most of that stock is owned by families earning at least $100,000 a year. Again, that tends to be white rather than Black or Hispanic families.

Another reason is that incomes have been rising faster for the wealthy than for everyone else. Bank of America data show that higher-income households’ wage growth averaged 3% in 2025 whereas it was less than 1.5% for the rest. Again, whites tended to have the advantage.

I don’t necessarily begrudge people for being wealthy. But it’s important to recognize how they became wealthy in the first place. According to sociologist Lisa Keister’s research, about a third of wealthy Americans inherited much of their wealth. That includes members of families like the Rockefellers, Mellons, Waltons, Kochs, Du Ponts, and others.

Some people earned their wealth through hard work. People like Swift and Kelce work hard for their money. She tours extensively and spends countless hours practicing, choreographing, and recording. He trains and practices hard and sacrifices his body every time he steps on to the football field. Of course, some people do both—inheriting and working hard for their wealth.

But some people get wealthy in shady, unethical, or illegal ways. Consider Donald Trump. Never mind that Trump started out with generous financial gifts and finally a cushy inheritance from his father. Recall that Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts of illegal business practices by a Manhattan court not long ago. More recently, The Times discovered that nearly one million investors lost a whopping total of $3.8 billion when the value of the $TRUMP coin plummeted by 97%. Some have called this a legal scam from which he benefitted—a grift that payed off handsomely.

Moreover, the United Arab Emirates bought a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial for $500 million soon after its founding. A few months later, Trump authorized the sale of artificial intelligence chip technology to the UAE, despite serious national security concerns and questions about his conflict of interest. Note as well that soon after returning to office Trump eased regulations on the crypto industry, including signing an executive order his first day in office “to support the responsible use and growth of digital assets…across all sectors of the economy.” Some have called this political corruption from which he also benefitted.

But here’s the more important point. Just last month Trump posted on Truth Social that we are experiencing the “BEST ECONOMY EVER.” However, all the wealth and prosperity America is enjoying these days tends to be limited to only some Americans. It’s certainly doing well for Trump! Less so for millions of others. Too bad he doesn’t see how it’s doing for much of the rest of America.

Thanks for reading this. Please share it with others.

Donald Trump personifies a return to despotism, tyranny, and tyrants. The symbols of that retreat from democracy are in plain sight. To begin with, Trump has ordered his picture hung on the front of several government buildings, including the Department of Justice (below), the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Labor.

Dictators the world over have often done the same to foster a cult of personality upon which they depend. Mao’s picture still hangs over the gate to the Forbidden City. Stalin had his picture posted in Red Square. Today, Kim Jong Un’s picture hangs on several government buildings in Pyongyang. And Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Mojtaba Khamenei, has his picture displayed all over Tehran.

Tyrants are also fond of naming things after themselves. In Trump’s case, during his second term he added his name to The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts and the Donald J. Trump Institute for Peace. He also commissioned a new “Trump Class” battleship for the Navy and intends the next generation of U.S. fighter jets to be called the “F-47” in honor of his second term in office. He hasn’t stopped there.

Last year Trump announced plans to create a government website to sell pharmaceuticals to the public at discounted prices to be named “TrumpRx.” The Interior Department announced that its America the Beautiful Pass, which people use to gain entry to national parks and other federal recreation areas, would display Trump’s picture instead of a picture of nature, which was the tradition. The State Department intends to issue passports with Trump’s picture and signature on them.

The New York Times reports that Trump has also ordered up a commemorative coin bearing his face. Then he added his signature to the nation’s paper currency. And now, in honor of America’s 250^th birthday, he wants to create a $250 bill featuring a portrait of himself.

And, of course, tyrants are fond of building monuments to themselves. Joseph Stalin, for example, had over 6,000 statues of himself built and displayed throughout the former Soviet Union—still a record according to Guinness World Records. As for Trump, he’s dubbed his massive East Wing ballroom renovation a “legacy project,” which according to some people will bear his name thus signifying that it’s a project commemorating his own legacy. He also wants to build a “Triumphal Arch” (below) resembling, but being much larger than France’s Arche de Triumph, and dwarfing the nearby Lincoln Memorial. When a CBS News reporter asked him who the Arch was meant for, Trump smiled, pointed to himself, and said “Me.”

Symbols are important in politics. They arouse our emotions and garner support for our country. As the United States approaches its 250^th anniversary, all sorts of joyful national symbols, including flags, parades, images of Uncle Sam, and fireworks, will be on display. I hope that people enjoy them. But I also hope that people take note of the far more sinister symbols Trump is invoking and recognize them for what they are—signs that the democracy our nation’s founders intended two-and-a-half centuries ago is not guaranteed to last forever, especially if someone like Trump is in charge.

When The Constitution was finally signed by the founders in 1787, a woman asked Benjamin Franklin, one of the signers, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Franklin’s famous reply was short and sweet: “A republic, if you can keep it.” His observation is as relevant today as it was then.

That said, I’ve often wondered whether Franklin’s remark reflected a sense of optimism for the nation’s future or a sense of dread that it might not last. I think I’ve found the answer.

According to the National Park Service website, as the last names were being signed to The Constitution, Franklin commented about the chair that George Washington had been sitting in as he presided over the Constitutional Convention. The chair had an emblem of half of a sun carved into the top of its back (below). Franklin observed that artists often have a hard time distinguishing between a rising and a setting sun in their artwork. And then he said this: “I have often…in the course of the session…looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: but now at length, I have the happiness to know, that it is a rising and not a setting sun.”

So, it turns out that Franklin was optimistic. I wonder if he’d still be optimistic if he knew about the self-aggrandizing symbols for which Trump is responsible, let alone the executive orders he’s issued and the policies he's pursued with the help of congressional Republicans and the Supreme Court. Like those who signed The Declaration of Independence in 1776, I suspect that Franklin would feel it was his duty to throw off a government under the sway of a tyrant like Trump.

We can begin doing that in November. And that’s cause for at least some guarded optimism as we celebrate the nation’s 250^th anniversary this weekend.

Thanks for reading this. Feel free to pass it along. And have a Happy 4^th of July!

Consider the money spent by the Department of Defense. Figure 1, based on data reported by CNN, shows that the United States has spent $26 billion in munitions alone. Add to that the cost of destroyed equipment and damage to American bases in the region and that number jumps to $40 billion. On top of that, the Pentagon has asked Congress for an additional $80 billion in supplemental appropriations. That would bring the total to $112 billion so far.

But the cost to Americans doesn’t stop there. Figure 2 gives a rough idea of how much the war has added to prices for some of the most basic things Americans depend on. For example, the American Automobile Association reports that as of Sunday the prices for gasoline and diesel fuel were up a third. The price of Brent Crude Oil was up nearly 20%. Researchers at Brown University estimate that the additional fuel costs to American consumers so far has amounted to $40 billion. That’s $300 per household.

Farmers have been hit especially hard. Fertilizer prices have increased between 25% and 35% since the war began. Some of these costs as well as the higher transportation costs associated with more expensive fuel have been passed along to consumers in the form of higher grocery prices, which are up over 3% since February. That’s helped push up the rate of inflation in the United States from 2.7% to 4.2% since the war started.

Of course, this is only part of the story of Trump’s failed war. Rather than bringing stability to the Middle East, Trump opened the door for Iran to attack our allies in the region and for Israel to attack Southern Lebanon. Thousands of lives have been lost as a result. Making matters worse, Iran has discovered that it can wreak havoc on the global economy by shutting down the Strait of Hormuz through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas supplies transit. Suddenly America’s military might doesn’t seem nearly as strong as it was before the war. What the cost of all this will be for America’s national security, not to mention the global economy and world peace, is anyone’s guess.

Trump’s fiasco in Iran has become clear to most Americans. Nate Silver’s review of the most recent public opinion polling found that on average 56% of respondents are against the war while just 38% support it. What’s surprising is that most of Trump’s political base doesn’t support it.

Figure 3, based on data from a CBS/YouGov poll taken late last week, shows that most Republicans, including a majority of MAGA Republicans, want to end the war now. Moreover, less than half of them feel that the MoU is better for the United States than for Iran. Put differently, even most of Trump’s supporters (as well as most Democrats and Independents) believe that we have not achieved anything even remotely resembling Iran’s unconditional surrender! Yet Trump continues to threaten Iran, even as recently as last weekend while negotiations were underway in Switzerland to pound out details for an end to the war.

So, what about Trump’s state of mind? Albert Einstein is supposed to have said that “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” In fact, he didn’t say that. But we should think about it anyway. Trump continues to threaten the Iranian regime hoping that they will give in to his demands. Instead, they dig in their heels and refuse to capitulate.

Whether this means that Trump is crazy is for the psychiatrists to determine. Maybe it’s just his way of negotiating. Maybe not. But it’s clear—even to most Republicans—that his strategy has for the most part been a colossal failure. And Americans are paying the price.

Thanks for reading this. Please share it with others.

It should because Donald Trump’s administration is very much like Plato’s ship of fools. It’s filled with people lacking the expertise and qualifications normally required for their positions. We should have seen this coming. Why?

Because during Trump’s first term he routinely lost people in leadership positions either because they didn’t demonstrate enough loyalty to him and were fired or because they quit out of frustration because he wouldn’t listen to their advice and didn’t respect their expertise. As I showed in Institutions Under Siege: Donald Trump’s Attack on the Deep State, two-thirds of Trump’s first-term Cabinet appointments often left for these reasons. Figure 1 shows that this was three times the departure rate seen during Obama’s first term, five times the rate seen during George W. Bush’s first term, and more than twice the rate seen during Clinton’s first term.

The turnover rate was even higher when it came to the so-called “A Team,” which included trusted and influential confidants, such as Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway, various policy wonks, behind-the-scenes advisors, and others close to the president. These were people in the Executive Office of the President and did not include Cabinet positions.

Figure 2 compares A-Team turnover during the first terms of Trump, Obama, Bush, and Clinton. Over 92% of all A-Team positions had at least one replacement on Trump’s watch, far more than under the other presidents. However, this isn’t the whole story because it doesn’t reflect the fact that some positions turned over not once but several times. Nearly half of Trump’s sixty A-Team positions experienced at least two turnovers and frequently more.

It’s too soon to know whether these figures will be similar in Trump’s second term. But one thing is certain. Many top-level appointments to his administration are clearly unqualified for their jobs. It seems that the problem is worse this second time around because he seems to have appointed more people based only on their fealty to him than he did the first time around. Qualifications are less important than they were before.

For example, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a lawyer with no formal training in public health, medicine, or medical research. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon is the former president of World Wrestling Entertainment with no experience in education policy. And FBI Director Kash Patel has no law enforcement experience. But all three are Trump cheerleaders.

Just two weeks ago Trump appointed Bill Pulte as interim Director of National Intelligence, which Politico described as “a surprise move that would elevate a political ally with no known background in intelligence to a key national spy post.” Pulte replaced Tulsi Gabbard another Trump loyalist with no national intelligence experience. Even some Republicans couldn’t stomach Pulte and revolted so Trump nominated someone else for the permanent position.

Trump recently appointed Markwayne Mullin to head the Department of Homeland Security. He replaced Kristi Noem another Trump loyalist who had no experience for the job but who had come under intense criticism for how she ran DHS, particularly in the wake of ICE’s aggressive activity in Minneapolis. PBS described Mullin as “one of Trump's fiercest defenders in the U.S. Senate.” His previous experience? Before being elected to Congress, he ran a plumbing company and was a mixed-martial arts fighter. He was the only currently serving senator without a Bachelor’s degree. And he had not served on either the House or Senate Homeland Security Committees. He’s the epitome of an unqualified but fiercely loyal Trump appointee.

Then there’s Casey Means who Trump nominated for Surgeon General. The BBC described her as “a health influencer with no active medical license [who] had drawn criticism from some senators due to her views on health, and vaccines in particular.” She was so unqualified that the Republican controlled Senate refused to confirm her nomination.

Trump also appointed Lindsey Halligan as Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. She was an insurance lawyer with virtually no prosecutorial or trial experience. At the time of her appointment, even Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche questioned her qualifications for the job. She was eventually removed from office when a judge ruled that she had been appointed illegally but not before she botched cases against James Comey and Letitia James that were subsequently thrown out of court.

And, of course, there’s Trump himself. When he first came into office he had no political experience. That might not have been so bad if he was a quick study willing to learn on the job. But he wasn’t. Not much has changed since then. As is well known, even today he often doesn’t listen to his advisors or read much of anything, including the all-important daily briefs he receives from the intelligence community summarizing the world situation and the dangers in it to America. He falls asleep during Cabinet meetings (and Knicks playoff games and UFC fights on his birthday).

But if Trump’s learned anything from his first term, it’s to appoint people who will tell him what he wants to hear, not what he needs to hear—people who will flatter, coddle, and defer to him at every opportunity rather than push back against him. And so we get a failed war with Iran not to mention a green algae-filled reflecting pool in Washington. So much for the self-proclaimed “very stable genius.”

Trump is supposed to be the captain of our ship of state guiding America toward peace and prosperity with a crew of what he likes to call the “smartest people around.” That’s what he promised before being reelected. Instead, he’s navigating with a ship of fools. The result is inflation, an affordability crisis, unprecidented inequality, mounting national debt, murders of U.S. citizens by ICE agents, one of the most openly corrupt presidencies in history, and a war that the vast majority of Americans don't want and that has sent shock waves through the global economy.

Trump's ship of fools is something the Democrats ought to be screaming about at the top of their lungs as we sail into the midterm elections.

Thanks for reading this. Feel free to share it with others.

Pelley charged in an interview with The New York Times that CBS, the show’s parent, brought in new management, notably Bari Weiss as CBS News’s new editor-in-chief, and that she had tried to exert undue influence over the program’s content. Specifically, he said that Weiss tried to insert “falsehoods and bias” into a “60 Minutes” story about the murder of two American citizens by ICE agents in Minneapolis—falsehoods that favored the Trump administration’s interpretation of events. Pelley refused. The rest is history. But there’s a much deeper story behind it.

The first part involves Skydance Media trying to purchase Paramount Global, owner of CBS, for $28 billion. The merger was complicated for two reasons. One was that Donald Trump was suing CBS for what he called election interference. According to Trump, during the 2024 election “60 Minutes” had distorted an interview with Kamala Harris in ways that Trump disliked.

The second reason was that Trump’s Federal Communications Commission needed to approve the Skydance/Paramount deal. So, presumably to appease Trump and curry favor with the FCC, Paramount paid $16 million to settle the Trump/CBS lawsuit despite widespread agreement among legal experts that it was frivolous to begin with.

But Paramount’s politically motivated media interference didn't stop there. About a year ago, CBS News lost some on-air personalities and a senior producer for speaking out about the Paramount court settlement with Trump and for its efforts to bias reporting in the newsroom. Paramount also decided to cancel “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on CBS, which routinely aired monologues in which Colbert skewered Trump and his administration. During one show, Colbert called the Trump/CBS settlement a “big fat bribe” to help win FCC approval. Days later he was cancelled.

It appears, then, that Pelley’s firing and the rest of the turmoil at “60 Minutes” was just one instance of Paramount's genuflecting to political power.

The second and less obvious part of this story involves media consolidation of which the Skydance/Paramount merger is only one example. In 1983, 90% of U.S. media outlets like CBS were controlled by about 50 companies. By 2023, they were controlled by just six: Comcast, Disney, AT&T, Paramount, Sony, and Fox. For instance, Paramount owns not just CBS but also Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Global, Simon and Schuster, and many more. Disney owns ABC, Disney Channel, ESPN, National Geographic, FX, and others. And so it goes.

What’s scary is that several companies like these are owned or controlled by extremely wealthy people, which brings us to the third and least obvious part of the story. Skydance CEO David Ellison orchestrated the merger with Paramount. Ellison became the new Paramount chairman, CEO, and owner of 50% of its voting rights. He’s a Trump ally worth an estimated $500 million. His father, Larry Ellison, also a major Paramount equity owner and big-time contributor to Trump’s reelection campaign, is according to Forbes magazine worth about $263 billion, which makes him the fourth richest person in the world.

The Ellisons aren’t alone. Among other wealthy media company owners is the Ochs-Sulzberger family, which controls The New York Times Company. Billionaire Michael Bloomberg owns Bloomberg L.P. The Rupert Murdoch family controls Fox Corporation and News Corp., which in turn owns Fox News, the New York Post, the Wall Street Journal, and The Sun. Billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong recently bought the Los Angeles Times. Amazon’s Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post. I could go on but you get the picture.

The danger is that media concentration in the hands of extremely wealthy people can threaten the independence and, therefore, trustworthiness of these and other sources of news, information, and entertainment, especially if these people want to suck up to political power.

The online media watchdog Free Press rates media companies according to how much they kowtow to Trump and his administration. They rate dozens of online platforms and streaming services, broadcasting and entertainment outlets, cable and telecommunications companies, and newspapers and publishing houses. Figure 1 shows how it rates some of the most well-known of these media companies. Higher scores indicate greater deference to the Trump administration’s views. For example, Bloomberg is judged to be rather independent whereas Trump Media and Elon Musk’s X/SpaceX are viewed as unabashedly peddling Trump propaganda.

The point, then, is that the media landscape in America has become increasingly concentrated and more susceptible to political interference and influence. If people as wealthy as David Ellison, let alone multibillionaires like Bezos and Musk, control these companies, then they have the leverage to influence the content and information that their companies deliver to the public if they want to. That doesn’t mean that they necessarily will, but there are signs lately that they are becoming more willing to do so. How do we know?

The turmoil at Paramount’s CBS is only the tip of the iceberg. Beyond that, several journalists quit The Washington Post in protest because Bezos told opinion page editors not to publish their endorsement of Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. Similarly, Patrick Soon-Shiong told editors at The Los Angeles Times not to endorse anyone in the election. These are three of the most storied news organizations in the country.

Pelley told The Times that the reason he became a journalist was to help protect the First Amendment, including freedom of the press. He saw that freedom being undermined by his new bosses at CBS, spoke out, and was fired for it.

So, the question is this. At the rate things are going, is time running out, like the “60 Minutes” stopwatch, for those in the media willing to speak truth to corporate and political power? Or will monied and political interests muzzle the media so much that we can’t trust news and information from any source—including the most storied news organizations in America? If its the latter, then our democracy is in very serious trouble. Meanwhile, my hat’s off to people like Scott Pelley for having the courage to speak out.

Thanks for reading this. Feel free to share it with others.

Yes, and for reasons that have little to do with the garish sense of décor that Trump shares with the old French king. That’s because the Oval Office revamp is only the tip of a much more expensive—and extremely wasteful—budgetary iceberg.

So far, it’s estimated that Trump plans to spend at least $2.3 billion on what many have called “vanity projects” around Washington DC. Figure 1 shows how much some of these projects are supposed to cost. However, cost overruns for construction projects are common, especially when Trump is involved, so these numbers are surely low-ball estimates. Still, it’s a lot of money spent for things that most experts agree are unnecessary and extraordinarily wasteful.

Most notably, the cost of building Trump’s new White House ballroom has skyrocketed from an initial estimate of $200 million to $1.4 billion, only $400 million of which is supposed to be covered by private donations. On top of that Fortune magazine reports that according to the president’s 2026 budget Trump is spending $377 million on renovations and repairs to the presidential residence this year with another $174 million slated for next year. Like the ballroom, private donors will allegedly pay for much of it. But as Trump likes to say, we’ll see.

That’s all bad enough. But the more disturbing point is that this money could be spent on things much less wasteful and much more worthwhile.

It’s graduation season so consider college education. This year there are roughly 16.6 million students enrolled in post-secondary schools in the United States. According to the Education Data Initiative, the average cost per student at a four-year college or university in the United States is $38,270 per year including tuition, room, board, books, and supplies. If the money Trump and his benefactors plan to spend on his vanity projects were divided equally among these students, each would receive about $140,000. On average, that’s enough to pay for nearly four years of school for each of these college students!

Trump’s wastefulness looks even worse if we include his war with Iran—a war many experts believe we never should have launched and one for which Trump lacks an exit strategy. Reuters estimates that so far, the bill for his “adventure” has exceeded $29 billion. Given the numbers I’ve just presented, that’s enough to send 12.5 more cohorts of students to college for almost four years. Put differently, on average that money could pay for nearly all of America’s students’ college educations from now through the year 2038!

Of course, the war isn’t over and its cost will continue to rise. It’s also possible that Trump’s plan to redecorate the rest of official Washington will continue to grow at considerable cost to taxpayers as well as those billionaires willing to suck up to him by donating to these projects. That money would be better spent on things that would really Make America Great Again. How?

One way would be by filling holes in the federal budget. Figure 2 shows a few of the cuts that Trump and his Republican allies in Congress made in the 2026 budget. Some of the money spent so far on Trump’s vanity projects and the war could have been used to shore up virtually all of these cuts. For example, the Department of Justice could have retained hundreds of lawyers, the loss of which The New York Times reported has crippled the DOJ’s ability to carry out some of its most basic functions. Several other government agencies could have avoided staff layoffs too. Grants awarded by the National Science Foundation could have been saved. Facilities at the Department of the Interior’s National Parks, including Yellowstone and Yosemite, could have been better maintained. And so it goes.

You may recall that when Trump first returned to the White House, he established the Department of Government Efficiency, headed by his billionaire pal Elon Musk, to root out waste from the federal government. We haven’t heard a word about DOGE for months. But Trump’s vanity projects are just the sort of thing it should have shut down, but hasn’t.

Trumps proclivity for wasting money seems boundless—and he’s still got over two years left on his presidency, plenty of time to rack up billions more in frivolous spending. Yet at the same time millions of middle-class families struggle to pay for their kids’ college educations not to mention higher prices for gas, rent, groceries, car loans, and health insurance. Trump couldn’t care less. As he recently told reporters, “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation.”

That’s for sure! Decorating the Oval Office with gold is more important to him. And that’s one of the biggest issues Democrats should emphasize during the midterm elections. It’s a golden opportunity they shouldn’t waste.

Thanks for reading this. Feel free to share it with others.

Today Cuba is known for cigars, rum, and a few minerals. There are no nuclear missiles in Cuba. As far as I can tell, Cuba poses absolutely no threat to the United States militarily, economically, or in any other way.

Yet two months ago, Donald Trump ordered a blockade preventing Venezuelan oil from reaching Cuba. A few weeks later, Trump’s CIA Director John Ratcliffe met with Cuban officials warning them to make economic changes and stop allowing Russia and China to operate listening posts on its soil to eavesdrop on the United States. Otherwise, Rafcliffe said, there would be consequences. Shortly after that the U.S. aircraft carrier Nimitz and escort warships sailed into the southern Caribbean Sea not far from Cuba. And just last week, Trump’s Justice Department indicted Raúl Castro, Cuba’s aging president, accusing him of murder and a conspiracy to kill American citizens stemming from the fatal downing 30 years ago of two U.S. planes over waters off the Cuban coast.

So, why is Trump threatening Cuba? There are several possibilities, some more likely than others. First, although Ratcliffe demanded the removal of Russian and Chinese listening stations, it’s hard not to believe that they can eavesdrop on us just as well in other ways without those capacities.

Second, Trump apparently doesn’t like having a country ruled by a corrupt and oppressive communist regime so close to American shores. Perhaps. But he hasn’t had any trouble tolerating corrupt regimes elsewhere in our region. Nicaragua is one. Venezuela—even without Nicolás Maduro—is another.

Third, Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, the son of parents who left Cuba for the United States decades ago, hates the Cuban regime. Many of Rubio’s former Cuban-American constituents hate the regime too. Rubio, of course, remains in Trump’s favor so Trump may listen to Rubio’s advice in this case—at least insofar as Trump listens to anyone’s advice.

Finally, Trump has an appetite for U.S. territorial expansion. Since returning to the White House, he has made noises about gaining control over Greenland, the Panama canal, Venezuela, Iran, and now Cuba. This may be the most believable reason why Trump is threatening Cuba. Why?

Before Fidel Castro seized Cuba in the 1959 communist revolution, Havana was a capitalist hotbed for tourism touting casinos, good restaurants, beautiful beaches, and hotels. Trump knows a lot about things like this having invested in them in America and other countries around the world. So, for example, if the United States managed to topple the current Cuban regime and install one that is favorable to American investment, Trump’s organizations would have a wonderful opportunity to invest in Cuba—and make lots of money!

This wouldn’t be the first time Trump used his presidency to cash in. The most recent example is his Justice Department’s move to grant immunity to Trump, his sons, and his businesses from investigation by the Internal Revenue Service, which according to The New York Times could save them over $100 million. Additionally, Trump has long violated the emoluments clause of the Constitution. For instance, he has convened official political functions and fundraising events at his properties requiring that attendees, including foreign dignitaries, pay for rooms, food, and drink. His Secret Service detail is charged for these things too when they accompany him to Mar-a-Lago or other Trump properties. All of this puts money into Trump’s pockets.

So, although Trump may trot out seemingly noble reasons for pressuring the Cuban regime to heed his wishes, I have no doubt that somewhere in the back of his mind is the self-serving idea that there’s big money to be made down there—and not from rolling cigars, selling rum, or digging up minerals. When money talks, Trump listens.

Thanks for reading this. Feel free to share it with others.

Near the top of my worry list is the war in Iran. Launching a war without good reason is bad enough. But Trump started bombing without seeking approval from Congress. And now that the war has extended beyond the 60-day deadline by which he was required to ask for congressional approval, his administration is considering changing the war’s name from “Operation Epic Fury” to “Operation Sledgehammer” thus pretending that somehow it’s a different war and gaining another 60-day reprieve from congressional action. So, not only did Trump launch a war, which polls show most Americans don’t want, but he did so illegally.

Next on my list is the damage Trump has done to the economy both at home and abroad. It started with his imposition of tariffs on countries around the world, which the Supreme Court has ruled were illegal not once but twice. The damage mounted thanks to the war on Iran, which has triggered skyrocketing gasoline prices, fuel and fertilizer shortages, and, as a result, the threat of a worldwide recession and increased risk of food insecurity and starvation in some of the world’s poorest countries.

Then there’s the recent outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda. There’s no approved vaccine or remedy for this strain of the virus so the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a global health emergency. The U.S. Agency for International Development has played a major role in containing previous viral outbreaks but last year it was shuttered by the Trump administration. According to The New York Times, “It is unclear how that might have affected the response to this outbreak.” Global health experts were alarmed how late the Ebola outbreak was reported. The Trump administration also cut funding and staffing for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and withdrew America from the WHO. All of these agencies have been instrumental in helping to minimize the outbreak of previous viruses and preventing pandemics across the globe. They're now seriously depleted.

There’s more on my worry list, including more food insecurity in America thanks to Trump’s funding cuts for the SNAP program and others; reduced health insurance coverage for millions of lower-income Americans thanks to Trump’s attack on Obamacare insurance subsidies; and Trump’s encouragement of the Republican assault on voting rights. There’s also the long-term dangers of Trump’s weaponization of the DOJ and of our rapidly increasing national debt that his tax cuts help fuel.

I could go on but here’s the point: Trump alone—not Joe Biden, not Barack Obama, not any other president—is responsible for nearly all of this. Of course, Republicans in Congress are culpable too while congressional Democrats have been missing in action. But here’s what worries me the most.

Figure 1 shows that, according to last week’s New York Times/Siena poll, the vast majority of Republicans and over a quarter of Independents still approve of Trump’s handling of his job as president. And over a third of all Americans approve.

This means that tens of millions of Americans are either oblivious to the harm that Trump has caused, perhaps because they believe his repeated lies, or have become so transfixed by his cult of personality that they just don’t care. And at least some of them, notably rich people and big corporations, enjoy the benefits of his tax cuts and other Trump policies that serve their narrow interests.

In short, there’s plenty to worry about in Trump’s America. But what worries me most is that more Americans aren’t worried about it. If they don’t start worrying soon—and start doing something about it—the damage will continue and may become irreparable.

Thanks for reading this. Please share it with others.

The reality, of course, was that politics in America has always been dirty business. Among other things, places like Chicago, Boston, Los Angeles, and New York City were rooted in corrupt political machines for decades. But they’re no longer in business. Furthermore, it wasn’t until 1920 that women got the right to vote. Blacks weren’t guaranteed their voting rights until 1965. So, things slowly got better. But lately there’s been worrisome backsliding. Why? Two reasons are especially noteworthy.

First, there’s money. The Supreme Court’s 2010 landmark decision in Citizens United v. FEC ruled that the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent political expenditures by corporations, unions, and associations. The majority argued that spending money is tantamount to free speech. This opened the door to unlimited independent campaign expenditures—so-called outside spending—spent by nonprofit organizations and Super PACS on behalf of a candidate. That includes “dark money” where big campaign donors spend vast amounts of money while remaining anonymous.

Figure 1 illustrates the consequences. According to OpenSecrets.org, outside spending on political campaigns skyrocketed after 2010. It reached over $4 billion in the last election. Much of this was dark money. By 2024 nearly three-quarters of all the outside money spent was from anonymous sources, particularly corporations and wealthy individuals.

During the 2024 election cycle, the top 25 individual donors gave at least $20 million each and often much more. Third on the list was Miriam Adelson who donated more than $144 million. Topping the list was Elon Musk who forked out over $290 million. Most of the top 25 spenders gave it all to conservative candidates.

Second, there’s gerrymandering—the practice where states redraw lines demarcating congressional districts to dilute the electoral influence of certain political parties and racial and ethnic groups. For instance, lines can be redrawn to divide predominantly Black districts so that White voters outnumber Black voters thus reducing the electoral influence of Blacks.

Normally, redistricting happens once a decade after the new U.S. Census data are released showing how populations have shifted among states. All political parties have been gerrymandering to a greater or lesser degree since the late 18th century. But the Brennan Center for Justice found that lately it’s been getting much worse. Why?

Among other things, greater single-party control of state legislatures has increased and, therefore, so has the opportunity for partisan redistricting. The advent of ever-more powerful computerization has enabled new maps to be drawn more easily and precisely. Several U.S. Supreme Court decisions have made gerrymandering easier too. Notably, the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision and the 2026 Louisiana v. Callais decision eviscerated the 1965 Voting Rights Act making it much easier to gerrymander districts in ways that dilute the vote of racial minorities. Finally, Donald Trump has encouraged states with Republican leadership to undertake gerrymandering prior to the 2026 midterm elections to help defend against Democrats winning the House.

The result of this exacerbated gerrymandering is twofold. In the short term, we now see an unprecedented gerrymandering war between Republican states like Texas and Louisiana and Democratic states like California and Virginia. In the long term, democracy is severely weakened. According to the Brennan Center, this is all “deeply undemocratic because it basically renders elections meaningless.” And that’s because elections become less and less competitive.

Figure 2, based on data from The Cook Political Report, suggests that as of February 2026 only 18 of 435 congressional races this year are toss ups. The lack of competitiveness is also why presidential elections are now often determined by a handful of “swing states” like Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

These aren’t the only reasons why politics have gotten dirtier in America. But if we don’t do something soon, we may lose our democracy entirely. So, what can be done?

Consider campaign finance. As long as the Supreme Court considers spending money the equivalent of exercising one’s First Amendment right to free speech, it will be difficult to cap the amount of money that can be spent on campaigns. However, legislation could be passed to establish public financing of campaigns where public funds match or multiply small-donor contributions. This helps level the playing field between megadonors like Adelson and Musk and the rest of us. It also enables a more diverse set of people to run for office because they aren’t necessarily beholden to megadonors. Public financing programs have been established so far in parts of California, New York, Maine, and Maryland.

We could also limit how long candidates or their proxies can run campaign ads on television, radio, and social media. For example, passing legislation forbidding campaign ads from being run longer than three months before election day might help since that’s one of the major outlets for campaign spending. This falls short of limiting how long campaigns are allowed to run, which some countries do, but it would help reduce spending pressures on campaigns.

Insofar as gerrymandering is concerned it’s worth noting that the Brennan Center found that if new congressional maps are drawn by either courts or independent commissions, then the elections tend to be more competitive and voter turnout tends to be higher than when the maps are drawn by legislatures or appointed commissions. The former draw maps more impartially and fairly than the latter. So, it matters who draws them.

None of this seemed particularly necessary, at least to me, when I was a kid tagging along with my dad to the polls. But times change and political institutions need to adjust accordingly. Without institutional fixes like these American democracy will soon be on life support…if it isn’t already.

Thanks for reading this. Feel free to share with others.

Figure 1, based on Statista data, shows voter turnout among registered White, Black, and all voters in U.S. presidential elections for 1964, just before the Voting Rights Act became law, and 2024, the most recent election. Turnout for all these groups declined. But turnout for Blacks continued to be slightly lower than for Whites as well as for voters overall. In this regard, it seems like the 1965 law had little effect on Black voters. However, if we dig deeper two things become apparent.

First, thanks to the Voting Rights Act voter registration soared for Blacks. As a result, according to The New York Times, it was “A stunningly effective piece of legislation secured at the cost of blood and lives in the South in the Jim Crow era…[It] helped Black voters match and sometimes exceed registration rates of those of white people.” Because the Act had a huge impact on voter registration the number of Blacks turning out to vote soared too even though the turnout rate didn’t. So, Figure 1 can be misleading.

But things began to change in 2013 when the Supreme Court’s Shelby County v. Holder decision eliminated the Voting Rights Act requirement that jurisdictions in the South with a history of racial discrimination get federal permission before changing voting procedures. Registration rates within the Black community began to slip and, as a result, so did voter turnout. The Times reported one study that analyzed nearly a billion votes cast in federal general elections between 2008 and 2022 and found that there is “significant and robust evidence that the racial turnout gap widened in parts of the country that had been covered by the Voting Rights Act after the Shelby County decision, translating to hundreds of thousands of uncast ballots by voters of color.”

Second, there have been significant differences in voter turnout among registered Blacks by age. Consider Figure 2. Since the Voting Rights Act was passed, the oldest registered Black voters—those 65 years and up (red line)—showed a dramatic increase in voter turnout from 1964 to 2024. Their turnout rate jumped by nearly 24 points, far more than the other age groups. These oldsters were people who had lived much if not all of their lives in the Jim Crow era or had heard about its horrors from their parents and relatives. These were people who likely appreciated the Voting Rights Act the most.

Voter turnout for younger Blacks—especially the youngest group (yellow line)—hasn’t kept pace with older Blacks. I suspect there’s a bit of generational amnesia involved where the more recent generations are farther removed from the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s and therefore have heard less about them from their elders. I certainly remember those struggles. My grandchildren don’t.

Here’s the rub. The Times found in polling and focus group data that younger Black voters feel far less motivated to vote nowadays. According to one long-time Black voter, “To me, voting is almost sacred. Look at what people went through. The struggles. The people that allowed themselves to be beaten.” Another respondent said, “I think there are some young Blacks who probably feel like [the Civil Rights Movement] didn’t even happen.”

According to The Times, Terrance Woodbury, a Democratic pollster, echoed similar sentiments. “It is a generational divide. They [younger Blacks] don’t know the people who fought and died for their rights…[older Blacks] know those people. They saw that fight. Some of them were in that fight.”

That’s bad enough. But then the Supreme Court’s ruling last week in Louisiana v. Callais further eviscerated the Voting Rights Act. The Court struck down a majority-Black congressional district in Louisiana because, according to the Court, the drawing of the district map relied too much on race. Justice Samuel Alito stated that from now on, anyone who wished to challenge a gerrymandered map on the grounds that its legislative districts were drawn to disadvantage a racial group must prove that the map makers had done so intentionally. This is a virtually impossible standard of proof to meet because lawmakers would almost never admit openly to having done so.

As a result, Republican governors in Alabama and Tennessee quickly called lawmakers into special sessions to consider redrawing their legislative districts. Redistricting was already afoot in two other Republican states, Florida and Texas. Other states in the South and perhaps elsewhere may follow suit. Following the Court’s ruling, they can draw new maps based on partisan political reasoning but not race-based reasoning. Their plan is to redraw maps to advantage Republican candidates.

The problem is that political rather than race-based reasoning may be a distinction without a meaningful difference. That’s because Blacks vote overwhelmingly for Democrats, which means in effect that gerrymandering can proceed under the guise of politically, not racially partisan logic but still undermine Black electoral representation. We may see the results as soon as the 2026 midterm elections and certainly by the 2028 presidential election.

As I’ve suggested, younger Black voters are less likely than their elders to appreciate how effective the Voting Rights Act has been in guaranteeing Black political representation. It follows that these younger voters are also less likely to appreciate how devastating the Supreme Court’s recent decisions are to Black representation. The same is probably true for all younger voters regardless of color. They won’t realize that the Voting Rights Act doesn’t matter as much anymore. And that’s terrible for democracy.

Thanks for reading this. Freel free to share it with others.

First, why are the Fed renovations so expensive? The two buildings involved are nearly a century old. So, as Bloomberg News reported, elevators were required to expand handicapped access. New office space was necessary. Asbestos and lead had to be removed. Antiquated mechanical systems needed replacement. The price of steel skyrocketed. Construction was delayed thanks to federal oversight boards demanding changes. Underground parking space needed renovation, which was made difficult due to an unexpectedly high water table. The building foundations needed reinforcement. None of this was Powell’s fault. The Office of the Inspector General found no evidence of fraud and waste.

Second, all that aside, how much truth is there to Trump’s claim that he could have done the project for less money? I have my doubts because Trump often claims to be able to build things for less money than they cost in the end. For instance, the Washington Post reported that he claimed that his administration would build the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem for $500,000. It finally cost $20 million!

Similarly, during his 2015 campaign Trump claimed that building a wall along the Mexican border wouldn’t cost taxpayers anything because he would make Mexico pay for it. That didn’t happen. Then once in office, he said it would cost only $8 billion. According to The Texas Tribune, “The nation’s self-anointed ‘best builder’ bragged in 2017 that his construction know-how and savvy would bring the price of his border wall ‘WAY DOWN!’ once he got involved in the process.” Wrong again! Congress recently appropriated another $46 billion for the project.

Third, what explains discrepancies like these between Trump’s wildly optimistic estimates and final costs? Trump’s wall provides some insights. Two things were in play. One was Trump’s compulsion to exaggerate. That’s something he admitted in The Art of the Deal to doing frequently and on purpose. Figure 1, based on a Brookings Institution report, shows various cost estimates for the wall from different sources at the beginning of Trump’s first term. His was a low-ball estimate compared to others.

The other thing in play, as The Texas Tribune discovered, was that the Trump administration was “giving no-bid contracts to a small group of pre-selected construction firms, many with executives who have donated to Trump or other Republicans.” As a result, the cost for building the wall to the Army Corps of Engineers, which normally solicits competitive bids, was much higher than it would have been otherwise. This looks like the sort of corruption that can significantly inflate final costs relative to initial estimates.

Maybe the border wall is an exceptional case. Maybe construction costs really are lower when Trump gets involved. But even if that’s true, there’s often a catch. He cuts costs by stiffing his contractors.

Consider Trump’s conversion of the Old Post Office in Washington DC to the Trump International Hotel. According to NPR, Trump bragged that the project cost about $200 million and that it was far under budget. Perhaps. But after its completion three different construction companies who had worked on it put liens on the hotel totaling $5 million because they hadn’t been paid for their work!

That wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. NPR reported that “Trump has faced many liens—and lawsuits— for alleged nonpayment for work in the past.” A USA Today Network analysis in 2016 found that Trump “has been involved in more than 3,500 lawsuits over the past three decades—and a large number of those involve ordinary Americans…who say Trump or his companies have refused to pay them.” Notably, after finishing the Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, NJ, Trump’s companies still owed $69.5 million to 253 contractors on the project. Dozens of them filed a class action lawsuit to get paid.

The point is this. If we can’t trust Trump’s estimates when it comes to construction projects—something for which he’s got decades of experience—then why should we believe his estimates for things for which he’s got no experience and that are much more important to Americans? The war in Iran quickly comes to mind.

Reminiscent of his claim that Mexico would pay for the wall, Trump claimed initially that Iranian oil proceeds would pay for the war. However, his Defense Department recently asked Congress for $200 billion to fight the war. And that’s just for military operations. It doesn’t cover the costs of interest paid for borrowing that money. It doesn’t cover the costs to Americans of paying higher prices for gas, energy, fertilizer, and other things affected by the war. It doesn’t consider that all this money could instead fund major investments in things like health care, childcare, and education that actually benefit the public. Nor does the DOD’s request cover the war’s worldwide costs, which include widespread fuel shortages, rising food insecurity, inflation, and what appears to be a fast-approaching global recession, not to mention the cost to America’s international reputation and foreign alliances.

Trump predicted that the war would be over quickly and wouldn’t cost much. He was wrong. Like his foolish estimates of the cost of Powell’s Fed renovation, the border wall, the Israeli embassy, his Washington hotel, and more, nobody should believe him. How much will the war really cost? Your guess is as good as Trump’s.

Thanks for reading this. Freel free to share it with others.

But before we get to members of Congress, who are Trump’s friends? We don’t have to guess because he’s told us.

For example, last week Trump told Fox News that he’s got a very friendly relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping. “He’s somebody I get along with very well, [he] just wrote me a beautiful letter.” Yet Xi is the leader of a country without competitive national elections, whose leader fosters a cult of personality, and whose repressive regime controls all aspects of the state bureaucracy, media, online speech, religious practice, universities, and businesses. According to Freedom House, an international human rights organization, Xi has consolidated personal power to a degree not seen in China in decades.

Freedom House rates countries in terms of their citizens’ access to political rights and civil liberties. The higher the score—that is, the greater the number of points—the more access citizens have to these rights and liberties. Figure 1 shows that China scores a paltry 9 of 100 possible points. However, as figure 1 indicates, it’s not the only deeply repressive country whose leader Trump is friends with.

Saudi Arabia also scores 9 of 100 on the Freedom House scale. No national elections there either. The regime relies on pervasive surveillance, cracks down ruthlessly on dissent, and openly discriminates against women and religious minorities. However, this is another country whose leader Trump considers a pal. During a White House reception, Trump said that he and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “have become very good friends over a fairly short period of time.” Yet this friend also ordered the brutal assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Despite all this The New York Times reported that Trump respects him and says he’s “a smart, a very regular kind of a guy.”

Russia scores only 12 on the Freedom House scale but CNN reports that “Trump has heaped praise on Putin and adopted his views.” When Putin ordered the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014, Trump admired him as a “strong leader.” Putin then launched an unprovoked attack on Ukraine in 2022 that has led to the deaths of an estimated 1.2 million Russian and 500,000 Ukrainian military personnel, and thousands more civilians. That war is ongoing but Trump still often kowtows to Putin. Daniel Fried, a former ambassador to Poland and a fellow at the Atlantic Council, told The Times that “Trump does seem attracted to Putin as a strongman ruler. He seems more comfortable with—and gives more credence to—Putin than with leaders of America’s democratic allies.” With friends like Putin, who needs enemies?

North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is another tyrant with whom Trump is friendly. Less than a year ago when Trump was asked whether he would meet again with Kim, Trump reiterated that “I have a great relationship with Kim Jong-un. I hope it stays that way. I think it will…I get along with him really well. I think he has a country of great potential.” Trump’s “great relationship” is with a dictator whose country scores only 3 on the Freedom House scale.

Then there’s Hungary’s former Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Hungary scored a 65 on the Freedom House scale, which was better than these other countries but still not great. When Trump hosted Orban at Mar-a-Lago in 2024 he openly admired his leadership. He also sent Vice President JD Vance to Hungary two weeks ago to show his support for Orban during Orban’s bid for reelection.

Yet Orban is someone who disparages migrants, LGBTQ people, and European allies. He declared several states of emergency allowing him to rule by decree and side-step parliament. He has exercised increasing control over the media and national elections. His government was so corrupt that the EU froze funds for Hungary because Orban was funneling them to his cronies. He also tried to block EU support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia. Human Rights Watch warned that Orban’s “cozy relationship with Donald Trump should raise red flags for people in the United States who care about preserving and building an inclusive, healthy, U.S. democracy.”

While Trump buddies up to authoritarian leaders like these, he alienates others representing freedom. For example, Denmark receives a 97 score from Freedom House. But Trump ridiculed its Prime Minister and threatened repeatedly to seize Greenland, a sovereign part of the Danish Kingdom. Canada also has a 97 Freedom House score. But Trump has insulted its Prime Minister Mark Carney and said he’d like to make Canada the 51^st U.S. state.

Underscoring Trump’s twisted choice of friends and enemies is his recent feud with Pope Leo XIV. Rather than picking a fight with the Pope for having condemned Trump’s war in Iran, perhaps he should have asked the Pope for forgiveness for having been close friends with Jeffrey Epstein the convicted sex offender.

But what about congressional Republicans? If birds of a feather really do flock together, and if Trump’s choice of friends is so wrong-headed, then congressional Republicans who flock to Trump are guilty too. How can they continue supporting a president who favors tyrants over advocates for democracy and peace? More important, why should voters support members of Congress this November who support such a president. They shouldn’t.

Thanks for reading this. Feel free to share it with others.