“A headstrong president inherits an economy being remade by technology, a global climate of high tension and rising authoritarian powers, and a government whose perceived fecklessness has left Americans disgusted. He races to adopt an ambitious new program, installing true believers throughout the government, bending Congress to his will, and overwhelming opposition with the pace and audacity of his plans. Along the way, he lays the groundwork to rebuild the constitutional order and America’s very place in the world. Such were the opening months of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration. And such are the opening months of the second Donald J. Trump administration — but with some crucial differences. Almost a century ago, FDR launched a massive program that empowered the government to reconstruct a devastated economy. Today, Trump has embarked upon a massive program that dismantles the government and threatens to strangle an otherwise-promising economy.” (03/21/25)
Source: Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
by Jeff Zeman
“We can’t make antisemitism go away by censoring antisemites. Nevertheless, the Trump administration has said it is combating antisemitism at Columbia University by canceling $400 million in funding and detaining a former student over what the president has vexingly called ‘illegal protests’ against Israel. It is also making a host of additional demands of the university. Some Jewish groups are applauding the effort. But as an American Jew and free speech lawyer, I can tell you that protest alone isn’t illegal — and that giving the government the power to punish hateful speech will only erode our own right to speak out against hate.” (03/21/25)
“Earlier this March, agents from the Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, arrested Mahmoud Khalil at his Columbia University-owned apartment building in New York City. Khalil, a lawful permanent resident of the United States, was then promptly disappeared by federal agents, who refused to tell Khalil’s wife (a U.S. citizen) why he was being detained or where he was being held. He has since been found by his attorneys and partner in a private Louisiana detention facility notorious for abuse. His deportation was successfully, though only temporarily, halted by a federal judge. … the Department of Justice defended the kidnapping, and backed the White House’s claimed rationale: the Trump administration doesn’t approve of Khalil’s speech, and therefore it has the right to forgo due process, revoke his green card without judicial order, and deport him.” (03/22/25)
“Today, Congress is evidently unembarrassed about being mostly a spectator in the bleachers at the game of government. And it probably regrets the court’s major questions doctrine, which is: If Congress intends to authorize executive agencies to make decisions with large economic and political consequences, it must clearly say so. The court can further discomfit Congress, constructively, by curbing its power to delegate its core powers. The vexing problem, inescapable when power is vested in a single executive, is how to circumscribe his or her discretion. Hence, the title of Harvard political philosopher Harvey C. Mansfield Jr.’s 1989 study of executive power: ‘Taming the Prince.’ Today’s challenge is to ‘recage the executive lion,’ says University of Virginia law professor Saikrishna Prakash in ‘The Living Presidency’ (2020).” (03/21/25)
“This week, here at Common Sense, we did not celebrate the birthday of Stephen Grover Cleveland (1837-1908), whom some of my friends regard as the last great president of these United States. It wasn’t even mentioned in Tuesday’s Today feature. Is there any reason to devote a column to him? Sure …” (03/21/25)
“During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised many things: streamlining the federal government, securing borders, mass deportations, lowering prices, and imposing tariffs on rival countries. Yet, among these promises, he never mentioned annexing Canada or Greenland. For voters who chose Trump as the lesser of two evils — and even for hardcore supporters — his recent rhetoric comes as a shock. This was not on the ballot. … Whether he’s serious or just tossing out red meat to his base, the idea’s been lighting up social media and dinner table debates. But let’s cut through the noise: Could he actually do it? And if he pulled it off, what would happen next?” (03/21/25)
“I took office as secretary of Education with a mission unlike any of my predecessors: to oversee the responsible and permanent closure of the very department I now lead. This is not a routine mission. It is a transformation, driven by the clear will of the American people to return education to the states — and the decisive election of President Donald Trump. This is not my first experience leading a federal agency. In Trump’s first term, I was at the helm of the Small Business Administration, an agency established in the 1950s to support entrepreneurial startups and privately owned companies. Both on my watch and in years previous, the SBA delivered measurable success for job creators and workers. Small businesses have doubled in number since 1980, creating two-thirds of all new jobs in the past 25 years.” (03/21/25)
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Nick Cleveland-Stout & William Hartung
“President Trump is working on delivering what could be a big win for U.S. arms contractors. Politico Pro reported on Thursday that the White House is currently ‘drafting an executive order aimed at streamlining the federal government’s process of selling weapons overseas.’ The text of the executive order has not yet been released, but a source familiar with the order confirmed it will boost arms contractor interests and reduce congressional oversight by stripping down parts of the Arms Export Control Act (AECA), the law that governs the arms export process.” (03/22/25)
“Many people, including some free-market advocates, think Americans are materially worse off today than they were in the 1970s. Some subscribers to that view blame globalization, that is, free trade in goods, which means in labor services. By any reasonable measure, those people are wrong. Stagnation is a myth. Living standards have never been higher. That goes for an increasing portion of the rest of the world too. After thousands of years, extreme poverty has plummeted to under 10 percent in just a few decades.” (03/21/25)
“Critics of right-wing populism, whether in the U.S. or abroad, have emphasized its minoritarian tendencies and diagnosed them as the most prominent symptom of ‘democratic backsliding.’ But there is a problem with this account, which is that almost no one who studies how public policy has actually been made in the United States over the last half-century would characterize the status quo from which we are supposedly backsliding as mostly majoritarian. In fact, the most salient changes in how we make public policy – changes that were mostly driven by the center-left — over the last half century — have made policymaking pervasively less majoritarian. It may thus be best to understand right-wing populism as a reaction to minoritarianism, at least as much as an instance of it.” (03/21/25)
