What Democrats Need to Do

 

Autocracies, by their nature, flood the zone with so many outrages, abuses, and affronts to democratic norms that they can destabilize and discombobulate the opposition. As we struggle to identify new offenses and scrutinize which matters are relevant and which are not, democracy defenders occasionally must step back to see how they are advancing the larger cause of democracy.

Unfortunately, this has sometimes encouraged unnecessary and premature speculation about the 2028 race. It is tempting to think that if Democrats only clear the field for the “right” candidate, democracy could be secured. That is foolishness on stilts. We have no way of predicting who will emerge and be the best nominee. Moreover, the damage Donald Trump has wrought demands much more than a winning 2028 ticket.

While the 2028 presidential field will sort itself out in time, Democrats have critical work in the interim, namely building consensus for a positive pro-democracy agenda that goes beyond reversing Trump’s legacy.

Democrats (unlike 2020) must, as a party, be foursquare behind a reform agenda that ensures no future president can duplicate Trump’s tyrannical maneuvers. Democrats can vigorously debate everything from Supreme Court expansion to financial reform for the executive branch, all to forge an identity as the reform party that will permanently drain the swamp. But they also need an organizing message, a unifying identity to place them on the side of democracy and prosperity for all and against an autocratic oligarchy.

A “Democracy Revival 2028” (better than “The Contract with America”), first and foremost, could set down markers that candidates can rally around. Policy decisions (e.g., green energy, healthcare, taxes) can be sorted out by the candidates, but surely everyone running under the Democratic banner can coalesce behind certain rock principles on due process, civil rights, and ending executive power grabs.

For example, if it was not clear before, Democrats have been reminded that democracy cannot tolerate a rogue autocrat with unchecked power to drag us into wars. Democrats, appealing to a broad cross-section of Americans, can champion a more robust War Powers Resolution, specifying that military forces cannot be deployed in an ongoing war without congressional authorization. It is long past time to end the imperial presidency’s assumption of unilateral action to start wars.

In addition, Democracy Revival 2028 could include items such as tough Hatch Act penalties, a mechanism to nix foreign emoluments, expansion of the Supreme Court with term limits, a bar on presidents’ private business dealings, limits on all presidential “emergency” provisions, nonpartisan redistricting, severe penalties for attempting illegal executive impoundment, voting rights restoration, enhanced workers’ rights to organize, legislation to overturn court precedent that has virtually eliminated suits for deprivation of civil rights (“Bivens” suits), statutory protection for abortion rights, and an annually renewed “democracy entitlement” fund for election administration and security. Items as specific as barring the use of masks and non-uniformed ICE agents, strengthening Posse Comitatus, and protecting independent agencies from political intimidation should not be neglected.

Democrats can debate the particulars of these ideas, but no Democrat should quibble with the restoration of the Voting Rights Act or preventing the president from engaging in the sort of corruption we have seen from Trump.

It is essential not to aim too low. Restoration of democracy will be a multiple-election endeavor. Democrats must get cracking if they want to build national consensus even on items that require constitutional amendments (e.g., beef up impeachment by lowering the threshold for Senate removal, add a constitutional right to vote, and undue Citizens United).

Building on resistance among law firms, businesses, and universities to authoritarian bullying, Democrats can champion efforts to protect NGO’s, academic freedom, scientific research, and the press from authoritarian predation, including criminal penalties for use of tax, or regulating power to circumscribe First Amendment rights.

Republicans made the capture of courts a multi-decade endeavor that consistently engaged their base; Democrats must recapture our democracy using a similar guiding principle around which the base can organize over a decade or longer.

To be certain, not all Democrats will agree on the particular solutions (e.g., how broad should Posse Comitatus reform go). However, they can enlist the best constitutional minds and historians while soliciting input from retired judges, lawmakers, governors, and Cabinet members. Every Democrat from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) should be able to support guardrails that will undo Trump’s autocracy and prevent the next one that comes along.

Democracy in the abstract is not a political winner. But the particulars (union rights, abortion rights, restricting deployment of military to the streets) are overwhelmingly popular.

Democracy defenders cannot block all of Trump's destructive schemes. The true test will come at the ballot box under the banner of reform and restoration. Now is the time to set the stage for massive MAGA defeats and to craft a pro-democracy agenda for the future. In forcing those extremist Republicans to defend a tyrannical executive, deprivation of core civil rights, and an imperial, geriatric Supreme Court, Democrats will leave no doubt as to which party embodies the spirit of democracy and commitment to the rule of law.

New York City mayoral primary winner Zohran Mamdani will be an intriguing alternative to behold.

-Jennifer Rubin, The Contrarian is possible because of you! Support our work, join the opposition, and be a part of our community of courageous good troublemakers…all you have to do is subscribe.

 

The Tick Situation Is Getting Worse. Here’s How to Protect Yourself

As temperatures rise, ticks of several kinds are flourishing in ways that threaten people’s health.

Lately, Shannon LaDeau and her colleagues have had unwelcome visitors at their office in New York’s Hudson Valley: ticks, crawling up the building and trying to get through doors. “Which is kind of alarming,” said Dr. LaDeau, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies who studies the arachnids and the pathogens they carry.

As winters get warmer, ticks of several kinds are flourishing. Deer ticks, known for transmitting Lyme disease, are moving farther north. The long-horned tick, which came from overseas, has gained a foothold on the East Coast and begun moving west. Gulf Coast ticks have made it to states like Connecticut and Indiana. The lone star tick, which can make people allergic to red meat, is fanning out from the South and has been found as far as Canada.

And even in places long accustomed to them, ticks are becoming more numerous and active for longer stretches of each year.

Why is this happening, and how can you protect yourself? What changes are researchers seeing? We asked the experts.

Marc Lame, an entomologist and clinical professor emeritus at Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs, put it simply: “There are more and different types of ticks around than there used to be, and I don’t see that stopping anytime soon.”

The spread of individual species can be difficult to track. The long-horned tick, for example, was not identified in the United States until 2017, but a recent study confirmed that it was here as early as 2010.

But there is evidence they are traveling across North America quickly: On its northern front in Canada, the deer tick — also known as the blacklegged tick — is believed to be extending its range more than 20 miles per year, said Catherine Bouchard, a research scientist at the Public Health Agency of Canada.

The movement of the lone star and long-horned ticks particularly worries Laura Goodman, an assistant professor in Cornell’s Department of Public and Ecosystem Health, because it takes so few to establish themselves in a new place. Both can breed in huge numbers — a single long-horned tick can lay 2,000 eggs. Female long-horned ticks can even reproduce alone, essentially cloning themselves through a process called parthenogenesis.

Some ticks are also behaving differently. Dr. Bouchard said that when she began studying deer ticks in southern Quebec around 2007, they stopped looking for someone to bite by October. Now, it is not unusual for her to see them in December.

Is this because of climate change? Yes, in large part.

There are other factors at play, such as deer populations recovering along the East Coast after years of decline. But “there’s a clear scientific consensus that climate change is playing a role,” said Michael Dietze, who leads Boston University’s Ecological Forecasting Lab.

Because temperatures are rising, ticks and the animals they travel on — like deer and mice — are likelier to survive winters, and new territory is becoming hospitable. Climate change also explains why ticks are emerging earlier in the spring and staying active later in the fall: They can be active whenever the temperature is above about 39 degrees Fahrenheit.

What are the health implications?

As deer tick populations grow, cases of Lyme disease, the most common tick-borne illness in the U.S., appear to have risen. Data from the Environmental Protection Agency suggests Lyme cases have been increasing for 30 years. The agency warns that changes in how the disease is defined and reported make it hard to confirm that this reflects a real trend. But while scientists may not have exact numbers, Dr. Dietze said rates had “definitely increased.”

Researchers are seeing indications of increases in other tick-borne diseases, too, including anaplasmosis, babesiosis, ehrlichiosis and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. All are treatable if caught early, but they can sometimes be fatal. Also on the rise is alpha-gal syndrome, an allergy to red meat usually caused by the lone star tick.

Experts worry that, as different tick species feed on the same animals in newly overlapping habitats, they could share diseases.

A single tick may also become more likely to carry multiple pathogens — meaning someone could get Lyme disease and receive treatment without their doctor realizing they also need treatment for, say, babesiosis.

Dr. Goodman had been working with Defense Department funding to develop one test for numerous tick-borne illnesses, but the Trump administration halted her grant.

How can you protect yourself?

Unfortunately, while Lyme disease vaccines and anti-tick treatments are available for dogs, they currently aren’t for humans, so your best bet is to try to prevent bites in the first place.

Keep in mind that ticks don’t only live in the woods. 

While deer ticks tend to favor wooded areas, they and other species also frequent parks and lawns — and some even approach buildings.

Health authorities recommend wearing long pants and long sleeves when you might be exposed and tucking your shirt into your pants and your pants into socks or boots. Repellents containing DEET are effective on skin, and permethrin on clothing.

Once you get indoors, check yourself carefully — and check children and pets as well, said Negar Elmieh, a scientist at Canada’s National Collaborating Center for Environmental Health. 

Ticks may bite anywhere, but they are often drawn to warm, damp areas such as the backs of knees and the groin, underarms, ears and scalp.

If you find a tick, remove it. Companies sell many removal devices, but tweezers work fine. Grasp the tick where it meets the skin and pull steadily, without jerking or twisting. Then disinfect the area and wash your hands.

There are a few safe ways to dispose of a tick. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations include drowning it in alcohol or wrapping it tightly in tape. 

Don’t crush it with your fingers, because pathogens can enter your body through tiny breaks in the skin that you might be unaware of.

Most tick-borne diseases, including Lyme, offer a grace period: You can prevent transmission if you remove the tick within a certain number of hours. But this may not be true for all diseases. 

So, if you develop a fever, rash, body aches, joint pain or unusual fatigue — or other symptoms that concern you — see a doctor.

Maggie Astor covers the intersection of health and politics for The Times.

 

The First Amendment

"Congress [or anyone else] shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Who Is Trump?

He is the son of a potentate and a potentate himself, hardly a public servant. He is the political son of Roy Cohn and biological son of the slum lord, Fred Trump, who Woody Guthrie called "old man Trump." He is the emperor of a real estate empire which he gold plates. He is an unabashed racist according to the Brookings Institute's 2019 research and report. He is a "strong man" who former FBI director James Comey has likened to a "mob boss."

Pope Francis made this indirect but nonetheless pointed criticism of Trump in 2019: "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian."  

Trump is trumping American democracy and everything beatific about the most basic tenets of the American Constitution with bellicose rhetoric that's reminiscent of his historical mentor, Adolf Hitler, whose book, Mein Kampf, he used to keep on his bedside table according to Ivanka Trump.

But he is not just a modern caricature of a tyrant. He is archetypal, a recrudescent reincarnation of every tyrant from history and, therefore, a very sad example of America's present-day failure to recognize him as such in his unabashed, systematic efforts to dismantle human rights, health insurance and policy, social security, and higher education… with king-like hutzpah and libertine glee.

But he is not a present-day political phenomenon, but rather an archetypal resurrection of every dictator from history with a new face that's only a mask of all the others. He's yet another tragic example of just how vulnerable a supposedly enlightened demos can still be to the same despot who has terrorized people before in other historical settings with other names.

But now we live in a time that's far more fragile and dangerous than any other time in history, given the multitude of nuclear trip wires around the world; given the surfeit of over-population, environmental crisis, unprecedented global poverty, and "rogue" nations' reliance on terror. Are we entering an "eschatological" ager?

Trump does bear similar features to "the first beast" from Revelations, which is a haunting enduring image. But why has America's democracy fallen victim to this "beast"? Why has democracy failed? This is the question that the Congress needs to take seriously and immediately before it's trammeled any further by American democracy's most dangerous, imposer to date.

-Chard DeNiord

 

ABC News' Senior National Correspondent

 

ABC News’ Senior National Correspondent Terry Moran was reportedly terminated following a suspension for his online comments regarding White House leadership. His now-deleted post labeled White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and President Donald Trump as “world-class haters.” ABC suffered significant backlash from the White House over the incident, fueling a debate over free speech, media bias, and accountability in reporting.

The incident followed a $16 million defamation settlement in December 2024 between ABC News and Trump over comments made by anchor George Stephanopoulos. The timing suggests heightened sensitivity to political backlash. According to court documents, Trump alleged that Stephanopoulos falsely claimed on This Week in March 2024 that Trump was “found liable for rape” in the E. Jean Carroll case. The jury found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation.

Prior to his termination from ABC, Moran said, “Trump is a world-class hater. But his hatred only a means to an end, and that end is his own glorification. That’s his spiritual nourishment.”

An ABC News spokesperson confirmed that Moran’s suspension is pending evaluation. The spokesperson said, “ABC News stands for objectivity and impartiality in its news coverage and does not condone subjective personal attacks on others. The post does not reflect the views of ABC News and violated our standards.”

Moran particularly criticized Miller’s role in shaping Trump’s policies. He claimed Miller is “one of the people who conceptualizes the impulses of the Trumpist movement and translates them into policy.” He added, “It’s not brains. It’s bile.”

Miller later responded to Moran’s remarks, asserting that they expose issues within mainstream media. Miller noted that journalists often adopt radical views while pretending to be neutral. Miller said, “For decades, the privileged anchors and reporters narrating and gatekeeping our society have been radicals adopting a journalist’s pose.” He added, “Terry pulled off his mask.”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt supported Miller’s perspective, urging viewers to reconsider ABC’s credibility.

Laura Mitchell covers U.S. politics & news for content partner Modern Newsstand LLC.

 

Congressional leaders react to Trump ordering strike attack on Iran

 

Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the U.S. Constitution grants Congress the power to declare war [and NOT the president]!

Congressional leaders expressed surprise Saturday night about President Donald Trump's announcement he had ordered a U.S. attacked on three Iranian nuclear sites, with some Republicans praising the move and some Democrats questioning the president's authority.

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, an Israel hawk, said in an X post moments after Trump announced the attack that it was "the right call." "The regime deserves it. Well done, President @realDonaldTrump," he said. "To my fellow citizens: We have the best Air Force in the world. It makes me so proud."

But the top Democrat in the House, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, said Trump had "misled the country." "Donald Trump promised to bring peace to the Middle East. He has failed to deliver on that promise. The risk of war has now dramatically increased, and I pray for the safety of our troops in the region who have been put in harm's way," he said in a statement.

"President Trump misled the country about his intentions, failed to seek congressional authorization for the use of military force and risks American entanglement in a potentially disastrous war in the Middle East," he continued.

"First, the Trump administration bears the heavy burden of explaining to the American people why this military action was undertaken. Second, Congress must be fully and immediately briefed in a classified setting. Third, Donald Trump shoulders complete and total responsibility for any adverse consequences that flow from his unilateral military action," he added.

Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont was on stage at one of his "Fight Oligarchy" events in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when he read a portion of President Trump's post about the strikes to an audience that immediately began booing. 

"Not only is this news this that I've heard this second alarming -- all of you have just heard. But it is so grossly unconstitutional. All of you know that the only entity that can take this country to war is the U.S. Congress. the president does not have the right," he added.

Rep. Rick Crawford, an Arizona Republican, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement that he was in touch with the president before the attack and still monitoring the situation. "As I have said multiple times recently, I regret that Iran has brought the world to this point. That said, I am thankful President Trump understood that the red line -- articulated by Presidents of both parties for decades -- was real," he said.

At least one Republican in the House, however, questioned the president's action without congressional authorization. "This is not constitutional," GOP Rep. Tom Massie of Kentucky, posted. Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, posted on X, "According to the Constitution we are both sworn to defend, my attention to this matter comes BEFORE bombs fall. Full stop."

"We need to immediately return to DC and vote on @RepThomasMassie and my War Powers Resolution to prevent America from being dragged into another endless Middle East war," Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said in an X post... 

House Speaker Mike Johnson was briefed ahead of the U.S. strikes on Iran's nuclear sites, according to a source familiar with the matter. Johnson was supposed to be in Israel Sunday to address the Knesset, but the trip was scrapped because of the ongoing conflict. The speaker also put out a statement endorsing the strikes, calling it a "decisive" action that prevents terrorism.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune was also briefed ahead of the U.S. strikes on Iran, according to two sources familiar with the conversation. GOP Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming posted, "President @realDonaldTrump's decision to strike Iran's nuclear program is the right one. The greatest threat to the safety of the United States and the world is Iran with a nuclear weapon. God Bless our troops 🇺🇸"

Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn posted, "President Trump made the courageous and correct decision to eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat. God Bless the USA. Thank you to our extraordinary military and our indomitable @POTUS This is what leadership on the world stage looks like."

Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman said on X, "As I've long maintained, this was the correct move by @POTUS. Iran is the world's leading sponsor of terrorism and cannot have nuclear capabilities. I'm grateful for and salute the finest military in the world. 🇺🇸"

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York posted that President Trump's strike on Iran constitutes "ground for impeachment," saying he was "in grave violation of the Constitution" without first receiving congressional authorization. 

"The President's disastrous decision to bomb Iran without authorization is a grave violation of the Constitution and Congressional War Powers. He has impulsively risked launching a war that may ensnare us for generations. It is absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment," she posted.

-ABC News

US bombs nuclear sites in Iran

 

• US President Donald Trump says the US has bombed Fordo and other nuclear sites in Iran.
• Trump called the strikes "very successful", adding that a "full payload" of bombs was dropped on Fordo, Iran's main enrichment site.
• Iranian state media says part of the Fordo site was "attacked by enemy strikes."
• The strike is indicative of the way Trump carries out his foreign policy, writes our correspondent.
• It was reported earlier that Washington was sending B-2 stealth bombers to the US island of Guam - the only aircraft capable of carrying the bombs needed to destroy Fordo.
• Earlier, Iran's foreign minister said, US involvement in the Israel-Iran conflict would be "very very dangerous" while in Istanbul to meet the Turkish president.

·       Mark Lowen Reporting from Tel Aviv.

·       The question following the US strikes on Iran is now what the reaction from Tehran will be.

·       This is a seismic moment in the war and the relationship between Iran and Israel.

·       It carries potentially huge implications for American security. There are around 40,000 American troops stationed in this region. They will be on extremely high alert.

·       Yesterday, the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen threatened that they would resume attacks on American ships in the Red Sea if the US got militarily involved in Iran.

·       There will be now a huge fear of Iranian retaliation on American and military assets in the region, and of course of how Iran will retaliate towards Israel.

-BBC

Clusterf&$K

 

— Will we regret Trump being able to use a nuclear weapon? America confronts two very weird aspects to Trump’s involvement in Netanyahu’s “stay out of jail” attack on Iran. The first is that Russia — oligarchs friendly with Putin, specifically — built the Bushehr nuclear power reactor in Iran and currently has a contract to build eight more, bringing billions in revenue to Russia, Putin, and his buddy. 

Those billions could well go up in smoke with regime change in Iran, so it’s entirely possible that Trump’s sudden “two weeks pause” on deciding to bomb Iran is simply a favor to his owner and handler, Vlad.

After all, they’ve had two phone conversations in just the past few days, according to Trump, following Putin sending him a beautiful large portrait of Trump holding up his fist after being shot at and having his ear splattered with the blood of the man standing beside him who got hit with the bullet.

The second weird take is that an “anonymous” White House official is being quoted over on Fox “News” saying that Trump has not taken dropping a nuke on Iran off the table. Eli Clifton, one of the senior advisers over at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, tweeted, “The US is considering using a nuclear weapon for the first time since Hiroshima and Nagasaki because our client state murdered our Iranian negotiating partner and started a war?”

Is this all a distraction from the Big Brutal Bill like Congressman Mark Pocan asserted on my show this Wednesday? Or a distraction from ICE abuses? Or just more of the bizarre reality show that Trump’s running because that’s the only thing he’s ever successfully done in his life? Stay tuned…

— A three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals backed Trump’s National Guard deployment to LA: what will this mean for other Blue cities Trump is trying to provoke to riot? The three judges — two of them Trump appointees — defied common sense and the reality we could all see live on TV and ruled that LA did not, in fact, have the ability to control the disturbances outside the Federal Building. Therefore, they argued, Trump could deploy the California National Guard in defiance of the governor, mayor, chief of police, and sheriff all asserting they had everything under control.

Trump and his fascist minions are hell-bent-for-leather to create a large enough disturbance that they can invoke emergency powers to nationalize city government and end the power of elected officials to run the city. 

If you think that sounds too weird or even impossible, remember that that’s almost exactly what Republican Michigan Governor Rick Snyder did (without the riot) to Detroit, Flint, Benton Harbor, Allen Park, Pontiac, Highland Park and other cities in that state, replacing elected mayors and city councils with corporate-friendly “emergency managers” who then turned the resources of those cities to the benefit of Snyder’s political donors (who then managed to poison the children of Flint). 

There’s precedent here and — particularly since Trump has now promised to send troops into other Blue cities — we ignore it at our own peril.

— Racist Alert! Did Trump ever complain before about too many holidays? Why just on Juneteenth? To celebrate Juneteenth, Trump had the bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. removed from the Oval Office and replaced it with a bust of a British white guy (Churchill). Just a few days earlier, U.S. District Judge William Young (a Reagan appointee) noted Trump’s defunding NIH research related to racial and gender minorities, saying: “I’ve never seen a record where racial discrimination was so palpable. I’ve sat on this bench now for 40 years. I’ve never seen government racial discrimination like this.”

For the past half-century or more, the White House has always issued a statement celebrating every federal holiday; this Juneteenth, though, the White House was silent. Instead, Trump took onto his Nazi-infested social media site to complain that there are, “Too many non-working holidays in America. It is costing our Country $BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to keep all of these businesses closed.” Right. It’s only “too many” holidays when we celebrate the end of chattel slavery in America. I told you he wants to reinvent the Confederacy…

— Look out! Retirees being forced into privatized, for-profit, rip-off Medicare “Advantage” plans. New York’s top court just ruled that the sordid deal NYC’s corrupt Mayor Adams worked out with a Medicare “Advantage” provider to force that city’s ~250,000 retirees off real Medicare and into the insanely profitable “Advantage” scam plans was completely legal. 

The so-called “Advantage” plans are generating hundreds of billions in profits for insurance companies — for many, it’s their primary profit center now — and some of that money is being recycled into “lobbying” for schemes like this one, leaving workers screwed, particularly when they get seriously ill and the “Advantage” providers begin denying payments for care.

Republicans won’t do a thing about these scams because they’re also on the take from the insurance industry (and George W. Bush invented them), but if Democrats ever get back in control of the federal government, they must make real Medicare reform and an end to the “Advantage” scam a top priority.

— Astonishing: Give Trump a million dollars and you get to become an Army officer, complete with uniform and everybody must salute you! You, too, can play warrior if you’re a large enough Trump donor! Hegseth’s Army just rolled out a new program called “Detachment 201: The Army’s Executive Innovation Corps” that says its goal is to “fuse cutting-edge tech expertise with military innovation.” That bullshit-speak for “we’re going to give tech billionaire Trump donors an officer’s commission and a uniform.” 

So far four tech moguls have jumped at the opportunity to strut around in uniform with Lieutenant Colonel’s silver oak leaves on their shoulders, forcing enlisted and inferior officers to snap to attention and salute them, and every one of their companies have shoveled at least a million into one of Trump’s slush funds. This is Kristi Noem-level corruption and cosplaying, funded with your tax dollars.

— Geeky Science. Will Children born now live in a world where the US can only produce half as much of its key food crops? Global warming takes a big bite out of crop yields, in part because of heat and in part because of weather extremes including droughts and flooding. A new eight-year-long study of the issue by the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability looking at six crops — maize/corn, soybeans, rice, wheat, cassava and sorghum — in more than 12,000 regions across 54 countries found that as warming continues it’ll devastate our ability to grow all of them except rice.

The United States, they predict, could see as much as a 50% drop in production. This is particularly dangerous since these six crops represent about two-thirds of all the calories consumed by humans planet-wide. The consequences of fossil fuel executives and their paid-off Republican shills lying to us about climate change for a half-century are starting to come home to roost in a serious and deadly way.

— Bob Kennedy and his anti-vaccine freaks were just caught lying to Congress again about the COVID-19 vaccine, just as a new variant touting a “razor-blade sore throat” arrives. NewsGuard Reality Check has again busted Kennedy and his anti-vax cultists for lying about scientific research. This time, they claimed that getting the Covid vaccine increases chances of miscarriage and placental blood clots, citing two peer-reviewed published studies.

News Guard reached out to the authors of those studies, and they called out Kennedy’s people’s lies, saying they’d never said any such things and that the actual science proves that getting Covid vaccines actually helps prevent Covid-caused miscarriages and blood clots. Republicans and the truth continue to operate in different universes.

-Thom Hartmann

"Autocratic breakthrough is characterized by 14 steps that typically happen in three stages"

 

The Trump administration has arrested a mayor, a judge, a member of Congress, and beaten a United States Senator to the ground. They’ve deployed the military, over the objections of the governor and mayor, into a major American city. We just experienced a political assassination.

The nation’s chief law-enforcement officer, DHS Secretary Noem, asserted: “We are staying here to liberate the city [of Los Angeles] from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor has placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city.”

The president demanded a military parade for his birthday and is threatening to revoke broadcast licenses from television networks. The Trump regime is ignoring court orders, including one from the Supreme Court, and Trump’s press secretary says: "The courts should have no role here. There is a troubling and dangerous trend of unelected judges inserting themselves into the presidential decision-making process."

What does all this mean?

“Autocratic breakthrough” is a phrase you’ll be hearing more and more about in coming months. It refers to the moment in time when a wannabe dictator and the oligarchy that supports him push a democratic country toward authoritarianism so far that its political systems “breakthrough” into full-blown autocracy/dictatorship... It’s a deeply dangerous sign.

Autocratic breakthrough is characterized by 14 steps that typically happen in three stages.

It can be stopped at the first and second stage, although it gets progressively more difficult; when the third stage is reached, reversing autocratic breakthrough requires something akin to a revolution; it typically involves the death or overthrow of the autocrat or a full-blown civil war.

That’s exactly what happened here in the US the last time this happened... 

The first stage of autocratic breakthrough, in my analysis, is referred to as “democratic erosion” or “soft authoritarianism,” and includes:

1. Demonization of political opponents, using dehumanizing language like “traitors,” “enemies of the people,” and “scum,” and the delegitimization of dissent and protest as “anti-national” or “terrorist.”

2. Attacks on the press, with claims that the media is “fake news” or “the enemy” and the appearance of new press outlets, typically owned by oligarchs who believe they will profit from the end of democracy, who flood the public sphere with propaganda and disinformation. Historically mainstream media outlets are sued for libel or defamation when reporting on the growing autocracy, often putting them out of business or allowing oligarchs to buy them, and those that aren’t killed by lawsuits are attacked by regulators and can lose their licenses to broadcast over the public airwaves.

3. Politicization of law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Police and intelligence agencies are captured by the autocrat and his agents and become tools of the ruling party. They then, in turn, target critics, protesters, and civil society groups with surveillance or raids.

4. Elevation of the executive above co-equal branches of government. Proclamations and executive orders are used to rule by decree, bypassing legislative authority. Typically, “emergencies” are declared to amplify executive power while avoiding congressional or parliamentary constraints.

5. Election manipulation. The ruling party makes it progressively more and more difficult for members of opposition parties to vote, legislative districts are rigged or gerrymandered to guarantee power is retained regardless of the will of the people, and elections that go against the ruling party are discredited or even nullified. Nonpartisan election officials are replaced by loyalist agents of the regime and election systems are seized so outcomes can be altered without discovery.

I refer to the Second stage of autocratic breakthrough as “Approaching Democratic Breakdown,” and it is signaled by signs that normal institutional guardrails are failing. It includes:

6. Judicial capture characterized first by the regime packing the courts with lawyers and judges who put their loyalty to the leader over their oath to the nation and its laws. Judges critical of the regime are first criticized and harassed and those who can’t be intimidated are ultimately purged.

7. Criminalization of the opposition begins by disqualifying or even prosecuting rival politicians on dubious charges, and the use of legal mechanism like foreign agent laws to shut down non-governmental organizations (NGOs and nonprofits) and to weaken or discredit opposition political parties.

8. Militarization of domestic law enforcement involves converting police agencies into groups that look and function more like occupying armies, a process that’s typically followed by the actual federal army inserting itself into policing functions. At this stage, the military is openly politicized with rallies and speeches demonizing the political opposition; soon thereafter previously independent paramilitary groups sympathetic to the regime are drawn in with official or semi-official approval and begin terror campaigns against “dissidents.”

9. Fusion of party and state is a critical step in which open loyalty and fealty to the regime or party becomes necessary for state employment, and government media becomes indistinguishable from party propaganda.

The final stage is full autocratic breakthrough; at this point there’s no going back without a crisis. Elections may still occur, but they are no longer meaningfully democratic. By this time there’s a general consensus that the autocrats have taken over and the consequences of resistance will be draconian. It’s characterized by:

10. Abolition or nullification of meaningful elections, postponing elections indefinitely, or only allowing pre-approved candidates to run for office. Rigged elections are characterized by intimidation, mass disinformation, and/or falsified counts.

11. Loss of civil liberties including freedom of assembly, speech, and movement, all of which are either suspended or heavily restricted (typically with an “emergency” justification). Protesters are jailed, beaten, and disappeared.

12. Constitutional overhaul or emergency rule signal the end of a truly constitutional order as new constitutions are written, and laws are passed to entrench autocratic power. Term limits are removed, and elections become a mere formality as their outcomes are predetermined.

13. Exile, imprisonment, or assassination of opposition begins when key dissenters are forced into hiding or silenced permanently. At this point, political violence has become normalized, including stochastic terrorism by independent agents sympathetic to the regime.

14. Strongman cult of personality replaces institutional legitimacy as the Dear Leader is elevated as the embodiment of the nation or will of the people. Loyalty to that person becomes necessary and paramount; dissent is considered treason.

Autocratic breakthrough doesn’t happen overnight. It often looks legal, feels temporary, and is always justified as necessary to “restore order” or “protect the nation.” That’s what makes it so dangerous and so hard to reverse.

All 14 stages of autocratic breakthrough happened once before here in America, although most citizens are unaware of it because the history of that era has been so successfully sanitized and rewritten by the “Lost Cause” mythos...

-Thom Hartmann

The Hidden History of American Oligarchy 

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A sinister bond scheme could price you out of justice — forever

Right now, the only thing that’s preventing Trump from going full dictator is the federal court system and our ability to challenge his unlawful, unconstitutional behavior in it. Republicans in the Senate think they have a fix for that, though. It’s a good-news, bad-news scenario, although the bad is far worse than anything most of us could have imagined.

The good news is that Republicans in the Senate have removed the provision in their Kill Medicaid To Pay For Tax Cuts For Billionaires (“Big Beautiful Bill”) legislation that would have prevented courts from being able to hold Trump’s people from being held in contempt of court when they refuse to follow court orders.

The bad news is that they’ve replaced it with a provision in Section 70302 of the bill that will make it all but impossible for anybody — other than billionaires and giant corporations — to sue the Trump administration for dictatorial behavior (or anything else) in federal court.

This may have something to do with the fact that over 300 lawsuits have been filed against Trump and his goons, and federal courts have blocked Trump in at least 187 of them, as of this week. Trump has outright won only 7.1 percent of the cases where he or his administration have been sued.

The system Republican senators have inserted to keep you and me — and nonprofit public interest groups and Blue state governors — from suing Trump is pretty straightforward; instead of just filing the lawsuit and paying the typically small fees associated with those filings, you’ll now have to post a bond that could run into the millions or even billions of dollars before your filing can be accepted by the court.

Quoting Alicia Bannon, judiciary program director at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, The San Francisco Chronicle noted: “If this language becomes law, Bannon said, ‘it will be financially impossible for ordinary Americans to go to court to protect their rights,’ like trying to make sure they receive Social Security payments or are protected against unlawful deportation. Bonds for those orders could cost many millions of dollars, she said.”

Republican Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley, was truly excited by the prospect of everybody — except billionaires and giant corporations — being blocked from the federal courthouse when Trump’s people screw them. He crowed: “Finally, the Senate Judiciary Committee is advancing solutions in the One Big Beautiful Bill to restore the constitutional role of the federal judiciary.”

UC Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, a regular guest on my radio program and the author of Constitutional Law: Principles and Polices (among other great books), told the Chronicle the legislation, if it becomes law, would prevent people whose rights have been violated by the Trump administration from getting help from the courts “at a time when the President is violating the Constitution as never before seen in American history.”

The bond amounts that must be posted are calculated as the expected cost to the federal government “in an amount proper to pay the costs and damages sustained by the Federal Government.”

Arizona Supreme Court Justice Clint Bolick notes at his UnPopulist newsletter that such a bond requirement will bring most filings before federal courts to a screeching halt: “That is especially true in cases involving sweeping policies where the government could claim ‘costs’ in the billions. Only state governments could conceivably post bonds in that amount, though they would also balk at the potential hit to their budgets.”

And the court you’re filing the request for relief with can’t even consider your economic circumstances or the cost to you of the damage inflicted by the Trump administration depriving you of your rights. The bill explicitly says: “No court may consider any factor other than the value of the costs and damages sustained.”

Are you a citizen who’s been arrested and detained illegally by ICE and held in detention for months where you were starved and beaten up? ICE could claim it’ll costs them ten or fifty million dollars to litigate and resolve your case, so that’s what you’ll have to put up before you can ask the court for relief or damages.

Have you been denied reentry to the United States? Assaulted, robbed, or raped by an ICE, FBI, or other federal officer? Had your Social Security or Medicare benefits cut off as punishment for your political activities? Arrested and held in a hellhole Louisiana private prison for years for carrying a sign protesting Trump’s fascist behavior?

Tough luck, as the old saying goes. Bolick adds: “This [provision of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill] means that many parties would have no choice but accept violations of their rights rather than seek legal redress, severely undermining the Constitution.”

Trump isn’t the only authoritarian in Washington, DC, as this provision proves. Republicans in the Senate are more than happy to block average citizens, their attorneys, public interest groups, and even states from the federal courthouse doors, leaving us all at the mercy of Trump and his goons.

Even the Koch-funded Libertarian Reason Magazine was horrified, writing: “[I]f this provision passes, the government could impose even blatantly illegal and unconstitutional policies for long periods of time, unless and until litigation reaches a final conclusion. That could inflict grave harm on the victims of illegality. Consider media subject to illegal censorship during a crucial news cycle, illegally deported immigrants, people imprisoned without due process, and more.”

In other words, America is on the verge of dictatorship and this will push us over the edge in a way that may well be irreversible!

Even conservatives should be concerned, as it’s unlikely the GOP will control the federal government forever and a future Democratic administration could abuse this provision just as easily as the Trump regime is no-doubt eager to do.

Call your Republican senators and House member to let them know your thoughts on this matter. The number for the House and Senate switchboard is 202-224-3121.

And be sure to remember this enthusiastic GOP betrayal of basic American values of fairness, rights, and the rule of law — and tell everybody you know about it — when election time comes around.

-Thom Hartmann

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"Why America must confront the corrosive force that Trump is trying to use to tear us apart..."

 

I spoke with you about the importance of our government embracing free speech and not trying to stifle it or intimidate (or deport) people for unpopular political writings. Today, let’s examine the flip side of that argument: hate speech, the power and danger of hate itself, and how we defeat it as Trump tries to use it to manipulate us.

Hate is poison; it never makes anything better. It’s corrosive like an acid, eats away at our empathy and reason, and eventually destroys our very humanity. When nations are consumed by hate — like Germany was in the 1930s, or the American South was during Jim Crow — the result is invariably the destruction of civil society and its replacement with political, economic, and legal systems based in and dependent upon violence.

Hate killed a state legislator in Minneapolis this past weekend, nearly killed Paul Pelosi with a hammer, and fuels the same violent rage that burned through Charlottesville, stormed the Capitol on January 6th, and has been stalking school board meetings and statehouses across America for the past two decades.

Hate brought Senator Alex Padilla to his knees; does anybody believe that if he’d been white, he’d have been dragged out like that and beat to the ground? It inspired Senator Mike Lee and Elon Musk to essentially congratulate a would-be mass murderer. It just arrested the Comptroller of New York City for trying to defend a man seeking asylum in the United States.

Hate blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, took down the twin towers on 9/11, and keeps loading the chambers of mass shooters while whispering lies about enemies and conspiracies until blood spills in schools, synagogues, churches, and supermarkets.

So, why does Trump — and why do his followers, including those elected to federal and state office, and his cabinet members — so vigorously embrace hate?

Trump is the first president in American history to explicitly use hate as a campaign tool and then embrace it as the central focus of his rule. He launched his first campaign by calling Mexicans “rapists,” proposed a Muslim ban, called for violence at his rallies, and used dehumanizing language to describe immigrants, women, and political opponents. For Memorial Day, he posted a social media message calling the half of Americans who voted against him “scum.”

This wasn’t political strategy in the traditional sense — it was a revival of something far more dangerous: the politics of hate as a tool for seizing and maintaining power.

It works, in part, because hate can be intoxicating. It reduces complex issues to simple binaries grounded in scapegoating the hated. Economic anxiety becomes the fault of immigrants. Cultural change becomes a conspiracy by elites. Personal failures become the result of a rigged system designed to benefit “them” at the expense of “us.”

And Trump’s use of hate is unprecedented in American presidential politics. Previous presidents, even those who harbored prejudices or implemented discriminatory policies, worked to maintain a veneer of dignity and unity in their public messaging.

They understood that the presidency — the ultimate parental figure and role model for the nation, its citizens, and its children — demanded a certain moral authority, even when their actions fell short of their rhetoric.

Trump shattered that norm, showing other Republicans that explicit appeals to grievance and animosity — and the amplification of them by rightwing hate-based media — mobilized his base more effectively than traditional appeals to shared values or common purpose.

Why, after all, bother to fix things and make the country run better when you can hold power and massively enrich yourself by simply and constantly churning the rancid pool of hate that’s always deep in the underbelly of any nation?

This has worked for Trump because hate is intoxicating; it provides a rush of righteous anger that feels empowering to those who feel powerless. It creates a sense of belonging among those who’ve been marginalized by 44 years of Reaganism gutting the middle class.

Most dangerously, it absolves the haters of personal responsibility by moving the blame for society’s usually complex problems onto designated enemies like immigrants, trans people, and racial or religious minorities.

Authoritarian leaders throughout history have used hate as a unifying force; indeed, it’s the key to authoritarians seizing power in the first place. When a population is afraid, divided, or economically insecure, hate becomes a shortcut to loyalty.

“It’s not your fault you’re struggling,” the demagogue whispers. “It’s their fault — the Jews, the immigrants, the Blacks, the Muslims, the queer people, the intellectuals, the journalists, the protestors.”

Hate simplifies the world into “us” and “them,” and in doing so it becomes a weapon of distraction that keeps working people too angry at each other to realize they’re being ripped off and exploited by the very people stoking the flames.

That’s exactly what’s happening in America today!

While Trump and the GOP rage about immigrants, trans kids, and university protests, they’re shoveling trillions in tax cuts to billionaires, gutting environmental protections, slashing Social Security and healthcare funding, and selling off public lands to oil and mining companies.

This reinvented GOP — this party of hate — wants you looking at your neighbor with suspicion, so you don’t notice the donor class that’s buying your government out from under you. Hate stood in a press conference last week and declared its mission was to “liberate” Los Angeles from its mayor and governor.

But there’s a deeper, psychological layer to this too. Hate feels powerful. It produces adrenaline, a rush of certainty, a sense of purpose. It gives people who feel small and angry a story where they’re not just victims; instead, they’re righteous warriors.

In a society where inequality has exploded because we still haven’t overturned Reagan’s neoliberalism and raised taxes on rich people, hate offers the illusion of control. And Trump — with his narcissism, his need for revenge, and his boundless craving for applause — knows how to serve that illusion with a smile and a sneer. He doesn’t just deploy hate cynically. He needs it. It’s his fuel. It fills his rallies. It lights up his social media posts. It drives his movement. It’s intrinsic to his personality and has driven him throughout his life.

Tragically for the rest of us, the consequences are very real.

Black churches are being burned again. Jewish people are being murdered in synagogues. Asian American elders are being assaulted in the streets. Hispanic families are being torn apart. Queer teens are dying by suicide. Public servants — from school board members to election workers — are being harassed, threatened, and driven from their posts.

We’ve been here before. The Ku Klux Klan used Christianity and nationalism to justify lynching. Hitler used “traditional values” and economic anxiety to justify genocide. Rwanda’s broadcasters spent months using radio to call their political enemies' “cockroaches” before the slaughter began. The pattern is always the same: dehumanize, divide, and destroy.

And it can happen here again — if we let it.

Already we see Republican governors like Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott rewriting textbooks to whitewash slavery and justify bigotry. We see state legislators introducing laws that would imprison librarians, ban books, silence teachers, erase trans people, and outlaw protest. We see a Supreme Court that’s blessed voter suppression and gutted civil rights law. We see vigilantes armed with AR-15s patrolling polling places and border towns.

And we see a growing movement, led by Trump, that is explicitly preparing for violence. His allies talk about using the military against American citizens. They’re calling for mass deportations, camps, loyalty tests, and the criminalization of dissent.

This isn’t rhetoric. It’s a roadmap.

But hate is also fragile. Its political utility contains the seeds of its own destruction. Societies built on hatred eventually consume themselves: As we’re all experiencing right now, the energy required to maintain constant vigilance against enemies exhausts populations.

The paranoia that fuels hate movements creates internal fractures as former allies become new targets, something we’ve seen repeatedly among Trump’s lieutenants. No society based in hate can last long; just ask the ghosts of the Confederacy.

History provides numerous examples of this pattern. The French Revolution devoured its own children as revolutionary fervor turned to internecine purges. McCarthyism eventually collapsed under the weight of its own excesses. The Cultural Revolution in China destroyed countless lives before the leadership recognized its destructive trajectory. In each case, societies paid tremendous costs before finding ways to step back from the brink.

The antidote to hate isn’t silence or appeasement. It’s not cowardice or cynicism. It’s courage, as we saw this past weekend during the No Kings Day protests!

It’s the courage to speak out, even when your voice shakes. It’s the courage to stand with your neighbors, especially the most vulnerable. It’s the courage to vote, to organize, to protest, and to tell the truth about the haters, even when the truth is unpopular and the haters threaten you.

America is not a perfect country. But we are a country with a long tradition of fighting back against hate, from the abolitionists to the Freedom Riders, from labor organizers to marriage equality activists. Every inch of progress this nation has seen over the past 250 years has come from people refusing to let hatred have the last word.

Now it’s our turn to confront and defeat hate. Our opportunity to remake America with compassion and the embrace of our fellow human beings, regardless of their race, religion, gender identity, or politics. It’s our obligation in this new century that’s been so badly despoiled by Trump’s pathetic attempts to turn us against each other.

Trump is betting that Americans are too numb, too tired, or too divided to stand up to the hate machine he’s building. He’s betting that we’ll be distracted by his and Fox’s manufactured outrage while he consolidates power behind the scenes.

But we can prove him wrong. We can show up — in the streets, at the ballot box, in our neighborhoods and online communities — and remind each other that decency still matters, that democracy still matters, that love, and solidarity are stronger than hate and fear.

Our Founders remind us that this great country belongs to the people. All of us. United not by race or religion or ideology, but by a shared commitment to democracy, liberty, and justice for everyone. Let’s make that commitment real. Let’s reject hate. Let’s choose courage. And let’s fight like hell for the America we still believe is possible.

-Thom Hartmann

The Hartmann Report is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my daily work to wake Americans up to the dangers of following Trump’s hateful politics, please consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

 

The World "No Longer Sees the U.S. as Trustworthy"

 

The world still sees America as powerful. Increasingly, it no longer sees us as trustworthy.

According to a Pew Research Center survey across 24 countries released this month, majorities in most nations hold little or no confidence in the United States to handle major global issues—from climate change to the Russia-Ukraine war. Confidence in American leadership has dropped sharply in long-standing partner nations, including Canada, Mexico, Sweden, and Poland. 

Favorable views of the United States overall have fallen in 15 of the 24 countries. And when asked to describe Donald Trump, the president now representing the United States to the world, the most common words were “arrogant” and “dangerous.”

That perception is no longer shaped by foreign policy only. It now also includes how the United States handles dissent at home. The incident on this month when Sen. Alex Padilla of California was forcibly removed by federal agents from a Homeland Security press conference in Los Angeles after attempting to question Secretary Kristi Noem about immigration enforcement will be read abroad as a sign that America’s constitutional reflexes are fraying and that disagreement itself is now treated as criminal.

There is growing international recognition that the United States has entered a new phase of governance: one in which accountability is no longer expected and admission of error is treated not as honesty but as weakness. That shift did not begin with Trump. But he proved how quickly the habit of deflection could be turned into doctrine. What had once been a political instinct—to delay, to soften, to redirect—has now hardened into a governing principle: Never admit fault.

The impulse to deflect has been weaponized. Dissent is recast as insurgency. Protest is met with military deployment. What once required reflection now demands force. Trump didn’t invent that instinct, but, under his leadership, it has acquired the full weight of executive authority.

For decades, America’s strength was not only in its capabilities but in its capacity to self-correct. The power of our example rested on more than slogans. It was built on a belief—shared by allies and adversaries alike—that when we erred, institutions would push back. That the press would investigate. That courts would hold. That mistakes, though inevitable, would not be normalized.

The collapse of that expectation is not just visible. It is being measured. And the damage might not be reversible—even if the leadership changes.

We often speak of American exceptionalism as if it were a given. But what made the idea credible wasn’t power; it was restraint. Foreign observers might have bristled at American self-regard, but they noticed when U.S. courts ruled against their presidents, when journalists exposed flawed wars, when domestic outrage led to reforms abroad. The myth endured because, despite its contradictions, it included a capacity for self-judgment.

That model is eroding in full view. The United States no longer projects a commitment to accountability—it resists it as a matter of policy. The result is a version of leadership that treats legitimacy as self-evident and trust as a given, even as both are visibly in decline.

Soft power, once our competitive advantage, has become a casualty of that shift. The belief that humanitarian assistance pays long-term dividends—through trust, access, and influence—has been replaced by a doctrine that values only immediate return. 

A generation ago, U.S. aid after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami transformed regional attitudes overnight. Today, we no longer seem to expect nor desire that kind of return. If the public relations victory isn’t immediate, it’s not worth it.

The Myanmar earthquake response in March offered a stark example. China and India dispatched emergency teams and aircraft within 48 hours, but the United States—once a first responder in global crises—managed only a press release and three liaisons, later dismissed. 

The infrastructure for American disaster response had been dismantled under earlier executive orders, justified as cost-saving. But what was saved financially has been lost strategically. In the regions hit hardest, Chinese aid is visible. The American absence is noted.

That narrow calculus now applies across our entire foreign policy. Climate, migration, trade, alliances—every sphere is evaluated not by long-term stability but by short-term optics. Even gestures that once carried symbolic power—presidential visits to war zones, public acknowledgments of policy failure—have disappeared, replaced by messaging campaigns and algorithmic press cycles.

This reflex isn’t uniquely partisan. Presidents from both parties have ducked responsibility. John F. Kennedy’s famed “defeat is an orphan” remark after the Bay of Pigs was celebrated as accountability, but it never amounted to an actual reckoning. Ronald Reagan’s televised acknowledgment of Iran-Contra came only after months of stonewalling. 

Bill Clinton’s apologies came late and often hedged. George W. Bush defended the Iraq War long after admitting the intelligence was flawed. The pattern predates Trump. Trump fully converted it into operating principle: no apology, no retraction, no correction.

That change has consequences beyond reputation. It undermines the very idea that American leadership is adaptable. As Stephen Walt has argued, the most consistent failure in U.S. foreign policy is not strategic overreach. It’s the refusal to learn. The belief that mistakes can be rebranded, rather than addressed, has led to costly wars, failed interventions, and an erosion of legitimacy. And now that belief is being mirrored by institutions that once checked it.

What concerns our allies is not merely what America does—it’s what it no longer seems capable of doing. As the Pew data makes clear, the world now sees American democracy as compromised by internal division, with partisan conflict rated as “strong” or “very strong” by majorities in nearly every surveyed country.

That perception, already evident in diplomatic channels, will be reinforced by the images of Padilla, a sitting U.S. senator, being pushed to the ground and handcuffed. This episode might not register overseas as a headline, but it will be seen as pattern. The United States is deploying active-duty forces against domestic protests. Federal agencies are overriding state opposition. Courts are scrambling to clarify authority after executive actions are carried out, not before.

These are not signs of democratic confidence. They are signs of improvisation under duress. And they explain, more clearly than any analyst could, why global confidence in American leadership is collapsing—even in nations that once saw our disorder as temporary.

This has altered how partners engage with us. European states have begun accelerating defense coordination independently of NATO leadership. Asian allies speak more often of hedging strategies than shared values. The language of trust has been replaced by the language of contingency.

And still, the belief persists in Washington that this is all cyclical. That another administration—perhaps in 2028—will repair the breach. That the world will wait. But trust is not a contract; it is a relationship built through conduct. Trust breaks when pattern becomes expectation.

When the United States stops modeling self-correction, it stops being a model. It becomes just another powerful state, asking to be trusted for its past, not for its behavior. But the past does not compel loyalty. Only conduct does.

And if there is one lesson from the Pew survey, it is this: The world is no longer listening to what we say about ourselves. It is watching what we do—and it notices what we no longer even pretend to regret.

Brian O’Neill, a retired senior executive from the CIA and National Counterterrorism Center, is an instructor on strategic intelligence at Georgia Tech.

The Contrarian