U.S. Government & governance February 2024-

Eugene Robinson: Why we should remember Jan. 6, 2025
Trump’s election certification features no riots, but scars linger from four years ago.
No angry and deluded mob stormed the U.S. Capitol Monday. There was no violent invasion, no bludgeoning of police officers, no shocking vandalism, no mortal threat to members of Congress and the vice president. Nothing particularly newsworthy happened — which qualifies as very big news indeed.
Biden and Harris’s agonized, ironic roles in certifying Trump’s win
Eight years ago, Biden helped formalize Trump’s victory. On Monday, Harris did the same. In between, a pro-Trump mob attacked Biden’s certification.
(WaPo) Vice President Joe Biden was standing in the well of the House on Jan. 6, 2017, overseeing the certification of an election that brought Donald Trump to power for the first time, when Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) objected to certifying the results.
Exactly eight years later, Vice President Kamala Harris stood in the same spot on Monday to certify the election of the same man.
“The votes for president of the United States are as follows: Donald J. Trump of the state of Florida has received 312 votes,” she said, as the Republicans in the room burst into applause. “Kamala D. Harris of the state of California has received 226 votes.”

3 January
Mike Johnson reelected as House speaker after some GOP holdouts change votes
Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson was reelected House speaker Friday on a first vote, overcoming skepticism about his leadership from some in his party. Johnson clinched the post after two lawmakers who initially voted against him changed their votes. President-elect Donald Trump endorsed Johnson this week and urged Republican lawmakers to back him, in part so that the party could move quickly to enact Trump’s agenda. Members of the 119th Congress have been sworn in and the House is now voting on a package of rules governing procedures.

The head-spinning chutzpah of Trump’s TikTok brief
Ruth Marcus
(WaPo) …so much for that one-president-at-a-time stuff. The Biden administration is doing its constitutional duty, which is to defend a duly enacted statute. Trump’s argument is that, because he is about to be sworn in and is now determined to ride to TikTok’s rescue, the court should concoct some basis on which to suspend the operations of the statute until he takes over. This isn’t the law, and it’s not the way courts are supposed to operate. You can’t claim to be a believer in the unitary executive and not let that executive govern until his time in office runs out.

1 January
Robert Reich Trump will overplay his hand. Be ready for when he does.
Asli Aydintasbas, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C., and a former journalist, published this short essay recently in Politico Magazine.
Over a decade as a high-profile journalist, I covered Turkey’s descent into illiberalism, having to engage in the daily push and pull with the government. I know how self-censorship starts in small ways but then creeps into operations on a daily basis. I am familiar with the rhythms of the battle to reshape the media, state institutions and the judiciary.
Having lived through it, and having gathered some lessons in hindsight, I believe that there are strategies that can help Democrats and Trump critics not only survive the coming four years, but come out stronger. Here are six of them.
1. Don’t Panic — Autocracy Takes Time
It took Erdoğan well over a decade to fully consolidate his power. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Poland’s Law and Justice Party needed years to erode democratic norms and fortify their grip on state institutions. …

2024

19-21 December
Biden signs bill that averts a government shutdown and brings a close to days of Washington upheaval
(AP) — President Joe Biden signed a bill into law Saturday that averts a government shutdown, bringing a final close to days of upheaval after Congress approved a temporary funding plan just past the deadline and refused President-elect Donald Trump’s core debt demands in the package.
The deal funds the government at current levels through March 14 and provides $100 billion in disaster aid and $10 billion in agricultural assistance to farmers.
“This agreement represents a compromise, which means neither side got everything it wanted,” Biden said in a statement, adding that “it ensures the government can continue to operate at full capacity. That’s good news for the American people.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had insisted lawmakers would “meet our obligations” and not allow federal operations to close. But the outcome at the end of a tumultuous week was uncertain after Trump had insisted the deal include an increase in the government’s borrowing limit. If not, he had said, then let the closures “start now.”
Trump and Musk show how not to conduct the nation’s business
Although they sowed needless chaos before the holidays, the points they raised are worth exploring.
(WaPo Editorial Board) If Mr. Trump wanted to assure Americans that his second term will be less chaotic than his first, this was not the way. If anything, the addition of Mr. Musk to the mix appears to have made things even more volatile. Predictably, Democrats resisted the last-minute push, along with a group of Republican lawmakers who balked at raising the debt ceiling.
As Musk forces a shutdown, the Trump presidency is already collapsing into chaos
Lies, conspiracy theories and middle-of-the-night rants are no way to run a country.
Dana Milbank
Senate Prepares to Vote on Stopgap Funding Bill as Shutdown Deadline Passes
Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, said it will likely pass, and President Biden is expected to sign it. The new legislation would keep the government open but did not include the debt ceiling increase that President-elect Donald J. Trump had demanded.
G.O.P. Spending Hawks Defy Trump on the Debt Limit, Previewing More Clashes
President-elect Donald J. Trump is known for his tight grip on members of his party, but the rare rejection of his demand to suspend the debt limit reflected a disconnect that could plague his policy agenda.
(NYT) Something unusual happened this week after President-elect Donald J. Trump ordered House Republicans to back legislation raising the debt limit: Dozens refused.
It was a rare breach by a group of Republicans who have traditionally backed Mr. Trump’s policy preferences unquestioningly and taken pains to avoid defying him.
And it laid bare a disconnect between Mr. Trump and his party that could upend their efforts next year to pass transformative tax and domestic policy legislation with the tiniest of majorities. Even as Mr. Trump has displayed a laissez-faire attitude to the federal debt and a willingness to spend freely, a number of lawmakers in his party fervently adhere to an anti-spending philosophy that regards debt as disastrous.
…38 Republicans refused to suspend the borrowing limit without spending cuts.
They tanked a spending plan that would have deferred the debt cap for two years, and by Friday, when Speaker Mike Johnson advanced a third proposal to avert a shutdown to the House floor, they had jettisoned the debt limit measure entirely, promising instead to deal with it next year. That version passed the House on Friday evening with bipartisan support. The only lawmakers voting to oppose it — all 34 of them — were Republicans.
Government shutdown looms as House rejects Trump-backed GOP funding bill
The federal government moved closer to a weekend shutdown after the House on Thursday overwhelmingly voted down Speaker Mike Johnson’s new plan to extend the deadline. The next steps are unclear.
The federal government moved closer to a weekend shutdown Thursday, after the House overwhelmingly voted down Speaker Mike Johnson’s new plan to extend the deadline despite support from President-elect Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk.
The GOP proposal would have extended federal operations into mid-March, sent more than $100 billion to natural-disaster survivors and suspended the country’s borrowing limit for two years. But it needed the support of two-thirds of the House to pass, and it went down by a 235-174 vote, with one member voting present. It wasn’t clear Thursday night what the next move will be.

17 December
Elizabeth Warren asks Trump to set conflict-of-interest rules for Musk
The letter from the Massachusetts senator comes as the tech tycoon has taken a prominent role inside Trump’s orbit
(WaPo) “Putting Mr. Musk in a position to influence billions of dollars of government contracts and regulatory enforcement without a stringent conflict of interest agreement in place is an invitation for corruption on a scale not seen in our lifetimes,” Warren wrote. “As your Transition Team Ethics Plan makes clear, the role of government is not to line the pockets of the wealthiest Americans; a strong, enforceable ethics plan for the world’s richest man is a necessary first step for delivering on that promise.”

9 December
[Paul Krugman’s] Last Column [for the NYT]: Finding Hope in an Age of Resentment
What I believe is that while resentment can put bad people in power, in the long run it can’t keep them there. At some point the public will realize that most politicians railing against elites actually are elites in every sense that matters and start to hold them accountable for their failure to deliver on their promises. And at that point the public may be willing to listen to people who don’t try to argue from authority, don’t make false promises, but do try to tell the truth as best they can.
What strikes me, looking back, is how optimistic many people, both here and in much of the Western world, were back then [2000] and the extent to which that optimism has been replaced by anger and resentment. And I’m not just talking about members of the working class who feel betrayed by elites; some of the angriest, most resentful people in America right now — people who seem very likely to have a lot of influence with the incoming Trump administration — are billionaires who don’t feel sufficiently admired.

4 December
Mike Johnson’s Newest Headache: The Smallest House Majority in History
The Republican speaker held on to control of the House, but will preside over an even smaller majority at a time when President-elect Donald J. Trump will need his help to achieve major agenda items.
(NYT) … Those margins will erode even further in January, when Representatives Elise Stefanik of New York and Mike Waltz of Florida resign to take jobs in the Trump administration. Former Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida has also given notice that he will not return.
Republicans will then be down to a 217-215 majority, on par with the narrowest controlling margin in House history. If all Democrats are present and united in opposition to a measure, Mr. Johnson won’t be able to afford a single defection on the House floor until those vacancies are filled later this spring. Even then, no more than three Republicans can break ranks without dooming a bill’s passage.
Trump and the GOP will have a historically tiny House majority. What that means.
Republicans actually wound up losing a seat in the 2024 election, potentially imperiling the president-elect’s agenda.
(WaPo) On Tuesday night came perhaps the final data point proving that Republicans’ victory in the 2024 election was hardly the mandate-bestowing “landslide” it’s been cracked up (by certain people) to be.
Rep. John Duarte’s (R) concession to Rep.-elect Adam Gray (D) in California’s razor-close 13th congressional district race means all 435 House races are now decided, and Republicans have actually lost ground. It’s a loss of only one seat, but still a net-negative, leaving them with 220 seats to the Democrats’ 215.
That the Republicans held their majority, is no small thing given they’ll now hold the House, the Senate and the presidency.
But the narrowness of the party’s House majority has already given them fits over the past two years, and now it’ll be even narrower. That could have major implications for what happens over the next two years and how much of President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda actually gets passed.

3 December
Musk and Ramaswamy Are Making a Big Mistake
They want to blame the bureaucrats, but they’re going to need those very same bureaucrats if they want to get anything done.
By Nicholas Bagley
(The Atlantic) In Musk and Ramaswamy’s telling, the chief problem with the administrative state is that it’s full of unelected mandarins who force their diktats down the throats of a reluctant public. Worse, those bureaucrats often act without legal authority from Congress. They adopt regulation upon regulation without regard to their costs, blithely unconcerned about the drag they’re placing on the economy.
… DOGE may make progress on selected problems, of course. Musk and Ramaswamy are dead right, for example, that the civil service is in desperate need of fixing, and that Trump has an unusual degree of freedom to rethink it. The procedures that apply to federal hiring are Kafkaesque, and firing civil servants is next to impossible.
Even there, however, Musk and Ramaswamy seem to care only about the firing part, and not about the hiring. That’s a problem. As the economist Tyler Cowen has written about the administrative state, “dismantling it, or paring it back significantly, would require a lot of state capacity—that is, state competence.” If Musk and Ramaswamy have ideas about how to bring the best and the brightest into government, they’re not sharing them.
Bloomberg: As Trump and authors of Project 2025 plan to fire thousands of government employees and shutter regulatory agencies, the Biden administration is looking to trip them up. It’s agreed to lock in hybrid work protections for tens of thousands of Social Security staff, part of a slew of organized labor efforts in the waning days of Biden’s presidency. The American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing 42,000 Social Security Administration workers, reached an agreement with the agency last week that will protect telework until 2029 in an updated contract, according to a message to its members.

24 November
Trump is coming for the executive branch. Does he know what he’s doing?
The president-elect has signaled he will be destructive, but he seems motivated by retribution rather than saving money.

19 November
Making cowardly Senate Republicans pay a political price
Voters must understand who is causing their pain
Jennifer Rubin
As justifiably alarmed as Democrats are by President-elect Donald Trump’s radical agenda and his nominations of unqualified candidates for Cabinet positions, these actions may be even more terrifying for Republican senators up for reelection in 2026. (What follows certainly applies to vulnerable GOP House members as well, although they, of course, play no role in confirming nominees.)
… Republicans will face a dilemma time and again during the Trump presidency: Go along with the White House or stand up for their constituents. If they choose the latter, they certainly face the potential for a primary challenge from a MAGA Republican. Do they fear appearing too extreme to voters in the general election more than they fear such a challenge? If it’s the general electorate that worries them, they may choose to buck the Trump administration. If they fear MAGA wrath, they are likely to be even more compliant with Trump’s demands.
… Sometimes, Democrats may block the most harmful legislation; more often, the goal will be to make vulnerable senators pay a significant political price for complying with dangerous MAGA policies. It is one thing for senators to keep their heads down when in the minority or to feign ignorance about the latest Trump tweet; it is quite another to try to duck responsibility for policies that affect real people.

14 November
‘Worst in history’: Ex-Trump adviser [John Bolton] challenges GOP to ‘stand up’ against cabinet picks
John Bolton, who frequently clashed with Trump during his 18-month tenure as national security adviser and has been an outspoken critic after leaving his administration, condemned the former and incoming president’s choices of Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence and Matt Gaetz as attorney general. … Now we will see whether the American Senate can stand up and reject two people who are totally unqualified, unfit professionally and really lacking in moral characteristics, the character you need to hold these jobs.”
Trump looks to bypass Senate for polarizing Cabinet picks
Experts say the president-elect, in pushing for recess appointments, is asking the Senate to abdicate its constitutional duty to either confirm or reject executive branch nominees.
(WaPo) Experts in American democracy say Trump’s call is the first major post-election test for Republicans in Congress of whether they will stand up for traditional checks and balances or bend to Trump’s desire not to have his choices questioned. The Constitution dictates that while the president gets to nominate key executive branch officials, it is up to the Senate to provide “advice and consent.”

13-14 November
Democratic governors create group to resist Trump policies
By Stephanie Kelly and Brad Brooks
Governors Safeguarding Democracy group to oppose Trump’s conservative policies
Democratic-led states previously fought Trump policies but faced challenges
Republican involvement in the group remains unclear
(Reuters) – The governors of Illinois and Colorado on Wednesday said they will co-chair a coalition of mostly Democratic-led states to fight back against polices incoming Republican President Donald Trump has vowed to push through.
With their Governors Safeguarding Democracy group, Democrats J.B. Pritzker of Illinois and Jared Polis of Colorado join attorneys general and other Democratic governors who have pledged to resist conservative Trump policies on everything from immigration to rollbacks on environmental protections.
Several Democratic-led states are forming coalitions and developing plans to push back against policies they expect from the incoming administration. State leaders are making efforts to protect against what they describe as threats to democracy and constitutional norms. This comes as the GOP wins a full trifecta of power in the nation’s capital: the presidency, control of the House and a three-seat majority in the Senate.
NPR Up First Newsletter
🎧 A new group called Governors Safeguarding Democracy broadly says they’re going to work with legal experts and advocates to tackle challenges facing democracy. NPR’s Ryland Barton says Trump was not mentioned on the group’s website or announcement. The group responded to an idea floated by Trump’s incoming deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller that National Guard units from red states could execute mass deportations in blue states. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker called that plan unacceptable and said he wouldn’t cooperate.

13 November
Senate Republicans Reject MAGA for Mitch McConnell Ally in Shock Vote
Senate Republicans delivered a blow to Donald Trump
(New Republic) South Dakota Senator John Thune will replace Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell as the chamber’s Republican caucus leader.
Thune won by a margin of five points, securing 25 votes to helm the party. Thune is, in many ways, a natural successor for the role. He has served as the Senate Republican whip since 2019, and has practically managed the Senate floor since McConnell suffered a concussion in 2023.
Thune elected Senate majority leader
(The Hill) He pledged to hold regular meetings with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to improve coordination with House Republicans and with Vice President-elect JD Vance to stay in sync with the Trump White House.
He also agreed to host a Senate GOP issues conference in December to discuss strategies for advancing Trump’s agenda and to prioritize bringing regular appropriations bills to the floor in the next Congress to avoid the need to pass another omnibus spending package before Christmas.
GOP senators discussed a variety of topics at the Tuesday forum, including strategy for raising the federal debt limit next year, completing the U.S.-Mexico border wall and proposals to eliminate the Department of Education, according to sources who participated in the meeting.

Republican sweep gives Trump power to slash taxes, may strain deficits
Trump goal of sweeping tax cuts runs against party’s long opposition to deficits
Nonpartisan forecasters say Trump’s plans could add $7.5 trillion to national debt
(Reuters) – Republicans’ lock on power in Washington next year will allow President-elect Donald Trump to pursue an aggressive agenda of tax cuts for businesses, workers and retirees that will test his party’s often-aired goal of reining in the government’s $35 trillion in debt.
Early priorities are expected to include extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, funding the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, cutting unspent funds allocated by Democrats, eliminating the Department of Education and curbing the powers of agencies including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, according to Republican lawmakers and aides.

Democrats are raising alarms at Trump’s pick of Matt Gaetz for attorney general
From CNN’s Elise Hammond, Danya Gainor and Lauren Fox
Democratic lawmakers are reacting to President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks on Wednesday, especially his choice of Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general.
The role of attorney general will be crucial to Trump’s vision for his second term, and will help enforce the president-elect’s policy on immigration, reproductive health and political retribution. Gaetz has long accused the Justice Department of being weaponized under President Joe Biden against conservatives including Trump.

Hegseth, advocate for firing ‘woke’ military leaders, picked for defense secretary
Hegseth has expressed disdain for ‘woke’ policies in Pentagon
Hegseth could clash with Joint Chiefs Chairman Brown
Hegseth has opposed roles for women in combat roles
(Reuters) – U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has picked as his secretary of defense Pete Hegseth, a Fox News commentator and veteran who has expressed disdain for so-called “woke” policies of Pentagon leaders, opposed women in combat roles, and questioned whether the top American general was in his position because of his skin color.
If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Hegseth could make good on Trump’s campaign promises to rid the U.S. military of generals who he accuses of pursuing progressive policies on diversity in the ranks that conservatives have rallied against.

6 November
Donald Trump has sweeping plans for a second administration.
(AP) — The former president and now president-elect often skipped over details but through more than a year of policy pronouncements and written statements outlined a wide-ranging agenda that blends traditional conservative approaches to taxes, regulation and cultural issues with a more populist bent on trade and a shift in America’s international role.
Trump’s agenda also would scale back federal government efforts on civil rights and expand presidential powers.
Immigration
“Build the wall!” from his 2016 campaign has become creating “the largest mass deportation program in history.” Trump has called for using the National Guard and empowering domestic police forces in the effort. Still, Trump has been scant on details of what the program would look like and how he would ensure that it targeted only people in the U.S. illegally. He’s pitched “ideological screening” for would-be entrants, ending birth-right citizenship (which almost certainly would require a constitutional change), and said he’d reinstitute first-term policies such as “Remain in Mexico,” limiting migrants on public health grounds and severely limiting or banning entrants from certain majority-Muslim nations. Altogether, the approach would not just crack down on illegal migration, but curtail immigration overall.
Trump played down abortion as a second-term priority, even as he took credit for the Supreme Court ending a woman’s federal right to terminate a pregnancy and returning abortion regulation to state governments. …
Taxes
Trump’s tax policies broadly tilt toward corporations and wealthier Americans. That’s mostly due to his promise to extend his 2017 tax overhaul, with a few notable changes that include lowering the corporate income tax rate to 15% from the current 21%. That also involves rolling back Democratic President Joe Biden’s income tax hikes on the wealthiest Americans and scrapping Inflation Reduction Act levies that finance energy measures intended to combat climate change.
Those policies notwithstanding, Trump has put more emphasis on new proposals aimed at working- and middle class Americans: exempting earned tips, Social Security wages and overtime wages from income taxes. It’s noteworthy, however, that his proposal on tips, depending on how Congress might write it, could give a back-door tax break to top wage earners by allowing them to reclassify some of their pay as tip income — a prospect that at its most extreme could see hedge-fund managers or top-flight attorneys taking advantage of a policy that Trump frames as being designed for restaurant servers, bartenders and other service workers.
Tariffs and trade
Trump’s posture on international trade is to distrust world markets as harmful to American interests. He proposes tariffs of 10% to 20% on foreign goods — and in some speeches has mentioned even higher percentages. He promises to reinstitute an August 2020 executive order requiring that the federal government buy “essential” medications only from U.S. companies. He pledges to block purchases of “any vital infrastructure” in the U.S. by Chinese buyers.
DEI, LGBTQ and civil rights
Trump has called for rolling back societal emphasis on diversity and for legal protections for LGBTQ citizens. Trump has called for ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs in government institutions, using federal funding as leverage.
On transgender rights, Trump promises generally to end “boys in girls’ sports,” a practice he insists, without evidence, is widespread. But his policies go well beyond standard applause lines from his rally speeches. Among other ideas, Trump would roll back the Biden administration’s policy of extending Title IX civil rights protections to transgender students, and he would ask Congress to require that only two genders can be recognized at birth.
Regulation, federal bureaucracy and presidential power
… He pledges precipitous drops in U.S. households’ utility bills by removing obstacles to fossil fuel production, including opening all federal lands for exploration — even though U.S. energy production is already at record highs. Trump promises to unleash housing construction by cutting regulations — though most construction rules come from state and local government. He also says he would end “frivolous litigation from the environmental extremists.”
… He would make it easier to fire federal workers by classifying thousands of them as being outside civil service protections. That could weaken the government’s power to enforce statutes and rules by reducing the number of employees engaging in the work and, potentially, impose a chilling effect on those who remain.
Trump also claims that presidents have exclusive power to control federal spending even after Congress has appropriated money. Trump argues that lawmakers’ budget actions “set a ceiling” on spending but not a floor — meaning the president’s constitutional duty to “faithfully execute the laws” includes discretion on whether to spend the money. This interpretation could set up a court battle with Congress.
As a candidate, he also suggested that the Federal Reserve, an independent entity that sets interest rates, should be subject to more presidential power. Though he has not offered details, any such move would represent a momentous change to how the U.S. economic and monetary systems work.
Education
The federal Department of Education would be targeted for elimination in a second Trump administration. That does not mean that Trump wants Washington out of classrooms. He still proposes, among other maneuvers, using federal funding as leverage to pressure K-12 school systems to abolish tenure and adopt merit pay for teachers and to scrap diversity programs at all levels of education.
Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid
Trump insists he would protect Social Security and Medicare, popular programs geared toward older Americans and among the biggest pieces of the federal spending pie each year. …
Affordable Care Act and Health Care
As he has since 2015, Trump calls for repealing the Affordable Care Act and its subsidized health insurance marketplaces. But he still has not proposed a replacement: In a September debate, he insisted he had the “concepts of a plan.” In the latter stages of the campaign, Trump played up his alliance with former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime critic of vaccines and of pesticides used in U.S. agriculture. Trump repeatedly told rally crowds that he would put Kennedy in charge of “making America healthy again.”
Climate and energy
Trump, who claims falsely that climate change is a “hoax,” blasts Biden-era spending on cleaner energy designed to reduce U.S. reliance on fossil fuels. He proposes an energy policy – and transportation infrastructure spending – anchored to fossil fuels: roads, bridges and combustion-engine vehicles. “Drill, baby, drill!” was a regular chant at Trump rallies. Trump says he does not oppose electric vehicles but promises to end all Biden incentives to encourage EV market development. Trump also pledges to roll back Biden-era fuel efficiency standards.
Workers’ rights
Trump could make it harder for workers to unionize. In discussing auto workers, Trump focused almost exclusively on Biden’s push toward electric vehicles. In an Oct. 23, 2023, statement, Trump said of United Auto Workers, “I’m telling you, you shouldn’t pay those dues.”
National defense and America’s role in the world
Trump’s rhetoric and policy approach in world affairs is more isolationist diplomatically, non-interventionist militarily and protectionist economically than the U.S. has been since World War II. But the details are more complicated. He pledges expansion of the military, promises to protect Pentagon spending from austerity efforts and proposes a new missile defense shield — an old idea from the Reagan era during the Cold War. Trump insists he can end Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas war, without explaining how. Trump summarizes his approach through another Reagan phrase: “peace through strength.” But he remains critical of NATO and top U.S. military brass.

‘Trump’s America’: Comeback Victory Signals a Different Kind of Country
In the end, Donald J. Trump is not the historical aberration some thought he was, but instead a transformational force reshaping the modern United States in his own image.
(NYT) No longer can the political establishment write off Mr. Trump as a temporary break from the long march of progress, a fluke who somehow sneaked into the White House in a quirky, one-off Electoral College win eight years ago. With his comeback victory to reclaim the presidency, Mr. Trump has now established himself as a transformational force reshaping the United States in his own image.
Populist disenchantment with the nation’s direction and resentment against elites proved to be deeper and more profound than many in both parties had recognized. Mr. Trump’s testosterone-driven campaign capitalized on resistance to electing the first woman president.

21 October
The Sun Belt path matters more than you think
By Charles Mahtesian, Senior Politics Editor
(Politico) …Census apportionment of congressional seats among the states…reflects population changes across the country over the previous decade. That apportionment of House seats, in turn, determines the allocation of electoral votes by state. In the latest round after the 2020 Census, when all the population gains and losses were added up, Republican states ended up with a net gain of three seats.
…political power has been shifting to the South and the West for decades. What’s new is the velocity of the electoral shift and the imbalance that could be caused by California’s contraction. The Democratic Party’s overreliance on the slow-growing Northeast and Midwest and its weakness in the rapidly-growing South could become a serious impediment to winning the White House.
After the 2030 Census and the round of apportionment that follows, the electoral map will take a turn for the worse for Democrats.
Solidly blue California, the cornerstone of the Democratic electoral coalition since the 1990s, is projected to lose four electoral votes if current population trends continue. It’s a stunning development given the state’s history. California’s blistering growth for much of the 20th century elevated the state from casting 13 electoral votes in the 1928 presidential election to casting 55 in 2020. But that was California’s high point. Its now-slowing pace of growth led to the loss of an electoral vote after the most recent Census, giving the state just 54 electoral votes in 2024 and 2028 and the prospect of even heavier losses after the 2030 Census. …

17 October
David Brooks: Why the Heck Isn’t She Running Away With This?
Each party is no longer just a political organism; it is a political-cultural-religious-class entity that organizes the social, moral and psychological lives of its believers.
Each party’s metaphysic seems to grow more rigid and impermeable as time goes by. Sometimes it seems that Harris is running not to be president of the United States but to be president of a theme park called Democratic Magic Mountain, while Trump is running to be president of Republican Fantasy Island. Each party has become too narcissistic to get outside its own head and try to build a coalition with people outside the camp of true believers.
The political problem for Harris is that there are a lot more Americans without a college degree than with one. Class is growing more salient in American life, with Hispanic and Black working-class voters shifting steadily over to the working-class party, the G.O.P.
The problem for Trump is that he is even better at repelling potential converts than the Democrats. He’d be winning landslides if he had tried to wedge MAGA Republicans into a coalition with Bush-McCain Republicans, but he’s incapable of that.
The problem for the rest of us is that we’re locked into this perpetual state of suspended animation in which the two parties are deadlocked and nothing ever changes. I keep running into people who are rooting for divided government for the next four years. It will mean that America will be able to do little to solve its problems. They see this as the least bad option.

25 September
Senate sends bill to avert government shutdown to Biden’s desk
(The Hill) Senators on Wednesday passed a short-term funding extension that keeps the government’s lights on until mid-December and averts a pre-election government shutdown days before the end-of-the-month deadline.
Lawmakers advance stopgap funding bill, sidestep Trump
House clears funding hurdle; Senate moves toward vote
The House passed a three-month government funding bill Wednesday, sending the package to the Senate as Congress seeks to avoid a shutdown starting next week.
Republicans Are Finally Tired of Shutting Down the Government
Despite all the chaos of their narrow House majority, Republicans have avoided disaster.
By Russell Berman
(The Atlantic) This week, Speaker Mike Johnson surrendered a spending battle that Republicans had hardly even fought. The House will vote on legislation today to avert a government shutdown without demanding any significant concessions from Democrats. In a letter to Republican lawmakers on Sunday, Johnson acknowledged that the bill “is not the solution any of us prefer.” But, he wrote, “as history has taught and current polling affirms, shutting the government down less than 40 days from a fateful election would be an act of political malpractice.”
Johnson’s retreat highlights a strange, seemingly contradictory truth about the 118th Congress: It’s been extremely chaotic, and yet the dysfunction has barely affected most Americans.

Letters from an American September 20, 2024
Heather Cox Richardson
In a country of 50 states and Washington, D.C.—a country of more than 330 million people—presidential elections are decided in just a handful of states, and it is possible for someone who loses the popular vote to become president. We got to this place thanks to the Electoral College, and to two major changes made to it since the ratification of the Constitution.
The men who debated how to elect a president in 1787 worried terribly about making sure there were hedges around the strong executive they were creating so that he could not become a king.
Ultimately, the framers came up with the election of a president by a group of men well known in their states but not currently office-holders, who would meet somewhere other than the seat of government and would disband as soon as the election was over. Each elector in this so-called Electoral College would cast two votes for president. The man with the most votes would be president, and the man with the second number of votes would be vice president (a system that the Twelfth Amendment ended in 1804). The number of electors would be equal to the number of senators and representatives allotted to each state in Congress. If no candidate earned a majority, the House of Representatives would choose the president, with each state delegation casting a single vote.
22 June 2023
Trump is why the framers created the Electoral College

9-11 September
Johnson forced to delay vote on stopgap funding plan as GOP opposition rises
The speaker said they’ll delay the vote until next week as they work to quell Republican opposition and “build consensus.”
The measure has crumbled amid mounting criticism from conservatives, defense hawks and other Republican factions, and it’s unclear that more time will help save the bill unless leaders make drastic changes. House GOP leaders have been already been whipping the bill, and nearly a dozen Republicans have publicly said they plan to vote against it. The package would fund the government through March 28 and is combined with legislation that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote, known as the SAVE Act.
While a government shutdown at month’s end is still unlikely and unwanted by congressional leaders, it’s the latest episode of Johnson’s repeated struggles this year to muster enough support to pass GOP spending bills, thanks to many of the same problems currently plaguing his conference.
Trump: GOP shouldn’t fund government without ‘assurances on Election Security’
(The Hill) Former President Trump on Tuesday appeared to call on his party to block government funding if legislation does not include “assurances on Election Security.”
The government will shut down Oct. 1 unless Congress agrees to a funding bill by the end of this month.
Congress returns to Washington for a three-week preelection sprint
Avoiding a government shutdown remains the biggest item on the to-do list before this fall’s elections.
(Politico) Lawmakers are fully back in Washington for the first time in more than a month with a familiar dilemma: Ducking a government shutdown weeks away from a pivotal election.
What else is on the to-do list: In non-spending matters in the House, Republicans will be moving a number of China-related bills this week. Meanwhile, the Senate continues to press ahead on judge confirmation votes, with one scheduled Monday and another later in the week.
One other thing to watch: The Senate should be returning to full strength once again with the swearing in of Sen.-designee George Helmy (D-N.J.). He’ll replace former Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who resigned after his conviction on federal corruption charges.
House Republicans prepare doomed 6-month stopgap funding patch
House GOP leaders are hoping to put swing-district Democrats in a bind over a proof-of-citizenship add-on to the spending legislation.
By Caitlin Emma and Jennifer Scholtes
Speaker Mike Johnson’s stopgap spending plan is slated to clear its first test Monday, but its fate on the House floor is still far from certain.
The chamber’s Rules Committee kicked off a meeting Monday afternoon to prepare to send the funding bill to the House floor, likely on Wednesday. The legislation would punt a government shutdown deadline, currently scheduled to hit on Oct. 1, into the end of March, and includes a conservative-favored bill that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote.
Johnson’s six-month funding punt, known as a continuing resolution or a CR, represents House Republicans’ opening offer in the sprint to avoid a government shutdown, one the Democratic-controlled Senate will surely reject. Right now, it’s unclear if it can even pass the House, since Democratic support will be scarce and the number of GOP holdouts is uncertain.
Republicans threaten to hold up funding the government unless Congress makes voting harder
As early as Wednesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) intends to hold a vote on a funding bill that includes the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, which is supposed to crack down on illegal voting in national elections, despite scant evidence that this is a problem. Noncitizen voting is already a serious crime — punishable by prison, removal from the United States and a permanent bar on admission to the country. The legislation would require documentary proof of citizenship for people to register and cast ballots, including mail-in voting. This would add a barrier to electoral participation that would probably result in many legitimate voters being deterred and legitimate votes not being counted.

Elon Musk, government efficiency expert? That is one really bad idea.
By Adam Lashinsky, former executive editor of Fortune
Musk effectively hasn’t run a business that didn’t benefit from or work with various government entities.
(WaPo) Most first-blush criticism of Trump’s typically slapdash proposal, aired in an economic policy speech last week in New York, has focused on potential conflicts of interest if Musk were to head a commission focused on eliminating inefficiencies in Washington. That’s because the certainty of conflicts, not merely their possibility, are many.
NASA is the largest customer for Musk’s rocket-ship company, SpaceX. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration regulates an often contentious and dismissive Tesla, Musk’s electric-vehicle company. The Federal Trade Commission keeps watch over Twitter, which Musk bought and renamed X. The Food and Drug Administration plays a critical role in deciding whether Musk’s start-up Neuralink can implant computer chips in the brains of paralyzed humans. (Note to conspiracy theorists concerned that Anthony S. Fauci and Bill Gates wanted to inject chips into people’s heads: They didn’t. Musk does.)
This is just a partial list. But it gets to a central irony of Trump wanting Musk’s help running the government. A real estate developer turned TV personality, Trump long benefited from tax loopholes and the generosity of the federal bankruptcy code to build and protect his debt-fueled fortune. But he was a piker compared with Musk. The tech entrepreneur joins a long line of Silicon Valley pseudo libertarians who kvetch about the government — while assiduously accepting its handouts.
7 September
Donald Trump could turn Elon Musk into an American oligarch
(Politico) Musk’s potential foray into government would represent a striking development for the billionaire.
Former President Donald Trump’s plan to have Elon Musk lead a government efficiency commission would vault the world’s richest man to an unprecedented role: American oligarch.
The details of the commission and Musk’s involvement are still vague, but any formal role in government would give greater influence to the billionaire owner of Tesla, Space X, satellite company Starlink and the social media platform X — signature ventures that have benefited from federal contracts, tax credits and government incentives.

15 August
Robert Reich: How to stop Musk
… Americans, too, are being subject to lies and bigotry on Musk’s X — and not just because Musk fired the entire staff that had been keeping such filth off the platform; Musk is also reposting and encouraging some of it.
Musk recently released an AI chatbot that falsely told tens of millions of Americans that “the ballot deadline has passed” in several swing states, including the battlegrounds of Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania, among others.
Evidence is mounting that Russia and other foreign agents are using X to disrupt this year’s presidential race, presumably in favor of Trump. Musk refuses to take any action.
What to do about Musk? I’ve suggested that advertisers boycott X. Now Musk is suing advertisers for doing this, arguing that they’re violating antitrust laws.
It’s time to get tough with Musk. Here are some suggestions.
First, the Federal Trade Commission should demand that Musk take down lies that are likely to endanger individuals or threaten our democracy, and if he does not, sue him under Section 5 of the FTC Act.
Musk’s free-speech rights under the First Amendment don’t take precedence over the public interest. Seven weeks ago, the Supreme Court said federal agencies may pressure social media platforms to take down misinformation — a technical win for the public good (technical because the court based its ruling on the plaintiff’s lack of standing to sue).
The U.S. government — and we taxpayers — have additional power over Musk, if we’re willing to use it: The U.S. should terminate its contracts with him, starting with Musk’s SpaceX.

1 July

Hypothetical question to legal scholars: So, can Biden, as an official act, round up the entire Trump campaign team, and Trump himself, and hold them in Federal prison pending trial, until February, then resign, and be immune to prosecution?

Immunity Ruling Escalates Long Rise of Presidential Power
Beyond Donald J. Trump, the decision adds to the seemingly one-way ratchet of executive authority.
By Charlie Savage
(NYT) “The relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in an outraged dissent joined by the court’s other two liberals. “In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law.”
Before Nixon was forced to step down, executive power had been surging for decades. As World War II bled into the early Cold War, presidents of both parties began acting more unilaterally, especially in matters of national security, while claiming constitutional rights to keep information secret from Congress and the courts.
The historian Arthur C. Schlesinger Jr. famously described this pattern as “the imperial presidency” in a 1973 book. The surge peaked with Nixon, who later summed up his philosophy of executive power as “when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”
The trend briefly flagged in the mid-1970s because of Watergate, the Vietnam War and a congressional investigation that uncovered domestic intelligence abuses by administrations of both parties. In this period, Congress tried to restore checks and balances with a series of new laws and oversight actions.
But starting with the Reagan administration in the 1980s, those restraints began to erode again. Ronald Reagan and his team sought to push an activist conservative policy agenda in the face of resistance from a Congress long controlled by Democrats.

26 April
IRS Direct File Pilot Exceeds Usage Goal, Receiving Positive User Ratings and Saving Taxpayers Money
140,803 Taxpayers Filed Their Taxes Directly with the IRS for Free as users claimed more than $90 million in refunds and saved an estimated $5.6 million in tax preparation fees
Heather Cox Richardson April 26, 2024
…the Treasury Department announced that the pilot program of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that enabled taxpayers to file their tax returns directly with the IRS for free had more users than the program’s stated goal, got positive ratings, and saved users an estimated $5.6 million in fees for tax preparation. The government had hoped about 100,000 people would use the pilot program; 140,803 did.
Former deputy director of the National Economic Council Bharat Ramamurti wrote on social media, “Of all the things I was lucky enough to work on, this might be my favorite. You shouldn’t have to pay money to pay your taxes. As this program continues to grow, most people will get pre-populated forms and be able to file their taxes with a few clicks in a few minutes.” Such a system would look much like the system other countries already use.

21 April
How Mike Johnson Got to ‘Yes’ on Aid to Ukraine
Intelligence, politics and personal considerations converted the Republican speaker, who had largely opposed aid to Ukraine as a rank-and-file member, into the key figure pushing it through Congress.
(NYT) He huddled with top national security officials, including WILLIAM J. BURNS, the C.I.A. director, in the Oval Office to discuss classified intelligence. He met repeatedly with broad factions of Republicans in both swing and deep red districts, and considered their voters’ attitudes toward funding Ukraine. He thought about his son, who is set to attend the U.S. Naval Academy in the fall.
And finally, when his plan to work with Democrats to clear the way for aiding Ukraine met with an outpouring of venom from ultraconservatives already threatening to depose him, Mr. Johnson, an evangelical Christian, knelt and prayed for guidance.
Mr. Johnson’s decision to risk his speakership to push the $95 billion foreign aid bill through the House on Saturday was the culmination of a remarkable personal and political arc for the Louisiana Republican. It was also an improbable outcome for a man plucked from relative obscurity last fall by the hard right — which had just deposed a speaker they deemed a traitor to their agenda — to be the speaker of a deeply dysfunctional House.

10 April
Speaker Johnson to meet with Trump, offers Marjorie Taylor Greene advisory role as own job teeters
(AP) — His job on the line, House Speaker Mike Johnson is dashing to Florida to meet with Donald Trump this week and has offered far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene a seat on his own “kitchen cabinet” as he draws closer to the MAGA forces that now dominate the GOP.
The sudden moves Wednesday come as the House hit a standstill, thrown into chaos once again.
The House Republicans are tearing themselves apart, unable to work together to push party priorities through Congress yet watching their majority fritter away the days without a cohesive agenda or much to show for their 15 months in power.
Johnson was unable to pass a national security surveillance bill that was tanked by his own Republican majority shortly after Trump pushed them to “kill” it. But at the same time, the speaker was being warned off partnering with Democrats on that bill and others, including aid for Ukraine, or risk Greene calling a snap vote that could oust him from the speaker’s office.

26 March

The WaPo Editorial Baltimore’s tragic bridge collapse is a test for American leadership
casts the challenge posed by the accident in a positive light. Let us hope it is widely read and heeded along with President Biden’s statement
— Biden: We will do all it takes to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge: President Joe Biden today vowed that the federal government would provide all the resources Baltimore needed to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge after it collapsed in the early hours of the morning. He said he plans to visit the disaster site and stressed that there was no indication that there was intentionality behind the devastating collapse. “We’re going to send all the federal resources they need as we respond to this emergency. I mean all the federal resources — we’re going to rebuild that port together,” Biden said in the Roosevelt Room, before departing the White House for a trip to North Carolina.

23 March
Weekend read The Fractured Superpower
(Foreign Affairs) This week, the Supreme Court cleared a controversial Texas immigration law, which would give Texas officials the authority to arrest and deport migrants accused of entering the country illegally—only to have an appellate court block it hours later. The Biden administration has challenged the law, known as SB4, on the grounds that it would interfere with the federal government’s ability to enforce U.S. immigration laws. The clash between Texas and federal officials may prove a litmus test of the balance of power between the federal government and states, which have grown more powerful amid intensifying partisan polarization.
The trend toward increasing state power will have far-reaching consequences not only for domestic politics but also for U.S. foreign policy, write Jenna Bednar and Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar. How leaders in Washington, the courts, and local governments approach this shift, Bednar and Cuéllar warn, “will determine whether state-level action becomes a source of resilience or a destabilizing force for Americans and the world.” The Fractured Superpower –Federalism Is Remaking U.S. Democracy and Foreign Policy (September 2022)
20 March
Appeals court seems skeptical of Texas’ argument for immigration law
(NBC) The court temporarily paused the enforcement of the law late Tuesday after the U.S. Supreme Court said hours earlier that it could take effect.
12 March
Supreme Court extends freeze on controversial Texas immigration law

23 March
Biden Signs Final Bill to Fund the Government, Ending Shutdown Fears
The president signed a $1.2 trillion spending package that passed early on Saturday morning, narrowly avoiding a shutdown.
President Biden signed a $1.2 trillion spending package on Saturday, putting an end to the prospect of a government shutdown after the legislation passed a rushed series of congressional votes with bipartisan support and landed on his desk just after 2 a.m.
The government faced a potential shutdown if the measure was not signed into law before midnight on Friday. But as the Senate vote ticked past that hour, the White House released a statement saying that federal officials at the Office of Management and Budget had “ceased shutdown preparations” in anticipation of imminent Senate passage and signing by Mr. Biden.
In a statement, the president said that the measure’s approval was “good news for the American people.” But he alluded to the months of drawn-out negotiations that preceded the last-minute approvals, saying that the agreement was “a compromise” and that “neither side got everything it wanted.”

20 March
Details of $1.2 Trillion Spending Bill Emerge as Partial Shutdown Looms
Tucked inside a massive measure to fund the government through the fall are several initiatives sought by members of both parties. Aides are still writing the legislative language.
Congressional aides raced on Tuesday to draw up the text of a bipartisan $1.2 trillion spending deal to fund the government through September.
While President Biden, Republicans and Democrats have all endorsed the agreement, they had yet to release its details and it was not clear whether Congress would be able to complete action on it in time to avert a brief partial government shutdown over the weekend.
Still, lawmakers in both parties were already touting what they would get out of the legislation, which wraps six spending measures into one huge package.
“The final product is something that we were able to achieve a lot of key provisions and wins and a move in the direction that we want, even with our tiny, historically small majority,” Speaker Mike Johnson said on Wednesday.

8 March
The State of the Union: Biden fights back
William A. Galston, Ezra K. Zilkha Chair and Senior Fellow – Governance Studies
(Brookings) In a fighting State of the Union address, much of which could have been delivered at a campaign rally, President Joe Biden directly criticized his predecessor more than a dozen times and drew lines that he hopes will define the 2024 presidential election. He was an unabashed liberal on social policy, a populist nationalist on economic policy, and a traditional postwar internationalist on foreign policy.
President Joe Biden directly criticized his predecessor more than a dozen times and drew lines that he hopes will define the 2024 presidential election.
Biden’s forceful delivery was meant to signal that he is not too old to serve out a second term, which most Americans currently think he is.
The defense of democracy against autocracy at home and abroad was a central theme of the speech, which depicted Donald Trump as a threat to both.
Biden presented a lengthy laundry list of liberal proposals on health care, education, housing, education, and taxes.

4 March
The President’s Inbox Recap: Governance of Artificial Intelligence
The United States is behind its peers when it comes to regulating artificial intelligence (AI).
(Council on Foreign Relations) … China, the European Union, and the United States have put forth a “triad” of different AI governance approaches. China has imposed strong oversight measures on the country’s AI systems and models. The European Union’s approach “follows a long pattern now of Europe having led in rights-centric and risk-focused digital governance.” The U.S. government, however, has mostly been hands-off when it comes to AI governance.
AI governance in the United States right now is being driven by the private sector. Biden issued an executive order last October calling for government action on AI regulation. Congress, however, has yet to pass significant AI regulations. In the past, most of the innovation in AI came from investments from the government. Today, innovation comes from private companies. Kat argued “there is this real concern that the development of AI has been so divorced from government that the government now has very little control over how that AI is being developed and rolled out into the world.” This is a problem because “corporate governance is designed to manage investor risk.” It is not, however, “designed to manage or to govern societal risk, and in fact, may be antithetical to it.”