Source: The American Conservative
by W James Antle III
“It’s far from the only issue raised by the group chat seen ’round the world, but it is an extremely important one. President Donald Trump’s national-security team may have the most consequential splits on foreign policy of any Republican administration since George H.W. Bush’s a generation ago. No, the public should not have seen the entirety of that Signal communication. The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg should not have entered, or more precisely been invited into, the chat. But the substance of that conversation, and the differences of opinion displayed by different Trump principals participating, is of utmost public importance.” (03/26/25)
“People like me — small-government types who were once considered on ‘the right’ but have never reconciled ourselves to supporting Donald Trump — are often asked by our old conservative friends, ‘What happened to you? Why did you change?’ The question invites a grim chuckle, because of course we did not really change; the questioners did. They’re the ones who flipped on free trade, on the separation of powers, on Russia, for crying out loud, and a great deal else. When everyone else is shifting their convictions, it’s amazing how fast you can move just by standing still. Yet it would be strange if the big and unexpected events of the day did not cause us to rethink at least a few things. One way I have changed is that despite always believing in a small and limited government, I have become much more sympathetic to the need for building ‘state capacity.'” (03/25/25)
“For years, the Democratic political figures, liberal activists, and the resistance movement writ large have drawn morbid comfort from the fact that Donald Trump’s supporters were, frankly, quite old. The Trump phenomenon, they believed, had an expiration date sometime in the near future: Young voters would replace their parents and grandparents as demographics shifted, and all would be right — or rather, left — with the world. The 2024 election has shattered these hopes. Trump’s gains with young people are so massive that Gen Z might as well be called Gen Trump. Data guru David Shor laid bare this stark reality in an interview with The New York Times’ Ezra Klein last week; Shor walked Klein through the ramifications of his polling insights and voter analyses, which reveal a historically unprecedented rightward shift among young people, particularly young males.” (03/25/25)
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman
“What I am currently worried about is the potential for the present political situation to make America a much worse place, in any of several different directions. The obvious is the one that the left has been crying wolf on for a long time, development of a right wing dictatorship. The present administration claims the right to deport people into a foreign prison with no need to demonstrate that they are guilty of anything, even illegal immigration, based on a very stretched interpretation of an 18th century law. They are, sensibly, starting with the most unsympathetic victims they could find, but nothing in their interpretation of the law would prevent them from doing it to anyone else — at no point, in their view, are they required to demonstrate that their claims about the victims are true.” (03/25/25)
“Cosmopolitanism is the idea that all people on the planet are part of a global community. The philosophy of cosmopolitanism is very broad, sometimes advocating universal rules, or that we should all have the same partiality to people far away than we do closer to us. By appending the modifier ‘methodological’ to ‘cosmopolitanism,’ I mean to invoke a meaning similar to the philosophical one, but more limited to just one’s analytical method. In short, I am using the phrase ‘methodological cosmopolitanism’ simply to mean that when examining the economic effects of something, the costs and benefits to all parties affected must be taken into account. Arbitrary distinctions like race, nationality, gender, wealth, class, etc., do not determine whose costs matter and whose do not. Methodological cosmopolitanism is necessary to economic understanding.” (03/25/25)
“For decades, Congress delegated the power to legislate to Executive Branch agencies. Congress also usurped the judicial power and conferred it on the same Executive Branch agencies, making them not only the police who arrest people, but also the judges who sentence them. Administrative agencies do this through Administrative Courts. The old-fashioned courts are called Article 1 courts because they are the courts created by the Constitution. Administrative Courts are nowhere permitted in the Constitution, yet they exist. Presidents rarely veto legislation that delegates legislative and judicial power to the Executive Branch. They love having that power. The Supreme Court has rubber-stamped these unconstitutional delegations of power under the idea that ‘democracy’ requires them to let elected representatives do what they want.” (03/25/25)
Source: In These Times
by Naomi Klein, Astra Taylor, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor & Chenjerai Kumanyika
“About a month after Donald Trump was inaugurated to a second term, and as it became overwhelmingly clear that Elon Musk’s role alongside him is to gut the administrative state and pave the way for widespread privatization, Haymarket Books held ‘An Emergency Town Hall’ to help situate this ‘Corporate Coup in Global Context.’ The roundtable discussion included bestselling journalist and author Naomi Klein …; writer, author and organizer Astra Taylor …; author, journalist and professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor …; and professor Chenjerai Kumanyika, who helped guide the discussion, cohosts the Uncivil podcast and also created and hosts the widely popular Empire City podcast.” (03/26/25)
“Women in more than 100 countries can get birth control pills over the counter. Yet the U.S. government requires women to ask other adults for permission slips, in the form of a prescription, before getting access to hormonal contraceptives.” (03/25/25)
“Trump and friends are all-in on the ‘unitary executive’ theory, under which the president can do pretty much anything he wants because, per Article II of the US Constitution. “the executive Power shall be vested” in his office. … There’s another side to the ‘unitary executive’ coin, though. If the president’s ‘executive power’ extends so far, so does the president’s responsibility for both the details and the consequences. The Constitution, after all, also charges the president to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.’ … Apart from Goldberg, the participants in the alleged Signal chat all seem to have been chosen by Trump — vice-president JD Vance as his running mate, the cabinet secretaries as his nominees. If they messed up, Trump messed up.” (03/25/25)
“In response to tariffs imposed by Trump in February, China slapped new tariffs on a wide range of American farm exports, including beef, chicken, corn, cotton, dairy, fruits, pork, soybeans, and various vegetables. Both Canada and Mexico have indicated that they plan to retaliate against American tariffs with new levies targeting American agricultural goods. It’s impossible to know how bad the losses for American farmers could be, but the potential is high. The U.S. exported $176 billion of agricultural goods in 2024, and the three largest destinations for those exports were Mexico, Canada, and China, according to the Farm Bureau. That gravy train of federal subsidies to farmers is already rolling again, even before the majority of Trump’s promised tariffs hit. The Department of Agriculture announced earlier this month that it will distribute $10 billion in ’emergency’ income subsidies funded by the spending bill Congress approved in December.” (03/25/25)
