On Easter Sunday, the President of the United States took to Truth Social to post an expletive-laden ultimatum: “Open the F—in’ Strait, you crazy b—––, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.” He signed it: President DONALD J. TRUMP.

Set aside the indignity of that sentence for a moment and consider what it reveals. The most powerful military on earth, led by a man who promised to project strength and command respect, has been reduced to posting profane social media threats at a country it claims to have already “decimated.” That is not strength. It is what it looks like when a negotiator runs out of credible options. And it is the foreseeable result of a foreign policy built almost entirely on hard power, with no real soft power behind it.

The Strait of Hormuz is the lesson. We should learn it.

What’s Actually Happening

Iran has effectively shut down the Strait of Hormuz — the route through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil passes — by striking ships in response to U.S.-Israeli attacks that began on February 28.

Since then, Trump has issued a rolling series of deadlines, ultimatums, and threats. On March 21, he threatened to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants if the strait was not fully reopened within 48 hours. Two days later, he backed off, citing “very good and productive conversations” with Iranian authorities. He then pushed the deadline to April 6. As of this weekend, that deadline is expiring with no significant progress to show for it.

Iran’s central military command responded to Trump’s latest ultimatum by calling it “a helpless, nervous, unbalanced and stupid action.”

That is not the language of a country that feels meaningfully coerced. Iran has not capitulated. It is using the disruption to press its own conditions — reparations, a new legal framework for transit through the strait, and the inclusion of Lebanon in any ceasefire deal — while showing little sign of yielding under threat. Trump, meanwhile, keeps resetting his own deadlines. The credibility gap grows every time he does.

The Hard Power Trap

Political scientists have long distinguished between hard power — military force, sanctions, coercive threats — and soft power, the ability to attract, persuade, and build voluntary cooperation through legitimacy, values, and relationships. Joseph Nye, who coined the term, was clear: durable influence requires both. A country that relies only on hard power does not project strength. It projects brittleness.

Trump has spent his entire political career misunderstanding that distinction. He seems to believe that threatening to bomb power plants and bridges is the same thing as having real leverage. It is not. Real leverage requires that the other side believes you will follow through, that compliance is less costly than defiance, and that allies and institutions stand behind you in a way that gives your threats weight.

On all three counts, Trump has weakened his own hand.

Iran has not yielded. Every extended deadline signals to Tehran — and to every other adversary watching — that American ultimatums have a shelf life, and that shelf life can be outlasted. That is a lesson others will absorb too.

The Economic Damage Hiding in Plain Sight

Trump’s supporters will remember that he campaigned relentlessly on bringing prices down. He promised cheaper gas, lower inflation, and economic relief. Republicans assured voters that his “dealmaking” instincts would keep the United States out of foreign entanglements. The result has been the opposite.

U.S. gasoline prices have surged above $4 per gallon for the first time in more than three years, driven by the oil shock from the war. They are now more than 30% higher than they were before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in late February. The International Energy Agency has described the disruption as the “largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market,” with flows through the Strait collapsing from roughly 20 million barrels per day to a trickle.

This has delivered a new shock to a U.S. economy that was already dealing with tariffs, stubborn inflation, and weakening employment. Analysts say prices have nowhere to go but up as long as the Strait remains disrupted, and that the president does not have many good options left.

None of this was unforeseeable. Economists, energy analysts, and foreign policy experts warned that starting a war in the Persian Gulf without a plan to keep the Strait open was an act of strategic malpractice. The information was public. The risks were documented. They were debated openly. And now we are living with the consequences.

The Petrodollar’s Accelerating Erosion

The long-term damage goes well beyond gas prices. Since 1974, the United States has benefited enormously from the petrodollar system — the arrangement in which Saudi Arabia agreed to price oil in dollars and recycle surpluses into U.S. assets in exchange for American security guarantees, including protection of free navigation through the Strait of Hormuz. That system helped underwrite decades of American borrowing at unusually favorable rates.

The Iran conflict is straining that arrangement in ways analysts are now openly discussing. Deutsche Bank warned that the conflict “could be remembered as a key catalyst for erosion in petrodollar dominance, and the beginnings of the petroyuan.” Analysts increasingly see the U.S. failure to secure the Gulf as a challenge to the premise on which the petrodollar system rested: that American power would safeguard the infrastructure and maritime routes underpinning the global oil trade.

Trump shows little sign of grasping the implications. At an April 1 press conference, he said: “You know, we don’t use the strait. We don’t need it. Europe needs it. Korea, Japan, China, a lot of other people. So they’ll have to get involved a little bit on that.”

That framing is more consequential than it sounds. Whether it accelerates dedollarization or ends up as another passing provocation will depend heavily on how this conflict ends. But this is moving in the wrong direction, and the president either does not understand that or does not care.

NATO: An Alliance Under Unusual Strain

Nowhere is the soft-power deficit more consequential than in America’s relationships with its allies.

Trump launched this war with little visible allied backing, then demanded that allied navies help reopen the Strait of Hormuz. When they declined — having no legal obligation to join a conflict they were not party to — he called them cowards. He then fumed at NATO allies for denying U.S. logistical support and access to airspace and military bases, and threatened to withdraw from the alliance.

Spain announced that its military bases and airspace would be off-limits to U.S. warplanes. Italy denied American aircraft landing rights at Sigonella. Germany ruled out direct participation, with its defense minister stating plainly: “This is not our war, we have not started it.”

As former U.S. ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder put it: “Military alliances are at their core based on trust — the confidence that if I am attacked, you will come help defend. It’s hard to see how any European country will now be able and willing to trust the United States to come to its defense.”

Trump has introduced a level of allied distrust that would have been almost unthinkable just a few years ago. And while NATO comes under strain, Russia benefits. Higher oil prices hand Moscow an obvious windfall, while alliance tensions pull Western attention away from the very threats NATO was built to deter.

The Warnings Were Available

Foreign policy failures are not just presidential failures. In a democracy, they are downstream of political choices made by millions of citizens.

There is a version of this essay that extends more sympathy to voters who were genuinely uncertain in November 2024 — who weighed competing concerns, took the economic message at face value, and made the best judgment they could with the information they had. I understand that version. I just do not think it is the most accurate one.

The warnings about Trump’s approach to foreign policy were public, repeated, and available to anyone willing to take them seriously. Economists flagged the inflation risks of his tariff agenda. Foreign policy professionals warned that his transactional view of alliances would erode the trust that makes them work. Military and intelligence analysts raised concerns about unilateral action in the Middle East and the dangers of entering a conflict without an exit strategy.

These were not fringe warnings. They were consensus views in the relevant expert communities. They were published in accessible outlets. They were widely reported.

Dismissing them required motivated reasoning — a prior commitment to the conclusion that Trump was right and the establishment was lying. That is a choice, and choices have consequences. The gas prices Americans are paying right now are partly a consequence of that choice. The strain on NATO is partly a consequence of that choice. The erosion of the petrodollar architecture is partly a consequence of that choice.

You cannot build durable global influence on threats alone. You cannot coerce adversaries while alienating allies. You cannot walk away from the security architecture that underpins your own financial dominance and call it strength. Power without legitimacy, trust, or partners who believe your word is not real strength. It is just noise.

Iran understands that. Our allies understand it too. The question is when the rest of us will.

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If you spend any time on social media — you’ve seen the comment. It shows up under nearly every post about an unconstitutional executive order, every report of an illegal firing, every story about the administration defying a court ruling. Sometimes it’s exasperated. Sometimes it’s furious. But it’s almost always the same:

“Where is Congress?”

“Why isn’t Congress doing anything?”

It’s a fair question. And it deserves a real answer — not a dismissive one, but an honest one that doesn’t let anyone off the hook. Not Trump. Not the Republicans in Congress. And not the voters who put them all there.

What Congress Is Actually Facing

Before we demand that Republican members of Congress grow a spine and stand up to the president, it’s worth understanding the environment they’re operating in — not to excuse their silence, but to explain it.

Threats against members of Congress have reached levels that are genuinely alarming. According to U.S. Capitol Police data, investigators opened nearly 15,000 threat assessment cases in 2025 alone — a nearly 60% spike from 2024, which itself had already marked a multi-year high. To put that in perspective, when Trump’s first term began in 2017, Capitol Police investigated fewer than 4,000 such cases annually. The number has more than tripled since then.

These aren’t abstract statistics. We’ve seen Rep. Ilhan Omar sprayed with an unknown substance at a town hall. Rep. Maxwell Frost punched at a festival event. Bomb threats sent to the homes of dozens of lawmakers over the holidays. And critically, an NBC News review found that even Republicans who mildly broke with the president — including over a dozen Indiana state legislators and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene — found themselves targeted with a surge of violent threats immediately after Trump called them out on social media.

That last point matters enormously. Trump doesn’t need to say “go threaten this person.” He never does. He simply labels someone a “traitor,” a “disgrace,” or worse on Truth Social, and within hours, a radicalized subset of his supporters takes it from there. Researchers have a term for this: stochastic terrorism — the use of inflammatory rhetoric to statistically predictably incite violence, without ever issuing a direct order. It gives the instigator plausible deniability while the threats do their work.

And the threats do work. Most rank-and-file members of Congress don’t receive taxpayer-funded security details. When they come under fire, they’re largely on their own — forced to hire private security at their own expense, to vary their routes home, to worry about their families. The cost, financial and psychological, is real and significant.

Beyond physical intimidation, Trump has made clear — through four years of precedent in his first term and aggressive action in his second — that he is willing to use the levers of government against his political enemies. Investigations. Prosecutions. IRS audits. Withdrawal of federal contracts. The message to anyone in his party who might consider crossing him isn’t subtle: fall in line, or become a target.

This is not normal American politics. This is something closer to what political scientists call democratic backsliding — and understanding it requires us to look beyond our own borders for reference points.

A Lesson From Russia’s Playbook

Many Americans are vaguely aware that Vladimir Putin runs Russia with a heavy hand. Fewer appreciate the specific mechanism by which he does it. Russia maintains a legislature — the State Duma — complete with elections, parties, and the full theater of democratic governance. But in practice, the Duma functions as a rubber stamp. It does not check Putin’s power; it ratifies it. Members who step out of line face consequences that range from political destruction to far worse. The system maintains the appearance of democratic accountability while eliminating its substance.

Trump is not Putin, and the United States is not Russia — yet. Our institutions are more resilient, our civil society more robust, our free press more tenacious. But the direction we are headed in is worth noting. When a president can silence political opposition through the credible threat of prosecution, financial ruin, and the unleashing of an organized, radicalized base on anyone who defies him, the independence of the legislature — which the Constitution requires — begins to erode in practice even as it survives on paper.

The question “where is Congress?” assumes that Congress is a free, independent actor capable of exercising its constitutional role without consideration for personal costs. For many members right now, that assumption is being tested in ways it hasn’t been in modern American history.

The Part That’s Hard to Hear

None of that context erases the central fact: voters created this situation.

When Americans went to the polls in November 2024 and cast their ballots for Donald Trump, they didn’t just vote for a president. Down-ballot, they elected Republican senators and representatives who have since shown — with very few exceptions — that they serve at the pleasure of the president rather than the American people. That was a choice. And choices have consequences.

This wasn’t a surprise. Trump’s contempt for democratic norms, the rule of law, and institutional constraints was not hidden. It was not a matter of partisan interpretation. By the time voters cast their ballots in 2024, Trump had already:

- Been impeached twice by the House of Representatives

- Been found liable for sexual abuse in civil court

- Been convicted on 34 felony counts by a Manhattan jury

- Attempted to overturn the results of a free and fair election

- Incited a mob that attacked the United States Capitol, injuring approximately 140 police officers

- Promised, openly and repeatedly, to use the Justice Department to pursue his political enemies if returned to power

This was not a secret. It was not spin. These were documented, adjudicated, or publicly self-declared facts. Voters who chose to ignore them — or who chose to believe they wouldn’t matter — bear a share of responsibility for what has followed.

It’s easy, and not entirely wrong, to point to media failures, disinformation ecosystems, and economic anxieties that made some voters susceptible to Trump’s narrative. Those factors were real. But the warnings were so numerous and so public that dismissing them was itself a consequential choice — not just for the people who made it, but for the rest of us forced to live inside the outcome.

So What Do We Do With All of This?

Understanding why Congress isn’t acting is not the same as accepting that it won’t. It is not the same as giving up. And it is not the same as waiting four years in silence and hoping for better luck. Accountability matters, but accountability alone is not a strategy. If anything, understanding the full picture clarifies exactly what is needed:

We need to make the cost of silence greater than the cost of speaking up. Republican members of Congress are calculating their own survival. Right now, the math tells them that defying Trump is more dangerous than enabling him. That math changes when constituents make their opposition felt — loudly, persistently, and in large numbers. Town halls. Phone calls. Letters. Showing up. Members who have, on rare occasions, broken with the president have generally done so because the pressure from home became too significant to ignore.

We also need to support and protect people willing to stand up. When a Republican does speak out — however imperfectly, however inconsistently — that act should not be politically isolated. It should be reinforced, because support lowers the perceived cost of defiance and signals to others that breaking with the president is survivable.

We need to vote like it matters, because it does. The midterms in 2026 are the most immediate opportunity to change the composition of Congress and restore even a minimal check on executive power. Voter registration, turnout operations, and competitive down-ballot races in swing districts will matter enormously. The outcome of those elections will be decided less by the most politically engaged — who will show up regardless — than by the people who have checked out, tuned out, or convinced themselves that none of this touches their lives.

Those people are not abstractions. They are your neighbors, coworkers, relatives, and friends. Talk to them.

The frustrated comment — where is Congress? — comes from a good place. It comes from people who still believe the system is supposed to work, and who are alarmed that it isn’t. That instinct is right. It is worth preserving.

But institutions do not defend themselves. They are defended by citizens who understand how they work, who demand accountability from everyone — elected officials and themselves alike — and who refuse to let cynicism become an excuse for disengagement. The question is not just where Congress is. The question is where we are, and what we are prepared to do about it.

Aden’s Analysis is a newsletter about politics, public policy, and democratic strategy — for readers who believe persuasion still matters. Subscribe to get every piece delivered to your inbox.

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I grew up in a state where “Election Day” wasn’t a frantic dash to a polling place. It was a Tuesday evening at the kitchen table, followed by a short drive to the town’s ballot drop box before 8 p.m. In Oregon, I have never seen a voting booth in my life. I was automatically registered the day I got my driver’s license, and my ballot arrived in the mail like any other piece of critical correspondence. Critics call this system an “invitation to fraud,” but both the math—and my experience—tell a different story.

For more than a decade, Donald Trump has cast doubt on the accuracy and legitimacy of American elections. In 2020, he declared that “the only way we’re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged,” then alleged “widespread” fraud before votes were fully counted. That narrative collapsed under scrutiny, including from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency in his own administration, which concluded the election was “the most secure in American history” and found no evidence of compromised voting systems.

That gap between rhetoric and reality has now hardened into policy with the 2026 push for the SAVE America Act. Its supporters frame it as “common sense” election security. In practice, it embodies a Security Paradox: by erecting new walls of paperwork at the registration desk, we aren’t catching “ghost” voters—we are obstructing real ones. In Oregon, the system worked precisely because it was invisible. The state verified my eligibility using its own records before my ballot ever left the warehouse. The SAVE Act flips that logic, demanding that tens of millions of married women and low-income citizens prove facts the government already knows.

The Kitchen Table Advantage

In Oregon, voting wasn’t a rushed exercise in recall inside a cramped booth. It unfolded over days. When a ballot arrives at your kitchen table, democracy grants its rarest resource: time.

That time matters. Modern ballots are dense. In 2024, Maricopa County voters faced dozens of judicial races and complex constitutional amendments. In a polling booth, down-ballot contests are often skipped or guessed. At home, the election becomes open book. You can review judicial performance evaluations, read competing arguments on tax measures, and return to the ballot when you’re ready.

Research from the MIT Election Lab consistently shows that voters using mail or at-home ballots are more likely to complete their entire ballot, reducing roll-off in local races. That isn’t a procedural detail; it’s democratic engagement. A system that values speed over comprehension produces participation without consent.

The SAVE Act undermines this entirely. By forcing voters back into in-person bureaucracy and documentation hurdles, it shrinks the mental space required to be the “informed electorate” we claim to value. Integrity isn’t only about verifying identity—it’s about respecting the weight of the choice being made.

Why the “Big Dump” Doesn’t Work

Claims of mass ballot dumping collapse under basic scrutiny.

To inject thousands of fraudulent ballots into an election would require a coordinated network: drivers, poll workers, election administrators, and technical staff all acting in concert. Political science tells us that as conspiracies grow, the likelihood of exposure grows faster. A secret shared by a handful of people might hold. One shared by hundreds becomes inevitable evidence.

Even then, invented votes leave fingerprints. Election results follow predictable statistical patterns. Large-scale fabrication produces anomalies—unnatural ratios, irregular margins—that stand out immediately in forensic analysis. Independent audits of recent elections examined these indicators repeatedly and found distributions consistent with real, organic voting behavior.

There is also the paper barrier. Even a perfectly forged ballot must correspond to a real, registered voter and pass signature verification. Many states, including Arizona, conduct post-election hand audits comparing paper ballots to machine tallies. Illicit ballots without a matching record don’t disappear quietly—they surface instantly.

Finally, there is deterrence. A coordinated effort to manipulate a national election isn’t petty fraud; it triggers federal conspiracy and racketeering statutes. The penalties are measured in decades of prison time and total organizational collapse. The idea that such a scheme could remain hidden—and be worth the cost—requires believing election officials are both morally corrupt and mathematically flawless. They are neither.

The Incentive Paradox

The SAVE Act also ignores the most basic logic of human behavior.

Casting a single fraudulent vote carries severe criminal penalties. The reward is infinitesimal: a one-in-hundreds-of-millions chance of influencing a presidential election. No rational actor trades their freedom for a statistical rounding error.

When legal voting is accessible, the incentive to cheat collapses. Fraud becomes irrational, not tempting. Front-end barriers like original birth certificates don’t deter criminals; they deter students, working parents, and low-income citizens who lack time, documentation, or flexibility. The policy doesn’t harden the system—it narrows participation.

Beyond the Mailbox

Mail voting is often mischaracterized as unsupervised. In reality, much of it bypasses the mail entirely. In recent elections, a significant share of early ballots were returned to secure drop boxes—steel vaults anchored in concrete, monitored continuously.

In Maricopa County, ballots are retrieved by bipartisan teams, logged, tracked, and transported under a strict chain of custody. From the moment a ballot leaves a voter’s hand, it is accounted for. This is not casual security; it is operational security.

What made Oregon’s system resilient wasn’t fear or friction. It was design. Eligibility was verified quietly, ballots were tracked obsessively, and voters were trusted with time and space to decide. That model doesn’t dramatize fraud—but it makes fraud pointless.

At my kitchen table, no one asked me to prove myself again. The system already knew who I was. The only thing left was the decision.

Aden’s Analysis is a Substack focused on politics, public policy, democracy, and the ideas shaping America’s future. I write for readers who want serious analysis without performative outrage — and who believe persuasion still matters.

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Among the hundreds of Democratic campaigns for elected office in 2026, most will follow a familiar formula: mobilize the base, attack extremism, raise money online, and hope the fundamentals break your way.

But what’s happening in Texas is different.

James Talarico — a Democratic state representative — has launched a campaign for the U.S. Senate that is testing something far more ambitious than flipping a seat long held by Republicans. He is attempting to articulate an off-ramp for voters who have fused Christianity with MAGA politics—and he is doing it without contempt, caricature, or apology.

In a state defined by Republican dominance and an entrenched evangelical political infrastructure, that is not a small gamble.

Not Running Against Faith — Running Through It

For years, Democrats have struggled not with whether to speak about religion, but how to do so when confronting Christian nationalist rhetoric. The most common approaches tend to fall into a few predictable patterns:

• Engage religious leaders transactionally, treating faith as a constituency to manage rather than a moral framework to inhabit.

• Invoke religion sparingly and defensively, careful not to alienate secular voters or trigger culture-war backlash.

• Describe faith-driven voters primarily through a political lens — as misinformed, manipulated, or radicalized — rather than as moral actors wrestling with identity and belief.

• Rely on constitutional, legal, or technocratic arguments that are correct on the merits but rarely persuasive at the level of values.

Talarico’s distinction lies in his posture: he treats faith as a serious moral vocabulary designed to challenge power rather than sanctify it. He is doing something far more disruptive. It argues that MAGA-style Christian nationalism is not only politically dangerous—it is theologically inconsistent.

Instead of treating faith as a private liability or a cultural landmine, Talarico treats religion as a moral language worth engaging on its own terms. That’s critical in a state where 67% of the population identifies as Christian. Many Texas voters are not primarily ideological; they are identity-driven. Their political loyalties are often downstream of church networks, cultural belonging, and narratives about persecution. When Democrats attack those structures from the outside, they often harden them.

This campaign is trying to open them from the inside.

The “Off-Ramp” Strategy

For years, pundits have speculated on how we might emerge from this era of Christian Nationalism and white supremacy. For the first time, a candidate is offering a strategy that actually has a shot. The idea of an off-ramp is crucial. An off-ramp is not surrender; it is not conversion by shame; it is not humiliation. It is a way out that allows people to change course without losing dignity.

The MAGA movement has constructed a powerful psychological ecosystem built on certainty, grievance, and moral absolutism. We know from history that simply telling voters they are wrong rarely dismantles that ecosystem. More often, it reinforces it.

What makes this campaign so analytically interesting is its recognition that persuasion requires moral permission. If you want people to leave a closed identity system, you must give them a story in which they can still see themselves as good. By grounding political arguments in scripture, humility, and service rather than dominance, the campaign reframes the debate from:

“Democrats versus Christians”

to:

“Which vision of Christianity actually reflects love, restraint, and moral seriousness?”

That is not a culture-war escalation. It is narrative jiu-jitsu.

@jamestalaricoWe should tax trillionaires out of existence.

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A Live Test — Not a Thought Experiment

And this isn’t happening in a vacuum. This argument is being made in the middle of a competitive Democratic primary, with early voting already underway. In other words, this is not a general-election theory being workshopped in elite media spaces—it is a live experiment being judged first by Democratic voters themselves.

That raises the stakes considerably, introducing real tension at the heart of the race.

The Strategic Trade-Off

That tension is this: while the campaign steadily looks like one that could plausibly challenge the Republican nominee statewide, it must first win over Democratic primary voters, who will decide whether they believe this moment calls for persuasion or confrontation.

They will have to choose whether they prefer a more combative, anti-Trump candidate like Jasmine Crockett, whose viral, high-octane style channels Democratic anger and may dominate a primary electorate—but faces a steeper uphill climb in a Texas general election—or a candidate attempting the harder task of expanding the electorate by offering disaffected voters a dignified exit from MAGA politics.

That is not just a stylistic choice. It’s a strategic one.

Texas will not be won by base mobilization alone. Any Democrat hoping to win statewide must either change who votes or change how some voters think about themselves. Confrontation can energize, but persuasion can broaden. This primary will provide valuable insight into which instinct Democratic voters trust more.

Why This Campaign Matters Beyond Texas

Even if this race remains uphill—and Texas politics is unforgiving—the experiment itself is valuable.

American politics is saturated with escalation. What it lacks is a credible theory of de-escalation that does not require moral retreat. This campaign is testing whether moral language, rather than moral scolding, can loosen the grip of authoritarian identity politics.

If the only way out of MAGA politics is humiliation, many voters will never take it.

But if the exit is framed as a return to faith untethered from power to community without cruelty, to moral seriousness without grievance—that is a different story entirely. Whether it succeeds or fails electorally, this campaign is asking one of the most important questions in American politics right now: How do you dismantle an identity movement without destroying the people inside it?

That alone makes this race worth watching.

Aden’s Analysis is a Substack focused on politics, public policy, democracy, and the ideas shaping America’s future. I write for readers who want serious analysis without performative outrage — and who believe persuasion still matters.

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After 34 years in Congress, Rep. Jerry Nadler’s decision not to seek re-election has created one of the most consequential open-seat races in the country. Safe, high-influence districts at the center of American finance and media rarely open—and when they do, national interests quickly converge.

The contest to replace Nadler has quickly clarified its core tension. This race is not primarily about taxes, healthcare, or housing. It is a referendum on the future of governance itself: specifically, whether Congress will meaningfully regulate advanced technology —or allow Silicon Valley to continue writing the rules.

Alex Bores, a New York State Assemblyman and former Palantir engineer running to replace Nadler, has drawn unusually aggressive opposition from AI and venture capital interests. Central to Bores’s campaign is his record on technology governance.

As the author of the RAISE (Responsible AI Safety and Education) Act, a state AI safety law that would require large AI developers to adopt and report safety plans, Bores has become a rare political figure willing to articulate specific guardrails for advanced technologies. That stance—one that mixes technical competence with accountability—has attracted scrutiny and opposition from well-funded industry groups who argue it could constrain innovation.

A new super PAC, Leading the Future —armed with a massive war chest and backed by executives who are simultaneously lobbying Washington for liability protections and public financial backstops —has begun running attack ads against Bores. The alignment is instructive. The same actors pushing for rapid AI deployment are also seeking to offload its legal and economic risks onto the public —privatizing gains while socializing potential failures.

This is not a debate about innovation versus regulation. It is a fight over who bears responsibility when powerful, opaque systems fail.

Congress is not short on opinions about technology; it is short on members who understand it. Most lawmakers rely on industry briefings or staff summaries to interpret systems that now shape labor markets, national security, healthcare, and democratic discourse. That structural knowledge gap has real consequences: weak oversight, regulatory capture, and policy that lags years behind technological reality.

Bores represents a departure from that model. Trained as a computer scientist and experienced in building large-scale software systems, he brings insider familiarity with how advanced technologies are developed, deployed, and, crucially, how they fail. That background does not make him anti-innovation. It makes him skeptical of an industry that insists its products are too complex to regulate but too important not to subsidize.

His legislative record reflects that posture. The bill applies baseline safety and disclosure requirements to the most powerful AI systems—those expensive enough to train and broad enough in application to pose systemic risk. Rather than banning technology or micromanaging development, it treats frontier AI the way regulators already treat aircraft, pharmaceuticals, and financial instruments: as products whose scale demands pre-deployment testing, risk assessment, and accountability.

This approach explains both Bores’s appeal and the intensity of the opposition he faces. For technology executives seeking maximum flexibility with minimal liability, a lawmaker who can interrogate technical claims rather than accept them at face value is a genuine threat. For years, that knowledge gap has functioned as a shield.

What makes this race nationally relevant is the precedent it may set. A victory for Bores would signal that technical literacy is a political asset, potentially ushering in a new era of risk-aware governance. A defeat would send a grimmer message: that despite the public’s anxiety over AI, policy will remain the exclusive domain of those with the capital to purchase it.

The outcome of this primary will answer a fundamental question: Can Silicon Valley buy its way out of oversight, or will Congress finally acquire the competence to govern it?

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If you are reading this, you saw the headline and felt something. Maybe outrage; or maybe satisfaction. Either way, stay with me.

The moment someone suggests taxing the ultra-rich, the conversation always ends with, “Why do you care? They built a company, they earned it, and you’re just jealous.”

For most of us, it’s not jealousy, but financial resentment that we feel. Because we know this truth: The ultra-wealthy are actively holding us back from a better quality of life.

Before I go any further, let me be clear. I use “ultra‑wealthy” to mean people whose wealth is measured in billions. A million dollars changes a family’s life; a billion dollars changes markets, media, politics, and what governments can — and cannot — afford to provide for their citizens.

This debate isn’t about individual success or whether someone “worked for” or “deserves” their wealth. It’s about the consequences when private wealth crosses the line from personal affluence into structural or market dominance. At the point that dollars do not just purchase luxuries, but rather purchase power, narrative, law, and permission to shape the lives of millions without their consent.

You don’t have to hate billionaires to recognize that concentrated wealth warps democracy and starves the public sphere.

This is not about jealousy. It is about what happens to a society when the power of private capital becomes stronger than the will of its people.

1. The Finite Resource Problem

We all agree on the pain points: Housing is too expensive, childcare is crippling, and wages don’t buy what they used to. Yet, we are simultaneously told that billionaires must keep their money because “they earned it.”

The missing link is the concept of finite capital.

When a resource is finite, hoarding it becomes a societal problem.

This is not about a desire for their yacht; it’s about recognizing that the wealth held by a tiny ruling class is a massive pool of uncirculated economic power.

• The Scale of Hoarding: The three wealthiest Americans alone — the new Titans of Industry like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg — often hold a combined total of over $1 Trillion. That money is political and economic potential locked away from public use.

• The Scale of Injustice: This pool of money is greater than the total wealth of the entire bottom 50% of U.S. households combined — over 160 million people. The issue is not the creation of an app or business; it’s the resulting Oligarchy where a handful of individuals possess wealth that dwarfs the entire budgets of sovereign nations.

2. The Tax System is Built for Capital, Not Labor

The argument that they “earned it” ignores the tax structure that allows wealth to grow exponentially without public contribution.

• Your Money (Labor Income): You earn money through Wages, which are taxed immediately and fully at high rates.

• Their Money (Investment Income): They grow their money through Capital Gains, which is taxed at a much lower long-term rate (max 20%) and only if they choose to sell the asset.

Their capital works harder for them at a lower tax rate than your physical labor works for you.

While the U.S. has always had a progressive income tax, the top rates have fallen dramatically:

• Then: From the 1930s to the 1960s, the top marginal income tax rate was consistently between 70% and 94% (as high as 94% during WWII). This was the environment that funded the great American build-out.

• Now: The top marginal income tax rate is currently only 37%.

The change in policy reflects a political choice: Lawmakers enacted rules that boost private fortunes instead of funding the public goods that sustain collective well‑being.

3. Hoarding Creates Social Decay

During the first Gilded Age, extreme inequality and monopolistic power were confronted through aggressive trust-busting and regulatory reforms, most prominently under President Theodore Roosevelt.

Later, Franklin D. Roosevelt ushered in the New Deal era, leveraging public support to restrain concentrated economic power, strengthen workers’ rights, and establish social programs that rebalanced the relationship between private wealth and the public good.

Together, these efforts curbed the dominance of industrial and financial titans who wielded disproportionate influence over markets, government, and daily life.

Roosevelt enacted Social Security, bank regulations to protect consumers and the financial system, and unprecedented public-infrastructure initiatives like the Public Works Administration, which built schools, hospitals, bridges, dams, and other critical infrastructure across the country.

These programs did two things that directly benefited workers: They restrained concentrated economic power and they strengthened the economy by putting money into the pockets of everyday people who used it to spark local prosperity.

The lesson is clear: Hoarding wealth among the few who rule over the many is not a natural law; it’s a policy failure. When capital is concentrated, the only way to save democracy and fund the public good is to aggressively force its recirculation.

4. Why They Are Holding You Back

The money they are hoarding is the exact capital required to solve the issues making your life unaffordable.

The economic reality is that if we simply paid everyone else more money without taxing the excess wealth at the top, it would create excess inflation(too much money chasing too few goods and services).

The solution that benefits everyone is to constrain the excess demand at the top by taxing concentrated wealth.

This would generate the funding necessary for public investments that lower your cost of living, finance the construction of new housing, guarantee universal childcare, and improve public services.

The bottom line is that the issue is not jealousy. It’s the recognition that extreme concentrations of wealth actively hold back the quality of life our economy is fully capable of delivering for everyone else.

Our choice is between a ruling class and a functioning democracy.

The silos are full, but the markets are empty

Across the country, soybean farmers — many of whom overwhelmingly supported Donald Trump — are staring at unsold crops and mounting debt. The irony is sharp: the very policies they voted for have left them on the brink of bankruptcy.

This is a clear-eyed case study in how political loyalty can be engineered to override material reality.

The Scale of the Crop and the China Dependency

Soybeans aren’t a side hustle; they’re the number one U.S. agricultural export, a $50 billion industry that is the backbone of rural economies in the Midwest.

The entire structure of the American soybean market was heavily dependent on a single buyer: China. Historically, China purchased an average of 60% of all U.S. soybean exports and nearly 28% of all U.S. soybean production in the years leading up to the trade war. When China bought, the U.S. farm economy thrived. When China walked away, the entire system shook.

The 2018 Fallout: The First Warning

When the Trump administration imposed tariffs in 2018, China’s retaliation was swift and surgical: a 25% tariff on U.S. soybeans. This tariff, added to existing duties, effectively priced American soybeans out of the world’s largest market.

The financial damage was immediate and devastating:

• The value of U.S. soybean exports to China shrank from an average of $12.8 billion per year before the trade war to $4.7 billion in 2018/19.

• The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated that soybean farmers alone experienced $9.4 billion in annualized losses during the 2018 trade war, accounting for 71% of the total loss in agricultural exports.

Instead of securing new markets, the administration relied on a political stopgap: a massive, taxpayer-funded rescue. Over $28 billion in trade aid was distributed through the Market Facilitation Program (MFP), making the federal government the single largest source of income for many farmers.

This was not a fix; it was a taxpayer-funded political bailout to pay farmers to endure an economic crisis of the administration’s own making. And despite this temporary injection, farm bankruptcies rose in 2019 to their highest level in nearly a decade.

The Current Crisis: The Cost of Amnesia

Five years later, the pattern is repeating with a chilling predictability. Today’s farmers are in a situation even more precarious than in 2018: they are harvesting a record crop with nowhere to sell it.

• Markets Closed: China, in response to renewed U.S. tariff threats, has halted U.S. soybean purchases altogether.

• Zero Bookings: As of October 2025, China has reportedly booked zero new-crop soybeans from the current U.S. harvest — down from purchasing $12.6 billion last year.

• Brazil’s Dominance Cemented: China has aggressively diversified, cementing Brazil as its dominant supplier. Brazil’s soybean production has surged by 40% since the 2018 trade war, ensuring China can now easily replace American supply.

• Financial Bloodbath: The abrupt halt has sent prices tumbling, pushing them below the cost of production for many farmers. Experts warn of a “bloodbath” in rural America if the situation is not resolved quickly.

Farmers are facing a double blow: their largest market is gone, and the cost of key inputs — fertilizer, fuel, and equipment — has risen due to the new tariff regime. This further demonstrates that tariffs are a blunt, ineffective tool for rebalancing international trade — raising domestic costs while driving buyers to competing suppliers.

The Larger Lesson: A Weaponized Economy

The fundamental question is why farmers, who were financially decimated the first time, have remained loyal to the very policies that are destroying their livelihood — and why the administration is repeating a failed playbook.

The trade aid of 2018 acted as a powerful sedative, confirming the narrative that the leader was on their side and would ‘come through’ for them. Emotion and identity trumped logic and economics. The new crisis shows that this trap of loyalty has not been broken.

The consequence is clear: the economy is being repurposed as a political tool. The financial pain inflicted on the farm belt is viewed as acceptable collateral damage, so long as the cost can be punted to the taxpayer through future bailouts, and the political loyalty of the voters is secured.

This story isn’t just about soybeans. It’s a profound lesson in the weaponization of policy. When political narratives are used to trap citizens in cycles of loyalty and loss — twice — the foundational principle of a stable, impartial economy is completely eroded.

If we want to break this cycle, we need policies that protect both dignity and livelihood, replacing short-term bailouts with sustainable solutions that prioritize long-term market stability over political theatre.

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The Contradiction of Aid and Ideology

What’s most frustrating is they who loudly reject socialism and scorn public welfare now stand in line asking the government to rescue them. That contradiction is painful to watch: citizens who equate self‑reliance with virtue are pleading for the very safety net they denounce.

I’m conflicted — not because their requests are wrong, but because their refusal to acknowledge when they’ve been misled traps them in a repeating cycle of harm.

Trump promised expanded markets and lasting relief and he was explicit that his principal means would be tariffs; those tariffs, however, chased away buyers instead of opening new ones. No meaningful effort has been made to develop durable markets at scale to replace China, and the result is predictable: temporary cash transfers followed by renewed vulnerability.

This is not merely hypocrisy to be mocked; it is a political dynamic that devastates families and corrodes civic trust.

It benefits none of us if family farms go bankrupt and are picked up at discount by giant agribusinesses. Consolidation strips communities of local ownership, deepens economic inequality, and amplifies the very disillusion, anger, and distrust in American institutions that fuel future political manipulation.

If we care about rural America, honesty must accompany aid.

We must stop the Trump administration from further weaponizing the economy and ensure any aid to farmers is paired with honest, practical guidance about how global trade works.

Aid should be time‑limited and tied to concrete steps: trade diplomacy that opens reliable buyers, targeted investments in transport and storage to lower production costs, support for value‑added processing to keep revenue local, and programs that help farmers hedge risk and diversify income.

Crucially, aid should include plain‑language education and extension services on market cycles, tariffs, currency effects, logistics, and contract terms so producers can make informed choices rather than rely on promises. Short‑term relief should be coupled with technical assistance, credit restructuring, and antitrust enforcement to prevent discounted buyouts.

I feel anger and sympathy in equal measure: anger at leaders who weaponize policy for votes, anger at farmers who again voted against their own interests out of partisan identity, and sympathy for the families who ultimately pay the price. If we’re serious about saving family farms, we must pair accountability with compassion and replace bailouts with policies that produce lasting buyers, diversified incomes, and local ownership.

The New York Times

BBC

Every week in Trump’s America feels like a new test of how much corruption, chaos, and cruelty our democracy can endure. And it’s no accident. Trump and his allies want us to feel hopeless—and to look away.

But it’s critical that we pay attention and stay informed. We cannot allow blatant corruption to become normalized. This week, in particular, has been a masterclass in dismantling accountability, bending institutions, and eroding democratic norms.

From Pam Bondi’s despicable performance at the Senate Judiciary Committee Oversight Hearing, to Trump attorney Lindsay Halligan’s sham ‘indictment’ of New York Attorney General Letitia James, to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s jaw‑dropping announcement of a Qatari air base on U.S. soil—just months after Trump accepted a $400 million luxury jumbo jet through the Department of Defense—these events are not random.

These are symptoms of a much deeper rot: a Congress that no longer checks executive power, a Republican Party that exists solely to protect Trump, and a democracy that’s being hollowed out from within.

Pam Bondi’s Despicable Display

The spectacle at Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing was unlike anything we’ve seen before. Attorney General Pam Bondi appeared before the committee for the first time since her confirmation, earlier this year. This time, she arrived prepared with pre-scripted attacks, ready to deflect questions from Democratic members that she preferred not to answer.

Instead of responding to pointed questions about Trump’s influence over the Department of Justice—or about high-stakes probes into figures like Comey, Epstein, or Tom Homan—Bondi repeatedly deflected or refused to engage. She interrupted senators, attacked their motives, and turned the hearing into a showdown of insults rather than an exercise in lawful oversight.

When pressed by Ranking Member Sen. Dick Durbin whether Trump consulted her regarding troop deployments, she snapped “I wish you loved Chicago as much as you hate President Trump.”

To which Durbin replied, “I’ve been on this committee for more than twenty years—that’s the kind of testimony we’ve come to expect from this administration. A simple question about the legal rationale for deploying National Guard troops becomes grounds for a personal attack.”

The exchange summed up the state of Trump’s Washington: substance replaced by spectacle, accountability drowned out by performative outrage. Bondi wasn’t there to provide answers—she was there to send a message. Her loyalty isn’t to the law, but to the man who put her there. And in this new era of Trumpism, that loyalty has become the only qualification that matters.

P.S. If you need a moment of comic relief, check out the SNL take on the hearing below.

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Trump’s Payback for Letitia James

In Trump’s latest act of retribution, on Thursday, his handpicked U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan, has filed a federal indictment against New York Attorney General Letitia James, charging her with mortgage fraud and making false statements to a financial institution.

The core allegation centers on a 2020 loan application, in which James allegedly claimed a Virginia property would be used as a “secondary residence” (and not rented) to secure favorable loan terms—then allegedly treated it as an investment/rental property, thereby saving less than $19,000 over the life of the mortgage.

Halligan herself presented the case directly to a grand jury—after career DOJ prosecutors reportedly resisted, citing serious doubts about the strength of the evidence and its blatantly political nature.

In short: James is being accused of a technical infraction, while Trump often skirted far larger, systemic frauds without commensurate accountability.

This is not a principled pursuit of justice. It’s an act of vengeance. Trump publicly called for the prosecution of Letitia James. Halligan, a former real estate attorney for Trump, with no prosecutorial experience, seems to be acting less as an independent prosecutor and more as Trump’s executioner.

Trump is turning the legal system into a weapon, and sending a clear message: investigate me, and this is what happens to you.

A Quatari Air Base in Idaho

On Friday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that Qatar will build a facility within Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho. The Qatari Emiri Air Force is expected to station F-15s and train alongside U.S. forces. The announcement sparked immediate backlash, even from pro‑Trump voices, over the optics of a “foreign military presence” on American soil.

The timing is striking. This comes just months after Qatar gifted Trump a luxury Boeing 747 through the Pentagon, intended for presidential use—a move already steeped in controversy over potential foreign emoluments violations.

To Recap: Qatar provides Trump a luxury jet, and a few months later, the U.S. sanctions a military installation for Qatar in Idaho.

This is emblematic of how the administration has governed: through deals, loyalty, and quid‑pro‑quo relationships. Under this model, foreign states that offer Trump prestige, profit, or influence are rewarded with favorable treatment. The personal and the ideological are indistinguishable from geopolitics.

Donald Trump does not govern for the public good, but out of personal favor. He is selling access to America’s institutions, security, and sovereignty to whoever offers him financial enrichment. That is not leadership—it is profiteering at the expense of the republic.

Qatar may want to hold the shovels—the blowback is bipartisan and fierce. Prominent conservatives, including some who have long defended his foreign policy, are voicing alarm. They argue that allowing a foreign military foothold on U.S. soil—especially in the shadow of such a glaring financial entanglement—crosses a line that threatens American sovereignty. Their warnings underscore just how profoundly this decision has shaken faith across the political spectrum.

Democrats in Congress must do more to voice their concerns and introduce legislation to block the president from moving forward with this plan.

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Why Hasn’t Trump Been Arrested or Removed?

I see a variation of this question echo across social media quite often: Why hasn’t Trump been held accountable, or removed from office? The answer is simpler than many realize: because he systematically purged the Republican Party of anyone willing or capable of challenging him.

From the earliest days of his presidency, Trump made clear that loyalty to him personally mattered more than policy, principle, or law. Senators and representatives who dared to vote for his impeachment, criticize his executive orders, or oppose his agenda were quickly replaced or politically marginalized.

Figures like Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, and Adam Kinzinger endured relentless attacks; but many others resigned, didn’t run for reelection, or were unseated in primary elections. The result is a Republican Party where dissent is not tolerated and institutional norms are ignored.

Today, the GOP functions less as a traditional political party and more as a personality cult. Its members routinely rubber-stamp whatever Trump wants—whether that’s shielding him from investigations, supporting questionable foreign deals, or enabling policy that serves his personal enrichment.

Our republic depends on leaders of good faith willing to act with integrity. Put simply, Trump has not been arrested or removed because the very institutions meant to hold him accountable have been hollowed out from within. Until voters restore those checks, his power remains unchecked—and our democracy remains at risk.

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Making It to the Midterms

It’s easy to feel hopeless when each headline seems worse than the last.

But democracy still offers a remedy: elections. The power to restore accountability, enforce checks and balances, and push back against Trump’s unchecked influence lies squarely in voters’ hands.

If you’re wondering how you can act, one of the most direct ways is to support Democratic candidates in key races—especially those challenging incumbent senators in critical states or running in highly competitive districts. Even a small donation matters. Giving $5 or $10 isn’t only about the dollar amount itself; it’s also about showing broad grassroots support. Campaigns with large numbers of individual donors can demonstrate momentum, gain media attention, and leverage small contributions into real organizing power on the ground.

I’m supporting these candidates because I admire their leadership and share their values—and because their races could determine the balance of power in Congress.

Beyond donating, every action counts: volunteer, share information, talk to friends and family, and vote in every race you can. The midterm elections aren’t just about policy disagreements—this is about whether the next Congress can act as a genuine check on Trump and his allies, or whether his personality cult continues unchallenged.

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On September 27, the President of the United States posted a message on Truth Social announcing that he had authorized the deployment of troops and directed the Secretary of Defense to use “Full Force, if necessary” against “Antifa and other domestic terrorists” allegedly threatening ICE facilities in Portland, Oregon.

The deployment came over the objection of both state and local law enforcement and political leaders—clearly, this wasn’t a response to chaos. It was an invitation to it.

In fact, the protests outside of ICE facilities had shrunk to less than twenty people at the time of his order. Local police are trained in civil unrest and crowd control. They had the situation under control, and there was no imminent danger.

Let me be clear: the deployment of Oregon’s National Guard was not about peacekeeping. It’s part of a broader strategy to provoke unrest, delegitimize Democratic leadership, and manufacture a justification for even greater federal force.

Oregon’s Attorney General Dan Rayfield, along with the City of Portland, filed a lawsuit to prevent Trump’s illegal and unjustified deployment of federalized National Guard troops—arguing it violated constitutional limits, federal law, and the state’s sovereign authority.

U.S. Attorneys failed to persuade the Court that it lacked authority to second-guess the President’s determination that conditions in Portland warranted a federal military response.

And on Friday, a Trump-appointed judge issued a Temporary Restraining Order preventing the Oregon National Guard from being activated and deployed to Portland.

In addition to the expected statutory citations, the Court’s order invoked a deeper constitutional tradition. As the judge wrote, “this is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law.” Accepting the Defendants’ arguments, the Court warned, would “risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power—to the detriment of this nation.”

Today, that same federal judge broadened the restraining order after Trump attempted to circumvent the court’s ruling by authorizing the deployment of National Guard troops from the states of California and Texas into Oregon.

The expanded order explicitly bars the federal government from using any state’s Guard units to carry out domestic law enforcement functions within Oregon without that state’s consent or lawful congressional authorization.

This latest action underscores that what’s unfolding is not merely a local dispute over policing—it’s a national test of constitutional boundaries. The administration’s defiance of the initial order reveals a deeper pattern of political theater masquerading as law enforcement, one that treats constitutional limits as obstacles rather than obligations.

At its core, this is a confrontation over who holds authority in our federal system: the states, or a president willing to bypass them. It’s about whether the rule of law still constrains executive power when that power is wielded for political spectacle rather than public safety.

What’s happening in Portland isn’t just a legal fight over troop deployments. It’s a stress test for American democracy.

When a president defies governors, sidesteps courts, and uses military force to stage political theater, the danger isn’t just in the spectacle—it’s in the precedent. If this tactic succeeds, it won’t stop at Portland. It will become a blueprint for future executive overreach, where dissent is reframed as disorder and federal power is deployed not to protect, but to punish.

Judge Immergut’s order is more than a legal barrier—it’s a civic alarm. It reminds us that state sovereignty, civilian control of the military, and judicial independence are not optional features of our democracy. They are the scaffolding that holds it up.

And right now, that scaffolding is under immense strain.

We must call this what it is: weakness masquerading as strength, chaos engineered for control, and a dangerous attempt to turn federal force into a partisan weapon.

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Judge blocks Trump’s National Guard deployment in Portland for second time

Judge temporarily blocks Trump administration from deploying National Guard in Portland

Today marks the final day of the U.S. government’s fiscal year, which means that if Congress doesn’t pass a budget or temporary funding measure before midnight, the federal government will cease all non-essential spending and services.

Republicans are refusing to negotiate with Democrats for the 7-votes they need in order to overcome a filibuster in the Senate, and pass a bill. Democrats are seeking to reinstate Affordable Care Act subsidies, to prevent 4 million Americans from losing their coverage, and millions more who will see their premiums rise dramatically.

At the moment, it appears that Congressional Republicans are counting on Senate Democrats to cave at the last minute—either by supporting a continuation of the current Republican budget or by accepting a shutdown that would grant the executive branch expanded authority to fund or defund agencies and lay off employees who don’t align with the administration’s priorities.

A shutdown would not just be a chaotic political stalemate in Washington—it would have immediate consequences for millions of Americans. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers could be furloughed or forced to work without pay, while critical services like food assistance, housing support, and small business loans would face delays or disruptions. Each day of inaction risks slowing economic growth, straining household budgets, and deepening public distrust in government’s ability to meet even its most basic obligations.

This fight isn’t just about budget priorities—it’s about whether government can meet its most basic obligations. A shutdown would punish workers, families, and communities far more than politicians. However, caving to Trump and the GOP’s demands continues a bad precedent of Democratic capitulation. Democrats want a fight, but it needs to be a winnable fight.

If Congress fails to act, the real cost will be measured in missed paychecks, delayed services, and a deeper erosion of public trust—and Republicans will be entirely responsible.

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On Thursday, Sept. 25, former FBI Director James Comey was indicted by a federal grand jury on one count of making a false statement, and one count of obstruction of a congressional proceeding.

You probably remember Comey for the public role he played during the FBI’s investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state — and later, for announcing the reopening of that investigation just 11 days before the presidential election, which Clinton went on to lose by less than 80,000 votes across three key swing states. The irony is impossible to ignore: Comey’s decision may have handed Trump the presidency, yet even that loyalty counted for nothing once Comey turned his attention to Russian interference.

Or, when Trump fired Comey shortly after taking office in 2017 — claiming it was due to his handling of the Clinton investigation — despite widespread consensus that the dismissal was tied to Comey’s investigation into potential criminal collusion between the Trump campaign and agents acting on behalf of the Russian Federation and Vladimir Putin.

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As much as I disagree with Comey and many of the decisions he has made, this prosecution is Trump’s attempt at retribution. In fact, the U.S. attorney overseeing the Comey investigation resigned after Trump complained to reporters in the Oval Office that Virginia’s two Democratic senators voted for his confirmation.

However, according to reporting by the New York Times, just days before he resigned, the U.S. attorney had told his superiors at the DOJ the case against Comey was weak and not likely to result in charges.

This is not just about James Comey.

It’s about what can happen when a president uses the power of the state to punish his “enemies” and reward his allies.

In directing his DOJ to prosecute, Trump seeks to make an example out of Comey and deter future investigations that seek to hold those in power accountable. If this prosecution is allowed to stand, it sets a dangerous precedent: any president could weaponize the justice system to insulate themselves from oversight, effectively placing themselves above the law.

This is the behavior of strongmen and authoritarians: criminalize oversight, punish investigators, and rewrite history to cast the guilty as victims and the investigators as criminals. That is not democracy. That is authoritarianism, plain and simple.

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Chuck Schumer, should have seen this coming. As the leader of Senate Democrats, it’s his job to anticipate Republicans’ political and procedural maneuvers, and prepare his Democratic colleagues for a counteroffensive. Instead, he and nine Senate Democrats walked into a trap on Friday by aiding Republicans to pass a purely partisan government funding bill.

Like many Americans watching from the outside, I was furious that Democrats would help Republicans avert a shutdown—until I realized the alternative might have been worse. A shutdown would have given Trump and Musk a backdoor to fire thousands of federal workers under the pretense of streamlining government operations.

This wasn’t just a bad deal—it was a manufactured crisis, designed by Trump and his Republican allies to box Democrats into a no-win scenario.

They forced them to choose between:

1. Passing a bill that creates a slush fund for Trump and Elon Musk to spend as they wish, or

2. A government shutdown that would give Trump more power to fire federal employees and dismantle agencies under the guise of cutting "nonessential" staff.

But that doesn’t excuse the failure of Schumer and Senate Democratic leadership. They knew these were the stakes. They also knew that in a shutdown scenario, Trump and the GOP would have weaponized the chaos, pinning the blame on Democrats and potentially damaging their chances next November. Yet instead of developing a strategy to force Republicans into a compromise, Schumer surrendered—without securing a single concession.

Democrats can’t afford this kind of political malpractice. The stakes are too high, and the consequences are too dire. If Schumer and his colleagues don’t start playing offense, they’ll keep finding themselves trapped in Republican power plays—with nothing to show for it.

Democrats can’t keep playing defense while Republicans rig the game. Schumer and his colleagues had a chance to flip the script—to demand real concessions, to expose Republican hypocrisy, to show voters they’re willing to fight. Instead, they caved.

If Democrats don't start anticipating these traps and adopting a more assertive strategy, they won't just lose the messaging war—they'll continue to let Republicans dictate the terms of every legislative battle. With the current Republican majority, it's imperative for Democrats to strengthen their approach to effectively counter Republican maneuvers.

That starts with new leadership. Chuck Schumer has had his time and he should now resign from his leadership role. He is failing to meet the moment, allowing Republicans to outmaneuver Democrats on critical issues. Senate Democrats need a leader who is prepared, strategic, and unafraid to go on the offensive. The stakes are too high to settle for anything less.

Democrats can’t keep playing defense while Republicans rig the game. Schumer and his colleagues had a chance to flip the script—to demand real concessions, expose Republican hypocrisy, and show voters they’re willing to fight. Instead, they caved.

If Democrats don’t start anticipating these traps and adopt a more assertive strategy, they won’t just lose the messaging war—they’ll continue to let Republicans dictate the terms of every legislative battle. With the current Republican majority, it’s imperative for Democrats to strengthen their approach to counter Republican maneuvers effectively.

That starts with new leadership. Chuck Schumer has had his time, and he should now resign from his leadership role. He is failing to meet the moment, allowing Republicans to outmaneuver Democrats on critical issues. Senate Democrats need a leader who is prepared, strategic, and unafraid to go on the offensive. The stakes are too high to settle for anything less.

The U.S. economy faces a serious risk of recession—not due to external forces, but because of reckless policies enacted by Donald Trump. Rising costs, job losses, and market instability are hitting American households hard, as Trump’s trade war and budget cuts create economic uncertainty. His tariff war disrupts global trade, his erratic economic strategy fuels uncertainty, and his drastic government spending cuts weaken demand—together, these factors create a perfect storm of instability that threatens economic growth. As former Treasury Secretary and Harvard economist Larry Summers put it, “This is a self-inflicted wound on the American economy.”

This newsletter breaks down how Trump’s policies weaken economic growth, increase volatility, and deter investment.

The Tariff War: A Recipe for Disaster

Tariffs, when applied strategically, can be an effective tool. However, Trump’s trade wars with China, Canada, and Mexico disrupt global supply chains, raise costs for American consumers and businesses, and trigger retaliatory measures.

• Inflation & Higher Interest Rates → Tariffs increase the price of imported goods, fueling inflation. In response, the Federal Reserve may raise interest rates, making borrowing more expensive and slowing economic growth.

• Retaliatory Tariffs → Trading partners hit back with their own tariffs, hurting U.S. exports, particularly in agriculture and manufacturing.

• Stock Market Volatility → Investor uncertainty over trade policy has contributed significantly to market declines amid increased instability.

Lack of Coherent Strategy

Markets rely on predictability, yet Trump’s policies have been erratic, reactionary, and inconsistent. His administration shifted positions frequently, leaving businesses and investors uncertain about long-term economic conditions.

• Investor Hesitation → Unpredictable policy swings reduce confidence in the U.S. as a stable investment environment, decreasing foreign capital inflows.

• Business Paralysis → Without clear trade and regulatory guidelines, companies delay investment, expansion, and hiring, stalling economic momentum.

Government Spending Cuts and Layoffs

Beyond market instability, Trump’s approach to federal spending further weakens the economy. Trump’s push to slash government spending and eliminate thousands of federal jobs will further contract the economy.

• Lower Aggregate Demand → Government spending drives a significant portion of economic activity. Cutting it during economic uncertainty reduces demand, slowing growth.

• Job Losses → Federal layoffs ripple through the private sector, reducing consumer spending and weakening local economies economic growth.

The U.S. economy depends on stability, strategic leadership, and investment confidence to thrive. However, Trump's erratic policies undermine these foundations, replacing certainty with chaos. If the country is to avoid another economic downturn, it must prioritize policies that foster growth, predictability, and long-term stability.

The warning signs are clear: a trade war without strategy, economic instability, and reckless budget cuts create a high-risk environment for recession.

In just six weeks since Donald Trump’s return to the White House, he and his loyalist-packed administration have taken aggressive action in their dismantling of the federal government. At a moment when Democrats should be mounting a relentless, unified opposition, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has failed to rise to the occasion—leaving a power vacuum within the party.

In 2017, the Democratic Party has a strong opposition leader to Trump in former Speaker of the House and then-House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi. With nearly 30 years of experience in the House, Pelosi was seen as someone with the strength and will to stand up to Trump, and lead the Democrats to retaking the majority in the 2018 midterm elections.

Republicans Are Waging War on the Federal Government

Trump’s second term has already proven to be a full-fledged attack on institutions. From executive orders slashing regulations, agency heads being replaced with far-right ideologues with no real qualifications, all while GOP lawmakers stand by watching it all happen. They’ve made it clear: their goal isn’t just to win elections—it’s to dismantle the federal government as we know it.

And yet, where is the forceful opposition from House Democrats? Where is the strategy to counteract GOP destruction? Instead of leading the charge, Hakeem Jeffries has largely remained reactive, offering the typical statements of condemnation and muted criticism, while failing to rally the Democratic base in a way that matches the urgency of this crisis.

The House of Representatives was designed to be the chamber most responsive to the will of the people. With members facing re-election every two years, the House reflects the nation’s shifting political moods more immediately than the Senate, where longer terms and institutional traditions encourage deliberation and compromise. Unlike the Senate, which was intended to act as a moderating force, the House is where majoritarian power is meant to be exercised forcefully.

Throughout history, strong House leadership has played a crucial role in advancing ambitious party agendas—like Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” in the 1990s and Nancy Pelosi’s passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010.

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When Democrats hold the minority, their leader’s job is to rally the caucus, sharpen the contrast with Republicans, and keep the base engaged for future elections. Hakeem Jeffries, however, has failed to wield the House’s inherent partisanship as a weapon against Republican destruction, opting instead for a lackluster, defensive approach.

While the GOP floods the media with soundbites and viral moments that shape public perception, Jeffries has failed to command the national conversation. Republicans have dominated narratives on spending, immigration, and so-called “deep state” conspiracies, while Democrats struggle to deliver a counter-message that resonates with voters.

Even in the minority, House Democrats should be proposing an ambitious alternative to the Republican agenda. Instead, Jeffries has failed to articulate a clear economic populist and progressive legislative vision. There is no Democratic equivalent to the GOP’s push for tax cuts, deregulation, and privatization. There is no bold policy roadmap for voters to rally behind.

By contrast, past Democratic leaders—such as Nancy Pelosi—used their platforms to drive the party’s agenda, even in the minority. Jeffries, however, has not taken advantage of his role to set the direction for the future.

The Consequences of Weak Leadership

Jeffries’ failure to step into the role of a true opposition leader is not just a missed opportunity—it’s a crisis for the Democratic Party. Without strong leadership in the House, the party risks:

• A demoralized Democratic base – Without a clear, forceful opposition, voters become disengaged, sapping the energy and urgency needed for victory in 2026 and beyond. A weak Democratic response to GOP extremism fuels disillusionment, especially among young and progressive voters who crave bold action.

• A fractured party – In the absence of decisive leadership, progressive lawmakers are left to fight the battles Jeffries won’t, often without the institutional support they need. This division weakens the party’s ability to present a unified front against Republican authoritarianism.

• An unchallenged Republican narrative – The GOP’s relentless messaging machine frames every debate, from immigration to government spending, while Jeffries fails to counter it with an equally aggressive Democratic alternative. When Democrats allow Republicans to dominate the conversation, they concede the battleground of public opinion.

• A missed opportunity to reshape Democratic strategy – With Trump’s return, the Democratic Party faces a defining moment. It can either sharpen its identity as the defender of democracy and working people or continue muddling through with reactive, uninspiring leadership. Right now, it’s failing to seize that opportunity.

What Democrats Must Do Now

The stakes are too high for passive leadership. If Jeffries cannot meet the demands of this moment, then Democrats must look elsewhere for leadership that will. To effectively counter the Republican assault on democracy, the party should:

• Embrace a clear, bold economic message – Democrats must champion policies that directly improve the lives of working- and middle-class Americans, from stronger labor protections to universal healthcare. Generic opposition to Republican policies isn’t enough—Democrats need an affirmative vision that excites voters.

• Adopt an aggressive media strategy – The party must stop treating the mainstream media as a neutral arbiter and instead build an unapologetic, disciplined messaging operation. This means calling out GOP propaganda in real-time, flooding social media with viral content, and ensuring that every Democrat stays on message.

• Mobilize grassroots energy – Democrats win when they engage their base, not when they cater to an imaginary center. The party must invest in grassroots organizing, digital activism, and local outreach to build sustained voter enthusiasm.

• Stop playing by outdated rules – While Republicans openly dismantle democracy, Democrats cannot afford to cling to outdated norms of bipartisanship and institutional deference. The party must act with the urgency the moment demands, using every procedural tool, media platform, and political weapon at its disposal to fight back.

Jeffries time to prove himself as a leader is running out—if he refuses to step up, Democrats must start looking for someone who will. The survival of democracy may depend on it.

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Yesterday, President Joe Biden granted a presidential pardon to his son, Hunter Biden. This decision comes after years of selective prosecution and politicized attacks. Hunter Biden was set to face sentencing for a federal gun charge this week, related to his 2018 misrepresentation on a firearm form during a period of addiction. While such cases rarely result in prosecution unless linked to violent crimes or trafficking, Hunter became the focal point of intensified scrutiny, driven by Republican allegations of corruption within the Biden family.

Republicans have leveraged Hunter Biden's legal troubles and overseas business dealings to suggest broader misconduct by the President. However, despite an impeachment inquiry, House Republicans have failed to produce evidence linking President Biden to any wrongdoing. These relentless attacks nevertheless heightened the stakes surrounding Hunter’s case.

A plea deal that would have resolved Hunter’s gun and tax charges collapsed amid judicial scrutiny and GOP criticism. Allegations from IRS whistleblowers and accusations of leniency led U.S. Attorney David Weiss to be elevated to special counsel. Weiss pursued more severe charges in California, including claims that Hunter failed to pay substantial taxes over several years. Yet, it’s not uncommon for U.S. Attorneys to decline prosecution for unpaid taxes if the individual agrees to repay them along with penalties — which Hunter had already agreed to do. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Hunter Biden's last name made his case an exception.

Read his full statement here:

By granting a pardon, President Biden protects his son from further politicized legal challenges and addresses concerns about Hunter's safety. With the possibility of a Trump administration returning in 2025, Hunter could have faced heightened risks in federal custody. This act of clemency underscores President Biden's commitment to shielding his family from partisan warfare while prioritizing justice and fairness.

Regardless of personal opinions about the presidential pardon power, it is worth noting that Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution explicitly grants the President the authority to issue pardons for federal offenses, except in cases of impeachment. This constitutional prerogative allows the President to act in extraordinary circumstances where justice demands intervention.

In this instance, President Biden’s decision exemplifies both familial loyalty and the broader principle that justice should not be weaponized for political gain.

I have great admiration and respect for him for making this decision.

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In 2004, Charles Kushner pled guilty to federal charges of filing false tax returns, retaliating against a witness, and making false statements to the Federal Election Commission. After finding out that his sister was cooperating with investigators, Kushner hired a prostitute to entrap his brother-in-law, secretly recorded the encounter, and sent the tape to his sister. The plan clearly failed, leading him to agree to a plea deal.

Former Governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, then U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, described it as “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes” he ever prosecuted. However, in 2020, Kushner was granted a pardon from his son’s father-in-law, who happened to be then outgoing President of the United States, Donald Trump.

Today, President-elect Donald Trump announced that Charles Kushner will be nominated as Ambassador to France. This is another glaring reminder of the abnormality we are facing. This is not the caliber of person we want representing the U.S. to our allies. But then again, voters were willing to vote for a convicted felon to be president; did they really not know that he would fill his administration with his cronies?

The larger issue is that these choices not only impact Americans, as they have ripple effects throughout the world. Trump’s choice is not just ethically troubling—it further erodes America’s global credibility. The nomination of someone with such a sordid history to a prestigious diplomatic post sends a message to allies and adversaries alike: the United States is unserious about the integrity of its institutions and the professionalism of its representatives.

But the Kushner nomination is just the beginning. Trump has also announced his intention to fire current FBI Director Christopher Wray upon taking office, replacing him with Kash Patel, a loyalist with a dangerous agenda. Patel is a known conspiracy theorist and election denier who has pledged to purge the so-called “Deep State” and investigate Trump’s perceived enemies.

Patel’s reputation in Trump’s intelligence community was so toxic that both former CIA Director Gina Haspel and Attorney General Bill Barr strongly opposed his previous appointments. Patel’s recent rhetoric, including threats to shut down the FBI’s Hoover building, fire the roughly 7,000 employees that work there, and transform it into a “museum of the deep state,” reveals his ignorance, disdain, and disregard for the Bureau’s independence and the rule of law.

These appointments are not isolated decisions—they are part of a broader strategy to consolidate power, undermine democratic institutions, and exact retribution on Trump’s adversaries. The FBI director’s 10-year term is designed to shield the Bureau from political pressures, but Trump’s planned appointment of Patel threatens to politicize federal law enforcement at an unprecedented level.

As we face the return of Trump to the presidency, these decisions highlight the existential stakes for our democracy and the urgent need for vigilance. His nominations make it abundantly clear that loyalty to him, not competence or integrity, will drive his administration's agenda. This approach threatens to dismantle the very institutions designed to safeguard our freedoms, leaving them vulnerable to corruption and authoritarianism.

To counter this dangerous trajectory, we must focus on three key priorities:

1. Demand Accountability from Congress: The Senate must thoroughly vet Trump’s nominees, especially those with records that undermine the rule of law. Voters should pressure their representatives to prioritize institutional integrity over partisan loyalty. Bipartisan opposition to unsuitable candidates can block or delay appointments that would erode public trust.

2. Support Independent Oversight: Institutions like the Justice Department and the courts must remain independent arbiters of justice. Civil society organizations and the press must relentlessly scrutinize Trump’s actions and hold his administration accountable for attempts to politicize government agencies. Your contributions to ACLU, Human Rights Watch, NAACP, or other civil society organizations that protect individuals and groups of individuals from governmental abuses of power.

3. Mobilize Public Engagement: The strength of our democracy lies in active, informed citizens. We must educate ourselves and others on the implications of these appointments and take collective action through voting, doing our part to share facts with low-information voters, and grassroots organizing to demand better leadership. Be more vocal about your beliefs and the issues that are important to you. Don’t allow yourself to be intimidated into silence.

The dangers posed by these decisions cannot be overstated. Trump’s nominations reflect a presidency intent on prioritizing personal loyalty and vendettas over ethical governance and democratic norms. These choices challenge the resilience of America’s institutions, reminding us that their preservation requires active public commitment and vigilance.

However, these threats also present an opportunity—a rallying call for those who believe in justice, accountability, and the rule of law. Defending our institutions is not just about opposing a single administration; it is about upholding the principles that define us as a nation. Together, through collective resolve and action, we can rise to this challenge and build a brighter, stronger, and more democratic future.

In solidarity,

Aden

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Yesterday, Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a motion to dismiss the federal criminal cases against President-elect Donald Trump. The announcement hits like a gut punch, a devastating reminder that justice delayed is justice denied.

I’m angry. And you should be too.

For years, we’ve witnessed a slow and at times reluctant response from those in positions of power to hold Donald Trump accountable for his attacks on our democracy. Following his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 election, Trump orchestrated a campaign of lies and lawlessness to undermine the results. The January 6th insurrection was the culmination of that effort—a blatant attempt to overturn the will of the American people. Yet, meaningful action to investigate these crimes came far too late.

I can’t help but direct my frustration toward those who were entrusted with protecting our democracy. When President Biden took office in January 2021, I was filled with hope that those who attacked our democracy and participated in the effort to overturn the election would be held accountable by his administration.

Like many Americans, I over estimated the strength of our system of government and its ability to hold powerful people accountable. Attorney General Merrick Garland and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco inherited a Department of Justice battered by political interference. Their cautious approach might have been well-intentioned, but it was woefully insufficient in the face of the clear and present danger posed by Trump and his allies.

Our democratic institutions cannot defend themselves. They rely on people—on leaders with the courage to act swiftly and decisively. When they fail to do so, as they did here, the damage to public trust is incalculable.

Now, as Trump prepares to return to the highest office in the land, we must ask ourselves: What lessons have we learned? What accountability is possible for those who waited too long to act? And, most importantly, how do we ensure this never happens again?

The attack on the United States Capitol, on January 6th, 2021, was a dark day for our country, and with the return of Trump to the White House, it’s highly likely that he will issue pardons to his supporters that attempted to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, by forcibly obstructing Congress from performing its constitutional responsibility of certifying the presidential election results.

This is not just about Donald Trump. It’s about the very fabric of our democracy—its resilience, its integrity, and its ability to endure in the face of those who seek to dismantle it.

Amid this institutional inertia, the January 6th House Select Committee worked tirelessly to uncover the truth. Through a year of painstaking investigation, the committee laid bare Trump’s attempts to cling to power at any cost. Their work gave us clarity, exposed his lies, and provided a foundation for accountability.

But while the Select Committee fulfilled its duty to investigate and educate the public, their findings were handed off to a Justice Department that had dragged its feet for far too long. By waiting until Trump’s return to the campaign trail, federal prosecutors allowed him to whitewash history and rewrite the narrative.

Trump has leveraged the delay to sow doubt, spin conspiracies, and rally his base with claims of persecution. This vacuum of accountability enabled him to cast himself as a victim, not a perpetrator, and to solidify his grip on a movement built on misinformation and grievance.

Had indictments been issued promptly—while the public still remembered the horror of January 6th and before Trump could recast himself as the martyr of his own myth—his path back to power might have been far less certain. The delay wasn’t just a missed opportunity; it was a catastrophic misstep that will haunt us for years to come.

While my frustration with the Department of Justice's delay is undeniable, I am grateful for the work of Special Counsel Jack Smith and his team. His investigation has been meticulous, and his efforts to hold Donald Trump accountable have demonstrated a deep commitment to justice and the rule of law.

Special counsels are uniquely positioned to navigate politically sensitive cases, and Smith’s independent approach has been a vital counterweight to the public’s eroded trust in our institutions. But his appointment came far too late.

Imagine if Smith had been appointed in March 2021, just days after Merrick Garland was confirmed as Attorney General. With the insurrection still fresh in our minds and Trump’s actions clear for all to see, a prompt and decisive investigation could have reshaped the timeline of accountability. By acting swiftly, the Justice Department could have prevented Trump from seizing the narrative and galvanizing his supporters with baseless claims of persecution.

Instead, the delay gave Trump two critical years to whitewash history, discredit investigations, and position himself as the victim of a political witch hunt. This lost time will remain a stain on the DOJ’s legacy during this critical period in American history.

That said, I recognize the magnitude of what Jack Smith has accomplished in the time he’s had. He has confronted unprecedented challenges, navigating a polarized political landscape while investigating the most powerful and divisive figure in modern American politics. His work, though delayed, serves as a testament to the enduring importance of accountability.

The Founding Fathers feared a leader who would exploit power for personal gain, disregard the rule of law, and undermine the institutions designed to preserve our democracy. Their warnings about demagogues were rooted in a belief that unchecked ambition and contempt for norms could unravel the republic they worked so hard to build.

Donald Trump embodies those fears. His presidency exposed the fragility of our system, revealing that its strength depends not just on written laws but on the commitment of leaders and citizens to uphold them. His return to power will further strain the integrity of our democracy if we allow it, as his disregard for accountability threatens to normalize lawlessness at the highest levels.

This moment demands action. We must recommit to the values that sustain our republic—truth, justice, and a respect for institutions. Accountability is not just about looking backward; it’s about ensuring the survival of our democracy for future generations. The lessons of this era are clear: if we fail to act decisively, the republic’s resilience will continue to erode.

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Like many Americans, I’m still processing the results of the 2024 election. While we may not have achieved the outcome we hoped for, our commitment to this country is undiminished. This is our reminder that democracy isn’t a destination—it’s a journey, one we shape through our voices, values, and everyday actions. Now is the time to come together, to double down on our efforts, and to build a future that truly reflects our shared ideals.

Let’s set the record straight: while the electoral map may paint a picture of division, the popular vote tells a different story. The margin is much closer than it seems, underscoring that our platform remains widely supported. The Democratic priorities—economic fairness, accessible healthcare, quality public education, and freedom for all—resonate deeply with millions across this nation. This election was not a rejection of these ideals; rather, it was a reminder to double down, bridge divides, and keep connecting with all who believe in progress and a brighter future.

Of course, the truth is that our Madisonian democracy—a system of checks and balances, separation of powers, and commitment to individual rights—is facing real challenges. Fear, disinformation, and economic anxiety had an outsized influence over this election. It’s important to remember that many who voted were driven not by hate, but by worry, hardship, uncertainty, and ignorance. It’s important that we don’t vilify them; instead, we need to keep reaching out with empathy, building common ground wherever we can, and making sure our values resonate clearly.

In times like these, it’s easy to feel disheartened, but resilience is at the core of democracy. History shows that progress doesn’t come in a straight line, and every setback strengthens our resolve. This moment is our chance to reaffirm what we stand for, to correct misinformation wherever we see it, and to engage in the honest, constructive conversations that will bring us closer to the country we want to be.

As Democrats, we also have an opportunity to rethink how we communicate, especially given the growing educational divide in voting patterns. We need to speak clearly, assertively, and with respect to reach all voters—not only those with advanced degrees, but also those whose concerns are immediate and pressing. Civic education is essential to this effort; when people understand how our system works and how policies affect their daily lives, they’re empowered to make informed choices. Our goal is to build a future where fairness, dignity, and opportunity are within reach for everyone, and where every American feels seen, heard, and valued.

Together we’re fighting to:

• Protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid;

• Strengthen the Affordable Care Act;

• Invest in public education, universal childcare, and early childhood education;

• Defend marriage equality and reproductive rights;

• Pass common-sense gun safety measures;

• Safeguard workers’ rights to unionize;

• Reform campaign finance laws;

• Pursue a foreign policy that values our alliances, supports human rights, and maintains a strong and respected military.

These aren’t just policies—they’re promises to each other and to future generations. They reflect our commitment to a brighter, more inclusive future and our belief in an America that lifts everyone up, no matter who they are or where they come from.

So let’s hold our heads high and keep pushing forward, united in purpose. This work doesn’t end with a single election—it’s the ongoing effort of everyone who believes in a better tomorrow. If this vision resonates with you, I invite you to share it with a friend. Together, we’ll build the momentum to create the America we all deserve—one that embodies the values of fairness, dignity, and opportunity for all.

In solidarity,

Aden

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This week, the U.S. Air Force demonstrated its formidable capabilities and resolve in the Middle East by deploying B-2 Spirit stealth bombers to target Iran-backed Houthi forces in Yemen. The mission, directed by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, marks the first time this iconic aircraft has been used in a combat operation in the 2020s. The Pentagon announced the strikes Wednesday night, revealing that five underground weapons facilities were successfully targeted.

What makes this operation particularly significant is the logistical and strategic prowess required to deploy the B-2s. The only squadron of these advanced bombers is based out of Missouri, and each aircraft has a range of nearly 7,000 miles, capable of remaining airborne for over 44 hours. This allows the U.S. to strike anywhere in the world with unmatched precision and stealth, underscoring the reach and power of American air capabilities.

The airstrikes were a direct response to recent Houthi aggression, specifically targeting civilian and military ships in the Red Sea and surrounding areas. Secretary Austin emphasized that the operation was a necessary measure to halt these destabilizing actions, sending a clear signal to the Houthis and their Iranian backers that their activities will not be tolerated.

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This decisive show of force not only targets the Houthis but also serves as a warning to other actors in the region. The U.S. has made it clear that it will not hesitate to deploy its advanced military assets when regional security and freedom of navigation are under threat.

The deployment of the B-2 bombers—stealth aircraft capable of penetrating deep into enemy territory and delivering precision strikes—reinforces the U.S.’s commitment to maintaining stability in the Middle East and protecting vital global trade routes. By highlighting the importance of the Red Sea as a crucial maritime corridor, this mission underscores the U.S.’s resolve to safeguard international waters from hostile activities.

The broader geopolitical implications extend beyond Yemen and the Houthis. This direct action reaffirms the U.S.’s stance against Iran’s influence in the region and emphasizes the importance of its partnerships with regional allies. Such operations highlight the necessity of a continued U.S. presence in the Middle East to deter aggression and maintain peace.

It’s essential for Americans and the international community to understand the stakes involved. The U.S. remains committed to acting as a stabilizing force, ensuring that critical maritime routes remain secure and that any aggression is met with swift and decisive action.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, communities across the country face significant challenges as they begin to rebuild. In recent days, I have seen numerous posts on social media arguing that the United States should not provide another penny in aid to other countries until recovery efforts at home are completed. This is a false choice and reflects an isolationist view that harms our global standing as a force for good. It also fails to acknowledge the responsibility that comes with great power, influence, and the capacity to do good.

While it is essential to mobilize resources for disaster relief at home, it is equally crucial to recognize the value and importance of U.S. foreign aid. Even as we confront challenges within our own borders, the United States has the capacity and responsibility to invest in global stability. Foreign aid is not only a moral obligation; it is a strategic investment that benefits both our allies and our own national interests.

Foreign Aid: A Small Investment with a Big Impact

Foreign aid obligations account for just 1-2% of the total federal budget. This modest investment supports a wide range of critical programs, including humanitarian assistance, health initiatives, peace and security efforts, and economic development projects. These investments help stabilize vulnerable regions, prevent conflicts, and support the health and well-being of millions of people.

The impact of these programs may not always be visible to Americans in their daily lives, but their effects are profound and far-reaching. By providing support to countries in need, the U.S. helps build a more peaceful and prosperous world—one that ultimately benefits our own security, economy, and global standing.

The Strategic Importance of Foreign Aid

When the U.S. invests in foreign aid, it is investing in its own future. Economic development programs supported by U.S. aid foster growth and stability in regions that might otherwise become sources of conflict or instability. Health programs that combat diseases like HIV/AIDS, malaria, and COVID-19 save lives, strengthen healthcare systems, and prevent global pandemics from spreading to American shores. Humanitarian assistance responds to crises that, if left unchecked, could lead to mass migrations or regional conflicts.

By promoting stability and prosperity abroad, the U.S. helps to create conditions where peace and cooperation can thrive. These efforts reduce the need for costly military interventions, foster economic opportunities for American businesses, and enhance the security of our nation and its allies.

Simultaneous Domestic and Global Support: A Demonstration of U.S. Strength

Even as we focus on supporting communities affected by Hurricane Helene, we have the resources and capacity to maintain our commitments abroad. The United States has long demonstrated that it can address domestic needs while also fulfilling its global responsibilities. The ability to do both is a testament to our resilience and leadership.

Providing disaster relief at home and foreign aid abroad are not mutually exclusive. In fact, the dual approach reflects our strength as a nation capable of confronting multiple challenges at once. The same values that drive us to help our fellow Americans during times of crisis also inspire us to extend support to those suffering beyond our borders.

The Long-Term Benefits of Foreign Aid for Americans

While the impact of foreign aid may not be immediately visible in our day-to-day lives, its benefits are substantial. By supporting stability and development abroad, the U.S. mitigates threats before they reach our shores. Foreign aid programs build partnerships that enhance diplomatic ties, create new markets for American goods, and promote the rule of law and human rights—all of which contribute to a more stable, interconnected world.

Additionally, when the U.S. helps countries rebuild after conflicts or natural disasters, it strengthens its alliances and reinforces its reputation as a global leader. These partnerships can prove invaluable in times of crisis, both domestically and internationally.

Our Commitment to Global Stability

As we rebuild from Hurricane Helene, we must also reaffirm our commitment to international assistance. Supporting global stability through foreign aid programs ensures that the United States remains a force for good. The humanitarian assistance we provide saves lives; health initiatives combat diseases that could otherwise spread; and peace and security programs promote stability in regions that could otherwise fall into chaos.

It is crucial that we do not view our obligations abroad as separate from our responsibilities at home. The two are interconnected. By investing in global stability, the U.S. protects its own security, strengthens its economy, and upholds its values.

A Proud Legacy of Strength, Generosity, and Leadership

The United States has the extraordinary capacity to lift up communities at home while extending a hand of assistance to allies across the globe. Hurricane Helene is a reminder of our nation’s resilience and our commitment to stand by our fellow citizens in their time of need. But it is also a call to honor the values that have defined America for generations—compassion, generosity, and an unwavering commitment to the well-being of people everywhere.

Our foreign aid efforts are not just acts of charity; they are powerful expressions of our belief in a world where freedom, stability, and opportunity are shared by all. The American people have always risen to the challenge, showing that when disaster strikes, whether at home or abroad, we are there to help.

We should take pride in our role as a force for good on the world stage. By investing in global stability and prosperity, we are not only making the world a safer place—we are reinforcing what it means to be American. We are a nation that leads by example, and it is through this leadership that we strengthen our own future and that of generations to come. Together, let us remain steadfast in our commitment to being a beacon of hope, strength, and stability in an ever-changing world.