I’m starting to feel like the frog in the slowly heating pot of water.
National Guard troops patrolling Los Angeles. A judge just ruled it’s a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, but that ruling doesn’t change much.
The military take-over of the federal district. “Crime is out of control,” according to the White House, though the city’s administration says those figures are a lie. No matter who’s right, we’re becoming inured to seeing troops in the streets.
Talk of next sending the troops into Chicago or some other major city. We’ll survive that, won’t we? After all, New Yorkers have gotten used to heavily armed people in fatigues at major events and gatherings. Those troops may not have chosen to be here, but we still have to thank them for their service.
Pair that increasing military presence at home with the spate of national emergencies the president is in love with declaring: the national emergency over immigration that the administration is using to justify increasing number of deportations. And the national emergency over international trade that was the justification for illegally imposed tariffs. And now there’s talk of the president declaring a national emergency over housing, because people in their 20s and 30s can’t afford to buy houses, because not enough new houses are being built.
Add in the president’s continual whining about that elections aren’t “secure,” that we can’t trust the mail-in paper ballots, or the electronic voting machines, or any other facet of the system, and that the federal government is going to have to take over the machinery of elections, just to ensure that they’re fair.
Do you see where this is going? This is all in the first seven months of this presidential administration. We are being inculcated to the steady stream of major emergencies demanding extraordinary governmental intervention. We are being taught to distrust the institutions of free and open government that have served us so well for two centuries. And we are growing desensitized to the elements of control such as the Army patrolling our cities.
It isn’t very much of a leap of reasoning to imagine we’ll be told we have to respond to some emergency in the summer of 2028, while the government is trying to make our electoral system “safe,” which will require a delay in election day, perhaps “just a few months.”
I think we’re in trouble. I feel the temperature of this water rising, but will we be smart enough to turn off the gas before it starts boiling?
President Trump on Monday tweeted about his dismissal of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. His “reasoning” is that he claims Cook made false statements on mortgage documents, which was evidence of “gross negligence” and “potentially criminal.”
The evidence he is basing this decision on? Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi accusing Cook of taking out mortgages for homes in Michigan and Georgia in 2021, and telling banks in both cases that she planned to use the homes as her primary residences. Pulte alleges that was a fraudulent attempt to gain more favorable lending terms. Cook has not been convicted of anything, not even been indicted. But Caesar’s wife must be above reproach.
Sound familiar?
In the case commonly known as New York v Trump (2023–2024), the judge ruled that “In order to borrow more and at lower rates, defendants submitted blatantly false financial data to the accountants, resulting in fraudulent financial statements.”
The pot calling the kettle back? It takes one to know one? The crime he’s accusing Cook of committing is the smaller version of the crime of which he was convicted. He says it’s a disqualifying crime (mind you, the accusation; there has been no trial) to serve on the Fed’s Board of Governors, but that the much larger version (which was adjudicated) is not disqualifying for him to serve as president.
I’m embarrassed that he’s the president, and I’m scared of what he’ll do next.
The Republican redistricting scheme currently causing so much consternation in and toward Texas gives me hope. Not, perhaps, in the way you might think. But in it, I see the seeds of potentially, maybe, if if if, a solution to the gerrymandering that has plagued this country for two centuries.
Allow me to explain.
I’ve been railing against gerrymandering for years. Gerrymandering is the drawing of boundaries on political districts in order to group blocks of voters together, either to increase the power of one group, or to decrease the power of another. Sometimes it is used to increase the chances that a member of a minority group can win an election. But far more often these days, it is used to cement a political party’s hold on a district, to make it “safe.” (For the problems safe districts cause, see my previous writings.)
In normal times, Congressional district boundaries are redrawn every ten years, after the decennial census data is received, so that the districts accurately represent where the people live and what those people want. These are not normal times.
Governor Abbott of Texas, kowtowing to President Trump’s request, is urging the Texas legislature to redraw the state’s Congressional map right now, half-way through a decennial period, in order to concentrate the Democratic minority voters into fewer districts, and thus give the Republicans, potentially, three to five more seats in the House of Representatives. Democratic members of the Texas legislature have left the state, in order to prevent the legislature from reaching a quorum, which would—at least, in theory— prevent action on the proposal. But they’ve tried such a quorum-break in the past; it has not been successful. I doubt it will be this time, either.
So we have to accept the reality that Texas is about to further marginalize their Democratic population and flip five of their seats in the House to the Republican party.
Governor Newsom of California has been making noises about attempting the same scheme in his state, which would flip several seats from the Republicans to the Democrats. There’ve been whispers elsewhere—such as Governor Hochul in New York—that other states might do something similar if Abbot and Trump get their way in Texas. The problem I foresee is an ongoing character flaw of the Democrats: the party insists that it must be holier than thou, purer than thou, that it will play be the rules even when their opponents have shown absolutely no compunction about violating those rules. While doing so may give them a moral victory, it will inevitably lead to an actual loss. To my mind, in these cases, the Democrats are those crying “life isn’t fair.” No, it isn’t. Everyone should follow the rules. Everyone should be a good, moral, decent human being. Everyone should be more interested in the good of us all than in our individual results.
But not everyone is.
We don’t need Governor Newsom and Governor Hochul warning “don’t do it or we might do something, too.” We need him and his fellow Democratic governors to act! Today! We need them to implement precisely the schemes Abbot and the Texans are planning. We need to gerrymander the country to a fare-thee-well, to legislate out of existence those last 40 competitive seats in the House.
Because then, and only then, will we all see just how egregious the gerrymandering has become. Only then will it be brought to the Supreme Court. And to my mind, regardless of the Court’s political slant, there is no way it can allow such outrageous diminution of the minorities to survive. In such a case, I think, the Supreme Court will only be able to rule that the gerrymandering violates the people’s rights to be fairly represented, and that political maps must be drawn in a fair, impartial manner.
(Yes, I know, I’m an idealist. It may not work out that way. But I don’t see any other way to fix the mess we’re in.)
And if, IF my dream comes true, may I humbly suggest new legislation regarding how districts are drawn? A fairly simple test, actually:
No Congressional district, when drawn on a Mercator projection map, shall be drawn in such a way that a straight line drawn on that map shall be able to cross into the district more than once. That is, except in cases where the state border itself violates this dictum.
I don’t expect any of this to happen. I expect the Democrats will continue to purge their own ranks, as they threw out Al Franken. I expect they’ll yell and whine and do nothing, while Texas rejiggers their Congressional map, and that the election of 2026 will result in a Trumpian increase in the House, and we’ll continue bitching and moaning about their self-serving actions for years to come.
But wouldn’t it be nice if I was wrong, and we could actually make things better?
A quick story on ABC’s noon news just now noted that Mikie Sherrill, who is the Democratic nominee for governor of New Jersey, has chosen Dale Caldwell as her running mate, and that if they win, he will be the first male lieutenant governor of New Jersey.
That caught my ear. While we have (or are much closer to) equality of the sexes, I know enough of our history to know it was not always the case, and that a claim that a political office holder will be the first man to hold the office is strange.
So I did a little research. The quote is accurate, but demands a slightly longer explanation, which is that in New Jersey, until recently, the governor was the only official elected state-wide. If the governor’s office became vacant, it would be filled by the president of the State Senate, or by the speaker of the General Assembly. The position of lieutenant governor was created in 2006, and first filled in the election of 2009. To date, the entire list of lieutenant governors of New Jersey is: Kim Guadagno (served January 19, 2010–January 16, 2018); Sheila Oliver (January 16, 2018–August 1, 2023 [she died in office]); and Tahesha Way (September 8, 2023–present).
Indeed, I can’t think of any other American political office to have been held exclusively by women at any point (excepting First Lady and Second Lady [until Doug Emhoff from 2021 to 2025]). Frances Perkins was the first woman to serve in a president’s cabinet, but she was the fourth Secretary of Labor. The 46th and current Treasurer of the United States, Brandon Beach, is the first man to hold that position in 76 years, since the 28th Treasurer, William Alexander Julian, who served June 1, 1933–May 29, 1949 (but all of his predecessors were men).
In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Shakaar” (season 3, episode 24; first aired May 22, 1995), a new political leader clashes with a political rival over the return of some farming equipment. The rival and his fellow farmers are using the equipment; the leader thinks it would be better used somewhere else. The leader, Kai Winn, asks Major Kira to talk with her friends—Shakaar and the farmers—to return the equipment, thinking that Kira’s prior relationship with them will turn the tide. Kira is unsuccessful, so Winn calls out the militia to take the equipment back by force, deeming Shakaar’s continued reticence a threat to the stability of the government, and a test of her set by the gods. She eventually calls on Commander Sisko to bring Federation forces to support her efforts. Sisko tells her this is an over-reaction, noting that she has done everything to escalate the situation far beyond reason, rather than acting as a leader to calm things down. Eventually, our heroes are able to bring a political counter-punch, and Winn backs down to end the episode.
The whole story is ringing in my ears today as I’m watching the outrageous escalation in Los Angeles, brought about through President Trump’s nationalizing and sending in the National Guard to deal with protests against policies that he himself set. Once again, we’re looking at an outrageous over-reaction apparently designed solely to solidify the over-reactor’s political position. California’s Governor Newsom and Los Angeles’s Mayor Bass have both said there is no need for federal troops to calm the protests, and that they will only inflame the situation. But Trump seems to see it as either a test set by his god, or an opportunity (akin to his forthcoming military parade) to show he is the power, he is the strength, he is the ruler. Once again, he is showing us he has no interest in being the president of a democratic republic, that he would much rather be the strongman in a dictatorship that benefits only himself and his friends.
The situation in Los Angeles is indeed a test. It may be the first volley in a test not unlike the one Abraham Lincoln described in his Gettysburg Address, when he spoke of a nation conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.” We are engaged in the struggle to guarantee that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
[Edited a day later to add:]
A friend pointed out to me that I might not have been clear in the above. I wasn’t saying the entire situation started with the call for troops, that that was the only escalation. It was merely the tipping point that prompted me to write.
But the Kai Winn “escalating the situation out of all legitimate proportions,” in the current situation is Donald Trump’s unceasing cries that undocumented farm workers, manual laborers, anyone who speaks Spanish and has slightly more melanin than he is a threat to the United States and our way of life. The crisis he has manufactured began with the terror he tried to instill in us: terror at the presence of the very people he frequently employed in his various real estate businesses. The violation of Posse Comitatus is only the latest step in his long con to make Americans so afraid of anyone other than Trump and his cronies that we allow them to rob us of our fortunes and freedom.
For today’s chilling extension, see Secretary Noem’s comments and actions in this article.
A fellow wearing a New York Police Department T-shirt just rang my doorbell, campaigning for Heshy Tischler. I told him that a political campaigner wearing that T-shirt made me uncomfortable, and he started yelling at me that he had a First Amendment right to wear the shirt because he has a relative who is a police officer. I didn’t get his name as I closed the door in his face, yet I heard him continue to yell through the door. Based on that interaction, I am far less likely to vote for Tischler for New York City Council in the upcoming special election.
What is the value of intellectual freedom? of academic integrity? of political independence? The story just now on MSNBC was about the forthcoming meeting and negotiations between Harvard University and the Trump administration; that the government is demanding… well, I’m not entirely sure, other than the Trumpians are angry with the “liberal agenda supported by colleges and universities.”
I’m wondering what will happen if the leadership at Harvard can bring themselves to say “Our intellectual freedom, our academic integrity, is more important to the Harvard community than our federal funding. We have this massive endowment, so we’re going to draw on it to make up for the shortfall in federal funding. President Trump: you can shove your ideology.” Such a move, I think, would lead to an alumni fund-raising windfall. While the Trumpians might tout it as cutting needless federal spending, it could be viewed as a win by both sides. And who better to take that hit to show that Trumpism is not forever and ever than a university which was founded more than a century before the country in which it stands?
Mind you, I am emphatically in favor of rooting out the antisemitism poisoning college campuses. But it doesn’t seem to me that Harvard is dragging their feet on this issue.
And I’m going to throw in a few numbers which caught my ear. According to that MSNBC story, Harvard receives “$9 billion in federal grants and contracts.” Though the same report did also say that Columbia, after having theoretically acquiesced to similar demands, is still waiting for the $400 million in federal funds it receives to be restored.
I question that $9 billion, which may actually be an aggregate of many universities. This Washington Times piece from 2023 said Harvard had $3.3 billion in grants and contracts over the 2018–2022 period.
And in January, the Harvard Crimson said “In fiscal year 2024, the University received $686 million from federal agencies, accounting for two-thirds of its total sponsored research expenditures and eleven percent of the University’s operating revenue.”
But the point remains: can—should—a university bow to political whims, and change its policies to suit a presidential administration, which is by design temporary?
Yes, there is no place on college campuses—or anywhere else in the country—for supporters of kidnappers, rapists, and murderers. But on the other side of the discussion: is this what we have a government for? Isn’t this rather an issue to which a true Republican would have a laissez-faire attitude? Let the market decide, such a Republican would say. If people disagree with the university’s policies, they’ll stop donating to it, stop applying to be students there, stop respecting it. Apparently, the Trumpians are not so secure in their own beliefs to think they’ll win out in the marketplace of ideas, so they have to put the government’s financial thumb on the scale.
Listening to Vice President Vance speaking just now at Pituffik Space Base in Greenland, he said “we expect the people of Greenland will choose independence from Denmark,” and then we’ll cut a deal with them. What happens if the people of Greenland ultimately decide to not associate with the United States? To not become a US territory or protectorate?
All of this, mind you, came after the Vice President spent a long time bad-mouthing Denmark, saying they’ve done a terrible job. And looking at the broader picture, why does it seem to be that President Trump and his administration spend nearly all of their time denigrating, insulting, and attacking every ally the United States has had for the last eighty years, without expressing any real concerns about the countries which have not been our allies?
As I’m writing this, Chris Jansing on MSNBC just called it “antidiplomacy,” and I think that’s a very apt description of the Trump administration’s activity.
I’ve said it before in a different context: when only one side is playing by the rules, they’re setting themselves up for a moral victory accompanied by a crushing actual defeat.
The Democratic party’s insistence on moral purity is what led them to purge their own Senator Al Franken. It’s what allowed Antonin Scalia’s Supreme Court seat to sit vacant for ten months, while Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s was filled in ten days. And it’s what continues to cause massive headaches for those of us who actually worry about the future of the country.
Chuck Schumer was absolutely correct in his vote for the “continuing resolution” to keep the government funded: voting against it is what the Trumpians wanted. There may have been moral purity in rejecting the bill, but then what? Shut down the government? Declare moral purity by not voting for the bill? That is exactly what the Trumpians wanted.
Indeed, they’re already doing it. Look at what has happened during Trump 2.0: USAID has been shut down. NOAA has been shut down. The Department of Education is nearly shut down. They’re shutting down the government piecemeal while patriotic ex-employees file pitiable lawsuits, hoping to keep their jobs.
Not adopting Speaker Mike Johnson’s continuing resolution would have done in one fell swoop what Trump & Co. are doing slowly, department by department: it would have shut everything down.
“But then shutting down the government would have been the Republicans’ fault,” the purest of the pure cry.
“So what?” respond the rational people. “That’s what they’re doing today. That’s what they want to do.” And that appears to be what the voters asked for.
Regardless of Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s commentary, there was no pathway to negotiate a clean four-week extension. If that negotiation could have occurred, it would have happened weeks ago. But Trump’s minions in the House had no interest in doing so. They have the majority there, so they don’t need to talk to the Democrats about anything.
Had the staunch Democrats succeeded in delaying the bill and shutting down the government, the Trumpians would have been celebrating. And they would have had no reason to negotiate anything to re-open it. We would be suffering through a government shutdown that would last until the next election, all while Trump and Elon Musk determine which pieces of the government are “necessary” and which are not. They would have had the time of their lives, selling off pieces of the government to their cronies at bargain prices, while the Democrats would be mewling for negotiations to fund and re-open the government.
I disagree—vehemently—with almost every action taken by the president and his gang of thieves. I disagree with their policies, their stated goals, and their methods. But the moral purity of the Democrats is a danger we can no longer afford. Adherence to the rules is a path to victory only if both sides are playing by the rules, and if the judges of the contest care about them. November 5, 2024, showed us that a plurality of American voters don’t care about following the rules, and that saddens me. But if we’re going to save our country from the predations of Trump 2.0, we’re going to have to get dirty, get down in the mud with our foes to fight back, hard.
Was Schumer morally impure for allowing the continuing resolution to pass the Senate? Yes. But was it the right thing to do in an attempt to save the country? Also, yes.
I hear a lot of consternation over Presidents Trump and Musk and DOGE taking over the federal payment system in the Department of the Treasury. Representative Gregory Meeks on MSNBC just now couldn’t get beyond the fact that one of Musk’s henchmen is 19 years old. But it’s all misdirection; it’s the sound and fury signifying nothing that they want you to look at. Is Elon Musk going to steal my identity when he finds my social security number? I doubt it.
Meanwhile, over in the shadow (well, perhaps not that dark), Donald Trump is doing what he’s done his entire career: planning big real estate deals which offer him the maximum opportunity to skim and grift for his (and his compatriots’) benefit, while stiffing those he’s going to use.
His announcement that the US is going to take over the Gaza Strip is simply the latest instance of his lifelong aim of self-aggrandizement through real estate dealing. Replace “US” in that headline with “Trump Organization,” and it could have been the 1980s: throw out the people who have no money in a run-down neighborhood, rebuild it with the Trump name writ big on the buildings, stiff the construction workers who did the dirty work, and proclaim his own greatness while lining his own pockets.
And the GSA selling half the property it manages? That means a large number of buildings coming onto the market in a short span of time, meaning the prices will depress through oversupply. What does Donald Trump do? Remember, he’s the first president in history to not divest his business interests, or place them in a blind trust. I wouldn’t bet against The Trump Organization (and his allies) buying up a lot of that property, and then leasing it back to the government.
As much as he talks about shrinking the government, there is a the government does that cannot simply be thrown away with the stroke of a pen. But removing those pieces from the government’s control, and parceling them out to private companies offers so much more opportunity to skim.
None of it is irrational; all of Trump’s moves make perfect sense, if we only remember his goal. It has never been “what can I do to make things better for others?” It is always “what can I do to make the most money for myself?”
Ian Randal Strock 