"We are in the middle of an unraveling" by David Brooks

Last week Minneapolis’s police chief, Brian O’Hara, said the thing he fears most is the “moment where it all explodes.” I share his worry. If you follow the trajectory of events, it’s pretty clear that we’re headed toward some kind of crackup.

We are in the middle of at least four unraveling: The unraveling of the postwar international order. The unraveling of domestic tranquility wherever Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents bring down their jackboots. The further unraveling of the democratic order, with attacks on Fed independence and — excuse the pun — trumped-up prosecutions of political opponents. Finally, the unraveling of President Trump’s mind.

Of these four, the unraveling of Trump’s mind is the primary one, leading to all the others. Narcissists sometimes get worse with age, as their remaining inhibitions fall away. The effect is bound to be profound when the narcissist happens to be president of the United States.

Every president I’ve ever covered gets more full of himself the longer he remains in office, and when you start out with Trump-level self-regard, the effect is grandiosity, entitlement, lack of empathy and ferocious overreaction to perceived slights.

Furthermore, over the past year, Trump has been quicker and quicker to resort to violence. In 2025 the U.S. carried out or contributed to 622 overseas bombing missions, killing people in places ranging from Venezuela to Iran, Nigeria and Somalia — not to mention Minneapolis.

The arc of tyranny bends toward degradation. Tyrants generally get drunk on their own power, which progressively reduces restraint, increases entitlement and self-focus and amps up risk taking and overconfidence while escalating social isolation, corruption and defensive paranoia.

I have found it useful these days to go back to the historians of ancient Rome, starting with the originals like Sallust and Tacitus. Those fellows had a front-row look at tyranny, with case studies strewed before them — Nero, Caligula, Commodus, Domitian, Tiberius. They understood the intimate connection between private morals and public order and that when there is a decay of the former, there will be a collapse of the latter.

“Of all our passions and appetites, the love of power is of the most imperious and unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the submission of the multitude,” Edward Gibbon wrote in his 1776 classic, “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” He continued: “In the tumult of civil discord, the laws of society lose their force, and their place is seldom supplied by those of humanity. The ardor of contention, the pride of victory, the despair of success, the memory of past injuries and the fear of future dangers all contribute to inflame the mind and to silence the voice of pity. From such motives almost every page of history has been stained with civil blood.”

The 18th-century English historian Edward Wortley Montagu distinguished between ambition and the lust for domination. Ambition can be a laudable trait, since it can drive people to serve the community in order to win public admiration. The lust for domination, he wrote, is a different passion, a form of selfishness that causes us to “draw everything to center in ourselves, which we think will enable us to gratify every other passion.”

The insatiable lust for domination, he continues, “banishes all the social virtues.” The selfish tyrant attaches himself to only those others who share his selfishness, who are eager to wear the mask of perpetual lying. “His friendship and his enmity will be alike unreal, and easily convertible, if the change will serve his interest.”

Those historians were impressed by how much personal force the old tyrants could generate. The man lusting for power is always active, the center of the show, relentless, vigilant, distrustful, restless when anything stands in his way. Tacitus was especially good at describing the effect the tyrant has on the people around him. 

When the tyrant first takes power, there is a “rush into servitude” as great swarms of sycophants suck up to the great man. The flattery must forever escalate and grow more fawning, until every follower’s dignity is shorn away.  Then comes what you might call the disappearance of the good, as morally healthy people lie low in order to survive. Meanwhile, the whole society tends to be anesthetized. The relentless flow of appalling events eventually overloads the nervous system; the rising tide of brutality, which once seemed shocking, comes to seem unremarkable.

As the disease of tyranny progresses, citizens may eventually lose the habits of democracy — the art of persuasion and compromise, interpersonal trust, an intolerance for corruption, the spirit of freedom, the ethic of moderation. “It is easier to crush men’s spirits and their enthusiasm than to revive them,” Tacitus wrote. “Indeed, there comes over us an attachment to the very enforced inactivity, and the idleness hated at first is finally loved.”

I don’t have enough imagination to know where the next crackup will come — through perhaps some domestic, criminal or foreign crisis? Though I was struck by a sentence Robert Kagan wrote in an essay on the effects of Trump’s foreign policy in The Atlantic: “Americans are entering the most dangerous world they have known since World War II, one that will make the Cold War look like child’s play and the post-Cold War world like paradise.”

And no, I don’t think America is headed toward anything like a Rome-style collapse. Our institutions are too strong, and our people, deep down, still have the same democratic values.

But I do know that events are being propelled by one man’s damaged psyche. History does not record many cases in which a power-mad leader careening toward tyranny suddenly regained his senses and became more moderate. On the contrary, the normal course of the disease is toward ever-accelerating deterioration and debauchery.

And I do understand why America’s founding fathers spent so much time reading historians like Tacitus and Sallust. Thomas Jefferson called Tacitus “the first writer in the world, without a single exception.” They understood that the lust for power is a primal human impulse and that even all the safeguards they built into the Constitution are no match for this lust when it is not restrained ethically from within.

As John Adams put it in a letter in 1798, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net.”

-David Brooks, NY Times

 

"He destroyed 80 years of eager European cooperation with America"

 

In Boiling Frogs on Thursday, Nick Catoggio focused on the damage that Trump had done to NATO and the broader post-World War II legacy of cooperation between the U.S. and Europe.

He destroyed 80 years of eager European cooperation with America. For nothing. Worse than nothing, actually. He’s incentivized Western powers to form a sort of “neighborhood watch” aimed at preventing future muggings by the United States. I thought a casino would be the most profitable thing Trump would ever bankrupt, but bankrupting global trust in the world’s dominant power since 1945 in the span of a year is a catastrophe that warrants “Great Man of History” treatment. When scholars write about America’s decline, they’ll cite this episode as a hinge point. It’s genuinely one of the stupidest, self-defeating things a U.S. president has ever done.

Touching on a similar theme, Benn Steil wrote that Trump’s actions exposed a vulnerability that had always existed within the international rules-based order. Steil pointed to the various institutions established after World War II—the United Nations, World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund, etc.:

As extensive as this legal latticework was, it could neither cover all exigencies nor resolve contradictions. In practice, it relied on the United States to initiate action as a kind of Aristotelian uncaused cause, godlike from outside the system, while generally forgoing the type of nakedly self-interested behavior that would openly deny the order’s authority. By historical standards, the project was astoundingly successful—not in that all nations conformed, since the United States itself at times strayed willfully and radically, but in that virtually all nations felt compelled to align themselves with it, to argue for alternative understandings of it, or to justify their deviations from it.

Meanwhile, Scott Lincicome in Capitalism explored how Trump’s (revoked) tariff threat highlights a bigger problem on the home front: We have an “emergency” emergency. Trump has cited the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to justify unilateral tariffs throughout the first year of his second term, and Scott notes “there’s simply no plausible case for the situation in the Arctic to constitute a ‘national emergency.’” He predicts that the threats over Greenland will motivate countries to seek trade opportunities with nations besides the U.S. Thank you for reading. If you are in the path of the huge winter storm that is supposed to hit this weekend, stay safe and watch out for exploding trees.    -Dispatch Weekly

 

The Fourth Amendment protects individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government...

 

We learned from a report in the Associated Press that ICE, contrary to longstanding Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, is taking the position that it can enter people’s homes without a judicial warrant. Instead, they believe that an administrative warrant suffices. An administrative warrant is a form signed by an “authorized immigration official,” which means an executive branch employee who can be fired if they displease the president. It’s not difficult to see the problem here.

The Fourth Amendment provides that: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” It’s the reason your home can’t be searched by the police without a search warrant that has been supported with probable cause to believe that evidence or fruits of a crime will be found there.

ICE seems to be arguing that if they think a non-citizen for whom there is a final order of deportation is in a house, they can blow right past the Fourth Amendment, take the doors off the house if they aren’t admitted voluntarily, and go right in. But the Fourth Amendment doesn’t change just because ICE says so. 

The Supreme Court has made it clear that a search warrant must be signed by a “judicial officer” or a “magistrate.” 

Their signature on the warrant says that they have reviewed the evidence that the agents believe constitutes probable cause to justify a search, and they agree that it is sufficient to breach the wall otherwise established by the Fourth Amendment and allow law enforcement into a private home (or car, or private areas of a business, etc.). The idea is that a detached, neutral judge—not someone involved in investigating a case or “on the same side” as law enforcement—should evaluate the evidence before a search warrant or an arrest warrant is issued.

As the Supreme Court explained in Johnson v. U.S., in 1948: “The point of the Fourth Amendment, which often is not grasped by zealous officers, is not that it denies law enforcement the support of the usual inferences which reasonable men draw from evidence. Its protection consists in requiring that those inferences be drawn by a neutral and detached magistrate instead of being judged by the officer engaged in the often competitive enterprise of ferreting out crime.”

ICE seems to be treating its enforcement activities like a funny inside joke, calling the newly launched surge in Maine “Operation Catch of the Day.” The Fourth Amendment means that if law enforcement comes to your door and says they want to search, the first thing to do is to ask to see the warrant. 

ICE’s new policy adds a wrinkle to this. Now, to make sure their rights are protected, people will have to determine whether the warrant is a lawful judicial warrant, in which case they must allow officers to enter, as long as the warrant is for the correct location, or whether it’s an administrative warrant, in which case they can deny entry.

This is an example of a judicial warrant, annotated by lawyers at the ACLU who use it as an example for training. You can see that it’s a district court form, and at the bottom, the signature block is for a judge. 

The warrant is only valid if it’s signed by a judge.

Compare that to an administrative warrant, which is not sufficient for Fourth Amendment purposes. Note that it requires the signature of an “immigration officer,” an executive branch employee. That runs afoul of the Court’s requirement of a neutral and detached magistrate. This warrant might permit agents to arrest the person who has a final deportation order if they are found in a public place. It doesn’t permit the search of a home.

But ICE’s new policy raises the concern that agents will go right on in, relying on the new policy. The whistleblower complaint that made it public alleges that the memo, signed by Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, states, "

Although the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has not historically relied on administrative warrants alone to arrest aliens subject to final orders of removal in their place of residence, the DHS Office of General Counsel has recently determined that the U.S. Constitution, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the immigration regulations do not prohibit relying on administrative warrants for this purpose.”

DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin unintentionally confirmed the illegality of the use of a DHS form I-205 as though it were a judicial search warrant. She said, "Every illegal alien who DHS serves administrative warrants/I-205s have had full due process and a final order of removal from an immigration judge. The officers issuing these administrative warrants also have found probable cause. For decades, the Supreme Court and Congress have recognized the propriety of administrative warrants in cases of immigration enforcement." 

Yes, administrative warrants may suffice for deportation. But they don’t make the Fourth Amendment irrelevant. ICE seems to be conceding that is the position that it’s now taking.

In a week where we’ve seen a protester held on the ground while chemicals are sprayed in their face and a five year old boy used as bait to lure his father before putting the child in deportation proceeding on his own—two stories that shock the conscience and conjure up black and white pictures of the Gestapo, violating the Fourth Amendment might seem like something that should take a backseat. But it’s equally important. 

The Whistleblower complaint says that the ICE policy authorizes agents to use “a necessary and reasonable amount of force to enter the alien's residence." Even without a lawful warrant, ICE may be instructing its agents to force their way into people’s homes illegally.

ICE knew the advice it was giving wouldn’t pass muster. Policies that provide operational guidance to agents are written, emailed throughout an agency, and often available publicly. That didn’t happen here. The whistleblower said it was “tightly held” at DHS. 

“The May 12 Memo has been provided to select DHS officials who are then directed to verbally brief the new policy for action,” the complaint states. “Those supervisors then show the Memo to some employees, like our clients, and direct them to read the Memo and return it to the supervisor.” Training on the memo was done verbally, but the policy was not provided in writing. Nothing says agency leaders know they’re violating the law like that kind of unusual treatment.

Senator Richard Blumenthal said, “It is a legally and morally abhorrent policy that exemplifies the kinds of dangerous, disgraceful abuses America is seeing in real time. In our democracy, with vanishingly rare exceptions, the government is barred from breaking into your home without a judge giving a green light.”

Sunlight is a good disinfectant for government abuse. The hope here is that by exposing the policy, ICE will be deterred from using it in the future. It’s an outrageous abuse, as they seem well aware. But there are stories, including the two we discussed last night, that suggest there may be civil lawsuits against the agency in the offing and perhaps a more proactive attempt to get the courts to prohibit this practice. None of that would be necessary with an administration that was acting in good faith. But it’s abundantly clear that this one isn’t.

Evil triumphs when good people do nothing. That’s why it's important that we contact our elected officials in Congress and demand that they investigate and demand that ICE retract its policy. 

We know that this administration continues to push the limits once it gets started. At first, it may have been noncitizens with deportation orders. Some people may have thought it was okay, lawful, but awful. This week, it was a frail, elderly American citizen, forced out into the icy cold and detained after ICE entered his home without a judicial warrant. There is no telling where this will end up if we don’t shine a spotlight so bright that ICE can’t withstand it.

Thanks for being here with me at Civil Discourse. Your paid subscriptions make the newsletter possible, and your interest in learning and being engaged citizens makes it worthwhile.

We’re in this together,

-Joyce Vance

 

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's Speech

 

It’s a pleasure – and a duty – to be with you at this turning point for Canada and for the world. Today, I’ll talk about the rupture in the world order, the end of a nice story, and the beginning of a brutal reality where geopolitics among the great powers is not subject to any constraints. But I also submit to you that other countries, particularly middle powers like Canada, are not powerless. They have the capacity to build a new order that embodies our values, like respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of states.

The power of the less powerful begins with honesty. Every day we are reminded that we live in an era of great power rivalry. That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must. This aphorism of Thucydides is presented as inevitable – the natural logic of international relations reasserting itself. And faced with this logic, there is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along. To accommodate. To avoid trouble. To hope that compliance will buy safety. It won’t. So, what are our options?

In 1978, the Czech dissident Václav Havel wrote an essay called The Power of the Powerless. In it, he asked a simple question: how did the communist system sustain itself? His answer began with a greengrocer. Every morning, this shopkeeper places a sign in his window: “Workers of the world, unite!” He does not believe it. No one believes it. But he places the sign anyway – to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists.

Not through violence alone, but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false. Havel called this “living within a lie.” The system’s power comes not from its truth but from everyone’s willingness to perform as if it were true. And its fragility comes from the same source: when even one person stops performing — when the greengrocer removes his sign — the illusion begins to crack. It is time for companies and countries to take their signs down.

For decades, countries like Canada prospered under what we called the rules-based international order. We joined its institutions, praised its principles, and benefited from its predictability. We could pursue values-based foreign policies under its protection.

We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient. That trade rules were enforced asymmetrically. And that international law applied with varying rigor depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.

This fiction was useful, and American hegemony, in particular, helped provide public goods: open sea lanes, a stable financial system, collective security, and support for frameworks for resolving disputes. So, we placed the sign in the window. We participated in the rituals. And largely avoided calling out the gaps between rhetoric and reality.

This bargain no longer works. Let me be direct: we are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition. Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy, and geopolitics laid bare the risks of extreme global integration. More recently, great powers began using economic integration as weapons. Tariffs as leverage. Financial infrastructure as coercion. Supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.

You cannot “live within the lie” of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination. The multilateral institutions on which middle powers relied— the WTO, the UN, the COP – the architecture of collective problem solving – are greatly diminished.

As a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions. They must develop greater strategic autonomy: in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance, and supply chains. This impulse is understandable. A country that cannot feed itself, fuel itself, or defend itself has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself. But let us be clear-eyed about where these leads. A world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile, and less sustainable.

And there is another truth: if great powers abandon even the pretense of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from “transnationalism” become harder to replicate. Hegemons cannot continually monetize their relationships. Allies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty. Buy insurance. Increase options. This rebuilds sovereignty – sovereignty that was once grounded in rules but will be increasingly anchored in the ability to withstand pressure.

As I said, such classic risk management comes at a price, but that cost of strategic autonomy, of sovereignty, can also be shared. Collective investments in resilience are cheaper than everyone building their own fortress. Shared standards reduce fragmentation. Complementarities are positive sum.

The question for middle powers, like Canada, is not whether to adapt to this new reality. We must. The question is whether we adapt by simply building higher walls – or whether we can do something more ambitious. Canada was amongst the first to hear the wake-up call, leading us to fundamentally shift our strategic posture. Canadians know that our old, comfortable assumption that our geography and alliance memberships automatically conferred prosperity and security is no longer valid.

Our new approach rests on what Alexander Stubb has termed “values-based realism” – or, to put it another way, we aim to be principled and pragmatic. Principled in our commitment to fundamental values: sovereignty and territorial integrity, the prohibition of the use of force except when consistent with the UN Charter, respect for human rights. Pragmatic in recognizing that progress is often incremental, that interests diverge, that not every partner shares our values. We are engaging broadly, strategically, with open eyes. We actively take on the world as it is, not wait for a world we wish to be.

Canada is calibrating our relationships, so their depth reflects our values. We are prioritizing broad engagement to maximize our influence, given the fluidity of the world order, the risks that these poses, and the stakes for what comes next. We are no longer relying on just the strength of our values, but also on the value of our strength. We are building that strength at home.

Since my government took office, we have cut taxes on incomes, capital gains and business investment, we have removed all federal barriers to interprovincial trade, and we are fast-tracking a trillion dollars of investment in energy, AI, critical minerals, new trade corridors, and beyond.

We are doubling our defense spending by 2030 and are doing so in ways that builds our domestic industries. We are rapidly diversifying abroad. We have agreed a comprehensive strategic partnership with the European Union, including joining SAFE, Europe’s defense procurement arrangements. We have signed twelve other trade and security deals on four continents in the last six months.

In the past few days, we have concluded new strategic partnerships with China and Qatar. We are negotiating free trade pacts with India, ASEAN, Thailand, Philippines, Mercosur. To help solve global problems, we are pursuing variable geometry— different coalitions for different issues, based on values and interests.

On Ukraine, we are a core member of the Coalition of the Willing and one of the largest per-capita contributors to its defense and security. On Arctic sovereignty, we stand firmly with Greenland and Denmark and fully support their unique right to determine Greenland’s future. Our commitment to Article 5 is unwavering.

We are working with our NATO allies (including the Nordic Baltic to further secure the alliance’s northern and western flanks, including through Canada’s unprecedented investments in over-the-horizon radar, submarines, aircraft, and boots on the ground. Canada strongly opposes tariffs over Greenland and calls for focused talks to achieve shared objectives of security and prosperity for the Arctic.

On plurilateral trade, we are championing efforts to build a bridge between the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the European Union, creating a new trading block of 1.5 billion people. On critical minerals, we are forming buyer’s clubs anchored in the G7 so that the world can diversify away from concentrated supply. On AI, we are cooperating with like-minded democracies to ensure we will not ultimately be forced to choose between hegemons and hyper-scalers.

This is not naive multilateralism. Nor is it relying on diminished institutions. It is building the coalitions that work, issue by issue, with partners who share enough common ground to act together. In some cases, this will be the vast majority of nations. And it is creating a dense web of connections across trade, investment, culture on which we can draw for future challenges and opportunities.

Middle powers must act together because if you are not at the table, you are on the menu. Great powers can afford to go it alone. They have the market size, the military capacity, the leverage to dictate terms. Middle powers do not. But when we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness. We accept what is offered. We compete with each other to be the most accommodating. This is not sovereignty. It is the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination.

In a world of great power rivalry, the countries in between have a choice: to compete with each other for favor or to combine to create a third path with impact. We should not allow the rise of hard power to blind us to the fact that the power of legitimacy, integrity, and rules will remain strong — if we choose to wield it together. Which brings me back to Havel. What would it mean for middle powers to “live in truth”?

It means naming reality. Stop invoking the “rules-based international order” as though it still functions as advertised. Call the system what it is: a period of intensifying great power rivalry, where the most powerful pursue their interests using economic integration as a weapon of coercion.

It means acting consistently. Apply the same standards to allies and rivals. When middle powers criticize economic intimidation from one direction but stay silent when it comes from another, we are keeping the sign in the window. It means building what we claim to believe in. Rather than waiting for the old order to be restored, create institutions and agreements that function as described.

And it means reducing the leverage that enables coercion. Building a strong domestic economy should always be every government’s priority. Diversification internationally is not just economic prudence; it is the material foundation for honest foreign policy. Countries earn the right to principled stands by reducing their vulnerability to retaliation.

Canada has what the world wants. We are an energy superpower. We hold vast reserves of critical minerals. We have the most educated population in the world. Our pension funds are amongst the world’s largest and most sophisticated investors. We have capital, talent, and a government with the immense fiscal capacity to act decisively. And we have the values to which many others aspire.

Canada is a pluralistic society that works. Our public square is loud, diverse, and free. Canadians remain committed to sustainability. We are a stable, reliable partner—in a world that is anything but—a partner that builds and values relationships for the long term. Canada has something else: a recognition of what is happening and a determination to act accordingly.

We understand that this rupture calls for more than adaptation. It calls for honesty about the world as it is. We are taking the sign out of the window. The old order is not coming back. We should not mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy. But from the fracture, we can build something better, stronger, and more just.

This is the task of the middle powers, who have the most to lose from a world of fortresses and the most to gain from a world of genuine cooperation. The powerful have their power. But we have something too – the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home, and to act together. That is Canada’s path. We choose it openly and confidently. And it is a path wide open to any country willing to take it with us."

 Davos, Switzerland, January 20, 2026

Jonathan Toews Returned to Chicago to an Unbelievable Ovation

CHICAGO (AP) — Jonathan Toews exhaled and then laughed and shook his head in disbelief as the standing ovation continued for four-plus minutes. “All right, all right,” he said before taking another lap in front of the cheering crowd.

Toews returned to Chicago on Monday night with his hometown Winnipeg Jets, but it was clear that his first NHL city still counts him as one of its own. Toews waved and patted his heart as he was showered with cheers and chants of “Jonny! Jonny!” during a timeout in the first period. It was his first game at the United Center since he signed with the Jets on July 1.

The 37-year-old center spent his first 15 seasons with the Blackhawks, winning three Stanley Cup titles. “I tried to do my best to take it all in and really savor it. To really appreciate the love from the fans,” Toews said. “Obviously, I spent some special years here in Chicago and that’s what made playing for the Blackhawks so great. Winning championships and all of that stuff aside, just playing for a sports team in this city and calling this home for as long as I did was just incredible. I can’t thank them enough. It will always be home and has a special place in my heart.”

 Click Here:

TOEWS gets EPIC ovation in return to Chicago

"Candidates vying for the Democratic presidential nomination will face a Herculean task but also an enviable opportunity"

It is no secret that a group of Democrats have their eyes on a 2028 presidential run. The many capable governors (e.g., JB Pritzker of Illinois, Gavin Newsom of California, Andy Beshear of Kentucky) are obvious contenders. But, just as no one had paid much attention to Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, or Barack Obama two-plus years prior to their successful presidential runs, there are contenders not presently on anyone’s radar screen who may vie for the nomination.

Whatever their name ID, 2028 contenders should spend their time wisely. That will require more than merely speaking out against the mad wannabe king’s domestic and international outrages or preparing (as Obama and Zohran Mamdani did) to viscerally engage the public, create a volunteer army, and activate people previously never political. Rather, 2028 hopefuls should start refining their vision if they want to run credible campaigns. Several big challenges deserve serious, extended reflection before announcing.

What to do about accountability: The failure to prosecute Trump criminally in time to avert his return to power does not mean Democrats must ignore the trail of corruption, constitutional outrages, and rank illegality he will leave behind. The 2028 contenders should start thinking now about how they want to handle Trump and his cohort of lawless democracy vandals.

Options from criminal to civil liability (including recovering ill-gotten gains) to court martial to disbarment should be on the table. But candidates should not get bogged down in prescribing the prosecutions and penalties to pursue against specific MAGA offenders. 

Pledging to engage a special prosecutor or series of prosecutors, tasking inspectors general with full reviews, and empaneling an esteemed commission of historians, lawyers, and former government officials to create an official account of the Trump-era outrages would be preferable (and not prejudge prosecutions). Thinking now about that serious challenge would help clear the decks for candidates’ campaign messages and governing agendas.

What to do about democracy: Running to “restore” democracy is the wrong approach. Trump has broken our Constitution and shown its fault lines. Considering a rebirth of (as Lincoln did at Gettysburg) or reinvention of democracy should occupy 2028 contenders’ time. With the aim of making our system more democratic/responsive and less captive to oligarchs, candidates might consider a game plan for each branch of government. (Fixation with the current filibuster as an excuse for not pursuing these items makes evident a refusal or lack of readiness to reinvent our democracy.)

The Supreme Court has disgraced itself and lost the public’s confidence. Nevertheless, institutional changes can repair it (e.g., expanding the court, setting term limits, installing an inspector general, instituting a mandatory ethics code, eliminating the shadow docket except in limited cases). The president, with help from Congress, can return the Court to its appropriate role to check the other branches and defend of our constitutional rights.

Candidates must also consider curbs on executive power — not a popular idea with presidents of either party. These can include (ideally, by legislation to make permanent) eliminating many “emergency powers,” limiting the Insurrection Action, putting teeth into both the Emoluments Clause and the Hatch Act, requiring financial disclosure for the president and vice president, abolishing recission authority, bolstering the independence of agencies (e.g., the NLRB, FTC), prohibiting political interference with the Justice Department, and strengthening the Freedom of Information Act.

The nominee will have to develop specific immigration policies but should not miss the opportunity to pledge wholesale reorganization/dismemberment of the Department of Homeland Security, which has bureaucratized the national security structure and created rogue, lawless immigration enforcements that have devolved into fascist street thugs. This should be a mainstream position. (Keep the Education Department, Dismantle DHS!)

The next president, aside from a policy agenda, will need to prepare massive democracy enhancement legislation. That can include updating/reinstituting the Voting Rights Act, setting up independent commissions to prevent gerrymandering and mid-decade redistricting, re-establishing workable causes of action (so-called Bivens cases) to hold federal officials liable for constitutional violations, imposing strict campaign finance rules (let a new Supreme Court revisit Citizens United), criminalizing phony elector schemes and other efforts to subvert elections, and granting statehood to D.C. The next president should not throw up his or her hands because of horrendous Roberts’ Court decisions. Pass the laws, litigate the cases, and push for a reformed court to overturn ill-conceived precedent.

What to do about foreign policy: One can only imagine what will remain of U.S. alliances and international stature in 2028. Contenders without extensive foreign policy experience should start traveling, studying, and planning for restoration of American leadership. Convincing allies ever to trust us and aggressors to ever respect us will be an uphill task but the 2028 nominee should be ready with an agenda that limits foreign adventurism, eschews imperialism, re-emphasizes international law, and repairs the post WWII world order. This will be a multi-decade process but has to begin somewhere. A good start: Immediately lifting any remaining Trump retaliatory and nonsensical tariffs, getting out of Venezuela, and recommitting to NATO.

What to do about oligarchy/concentration of wealth: American have never objected to getting rich. But they do object to billionaires getting wealthy at average Americans’ expense and using vast fortunes and outsized power to control government. Thinking through ways to empower workers and promote opportunity (e.g., subsidize childcare, remove barriers to unionization, increase minimum wage with a COLA) and devise an agenda for shared prosperity to appeal to a broad swath of Americans must be a high priority for 2028 contenders.

A good starting place would be Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s recent speech at the National Press Club calling that Democrats “acknowledge the economic failures of the current rigged system, aggressively challenge the status quo, and chart a clear path for big, structural change.” Warren is correct that there is no shortage of good ideas (universal childcare, tough anti-trust enforcement, crackdown on corruption, a fair taxation system, etc.). And while each contender will have specific proposals, the eventual nominee will need to convey their determination, as Warren put it, to “build an economy for everyone.”

Democratic candidates should embrace Americans’ ambition to get ahead and not be shy about celebrating the benefits of a well-regulated market economy. However, they must commit to ending the kind of predatory, crony capitalism that has made it harder and harder for average people to attain the American dream.

In short, “Democrats need to earn trust — long-term, durable trust — across the electorate,” as Warren put it. Trust, in this case, means demonstrating that they “actually understand what’s broken and … have the courage to fix it — even when that means taking on the wealthy and well-connected.”

Bottom Line: Candidates vying for the Democratic presidential nomination will face a Herculean task but also an enviable opportunity. To be ready, they need to prepare now and start accumulating a brain trust to help them think through not only an election but a path to a renaissance of democracy.

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-Jennifer Rubin, The Contrarian is reader-supported. To receive new posts, enable our work, help with litigation efforts, and keep the opposition movement motivated and engaged into 2026, please join the fight as a free or paid subscriber.

 (Illustration Credit: Vitalii Abakumov) 

"A fundamental safeguard against abuse of power"

 

Trump’s bellicose posture toward Greenland is absolutely unacceptable. Are we to live in a world where a powerful nation can declare, “It is in our national interest to take your resources, and because we have the power to do so, we are entitled to take them”? That logic is nothing more than a return to crude imperialism, dressed up in the language of national security. It undermines international law, disregards the sovereignty of smaller nations, and normalizes coercion as a legitimate tool of statecraft. If adopted broadly, this worldview would erode the foundations of global stability and replace diplomacy with raw force.

When a president openly advances such reckless and destabilizing ideas, it is reasonable and necessary to consider the constitutional mechanisms designed to protect the country from dangerous leadership. In theory, the United States is not without safeguards. The Twenty-Fifth Amendment allows the vice president and a majority of the cabinet to declare a president unfit to serve, temporarily transferring power to prevent further harm.

This mechanism exists precisely to address situations in which a president’s judgment, temperament, or conduct poses a serious threat. In practice, however, it is clear that Trump’s cabinet is the last body we can rely on to restrain him. Its members have consistently demonstrated personal loyalty, political calculation, or fear of reprisal rather than an independent commitment to constitutional duty. Expecting this group to invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment is therefore unrealistic. That reality leaves impeachment and removal from office as the only viable constitutional remedy.

Impeachment is not a partisan weapon; it is a fundamental safeguard against abuse of power. When a president signals contempt for international norms, threatens the sovereignty of other nations, and treats power as its own justification, Congress has an obligation to act. Removal from office is not about punishing a personality or settling political scores; it is about reaffirming that no president is above the law and that the United States does not endorse governance by intimidation or force. Failing to act in such circumstances risks normalizing dangerous behavior and weakening the very democratic institutions meant to prevent it.

-Martin Tracy