Things are getting worse in America, and there’s no reversal in sight. As the 2026 election gets closer, it’s increasingly clear that the Democratic Party has no interest in restoring Constitutional limits and checks and balances. They’ve entered a gerrymandering race with the Republicans. Hakeem Jeffries is reassuring the public that impeachment will not be his top priority if the Democrats gain a majority in the House. Democratic candidates are working to buy votes with promises to spend money and tax somebody else. The hope was always thin at best. The Republicans once claimed to favor limited government; the Democrats never have, and they don’t know how to start now.
There’s been a lot of anger at Trump from the general public, but it’s unfocused. There’s been strong and sustained outrage at ICE, but not as much at the illegal and unprovoked war against Iran or the murderous attacks on unarmed boats. It’s mixed with unproven accusations of pedophilia and repeated reminders that he was convicted for the relatively minor crime of disguising hush money as legal expenses. The “No Kings” protests make the news and then fade away. In spite of the big rallies, there isn’t a philosophically focused movement to rein in the executive branch and remove the Trump gang from power. Doing that would mean reversing a trend that started long before Trump’s presidency.
Freedom is always partial and unstable, but we’re heading into an age where corruption and intimidation are the norm. Power will be concentrated in the executive branch, and regardless of which party controls it, it will govern by decree. Congress has become increasingly helpless for decades, and it will get worse. The future looks like rule by unconstitutional monarchs, whether one party gets a stranglehold on the office or not.
Things have been this bad before, usually during wartime. The worst years for freedom came under Woodrow Wilson, when people got long prison sentences for opposing US participation in World War I or even for making a movie about the American Revolution. It could get that bad again.
It shouldn’t have been hard to build a coalition that a broad majority of Americans would support. Just say that we should forget our differences long enough to step away from the precipice. But for too many, Trump is just an opportunity for partisan politics. We’ve missed the chance.
It doesn’t mean we should give up. It means we have to focus on the long-term battle for restoring liberal ideals. (Once again, by “liberal” I mean the principles of a free and open society, not the political left.) It means convincing people that freedom is better than authoritarianism, reason is better than raving, principled action is better than pragmatism. It means keeping the high ground and encouraging the best we see in people.
I’m over 70, and I may not live long enough to see a resurgence of freedom and justice in the US, but I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life in despair. I can still work for that resurgence and try to mitigate some part of the descent. Mob thinking and rage are powerful in the short term, but in the longer view, reason is stronger than madness, freedom is stronger than tyranny, and truth is stronger than lies.
Hi Gary,
As with some of your other entries, I could quibble on some of the esoteric points, but I think you are directionally correct here. Our nation is stepping back from a culture of prioritizing individual liberty in favor of parochial/partisan interests.
Far from considering the restoration of Constitutional checks and balances, the Democrats have engaged in a decades long campaign to undermine them. As I think you are implying, the Trump administration has not engaged in any new or novel behaviors. Everything being done by the current administration has been done by past Democrat administrations going back at least to Wilson and FDR. One of my more significant complaints about the Trump administration is that their behavior is akin to FDR’s.
That doesn’t justify the Trump administration’s actions. I think the context matters. That the Democrats have done worse does not justify Mr. Trump’s actions as “good”.
In the same vein, the Democrats have engaged in a more sustained and pervasive gerrymandering effort. Some (but not all) of the current redistricting efforts by the GOP are intended to counter that effort. Of course, leave it to the GOP to take a defensible position of simply undoing Democratic gerrymandering and turning it into an indefensible position of calling gerrymandering acceptable when it favors Republicans.
It may be a Long Night. But the sun has been setting for quite sometime already.
I disagree that the war with Iran was unprovoked. They have been provoking us by attacking our people for the last 47+ years. Over 200 Marines in Lebanon, US agents such as Christopher Buckley, training Iraqi terrorist to use IED’s in Iraq, giving shelter to the Taliban. They have been a destabilizing force in the region for decades by funding various terrorist groups along with their fostering of the terrorist regime in Yemen. I’m not a fan of the seemingly ill prepared and haphazard prosecution of the war. At the same time, I’m not willing to overlook the Iranian regimes long history of committing serial acts of war on the US and others in the region.
Regards,
Dann
They say marriages are made in Heaven. But so is thunder and lightning. – Clint Eastwood
Regarding Iran: If the situation has been the same for 47 years, there was plenty of time for Congress to act. It chose not to, if only because no president asked it to. There was no sudden emergency requiring instant action without Congressional approval. I suppose he could have said it was to get the hostages out; the 1979 Iranian hostage emergency is still legally in effect. But his claim is that the purpose is to obliterate Iran’s nuclear capacity, which he also claims to have done twice already. Trump has never withdrawn his threat to destroy Iranian civilization, which goes far beyond any limited tactical action.
Your criticisms about the Iran campaign are legitimate. One of my concerns is that we do not seem to have done much strategic planning before embarking on this campaign. Such planning should have necessarily included key members of Congress.
I would have preferred that he at least obtain an AUMF from Congress. Something short of a full declaration of war, but enough to signal that things have changed for Iran.
Iran has consistently provoked a war. We didn’t follow the generally accepted process for responding.
As for his “threats”, the man is constitutionally unable to speak with any moderation. He should be taken literally only on very rare occasions.
Regards,
Dann
When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up. – C.S. Lewis