#americandemocracy — Public Fediverse posts

Tuesday Truth: How Donald Trump’s Taxpayer-Funded Ads and Policies Prove Everything is Worse Under His Leadership

https://bluepress.blog/2026/09/30/tuesday-truth-how-donald-trumps-taxpayer-funded-ads-and-policies-prove-everything-is-worse-under-his-leadership/

Stuart Stevens Says the GOP Became a Cartel—and Democrats Must Defend Democracy

Former GOP strategist Stuart Stevens calls his old party a cartel and says Democrats must pursue lawful accountability instead of rushing back to normal.

Restoration of the Bench: The Need to Reform the Supreme Court Essay

https://bluepress.blog/2026/09/20/restoration-of-the-bench-the-need-to-reform-the-supreme-court-essay/

Tech Fascism Has Come for American Democracy

https://techwontsave.us/episode/342_tech_fascism_has_come_for_american_democracy_w_gil_duran

Comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49724194

#HackerNews #TechFascism #AmericanDemocracy #DigitalRights #TechEthics #FreeSpeech

Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson Interview on OpenAI, His Own Videos

Running a great magazine is hard. So is turning a money-losing magazine into a profit center. Nicholas Thompson…
#NewsBeep #News #US #USA #UnitedStates #UnitedStatesOfAmerica #Artificialintelligence #AI #Americandemocracy #ArtificialIntelligence #Atlantic #businessinsider #CEO #conversation #deal #editor #lot #money #NicholasThompson #OpenAI #people #publisher #Technology #thing
https://www.newsbeep.com/us/844339/

Chrystia Freeland Warns America: Democracy Is on Life Support as Canada Moves On

Chrystia Freeland says U.S. democracy is on life support as Canada diversifies trade and Trump’s policies drive longtime democratic allies away.

The Unfinished Business of January 6: When Accountability Failed

By Cliff Potts, CSO, and Editor-in-Chief of WPS News

Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines — September 1, 2026

On January 6, 2021, the constitutional machinery of the United States was performing one of its most routine and most important functions: Congress was counting electoral votes and formally completing the transfer of presidential power.

Then the Capitol was breached.

The attack itself has been examined through congressional hearings, criminal prosecutions, court proceedings, an impeachment trial, and the final report of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Arguments continue over responsibility for security failures, the motivations of individual participants, Donald Trump’s intentions, and the political character of subsequent investigations. Those disagreements belong in the historical record.

But one fact cannot reasonably be disputed: Congress was forced to suspend the constitutionally prescribed certification proceeding while a violent mob occupied portions of the United States Capitol (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).

Trump was subsequently impeached by the House for “incitement of insurrection.” The Senate acquitted him when 57 senators voted guilty and 43 voted not guilty—ten votes short of the constitutionally required two-thirds majority (U.S. House of Representatives, 2021; U.S. Senate, 2021a).

Four years later, Trump returned to the White House.

January 6 therefore presents an extraordinary constitutional problem.

This is no longer merely a question about what happened in 2021.

It is a question about what the United States decided—or failed to decide—about presidential accountability.

January 6 Did Not Begin on January 6

Reducing January 6 to several hours of rioting misses much of the constitutional issue.

The House Select Committee concluded after its investigation that Trump had engaged in a broader effort to overturn the lawful result of the 2020 presidential election. Its final report drew upon documents and testimony from numerous Republicans and members of Trump’s own administration and campaign, including former Justice Department officials, White House personnel, campaign officials, state officials, and others (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).

The committee concluded that Trump continued promoting false allegations of widespread election fraud after courts rejected numerous challenges and after advisers told him that evidence did not support claims sufficient to reverse the election result (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).

The committee also concluded that Trump pressured state officials concerning election results, participated in efforts involving alternative electoral certificates, sought assistance from Justice Department officials, and pressured Vice President Mike Pence not to count certain electoral votes during the January 6 joint session of Congress (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).

Those were findings of a congressional committee, not criminal convictions.

That distinction matters.

Trump and his supporters have consistently rejected the committee’s interpretation, characterized the investigation as partisan, maintained that he genuinely believed the election had been compromised, and argued that his political speech and challenges to election results were constitutionally protected.

But disagreement with the committee does not erase the evidence it collected. The historical record includes testimony from Trump’s own officials describing repeated warnings that allegations being advanced about the election were unsupported (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).

The constitutional issue therefore reaches beyond the riot itself.

It concerns an incumbent president’s response to losing an election.

The Vice President Was Asked to Do Something He Could Not Lawfully Do

Vice President Mike Pence became central to Trump’s effort.

Trump and allies argued that Pence possessed authority during the congressional electoral count to reject or delay electoral votes from contested states.

Pence rejected that argument.

The January 6 Committee concluded that Trump pressured Pence to refuse to count electoral votes despite being informed that the proposed action lacked lawful constitutional authority (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).

That episode is significant because the peaceful transfer of presidential power depends upon losing candidates eventually accepting an institutional answer they do not like.

Candidates can demand recounts.

They can file lawsuits.

They can challenge election procedures.

They can seek investigations.

They can argue that election laws were violated.

But eventually the courts rule, states certify their results, electors vote, Congress counts those votes, and power changes hands.

The American constitutional system cannot function if an incumbent president possesses an effective unilateral veto over that process.

Then Came the Capitol

Trump addressed supporters near the White House on January 6 before Congress convened to count the electoral votes. He urged supporters to march to the Capitol while also telling them to make their voices heard “peacefully and patriotically.”

That language is an important part of Trump’s defense and should not be omitted from any serious assessment of his responsibility.

His defenders argue that this explicit reference to peaceful protest contradicts the allegation that Trump intended to provoke violence.

The House impeachment managers argued differently. They maintained that the speech had to be understood within the context of Trump’s months-long campaign challenging the election result, his rhetoric surrounding January 6, and pressure directed toward Pence and other officials (U.S. House of Representatives, 2021).

The Select Committee later examined Trump’s December 19, 2020 announcement promoting the January 6 protest and concluded that his public messaging helped mobilize supporters who ultimately came to Washington (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).

The Capitol was subsequently breached.

Members of Congress evacuated or sheltered.

Police officers fought rioters.

The electoral count stopped.

Whatever political terminology one prefers for January 6—riot, attack, insurrection, protest that became violent—the constitutional proceeding was physically disrupted.

That alone made January 6 unlike an ordinary political demonstration.

The 187 Minutes

One of the Select Committee’s most consequential findings concerned what Trump did after the Capitol had been breached.

The committee devoted an entire chapter of its final report to what it called “187 Minutes of Dereliction,” examining the period between the end of Trump’s Ellipse speech and his eventual video message telling supporters to leave the Capitol (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).

According to the committee’s reconstruction, people around Trump urged him to intervene publicly while the violence continued. The committee concluded that Trump did not immediately issue an unequivocal public demand that rioters leave the Capitol and that he continued focusing on the electoral count while the attack unfolded (U.S. House Select Committee, 2022).

Trump and his defenders dispute the committee’s characterization of his actions and intentions.

But the underlying constitutional question is difficult to avoid.

The president of the United States is not merely another political commentator watching a riot on television.

The president heads the executive branch.

When violence physically interrupts Congress while it performs a constitutional function, presidential responsibility is qualitatively different from that of an ordinary citizen.

That is why those 187 minutes matter.

Congress Impeached Him

The House acted one week later.

On January 13, 2021, the House approved H.Res. 24, impeaching Trump for incitement of insurrection. Ten Republicans joined Democrats in voting for impeachment (U.S. House of Representatives, 2021).

Trump’s term ended January 20.

His Senate trial therefore occurred after he had left office, creating a constitutional dispute over whether the Senate retained jurisdiction to try a former president.

The Senate voted 56–44 that Trump remained subject to an impeachment trial for acts committed while president (U.S. Senate, 2021b).

The final vote was considerably more striking.

Fifty-seven senators voted guilty.

Forty-three voted not guilty.

Seven Republican senators joined every Democratic and independent senator voting to convict (U.S. Senate, 2021a).

Under almost any ordinary voting rule, 57–43 would be an overwhelming victory.

Impeachment is deliberately different.

The Constitution requires two-thirds of senators present to convict. Trump therefore was acquitted (U.S. Const. art. I, § 3; U.S. Senate, 2021a).

That acquittal must be respected as the formal constitutional result.

But understanding why some senators voted to acquit is equally important.

Even McConnell Said Trump Was Responsible

Then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell voted to acquit Trump.

Immediately afterward, however, McConnell delivered a remarkable speech.

He argued that Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for provoking the events of January 6 while maintaining that the Senate lacked jurisdiction to convict someone who was no longer president (McConnell, 2021).

In other words, McConnell’s acquittal vote was not an endorsement of Trump’s conduct.

Other Republican senators similarly relied upon jurisdictional arguments in explaining their votes.

That distinction changes the historical meaning of the 43 acquittal votes.

The Senate did not produce 43 senators unanimously declaring that Trump’s conduct was acceptable.

It produced a coalition containing senators who rejected the House’s case on the merits and others who believed the Constitution prevented them from convicting a former president.

Whether that jurisdictional interpretation was correct remains disputed. The Senate itself had already voted 56–44 that it possessed jurisdiction (U.S. Senate, 2021b).

The consequence, however, was unmistakable.

Trump was not convicted.

He was not disqualified from future federal office.

And eventually he returned.

The Criminal Case Never Produced a Verdict

January 6 also entered the criminal justice system.

Special Counsel Jack Smith obtained a federal indictment alleging that Trump conspired to overturn the 2020 election. Trump pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing.

The case never reached a jury verdict.

After Trump won the 2024 presidential election, prosecutors moved to dismiss the federal case because longstanding Justice Department policy holds that a sitting president cannot be federally prosecuted.

That distinction is critical to the historical record.

The dismissal did not constitute an acquittal after trial.

Nor did the indictment constitute proof of guilt.

The central federal criminal allegations concerning Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election therefore ended without a jury determining guilt or innocence.

Once again, the institutional machinery of accountability reached Trump but did not produce a final adjudication of the underlying allegations.

Then Trump Pardoned the January 6 Defendants

Trump’s return to office transformed January 6 from historical controversy into a matter involving his second presidency.

On January 20, 2025—his first day back in office—Trump issued clemency covering nearly all defendants convicted of offenses related to January 6. He commuted the sentences of specified defendants, granted full pardons to others, and directed the attorney general to seek dismissal of remaining January 6 indictments (The White House, 2025).

The White House has defended those actions aggressively, describing January 6 defendants as victims of politically motivated prosecution and presenting Trump’s clemency as an effort to correct injustice and promote reconciliation (The White House, 2025).

The president unquestionably possesses broad constitutional pardon authority over federal offenses.

The question for this series is therefore not simply whether Trump could issue the pardons.

He could.

The larger question is what their issuance means for presidential accountability.

A president impeached over an attack connected to an effort to prevent the transfer of power returned four years later and used presidential authority to erase or reduce federal criminal consequences for many of the people prosecuted in connection with that attack.

That is constitutionally legal clemency.

It is also historically extraordinary.

Both things can be true simultaneously.

January 6 Cannot Simply Become Article III

There is a temptation for Trump’s opponents to say: January 6 was impeachable in 2021, therefore impeach him for January 6 again in 2026.

That would be a weak way to construct a third impeachment.

Trump has already been impeached and tried for his January 6-related conduct.

A credible new impeachment case should principally concern conduct undertaken during his current presidency.

January 6 instead performs another function.

It provides context.

It tells Congress what happened the last time institutions confronted Trump over alleged abuse of presidential power and an attempt to remain in office after losing an election.

It tells Congress what happened when the House impeached him.

It tells Congress what happened when 57 senators voted to convict him but the constitutional supermajority was not reached.

And Trump’s return to office tells Congress what an acquittal can ultimately mean.

The Cost of No Accountability

This is where January 6 becomes larger than Donald Trump.

The Constitution contains rules governing elections and transfers of power, but those rules ultimately depend upon human beings respecting and enforcing them.

Suppose a future president loses an election.

Suppose that president pressures state officials.

Suppose the president encourages alternative interpretations of electoral law designed to preserve his own power.

Suppose the president pressures the vice president.

Suppose supporters then disrupt the congressional proceeding that formalizes the president’s defeat.

What lesson does January 6 provide that future president?

The answer cannot simply be that everything worked out.

Yes, Congress reconvened.

Yes, the electoral votes were counted.

Yes, Joe Biden became president on January 20, 2021.

The immediate constitutional process survived.

But accountability is a different question.

Trump was impeached.

He was acquitted.

The federal criminal case against him never reached a verdict.

He regained the presidency.

And after returning to office, he exercised presidential clemency for nearly all federal defendants prosecuted for January 6-related offenses (The White House, 2025).

None of those individual events proves that the Constitution has failed.

Taken together, however, they establish a precedent that deserves serious consideration.

Constitutional restraints are partly constructed from expectations. Presidents know that certain actions will bring consequences because previous presidents saw those consequences imposed.

When consequences repeatedly fail to materialize, expectations change.

The danger is not necessarily that another president will reproduce January 6 exactly.

History rarely repeats itself that neatly.

The danger is that a future president will study what happened and conclude that the boundaries can be pushed farther.

Maybe Congress can be pressured more aggressively.

Maybe state officials can be threatened more directly.

Maybe federal law enforcement can be manipulated more effectively.

Maybe an election defeat can be resisted more systematically.

Maybe the next effort will be conducted by people who learned from the mistakes of the previous one.

That is the unfinished business of January 6.

America successfully transferred power on January 20, 2021.

What America never conclusively established was the price a president must pay for attempting to interfere with that transfer.

Donald Trump returned to office before the country settled that question.

Now the answer matters not only for him.

It matters for every president who comes afterward.

References

McConnell, M. (2021, February 13). Remarks following the Senate impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump. United States Senate.

The White House. (2025, January 20). Granting pardons and commutation of sentences for certain offenses relating to the events at or near the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.

U.S. Constitution, art. I, § 3.

U.S. House of Representatives. (2021). Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors (H. Res. 24, 117th Cong.).

U.S. House of Representatives, Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. (2022). Final report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol (H. Rept. 117-663). U.S. Government Publishing Office.

U.S. Senate. (2021a, February 13). Roll call vote 59: Article of impeachment against former President Donald John Trump.

U.S. Senate. (2021b, February 9). Roll call vote 57: Whether former President Donald John Trump is subject to a court of impeachment for acts committed while president.

Trump Is Manufacturing an Election Crisis to Justify Military and ICE Power

Trump is manufacturing claims of foreign interference and noncitizen voting to discredit future election losses and prepare Americans for authoritarian federal action.

The Constitutional Case: What Does “High Crimes and Misdemeanors” Actually Mean?

By Cliff Potts, CSO, and Editor-in-Chief of WPS News

Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines — August 25, 2026

Donald J. Trump has already been impeached twice. He was acquitted twice. He returned to the presidency anyway.

Now, during Trump’s second administration, members of Congress have again introduced articles of impeachment. That raises a question more important than whether Americans like or dislike Donald Trump: What conduct actually justifies removing a president under the Constitution of the United States?

That is where this series must begin.

The Constitution does not say that presidents may be impeached because they are unpopular, offensive, dishonest, incompetent, reckless, or politically objectionable. Nor does it say that impeachment requires prosecutors first to prove a violation of the federal criminal code. Article II establishes a different standard: the president may be removed following impeachment and conviction for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors” (U.S. Const. art. II, § 4).

Understanding those last five words is essential. Without that foundation, a discussion about impeaching Trump for a third time becomes little more than another partisan argument. With it, however, Congress and the public can ask a considerably more serious question:

Has Donald Trump used the powers entrusted to the presidency in ways sufficiently dangerous to the constitutional order to constitute high crimes and misdemeanors?

Impeachment Is Not an Ordinary Criminal Trial

One of the most persistent misconceptions about impeachment is that a president must commit an indictable criminal offense before Congress can act.

That is not the historical standard.

The Congressional Research Service notes that the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” descended from English parliamentary practice and historically encompassed serious abuses of governmental office, including corruption, misuse of public funds, neglect of duty, violations of legislative rights, abuses of official power, and betrayals of the public trust (Congressional Research Service [CRS], 2025).

Congress’s own Constitution Annotated reaches much the same conclusion. American impeachment practice has included misconduct involving abuse of official authority, behavior fundamentally incompatible with the responsibilities of office, and use of office for improper or personal purposes (Library of Congress, n.d.-a).

That distinction is crucial.

A president could theoretically violate a criminal statute without committing an impeachable offense. Conversely, a president could commit a profound abuse of constitutional authority without the conduct fitting neatly within a particular criminal statute.

Alexander Hamilton anticipated precisely this problem in Federalist No. 65. He described impeachable offenses as arising from misconduct by public officials and from the “abuse or violation of some public trust” (Hamilton, 1788/1961).

The emphasis is on public trust.

Impeachment therefore exists not simply to punish wrongdoing but to protect constitutional government from an officeholder who abuses the extraordinary powers entrusted to that office (CRS, 2025; Library of Congress, n.d.-b).

The Framers Deliberately Rejected Impeachment for Mere Bad Government

There is an equally important limitation.

The Framers did not intend impeachment to become a congressional vote of no confidence whenever Congress disliked a president.

During the Constitutional Convention, George Mason proposed including “maladministration” among the grounds for impeachment. James Madison objected that such a broad term could effectively make a president dependent upon the pleasure of the Senate. The Convention instead adopted “high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” thereby demanding something more serious than incompetence, policy disagreement, or ordinary political failure (CRS, 2025).

That principle matters enormously when discussing Trump.

Disagreeing with Trump’s immigration policies is not, by itself, grounds for impeachment.

Disagreeing with his tariffs is not grounds for impeachment.

Disliking his foreign policy is not grounds for impeachment.

Finding his rhetoric offensive is not grounds for impeachment.

Voting against him is politics.

Removing him through impeachment requires something more.

The constitutional issue begins when presidential conduct arguably crosses from controversial policy into abuse of governmental power, corruption, obstruction, violation of constitutional responsibilities, or betrayal of the public trust (Library of Congress, n.d.-a; CRS, 2025).

That is the line this series will investigate.

Donald Trump Is Already an Extraordinary Constitutional Case

No American president has occupied Trump’s position in constitutional history.

The House first impeached Trump on December 18, 2019, for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The Senate acquitted him on February 5, 2020 (U.S. House of Representatives, 2026; U.S. Senate, 2020).

The House impeached him again on January 13, 2021, this time for incitement of insurrection following the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6. The Senate trial ended with 57 senators voting guilty and 43 voting not guilty—ten votes short of the 67 required for conviction (U.S. House of Representatives, 2021; U.S. Senate, 2021).

That vote deserves particular attention.

Trump was acquitted. That is the constitutional result and should be stated plainly.

But 57 senators—including seven Republicans—voted to convict him (U.S. Senate, 2021). The result therefore cannot accurately be described as a determination that Trump’s conduct was universally considered acceptable or harmless.

Indeed, some senators who voted to acquit explicitly condemned Trump’s behavior while arguing that the Senate lacked constitutional authority to convict a former president. Republican Senator John Thune, for example, said his acquittal vote should not be understood as exoneration of Trump’s conduct surrounding January 6 (Thune, 2021).

The Senate had separately voted 56–44 that a former president could constitutionally be tried for acts committed while president, but that procedural dispute remained central to the defense offered by several senators who ultimately voted for acquittal (U.S. Senate, 2021b).

That history matters because Donald Trump did something unprecedented afterward:

He returned to the presidency.

January 6 Is History, but It Is Not Irrelevant

January 6, 2021, cannot simply be recycled as a new impeachable offense in 2026.

Trump was already impeached for conduct associated with that event. The Senate already tried him. It acquitted him (U.S. House of Representatives, 2021; U.S. Senate, 2021a).

But that does not make January 6 irrelevant.

It becomes part of the historical record against which later presidential conduct can be evaluated.

If Congress investigates whether a president is abusing power, attempting to place himself beyond legal restraint, obstructing constitutional institutions, or using government authority against perceived enemies, previous confrontations with constitutional restraints may become relevant to understanding the seriousness and pattern of later conduct.

That is different from trying Trump twice for the same conduct.

The question in 2026 must be whether conduct during the current presidency independently meets the constitutional threshold for impeachment.

And Congress has already begun asking exactly that question.

A Third Impeachment Is No Longer Merely Hypothetical

On April 28, 2025, Representative Shri Thanedar introduced H.Res. 353, formally titled Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors (U.S. House of Representatives, 2025).

The resolution proposed multiple articles involving allegations of obstruction and abuse of executive power, usurpation of congressional authority, violations of due process, attacks on freedom of expression and other abuses of presidential authority (U.S. House of Representatives, 2025).

The existence of an impeachment resolution does not prove the allegations contained within it.

That distinction is essential.

Members of Congress can introduce resolutions for political as well as constitutional reasons. An accusation contained in an article of impeachment is still an accusation until the underlying evidence is examined.

But H.Res. 353 demonstrates something important: the constitutional question this series is examining is already before Congress.

The issue is therefore not whether somebody could imagine impeaching Donald Trump again.

Some members of Congress already have.

The real question is whether the evidence supports them.

Criminality and Impeachability Are Different Questions

This distinction will become increasingly important as this series examines Trump’s broader legal history.

A criminal conviction does not automatically establish an impeachable offense. Likewise, the absence of a criminal conviction does not automatically establish that presidential conduct is constitutionally acceptable.

The Constitution treats the two processes separately. Article I specifically provides that impeachment judgments do not prevent the person convicted by the Senate from later being “liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law” (U.S. Const. art. I, § 3, cl. 7).

That separation is deliberate.

Criminal courts determine criminal liability.

The House determines whether an official should be impeached.

The Senate determines whether that official should be convicted and removed.

Those institutions answer related but fundamentally different questions (Library of Congress, n.d.-b).

For Donald Trump, therefore, criminal cases, civil judgments, January 6, presidential actions, executive orders, conflicts with Congress, confrontations with courts, foreign-policy decisions, and alleged uses of governmental power for personal or political purposes cannot simply be thrown into one enormous pile labeled “impeachment.”

Each must be examined individually.

The evidence must be separated from rhetoric.

The constitutional significance must be established.

And Trump’s defenses must be considered alongside the accusations.

Anything less would turn impeachment into precisely the partisan weapon the Framers feared.

The Question This Series Will Ask

Over the next nine Tuesdays, WPS News will examine whether a credible constitutional case exists for the third impeachment of Donald J. Trump.

The standard will not be whether Trump is a good president.

It will not be whether his policies are progressive or conservative.

It will not be whether Democrats despise him or Republicans defend him.

The standard will be whether documented conduct constitutes the kind of serious abuse of official power, corruption, obstruction, constitutional violation, or betrayal of public trust historically encompassed by “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” (Hamilton, 1788/1961; CRS, 2025; Library of Congress, n.d.-a).

That requires evidence.

It also requires restraint.

Where allegations are unproven, they will be identified as allegations. Where courts have ruled, those rulings will be identified. Where constitutional scholars disagree, that disagreement will be acknowledged. Where the administration offers a substantive defense, that defense belongs in the record.

The purpose is not to manufacture an impeachment case.

The purpose is to determine whether one already exists.

The Cost of No Accountability

There is another question running underneath this entire series.

What happens if presidential misconduct repeatedly produces no lasting constitutional consequence?

Trump’s first impeachment ended in acquittal (U.S. Senate, 2020). His second impeachment ended in acquittal despite a 57-vote Senate majority favoring conviction (U.S. Senate, 2021a). He subsequently returned to the presidency.

That does not itself prove that either acquittal was constitutionally wrong. Senators had the authority to vote as they did.

But the cumulative precedent matters.

A constitution is not self-enforcing.

Words written on parchment cannot physically restrain a president. The separation of powers functions only when institutions exercise the powers given to them. Courts must issue judgments. Congress must legislate and conduct oversight. Elections must transfer authority. Executive officials must obey lawful constraints. And when an officer commits conduct serious enough to constitute a high crime or misdemeanor, Congress must decide whether impeachment is warranted.

The danger is larger than Donald Trump.

If conduct once considered disqualifying gradually becomes survivable, and conduct once considered an abuse of power becomes merely another partisan controversy, the practical limits surrounding the presidency change without a single word of the Constitution being amended.

Future presidents notice precedents.

They notice what previous presidents were allowed to do.

They notice which boundaries were enforced and which boundaries existed only on paper.

That is why impeachment was placed in the Constitution in the first place. It is not simply a mechanism for punishing an individual. It is one of the structural defenses intended to prevent executive power from overwhelming republican government (Library of Congress, n.d.-b; CRS, 2025).

The central question of this series is therefore not simply:

Has Donald Trump committed impeachable offenses?

There is a second question behind it:

If a president can repeatedly test the boundaries of constitutional power without meaningful accountability, what will those boundaries mean to the next president—and the president after that?

That may ultimately be the more important question.

References

Congressional Research Service. (2025). Impeachment and the Constitution (R46013). U.S. Congress. Congressional Research Service report

Hamilton, A. (1788/1961). Federalist No. 65. In C. Rossiter (Ed.), The Federalist Papers. New American Library.

Library of Congress. (n.d.-a). Overview of impeachable offenses. Constitution Annotated. Constitution Annotated: Overview of Impeachable Offenses

Library of Congress. (n.d.-b). Overview of impeachment clause. Constitution Annotated. Constitution Annotated: Overview of Impeachment Clause

Thune, J. (2021, February 13). Thune statement on conclusion of Senate impeachment trial. United States Senate. Senator Thune statement

U.S. House of Representatives. (2021, January 13). Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors (H. Res. 24, 117th Cong.). U.S. Government Publishing Office. H.Res. 24 official record

U.S. House of Representatives. (2025, April 28). Impeaching Donald John Trump, President of the United States, for high crimes and misdemeanors (H. Res. 353, 119th Cong.). H.Res. 353 official text

U.S. House of Representatives, Office of the Historian. (2026). List of individuals impeached by the House of Representatives. House impeachment history

U.S. Senate. (2020, February 5). Senate floor activity: Wednesday, February 5, 2020. First Trump impeachment trial record

U.S. Senate. (2021a, February 13). Roll call vote 117th Congress—1st session: Vote 59. Senate impeachment verdict, 57–43

U.S. Senate. (2021b, February 9). Roll call vote 117th Congress—1st session: Vote 57. Senate jurisdiction vote, 56–44

U.S. Constitution, art. I, § 3, cl. 7; art. II, § 4.

Michigan, Two Weeks On: What Abdul El-Sayed’s Victory Really Tells Us

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.pressenza.com/2026/08/michigan-two-weeks-on-what-abdul-el-sayeds-victory-really-tells-us/

Republican’s Stunning Exit Exposes How Extreme the GOP Has Become

A Republican lawmaker says targeting immigrant children helped push him out of politics. His warning reveals how extremism has moved from the GOP fringe into its mainstream.

#AmericanFascists is a prescient book written by #ChrisHedges in 2007, which at the time of launch was dismissed as alarmist:

"All it will take, Hedges writes, is one more national crisis on the order of September 11 for the #ChristianRight to make a concerted drive to destroy #Americandemocracy. The movement awaits a crisis. At that moment they will reveal themselves for what they truly are -- the American heirs to #fascism. Hedges issues a potent, impassioned warning. We face an imminent threat. His book reminds us of the dangers liberal, democratic societies face when they tolerate the #intolerant."

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/69095.American_Fascists

yep. yep.

https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/2026/7/1/ta-nehisi-coates-the-next-black-president

#tanehisicoates #kamalaharris #americandemocracy

Trump Is Manufacturing an Election Crisis to Justify Military and ICE Power

Trump is manufacturing claims of foreign interference and noncitizen voting to discredit future election losses and prepare Americans for authoritarian federal action.

https://www.europesays.com/people/152880/ Gavin Newsom Warns Donald Trump Poses ‘Gravest Threat’ Before Midterms #AmericanDemocracy #california #California’sGovernor #ControlOfCongress #DonaldTrump #GavinNewsom #HouseAndSenate #MidtermElections #PoliticalRhetoric

1776 Against 1787: Constituent Power and the Forgotten Meaning of American Democracy

https://web.brid.gy/r/https://www.pressenza.com/2026/07/1776-against-1787-constituent-power-and-the-forgotten-meaning-of-american-democracy/

In the spring of 2025, in response to the re-election of Donald J. Trump as 47th president of the USA, a group of historians working in the United States, Germany and Europe held a series of virtual conversations on the past, present and future of #democracy. The aim was to share and discuss historical expertise in light of an extraordinary moment in time.

Now, their statements are available here: Historians on Democracy ⬇️

https://histondem.hypotheses.org/

#AmericanDemocracy #histodons

What Kind of Nation Are We at 250?

A History Teacher’s Answer

Two hundred and fifty years ago, a group of men gathered in Philadelphia and wrote a sentence that has never stopped working. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” They wrote it in the middle of a revolution, under enormous pressure, with no guarantee that the nation they were announcing would survive its first decade. They wrote it knowing, many of them, that they were not living up to it. And they wrote it anyway; because some truths, once stated clearly enough, cannot be recalled. They become the standard by which everything that follows is measured, including the people who first wrote them down.

That sentence is 250 years old today. It has been invoked by abolitionists demanding the end of slavery, by suffragists demanding the right to vote, by civil rights marchers demanding the equal protection the Constitution promised, by farmworkers demanding dignity in the fields, by soldiers demanding that the democracy they fought for exist for them when they came home. Every one of those movements reached back to that same sentence and said: you wrote this, America. Now live it. And the remarkable thing, the thing that fills me with genuine pride and genuine hope every time I teach this history, is that again and again, generation after generation, the country has moved toward it. Not smoothly, not without cost, not without backsliding; but the arc has bent, and it has bent because ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances decided that the words on that founding document were worth fighting for.

That is what I believe about this country. I believe it not as sentiment but as history; because the evidence is there, in the primary sources, in the amendments added to the Constitution at enormous cost, in the legislation passed after decades of organizing, in the court decisions that slowly, imperfectly, extended the republic’s promises to more and more of its people. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery. The Nineteenth gave women the vote. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally began to make the Fifteenth Amendment real, nearly a century after it was ratified. These were not gifts; they were achievements, won by people who refused to stop believing that the words in the founding documents meant something and demanded that the institutions of American democracy honor them. Government of the people, by the people, and for the people has not perished from this earth. It has survived wars, depressions, political crises, and moments of profound democratic strain, because each generation has produced people willing to do the work of sustaining it.

I teach American history to high school students in Lexington, Kentucky, which means I teach it to young people who will spend their entire adult lives as citizens of this republic, participants in its democracy, and inheritors of both its achievements and its unfinished business. Teaching them this history honestly means teaching them the full story: the founding’s ambitions and its compromises, the Civil War’s destruction and Reconstruction’s democratic promise, the Gilded Age’s exploitation and the Progressive Era’s reform, the Great Depression’s devastation and the New Deal’s invention of federal responsibility, the Civil Rights Movement’s courage and the ongoing struggle to honor what that courage won. It means teaching them that American history is not a story of inevitable progress but a story of contested choices, made by real people under real pressure, whose consequences were never predetermined. It means teaching them that the choices their generation makes matter in exactly the same way.

What I find, year after year, is that students can handle that story. They are not fragile; they are hungry for history that takes them seriously, that gives them real primary sources and real questions and trusts them to think. They rise to the challenge of the Declaration of Independence read alongside the Dred Scott decision, and they come away not cynical but determined. They read the Civil War Amendments alongside the story of Reconstruction’s defeat, and they come away not despairing but clearheaded about what democratic commitment actually requires. They study the Civil Rights Movement not as a feel-good story with a happy ending but as a sustained, difficult, costly campaign by ordinary people who changed the country through moral courage and strategic intelligence; and they come away inspired in the deepest sense, inspired by what human beings can accomplish when they refuse to accept that the gap between America’s stated ideals and its actual practice is permanent or acceptable.

That is the spirit in which this year of publishing at BFWClassroom.com is being launched.

Starting in August, I am releasing a year-long series of blog posts organized around a newly rebuilt US History Final Review document that my students will use in the 2026–2027 school year. The document covers American history from the Pre-Columbian period through the present in sixteen narrative sections, with appendices on the Constitution, political party systems, cultural humanities, and a standalone section on the civil rights experiences of African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanic and Latino Americans, and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders; because those stories are not supplementary to American history but central to it, and because the republic at 250 cannot fully understand itself without understanding the experiences of the communities whose labor, sacrifice, and advocacy have shaped it as surely as any founding document. Running alongside the review series beginning in September is the Civil War series I have been developing for the past several months: six posts plus an annual April 1865 Special, addressing the war, its commanders, its politicians, its overlooked participants, and the Reconstruction that followed; because the Civil War and Reconstruction are the hinge on which American history turns, and the promises written into the Constitution in their aftermath are the promises a new generation is being called to honor.

The America 250 celebration is, at its heart, a national conversation about what this country has been and what it can be. I want to contribute to that conversation with the tools I have: primary sources and historical thinking skills, rigorous narrative and honest essential questions, a document built to help students understand not just what happened but why it matters and what it demands of them. Abraham Lincoln, standing at Gettysburg in 1863, called for a new birth of freedom; not a restoration of something lost but a genuine renewal of something the republic had never fully achieved. That call did not belong only to his generation. It belongs to every generation that inherits the republic and faces the question of whether they will do the work of moving it closer to what its founding documents promised.

I still hold these truths to be self-evident. I still believe in a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. I believe it because the history says it is worth believing; because the people who built this country, amended its Constitution, marched across its bridges, and refused to give up on its promises were right to believe it, and because the students sitting in classrooms across this country right now are exactly the people Lincoln was talking about when he asked whether a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal could long endure. It can. It has. And the history we teach them is part of how it will.

The first post in the US History Review Series goes up August 12. The Civil War Series launches September 10. There has never been a better time to teach American history well, and I am genuinely glad to be doing it alongside you.

Bryan F. Wilson teaches social studies and English language arts in Lexington, Kentucky. BFWClassroom.com publishes resources for educators. Opinions expressed in this blog do not represent those of my employer.

BFWClassroom.com | This work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Everyone's watching Trump. Meanwhile a 2019 SCOTUS ruling quietly told politicians they can gerrymander without limit. That's the actual democracy story. by @bledewitz.bsky.social

https://onlys.ky/rucho/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fresh

#Gerrymandering #SCOTUS #AmericanDemocracy #ElectionReform #Politics

There has been an active thread here earlier today on the American electoral system which has prompted me to post my blog posts on the American political system:

https://the5thc.blogspot.com/2019/01/is-american-democracy-fucked.html

https://the5thc.blogspot.com/2020/11/can-america-be-saved.html

https://the5thc.blogspot.com/2024/07/thoughts-on-american-politics.html

#AmericanPolitics #AmericanDemocracy

https://www.europesays.com/people/65236/ Melania Trump’s Mother’s Day op-ed in Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post shredded by readers: ‘What a disgrace’ #AmericanDemocracy #JeffBezos #readers #WashingtonPost

https://www.europesays.com/people/64083/ Melania Trump’s Mother’s Day op-ed in Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post shredded by readers: ‘What a disgrace’ #AmericanDemocracy #JeffBezos #MelaniaTrump #readers #WashingtonPost

https://www.europesays.com/people/63128/ Melania Trump’s Mother’s Day op-ed in Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post shredded by readers: ‘What a disgrace’ #AmericanDemocracy #BarronTrump #JeffBezos #MelaniaTrump #readers #Trump #WashingtonPost

https://www.europesays.com/people/63007/ Melania Trump’s Mother’s Day op-ed in Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post shredded by readers: ‘What a disgrace’ #AmericanDemocracy #JeffBezos #MelaniaTrump #readers #WashingtonPost

The Empire’s New Enforcers: ICE and the Birth of Trump’s Praetorian Guard

Cliff Potts, WPS News

You can tell a lot about a government by the agency it empowers. Under Trump’s second term, the clearest signal of the administration’s intentions isn’t in the laws Congress passed—none of the big changes came from Congress—but in the agency Trump elevated: Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE has always been large, always aggressive, and always controversial. But it was never explicitly political. Not until now.

Since January 20, 2025, ICE has undergone a transformation that should worry anyone who still thinks the Constitution—not the presidency—sets the limits of federal power. What we’re seeing is not the creation of a secret police force or a cartoonish dictatorship. It’s something older, quieter, and historically far more accurate: the emergence of a Praetorian Guard—a force inside the state whose loyalty bends toward the leader instead of the law.

Administrative Power Becomes Personal Power

Most Americans don’t realize ICE carries its own version of a warrant. It’s called an “administrative warrant”—signed not by a judge, but by an ICE officer. These forms were originally intended for limited, civil immigration operations. Under Trump 2.0, they’ve become a shortcut around the Fourth Amendment and a license to act on political priorities.

In practice, these warrants now function like imperial seals: documents used to justify raids, interrogations, and detentions without the inconvenience of judicial oversight. Anyone in the crosshairs—immigrant communities, sanctuary officials, journalists documenting abuse—can be swept into these operations. The paperwork is clean. The legality is gray. The real purpose is pressure.

Fear as a Policy Tool

One of the oldest tactics of the Praetorian Guard was not violence but presence—showing up, unannounced, where the emperor wanted fear to travel. ICE has adopted the same strategy. “Knock-and-talks” now appear in neighborhoods known not for immigration violations, but for political opposition: immigrant-rights organizers, city council members resisting federal mandates, faith groups hosting asylum seekers.

These operations often rely on residents not knowing their rights. No judicial warrant. No obligation to open the door. But the implication of consequences—vague, undefined, and intimidating—is usually enough. The power isn’t in what ICE does; it’s in what people fear it might do.

The Fusion of Agencies

The Praetorian Guard didn’t operate alone. They blended with other forces, pulling power from their proximity to the emperor. ICE today follows that same arc. “Fusion” teams with U.S. Marshals and select state police blur lines of accountability, allowing operations in areas where local officials refuse cooperation.

This blurring isn’t a bureaucratic accident—it’s a feature. When authority becomes cloudy, loyalty, not law, becomes the deciding factor. That’s why Rome fell into the hands of emperors the Guard preferred. And it’s why ICE’s growing fusion culture is so dangerous now.

Surveillance as the New Sword

Instead of daggers, ICE has something more powerful: data. Through partnerships with Palantir, Clearview AI, DMV databases, and utility companies, ICE now holds one of the most comprehensive domestic intelligence networks in the country. Originally sold as tools to track criminals, these databases increasingly sweep in activists, observers, and critics.

This is the new Praetorian playbook: keep a list—not of enemies of the state, but enemies of the ruler’s narrative.

Detention as a Message

ICE’s detention powers allow weeks or months of confinement without criminal charges. Transfers to remote facilities. Restricted access to counsel. Long waits for hearings. Families separated through bureaucratic inertia. These are not accidents. They are soft weapons.

Rome’s Praetorian Guard detained senators to “send messages.” ICE detains asylum seekers, green-card holders, and activists under civil authority. The message lands just as clearly.

The Warning Embedded in History

America is not Rome. But power behaves the same way across centuries. A Praetorian Guard doesn’t take over a nation. It makes sure the person who does take over is never challenged.

ICE is not that far gone. Not yet. But its trajectory—the centralization of discretion, the political alignment, the quiet intimidation, the surveillance apparatus—matches a pattern recognizable to anyone who studies collapsing republics.

If this continues, we won’t wake up in a dictatorship.
We’ll wake up in something worse:
a democracy where power answers to the president first, and the people second.

And once a Praetorian Guard forms, it almost never un-forms.

Get Harrison's American Democracy Now, 8th Edition, in PDF: 👉 https://lttr.ai/Aoe2w

#AmericanDemocracy

Replacing American Democracy is an Unpopular Opinion

. . . despite this democracy needs to be replaced with a better system:

https://tiereddemocraticgovernance.org/blog_details.php?blog_cat_id=33&id=236

#tiereddemocraticgovernance
#americandemocracy

“the growing coalition of #Americans from all walks of life standing against #MAGA and defending #Americandemocracy is the #UnitedStatesofAmerica at its best, and that coalition is absolutely a threat to the cabal trying to seize the assets of the nation for itself” open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...

February 6, 2026

“the growing coalition of #Americans from all walks of life standing against #MAGA and defending #Americandemocracy is the #UnitedStatesofAmerica at its best, and that coalition is absolutely a threat to the cabal trying to seize the assets of the nation for itself” open.substack.com/pub/heatherc...

February 6, 2026

#ICEagents #AmericanDemocracy #postpunk #music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnuplE5RZ18

Wednesday Reads: Trump in Davos and Other News

Good Afternoon!!

Trump rambles on and on in Davos.

This morning I woke up and turned on the TV to see our “president,” easily the stupidest president in American history, walking hunched over and tired in Davos to give another long, rambling, nonsensical, insulting “speech” to the assembled political and business leaders. He spoke for 70 minutes and it seemed much longer.

I watched the speech for awhile, but it was the same old garbage he talks about off the cuff to the assembled press in the oval office. He went on and on in his old man voice, attacking allies, demanding that Greenland be handed over to him, ranting about windmills–all to complete silence from the audience. How could they sit there and watch this embarrassing display of abject stupidity?

I don’t expect this post to make much sense, because I’m just soooo angry!

The big headline, according to the legacy media is that Trump announced he won’t “take Greenland by force.”

Politico: Trump rules out using force to acquire Greenland.

President Donald Trump ruled out military force to acquire Greenland in his remarks Wednesday to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, providing a momentary sense of relief to Europe after weeks of worry that the U.S. would enter a confrontation with NATO.

“We probably won’t get anything unless I decide to use excessive strength and force, where we would be, frankly, unstoppable, but I won’t do that,” Trump said. “That’s probably the biggest statement I made, because people thought I would use force, but I don’t have to use force. I don’t want to use force.”

Trump said Wednesday that he wants to see negotiation to acquire what he called “a piece of ice.”

The president, though, warned Denmark that if it doesn’t give up Greenland to the U.S., “we will remember.”

He argued in his remarks that the U.S. can protect “this giant mass of land” better than Europe can, insisting that taking over Greenland wouldn’t be a threat to NATO but would instead enhance security for the alliance. While the president’s obsession with Greenland has accelerated in recent weeks, his pledge to not use force to acquire the island marks a shift in his rhetoric.

“I don’t want to use force,” he added. “All the United States is asking for is a place called Greenland, where we already had it as a trustee but respectively returned it back to Denmark not long ago after we defeated the Germans, the Japanese, Italians and others in World War II. We gave it back to them.”

He added that it was “stupid” for the U.S. to not keep the island after the war. Still, Trump downplayed the significance of his threats against Greenland, arguing it’s a trade-off for the years of support the U.S. has given to NATO allies.

“What I’m asking for is a piece of ice, cold and poorly located,” he said. It’s a very small ask, compared to what we have given them for many, many decades.”

What does that mess of words really mean? Nothing. Trump is the world’s worst liar and he’s insane. Not to mention stupid. Nothing he says can be believed.

The choice is impeachment and removal or calamity for the United States. I don't see how anybody watching Trump's speech in Davos can draw any other conclusion. He's a senile madman.

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-01-21T14:26:19.331Z

Check this out from CNBC: Scott Bessent says U.S. is unconcerned by Treasury sell-off over Greenland, calls Denmark ‘irrelevant.’

“Denmark’s investment in U.S. Treasury bonds, like Denmark itself, is irrelevant,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The “sell America” trade was in full swing Tuesday after President Donald Trump and European leaders escalated tensions over Greenland. U.S. stocks and bond prices tumbled, sending yields spiking.

It comes as Trump’s threats to impose 10% tariffs on eight European countries as part of his push to take over Greenland spooked markets. The levies would come into force on Feb. 1, Trump said, and later rise to 25%.

Europe’s holdings in U.S. Treasurys, however, have been tipped as a potential countermeasure.

Danish pension operator AkademikerPension said Tuesday it was selling $100 million in U.S. Treasurys. The decision was driven by “poor [U.S.] government finances,” said Anders Schelde, AkademikerPension’s investing chief.

When Bessent was asked how concerned he is about European investors pulling out of Treasurys, Bessent said at a news conference at the World Economic Forum: “Denmark’s investment in U.S. Treasury bonds, like Denmark itself, is irrelevant.”

“That is less than $100 million. They’ve been selling Treasurys for years, I’m not concerned at all.”

Really? I’d like to hear what Daknikat has to say about this.

No one can be watching this Davos speech and reach any conclusion but that the President of the United States is mentally disturbed and that something is deeply wrong with him. This is both embarrassing and extremely dangerous.

— Tom Nichols (@radiofreetom.bsky.social) 2026-01-21T14:49:35.064Z

Another North American leader–Canada’s Mark Carney– gave a powerful speech that made sense. The New York Times: Canada Flexes on Global Stage With an Eye to Its Own Survival.

Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada delivered a stark speech in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, prompting global political and corporate leaders in the audience to rise from their seats for a rare standing ovation.

He described the end of the era underpinned by United States hegemony, calling the current phase “a rupture.” He never mentioned President Trump by name, but his reference was clear.

The speech came as President Trump doubled down on his threats to take Greenland away from Denmark, saying he would slap fresh tariffs on European powers as punishment for their support of Greenland’s sovereignty.

Global leaders have been scrambling to find a unified response.

“Every day we’re reminded that we live in an era of great-power rivalry,” Mr. Carney said. “That the rules-based order is fading. That the strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must.”

And he warned, “The middle powers must act together because if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu.”

He would know.

Mr. Trump started his second presidential term making claims on Canada as the 51st state and threatening Canada’s previous leader, Justin Trudeau, whom Mr. Trump publicly derided, with unilaterally scrapping agreements that have governed the relationship between the neighboring countries for over a century….

Mr. Carney chastised other leaders too, many of whom would have been following his speech in Davos, for not standing up for their interests.

“There is a strong tendency for countries to go along to get along,” he said. “To accommodate. To avoid trouble. To hope that compliance will buy safety. It won’t.”

Mr. Carney made clear he is choosing a different path.

He wrote his own speech, according to a government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the inner workings of his team, which is a departure since speeches of this magnitude are usually prepared by high-level staffers with the leader’s input.

Mr. Carney, a former investment executive who has served as the governor of Canada and England’s central banks, has attended the global gathering about 30 times, according to his office….

Mr. Carney spoke not long after Mr. Trump had posted an altered image on social media that featured a map of American flags superimposed over both Canada and the United States, as well as Greenland.

Well worth a listen from Canadian PM Mark Carney at Davos summit.

— Peter Stefanovic (@peterstefanovic.bsky.social) 2026-01-21T11:20:27.715Z

Of course Trump responded with insults. Axios: Trump responds to Carney: “Canada lives because of the United States.”

President Trump said in Davos on Wednesday that Canada should be “grateful” to the U.S. for the “freebies” it receives because of the two nations’ relationship.

Why it matters: Trump’s dig at Canada came a day after Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered his own warning at the World Economic Forum over the “rupture” of the world order.

Driving the news: “Canada lives because of the United States,” Trump said Wednesday before taking a direct jab at Carney. “Remember that, Mark, the next time you make your statements.”

• Trump said Carney “wasn’t so grateful” in his address.
• Carney avoided naming Trump in his speech — a strategy a Canadian official previously told Axios was deliberate. However, the official indicated that Carney’s remarks were aimed squarely at the president’s recent actions.

Zoom out: As Trump pushes a vision of hemispheric dominance — coupled with threats of the U.S. making its northern neighbor the “51st state” — Ottawa has reportedly started preparing for how to repel a U.S. invasion.

Trump is a complete and utter asshole.

A couple more reads on Trump’s wrecking ball:

Andrew Egger at The Bulwark: Puttering Toward Annihilation.

Growing up, I never really understood Aesop’s fable about the goose that laid the golden egg. It’s a cautionary tale about greed and hubris: A farmer with a miraculous goose that lays a solid-gold egg every morning gets fed up with passive wealth generation and figures killing the bird will speed things along. But alas: He finds no store of eggs within and realizes he butchered his meal ticket for nothing. The moral’s straightforward, but it never really worked for me as a story. Like, come on: Nobody’s that stupid.

Well, almost nobody, I guess.

As long as I live, I don’t think I’ll get over this pure, dumb fact: Trump told his fans he had to blow up the liberal order because it was the only way to secure the very benefits the liberal order was already bringing us.

Trump insists America needs Greenland as a strategic positioning ground from which to restrain Russia and China in the Arctic. But thanks to the liberal order, this was something we already enjoyed. Through the magic of multilateral cooperation, we were able to treat someone else’s territory as though it were our own for the purposes of military positioning—not by bribing or intimidating them, but because they agreed their interests and our interests aligned.

Trump insists America needs to blow up America’s preexisting economic relationships to ensure America gets an advantageous position in international trade. But America already had such an advantageous position: an orderly world economic system that had lavished previously unimaginable prosperity on America and to the entire globe, with us at the proverbial (and very profitable) head of the table.

It’s not just that Trump had the hubris to think he could hero-ball the country to a better deal by canceling a century of history and starting over. It’s that his own broken personality—his miserable meanness, his dispositional inability to cooperate with and trust others—has always prevented him from understanding what was good about the deal we had to begin with. The idea that multipolar agreements could be better for America, in some cases, than outright ownership—that, say, we already have everything we need from Greenland—he rejects as ridiculous. Ownership, he told the New York Times, is “what I feel is psychologically needed for success. . . . I think that ownership gives you a thing that you can’t do, whether you’re talking about a lease or a treaty.”

He really is determined to burn everything down if he can’t get his own way on everything.

1/ Jonathan Lemire writes, "Trump's lust for Greenland is about increasing American dominance in the Western Hemisphere 7 redrawing the maps of the world. The island is roughly 836K square miles, which would make it the largest territorial addition in US history." Gift link.

— Fiona "Fi" Webster 🌎🌍🌏 (@fiona-webster22.bsky.social) 2026-01-21T14:02:14.719Z

Jonathan Lemire wrote at The Atlantic before the speech (gift link): Davos Man May Burn the Whole Thing Down.

Franklin D. Roosevelt famously illustrated with a simple metaphor the need for a healthy transatlantic alliance. Justifying his decision to lend Great Britain warships and other military supplies in the early days of World War II, Roosevelt likened it to loaning a neighbor a garden hose to put out the fire consuming his house. Sure, Roosevelt charitably wanted to help a neighbor in need. But it was self-interested too; if the neighbor could extinguish the blaze, it wouldn’t spread to FDR’s home. The United States benefited from the friendship—and the buffer—that allies could provide.

Today, Donald Trump will fly to Europe. Ukraine is already ablaze. And now the president is ready to set a bunch of new houses on fire.

The president will speak at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, tomorrow, and he appears prepared to shatter the nearly 80-year-old NATO alliance in order to seize Greenland. In his quest to claim a strategically located island of ice and rock, Trump has turned against his nation’s most stalwart friends. He has antagonized and mocked panicked European leaders, threatened punishing tariffs on countries that object to his plans, and pointedly not ruled out using military force. Trump’s thirst for Greenland—even if he stops short of ordering an armed invasion—threatens to unravel the partnership born from the ashes of World War II that has, in the decades since, ensured the spread of peace, prosperity, and democracy on both sides of the Atlantic.

Today marks one year since Trump’s return to office, and in that time, he has fundamentally reshaped the United States’ relationship with the rest of the world. But nothing has upended the global order more than what would happen if he follows through on his threats toward Greenland. The island, of course, belongs to Denmark, which says that it is not available for the taking. Troops from Europe have been dispatched to the territory, and Greenland’s prime minister warned his populace to prepare for an invasion. If Trump were to persist, Denmark could trigger NATO’s Article 5 mutual-defense pact, and then the unthinkable could occur: American soldiers firing on Europeans while Russian President Vladimir Putin’s dream of NATO’s self-immolation is thoroughly realized.

The annual meetings in Davos, normally a clubby gathering of business titans and political leaders, have been consumed by talk of what Trump may or may not do. European leaders have found themselves scrambling on strategy—appeasement? Defiance? Compromise? Early this morning, Trump posted screenshots of text messages that revealed the dilemma facing those leaders. (Lesson to everyone: Be careful what you text the guy unless you want the world to see.)

In one message, Mark Rutte—the secretary general of NATO, who has prized warm relations with Trump—praised the president’s foreign policies, then vowed that he is “committed to finding a way forward on Greenland.” But in another, French President Emmanuel Macron, whose relationship with Trump has been turbulent, admitted: “I do not understand what you are doing on Greenland.” In fact, Trump couldn’t be more clear, as he demonstrated once again by circulating a pair of presumably AI-generated images on social media. In one, he’s planting an American flag in Greenland. In the other, he’s lecturing European leaders in the Oval Office with a map behind him that depicts Greenland as part of the United States. (Canada and Venezuela too.)

Trolling close U.S. allies has seemingly been an unofficial policy of Trump’s second administration since its first days, beginning with Vice President Vance lecturing Europe in Munich on the virtues of free speech. But this time feels different for those nervously waiting in snowy Switzerland. The president’s address to the forum tomorrow is poised to be a defining moment, and Trump plans to make the unequivocal case that the United States should have Greenland, a senior White House official told me.

Pretty good predictions, except for Trump’s claim he won’t use force.

A few non-Davos stories:

Did you watch Lawrence O’Donnell last night? He still insists that Trump’s Greenland obsession is really a way to distract the press from the Epstein files. I think he could be right. If you didn’t see it, I recommend watching it now.

Lauren Gambino at The Guardian: American democracy on the brink a year after Trump’s election, experts say.

Three hundred and sixty-five days after Donald Trump swore his oath of office and completed an extraordinary return to power, many historians, scholars and experts say his presidency has pushed American democracy to the brink – or beyond it.

In the first year of Trump’s second term, the democratically elected US president has moved with startling speed to consolidate authority: dismantling federal agencies, purging the civil service, firing independent watchdogs, sidelining Congress, challenging judicial rulings, deploying federal force in blue cities, stifling dissent, persecuting political enemies, targeting immigrants, scapegoating marginalized groups, ordering the capture of a foreign leader, leveraging the presidency for profit, trampling academic freedom and escalating attacks on the news media.

The scale and velocity of what he has been able to accomplish in just a year have stunned even longtime observers of authoritarian regimes, pushing the debate among academics and Americans from whether the world’s oldest continuous democracy is backsliding to whether it can still faithfully claim that distinction.

“In 2025, the United States ceased to be a full democracy in the way that Canada, Germany or even Argentina are democracies,” Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, the prominent Harvard political scientists and authors of How Democracies Die, and the University of Toronto professor Lucan Way, wrote in Foreign Affairs last month. They argued that the US under Trump had “descended into competitive authoritarianism”, a system in which elections are held but the ruling party abuses power to stifle dissent and tilt the playing field in its favor.

There is no universally accepted definition of democracy. Some argue the US is a “flawed” or “illiberal” democracy, or a democracy facing substantial “autocratization” – a process that began long before Trump came to power a decade ago but which his presidency has rapidly accelerated. Still, others believe the concerns are overblown, or reflect an intense partisan dislike of the current president.

Since Trump’s first term, scholars have warned that it can happen here. But many now say this moment is different – not only because Trump’s approach is more methodical and his desire for vengeance more pronounced, but because he now faces far fewer internal constraints.

Read more at the link.

Hunter Walker at Talking Points Memo: Trump Marks First Year In Office With Unhinged Racist Rant Targeting ‘Very Low IQ’ Somalis.

President Donald Trump spent the first anniversary of his second term on Tuesday pitching himself to the American people from behind the White House briefing room podium. In nearly two hours of remarks, Trump seemingly sought to address his cratering approval by running through a list of his supposed accomplishments. His remarks also included a series of vicious, racist remarks about Somali people and other immigrants.

I think Trump likes this photo.

“They all ought to get the hell out of here, they’re bad for our country,” Trump said of the Somali population at one point during the extraordinary rant.

At multiple points during his remarks, Trump indicated he felt the need to make his case directly because his team was not up to the task. A slew of anniversary polls show the president’s numbers are currently underwater with notably steep declines in voter approval of the president’s handling of his signature issues: immigration and the economy. Those figures have come amid slow job growth and violent raids staged by Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

“Maybe I have bad public relations people, but we’re not getting it across,” Trump said as he argued the economy is particularly strong since he returned to office.

Trump came equipped with a couple of binders including one labeled “ACCOMPLISHMENTS.” Yet as he read through the provided list, Trump repeatedly raged against the Somali population, including suggesting that they are of inferior intelligence. Trump first turned to the topic as he alluded to the ongoing ICE raids in Minnesota, which have been met with massive protests. The state is home to the country’s largest Somali population and the federal crackdown has come amid a wave of right-wing influencers making exaggerated claims about alleged daycare fraud in the community.

“Nineteen billion dollars at a minimum is missing in Minnesota, given to a large degree by Somalians. They’ve taken it,” Trump said. ”Somalians, can you imagine? And they don’t do it — a lot of very low IQ people. They don’t do it. Other people work it out and they get them money and they go out and buy Mercedes Benzes.”

What a fucking asshole!

The New York Times: Supreme Court Considers Trump’s Attempt to Fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook.

The Supreme Court will consider Wednesday whether President Trump can fire Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve board, in a case that tests the longstanding independence of the central bank, with potentially major consequences for the economy.

The court’s conservative majority has repeatedly allowed Mr. Trump to oust leaders of other independent agencies as he moves to expand presidential power and seize control of the federal bureaucracy. But the justices have signaled that the Fed may be different and uniquely insulated from executive influence because of its structure and history.

Lisa Cook

The case lands as the administration has dramatically escalated its attacks on the Fed, apparently aimed at remaking its board and lowering interest rates. The Justice Department this month opened a criminal investigation into whether Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, lied to Congress about cost overruns related to the Fed’s renovation of its headquarters.

Mr. Powell, whose term as chair ends in May, forcefully pushed back on the threat of criminal charges, saying it was a result of the Fed setting borrowing costs “based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president.”

The investigation prompted a backlash from Republicans, international policymakers, Wall Street and some Trump allies, who warned that the central bank’s independence and credibility was at risk.

It also threatened to complicate Mr. Trump’s plans to name Mr. Powell’s replacement as chair — and, legal experts said, the Supreme Court case being heard on Wednesday.

The justices agreed to hear Ms. Cook’s case on an expedited basis, and are likely to rule quickly on her status as litigation continues in the lower courts. The outcome of the case could determine how much latitude Mr. Trump and future presidents have to influence the direction of the powerful central bank, which Congress intentionally tried to insulate from political pressures.

One more from Radley Balco at The New York Times (gift link): I’ve Covered Police Abuse for 20 Years. What ICE Is Doing Is Different.

Police agencies in the United States kill more than 1,000 people each year. After many of those deaths, the agencies involved put out statements. Those statements often use what’s known as the exonerative voice to minimize officers’ involvement. The first statement from the Minneapolis Police Department after George Floyd’s death, for example, said that the officers at the scene “noted that he appeared to be suffering from medical distress.” Quite the understatement. These communications often cast events in a light most favorable to the officers involved, sometimes to the point of deception. Too often, they’ll try to smear the deceased by citing a criminal record or suggesting a drug addiction or gang affiliation.

Renee Good

I have been covering policing for more than 20 years and have read and parsed a lot of these statements. The Department of Homeland Security’s response after the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis this month is something else entirely.

For all their flaws, typical communications from police officials usually include a modicum of solemnity. There are assurances that there will be a fair and impartial investigation, even if those investigations too often turn out to be neither. There’s at least the acknowledgment that to take a human life is a profound and serious thing.

The Trump administration’s response to Ms. Good’s death made no such concessions. There were no promises of an impartial investigation. There was no regret or remorse. There was little empathy for her family — for her parents, her partner or the children she left behind. From the moment the world learned about her death, the administration pronounced the shooting not only justified but an act of heroism worthy of praise and celebration.

It isn’t just the lying; it’s that the lies are wildly exaggerated and easily refutable. All the evidence we’ve seen so far, including a meticulous Times forensic analysis of the available footage, makes clear that at worst, Ms. Good mildly obstructed immigration enforcement, disobeyed ambiguous orders or perhaps attempted to flee an arrest. None of those are capital crimes, nor do law enforcement officers get to dole out punishment in such cases. At one point, President Trump justified her shooting by claiming she’d been “very disrespectful” to immigration officers. That isn’t a crime at all.

The lies this administration is telling about Ms. Good aren’t those you deploy as part of a cover-up. They’re those you use when you want to show you can get away with anything. They’re a projection of power.

For the past decade or so, since the protests in Ferguson, Mo., America has engaged in a high-stakes dialogue about police abuse and accountability, the militarization of law enforcement and the push and pull between public safety and civil liberties. Those discussions, while occasionally heated, have been based on a shared understanding that the primary job of domestic law enforcement is to serve the public. What Mr. Trump is doing with federal immigration forces has rendered those debates obsolete.

#AmericanDemocracy #CanadianPrimeMinisterMarkCarney #DavosSwitzerland #Denmark #DonaldTrump #EpsteinFiles #Greenland #ICEViolenceInMinnesota #LawrenceODonnell #LisaCook #RadleyBalco #ReneeGood #ScottBessent #TrumpGreenlandObsession #USTreasuryBonds #WorldEconomicForum

Replacing American Democracy is an Unpopular Opinion

I've been suggesting this since 1997.

https://tiereddemocraticgovernance.org/blog_details.php?blog_cat_id=33&id=236

#tiereddemocraticgovernance
#americandemocracy

The Left’s Shameful Hypocrisy in the Government Shutdown: Anti-Worker Politics Disguised as Progressivism

https://theinterfaithintrepidart.com/2025/11/10/the-lefts-shameful-hypocrisy-in-the-government-shutdown-anti-worker-politics-disguised-as-progressivism/

#AmericanDemocracy. xoxo Recommended dosage: Watch once DAILY for Good Mood FULL SCREEN is Best. #NOKINGS #Indivisible

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:rrfwruhud4ovela3oe6isre5/post/3m3zhom3ejc2j

#AmericanDemocracy. xoxo Recommended dosage: Watch once DAILY for Good Mood FULL SCREEN is Best. #NOKINGS #Indivisible

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:rrfwruhud4ovela3oe6isre5/post/3m3zhom3ejc2j

There's something that's so sad, yet so unsurprising about Trump's response to the '#NoKings' protest... To him and his cronies, he is more than King 👑, to himself especially, he is the centre of the universe and the 'most powerful man in the world '.. But after all he's represented and done, even considering #Project2025 , isn't this a tragedy where the people have only themselves to blame?
#Populism or not, the Trump effect is a symptom of a larger problem, a dissonance of the populace.. a clouding of the collective judgment of what's right and wrong.. A sort of extreme example of political division that descends into vitriol and hate, the kind that'd make movies like #CivilWar seem likely to happen irl..
Since #Trump was duly elected, and by none else but American citizens, maybe then the issues at hand are self-inflicted?? It's not like #racism and #immigration are new topics that Trump hasn't talked about or acted on before.. He's been president before and he's been opposed to hosting immigrants before, even building his infamous wall 🧱..
Therefore, if we elected Trump knowing all this.. essentially giving him the tools of power to effect his (and by extension, our) beliefs, maybe then it's we that are doing this ourselves,, raiding people's homes and workplaces and 'deporting them to camps'.. maybe it's us doing this through Trump.. maybe we are, subconsciously, throwing out those we feel do not belong??.. and blaming Trump because it's the easier thing to do rather than blaming ourselves... 🤷🤷
Maybe #NoKingsProtest is a realization that we messed up big time, and would much rather have chosen better; as we think we shall next time? Question is, though, if we didn't learn on Trump's first presidency 🥇, shall we ever??
#Trump #Elections #AmericanDemocracy #Politics #Opinion #Democracy #NoKings #TrumpJet #USPolitics #ManiaNews #ManiaAfrica

Major Historical Threats to American Democracy & in 2025 – History Analysis by Perplexity Pro – September 10, 2025

Major Historical Threats to American Democracy 2025

The Civil War Crisis (1850s-1860s)

The most severe threat in American history came from the convergence of polarization over slavery, racial conflict, and economic inequality between North and South. This led to actual secession, civil war, and the temporary breakdown of democratic governance.

Sources: The Crisis of American Democracy in Historical Context; The Crisis of American Democracy in Historical Context; American Civil War (Wikipedia)

Reconstruction Collapse and Jim Crow (1870s-1890s)

Following the Civil War, violent suppression of African American voting rights through terrorism, lynchings, and systematic disenfranchisement effectively ended democracy for millions of Americans for over half a century. The Wilmington coup of 1898 exemplified this threat—elected officials were forced to resign at gunpoint and replaced with white supremacist Democrats.

Sources: The Crisis of American Democracy in Historical Context; The Crisis of American Democracy in Historical Context; Reconstruction Era (Wikipedia)

The Founding Era Crisis (1790s)

Political polarization nearly brought down the young republic as the Founding Fathers split into hostile partisan camps, creating what one scholar called “partisan warfare” that threatened the nation’s survival.

Sources: We’ve been here before – JHU Hub – Johns Hopkins University; The Crisis of American Democracy in Historical Context; Foundation Era Crisis, 1790s (Wikiepedia)

Current Threats Under Trump’s Second Term (2025)

Significant Attacks on Electoral Integrity

• Suspended voting protections meant to expand voter access
• Dismissed critical voter access cases despite DOJ obligations
• Issued executive order baselessly accusing the Biden campaign of election interference
• Required proof of citizenship to vote and mandated changes to mail-in ballot practices

Sources: The Trump Administration’s Campaign to Undermine the Next Election; Dangerous cracks in US democracy pillars – Brookings Institution

Undermining Rule of Law

• Pardoned approximately 1,500 January 6 insurrectionists, including violent offenders, on his first day
• Demanded DOJ seek evidence to prosecute the previous administration
• Attempted to freeze trillions in federal funding through illegal orders
• Challenged birthright citizenship guaranteed by the Constitution

Source: The Trump Administration’s Campaign to Undermine the Next Election

Executive Aggrandizement and Corruption Risks

• Granted unelected Elon Musk unprecedented access to classified information and power over government departments through DOGE
• Rescinded ethics commitments for executive branch personnel
• Implemented Schedule F to potentially replace thousands of career civil servants with loyalists
• Created new avenues for potential foreign influence through business interests

Source: The Trump Administration’s Campaign to Undermine the Next Election

Authoritarian Tactics

• Used rhetoric labeling political opponents as “evil,” “enemies,” “criminals,” and “lunatics”
• Made anonymous violent threats against federal judges reach “unprecedented highs”
• Weakened election infrastructure by disbanding the Foreign Influence Task Force
• Created a “climate of political fear unprecedented in modern American history”

Source: Dangerous cracks in US democracy pillars – Brookings Institution

Ranking of All Threats to American Democracy

Tier 1: Existential Threats

1. Civil War Crisis (1850s-1860s) – Actual dissolution of the Union and armed conflict
2. Trump’s Second Term (2025) – First time all four democratic threats converge simultaneously
3. Reconstruction Collapse (1870s-1890s) – Systematic disenfranchisement lasting decades

Tier 2: Severe Institutional Threats

1. Watergate Era (1970s) – Presidential criminality and constitutional crisis
2. World War II Internment (1940s) – Mass violation of civil rights under executive power
3. Founding Era Crisis (1790s) – Near-collapse of early democratic institutions

Tier 3: Significant But Contained Threats

1. McCarthyism (1950s) – Suppression of political dissent and civil liberties
2. Various wartime restrictions – Temporary but concerning expansions of executive power

The systematic nature of current threats—targeting elections, rule of law, civil liberties, and institutional checks simultaneously—creates what experts call “an especially grave moment for democracy.”

Unlike past crises that involved one or two threats, this convergence makes the current period extraordinarily perilous.

Sources: The Crisis of American Democracy in Historical Context; The Crisis of American Democracy in Historical Context; Rising Threats to U.S. Democracy | PS: Political Science & Politics; and, Perplexity Pro research.

#2025 #AI #AmericanDemocracy #artificialIntelligence #AuthoritarianTactics #CivilWar #Convergence #Corruption #DOGE #DrWeb #Elections #ExistentialThreats #HistoricalThreats #HistoryAnalysis #JimCrow #Musk #Reconstruction #RuleOfLaw #September #WesternDemocracy

The #American system of #democracy is in #crisis, with the #Trump administration’s actions, including secret #policeabductions and attempts to undermine #birthrightcitizenship, echoing the tyranny of King George III. This #erosionofrights, coupled with a #weakCongress, threatens the very fabric of #Americandemocracy. https://www.theverge.com/policy/697301/trump-supreme-court-founding-fathers-july-4

Trump’s Big Ugly Hateful Bill Should Not Pass – Seeing Things -Liza Donnelly Jun 29, 2025

Trump’s Big Ugly Hateful Bill
Should Not Pass – Liza Donnelly – Jun 29, 2025

Trump’s self titled Big Beautiful Bill is being debated now in the Senate. It’s a huge document, not beautiful at all. In fact it would be devastating if it passes. Among the major features are:

-tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, making them perminent

-add $3.3 trillion to the national debt.

-add $45 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain migrants, on top of the current annual budget of $3.4 billion.

-add $8 billion for new ICE hires and retention.

-cut $930 billion out of Medicaid, the measure will cause 11.8 million Americans to become uninsured.

According to the NY Times:

“As of 10 a.m. Sunday, Senate clerks had read aloud 630 pages of the 940-page bill (something Democrats demanded be done) and estimates were that they would finish the task by midafternoon. That would start the clock on 20 hours of debate on the legislation, evenly split between the two parties, though Republicans were not anticipating using all of their time. At the end of the debate, members of both parties would have the opportunity to offer more changes and force floor votes on those amendments in an hourslong process known as a vote-a-rama.”

If I understand what’s going on, this bill was passed by the House and now is in front of the Senate. But Senate Republicans are changing much of it in real time to try to persuade members of the GOP who might vote the bill down, but also to adjust to those measures that were struck down by the Senate Parlimentarian as not going by the rules of the chamber. One provision I was worried about appears to have been taken out, one that would have limited the ability of federal courts from issuing preliminary injunctions.

I pray this bill does not pass. Republican Senator Tom Tillis of North Carolina said he will not sign the bill and Trump immediately threated to primary him in the next election. Tillis said he will not seek re-election for a third term.

“In Washington over the last few years, it’s become increasingly evident that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species,” Mr. Tillis said in a lengthy statement on his decision.

Trump is wielding all kinds of pressure on Senate Republicans to fall in line, I hope it doesn’t work.

Read more: Trump’s Big Ugly Hateful Bill Should Not Pass – Seeing Things -Liza Donnelly Jun 29, 2025Source Links: Trump’s Big Ugly Hateful Bill – by Liza Donnelly

#2025 #America #AmericanDemocracy #DonaldTrump #Health #History #Libraries #LibraryOfCongress #LizaDonnelly #Politics #Resistance #Science #SeeingThings #Substack #Trump #TrumpAdministration #UnitedStates