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U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio delivers a keynote speech at the 62nd Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026, in Munich, Germany.
(Johannes Simon/Getty Images/TNS)
Marco Rubio is the only adult left in the room
Feb 25, 2026
Finally free from the demands of being chief archivist of the United States, secretary of state, national security adviser and unofficial viceroy of Venezuela, Marco Rubio made his way to the Munich Security Conference last weekend to deliver a major address.
I shouldn’t make fun. Rubio, unlike so many major figures in this administration, is a bona fide serious person. Indeed, that’s why President Trump keeps piling responsibilities on him. Rubio knows what he’s talking about and cares about policy. He is hardly a free agent; Trump is still president after all. But in an administration full of people willing to act like social media trolls, Rubio stands out for being serious. And I welcome that.
But just because Rubio made a serious argument, that doesn’t mean it was wholly persuasive. Part of his goal was to repair some of the damage done by his boss, who not long ago threatened to blow up the North Atlantic alliance by snatching Greenland away from Denmark. Rubio’s conciliatory language was welcome, but it hardly set things right.
Whether it was his intent or not, Rubio had more success in offering a contrast with Vice President JD Vance, who used the Munich conference last year as a platform to insult allies and provide fan service to his followers on X. Rubio’s speech was the one Vance should have given, if the goal was to offer a serious argument about Trump’s “vision” for the Western alliance. I put “vision” in scare quotes because it’s unclear to me that Trump actually has one, but the broader MAGA crowd is desperate to construct a coherent theory of their case.
So what’s that case? That Western Civilization is a real thing, America is not only part of it but also its leader, and it will do the hard things required to fix it.
In Rubio’s story, America and Europe embraced policies in the 1990s that amounted to the “managed decline” of the West. European governments were free riders on America’s military might and allowed their defense capabilities to atrophy as they funded bloated welfare states and inefficient regulatory regimes. Free trade, mass migration and an infatuation with “the rules-based global order” eroded national sovereignty, undermined the “cohesion of our societies” and fueled the “de-industrialization” of our economies. The remedy for these things? Reversing course on those policies and embracing the hard reality that strength and power drive events on the global stage.
“The fundamental question we must answer at the outset is what exactly are we defending,” Rubio said, “because armies do not fight for abstractions. Armies fight for a people; armies fight for a nation. Armies fight for a way of life.”
I agree with some of this — to a point. And, honestly, given how refreshing it is to hear a grown-up argument from this administration, it feels churlish to quibble.
But, for starters, the simple fact is that Western Civilization is an abstraction, and so are nations and peoples. And that’s fine. Abstractions — like love, patriotism, moral principles, justice — are really important. Our “way of life” is largely defined and understood through abstractions: freedom, the American dream, democracy, etc. What is the “Great” in Make America Great Again, if not an abstraction?
This is important because the administration’s defenders ridicule or dismiss any principled objection critics raise as fastidious gitchy-goo eggheadery. Trump tramples the rule of law, pardons cronies, tries to steal an election and violates free market principles willy-nilly. And if you complain, it’s because you’re a goody-goody fool.
As White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said not long ago, “we live in a world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time.” Rubio said it better, but it’s the same idea.
There are other problems with Rubio’s story. At the start of the 1990s, the EU’s economy was 9% bigger than ours. In 2025 we were nearly twice as rich as Europe. If Europe was “ripping us off,” they have a funny way of showing it. America hasn’t “deindustrialized.” The manufacturing sector has grown during all of this decline, though not as much as the service sector, where we are a behemoth. We have shed manufacturing jobs, but that has more to do with automation than immigration. Moreover, the trends Rubio describes are not unique to America. Manufacturing tends to shrink as countries get richer.
That’s an important point because Rubio, like his boss, blames all of our economic problems on bad politicians and pretends that good politicians can fix them through sheer force of will.
I think Rubio is wrong, but I salute him for making his case seriously.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.
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U.S. President Donald Trump on February 13, 2026 in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
(Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images)
Autocracy for Dummies
Feb 18, 2026
Everything Donald Trump has said and done in his second term as president was lifted from the Autocracy for Dummies handbook he should have committed to memory after trying and failing on January 6, 2021, to overthrow the government he had pledged to protect and serve.
This time around, putting his name and face to everything he fancies and diverting our attention from anything he touches as soon as it begins to smell or look bad are telltale signs that he is losing the fight to control the hearts and minds of a nation he would rather rule than help lead.
To be sure, in the five years he has spent in the White House, Donald Trump has come closer to bringing autocratic rule to the United States than any previous president. No doubt, he will keep at it until his term in office ends.
For however long that is and well past the time his second term ends, Donald Trump will remain Americans’ avatar for all things autocratic. But his successes won’t come close to those of other past and present autocrats.
True, the list of bright shiny objects catching his attention both internationally and domestically has been impressive. His branding of things already built, eligible for a teardown, or in desperate need of overhauling under his careful gaze has been exhausting and distracting. But tearing things apart wasn’t a downpayment on building something better and longer lasting. It was the only thing he was interested in and good at doing.
The reason why Donald Trump’s second presidency is already showing serious signs of fraying is that he has ignored the two most important lines aspiring autocrats can’t stop themselves from crossing.
They act as if they are at the center of a universe they can push around and shape to their liking; but the breadth and audacity of their ambitions and penchant for corruption exceed their ability to carry out their grandest designs.
It’s no less true for Vladmir Putin and Donald Trump today as it was in the past for the likes of
Stalin, Pol Pot, and Hitler. In the case of Hitler, for instance, had he really been serious about building a thousand-year Reich, the late political scientist Sam Sharp observed, he wouldn’t have moved around so much in the first twelve.
Donald Trump’s attention-grabbing threats to “take over” Greenland, make Canada our 51st state, run Venezuela by proxy, bomb Iran into submission, or turn a post-apocalyptic Gaza into a tourist mecca are more scattered and fleeting than anything that Hitler had in mind to do. But the TACO-infused confusion spilling from Donald Trump’s brain makes his proposed do-overs look sillier and more delusional than they are dangerous.
Then there’s this.
Autocrats don’t fare well when the people they try to bully have had lots of practice and success at saying “no” to their would-be overlords.
Donald Trump has shown no familiarity or regard for this crucial piece of our history. Americans are, for better and worse, well-practiced in showing a cranky and sometimes violent face to leaders who push us harder than we like into places we don’t want to go.
The public anger on display in Minneapolis and elsewhere, limited as it may be, is a preamble to a history that’s already been written. We might dislike all the unrest, decry the loss of people’s lives and property, and scratch our heads at the modest changes our rebelliousness leaves behind. But it is the very evanescent quality of the hard and sometimes dangerous work undertaken by agitated Americans that keeps our unrest fresh and relevant.
Not long from now, the assault on our civic lives and constitutional norms occasioned by Trump’s anti-immigration campaign will be remembered for the same reason we should celebrate the insurrection and attempted coup d’état Trump provoked on January 6, 2021. They were dramatic and conspicuous failures.
We won’t have to defame the men and women who tried to take over the Capital or who want to throw out all our illegal immigrants to recognize that their actions were as historically unprecedented as they were incompetently executed.
The legacy of the everyday Americans protesting ICE arrests, incarcerations, deportations, and killings will be their restraint and programmatic modesty. The only thing they will have forced the rest of us to do is think about ideals we had come to take for granted but now, thanks to the trouble they’re making on the streets of American cities, we are practicing again.
The public fights over Trump’s anti-immigration policies are shocking. But they also make us reflect upon a long history of taking in people we weren’t expecting or thrilled to have here and letting them stay long enough to do better than expected for themselves and for the rest of us.
It would be good to keep all this in mind in the run up to our 250th birthday party. The irony that we would have President Trump to thank for reminding us about these important lessons is a pill I am ready and happy to swallow.
Daniel J. Monti (danieljmonti.com) is Professor of Sociology at Saint Louis University and the author of American Democracy and Disconsent: Liberalism and Illiberalism in Ferguson, Charlottesville, Black Lives Matter, and the Capitol Insurrection.
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Rev. Jesse Jackson announces his candidacy for the Democratic Presidential nomination, 11/3/83.
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Jesse Jackson: A Life of Activism, Faith, and Unwavering Pursuit of Justice
Feb 17, 2026
The death of Rev.Jesse Jackson is more than the passing of a civil rights leader; it is the closing of a chapter in America’s long, unfinished struggle for justice. For more than six decades, he was a towering figure in the struggle for racial equality, economic justice, and global human rights. His voice—firm, resonant, and morally urgent—became synonymous with the ongoing fight for dignity for marginalized people worldwide.
"Our father was a servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,” the Jackson family said in a statement.
Jackson Sr. died on Tuesday at the age of 84. His family announced that he passed peacefully, surrounded by loved ones, after years of declining health linked to progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), a degenerative neurological disorder he had lived with for more than a decade. Jackson had also publicly disclosed a Parkinson’s diagnosis in 2017.
Born in Greenville, South Carolina, Jackson came of age in the segregated South, where he quickly developed a passion for activism. He attended North Carolina A&T State University, earning a degree in sociology before pursuing divinity studies at the Chicago Theological Seminary. It was during this period that he became deeply involved in the civil rights movement, joining demonstrations and organizing student support for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
Jackson participated in the historic 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery march and soon joined the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), working closely with King. He rose rapidly within the organization, eventually leading Operation Breadbasket, the SCLC’s economic empowerment initiative. King praised Jackson’s leadership, noting that he had “done better than a good job” in advancing the program’s mission.
Jackson was present at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis when King was assassinated in 1968—an event that profoundly shaped the rest of his life’s work.
“He taught me that protest must have purpose, that faith must have feet, and that justice is not seasonal, it is daily work,” fellow civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton wrote in a statement.
What made Jackson different from many of his contemporaries was his instinct for building coalitions. He understood that the fight for civil rights could not be waged solely within the Black community. His founding of People United to Save Humanity (PUSH), later known as the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, in 1971was an attempt—radical for its time—to unite the poor, the marginalized, and the politically alienated across racial and ethnic lines.
Jackson’s political influence grew further when he launched two groundbreaking presidential campaigns. In 1984, he became the second Black American to mount a national presidential bid, winning more than 18% of the primary vote. Four years later, he expanded his coalition, winning 11 primaries and caucuses and demonstrating the electoral potential of a multiracial, progressive movement.
His campaigns helped reshape the Democratic Party, pushing issues of poverty, racial justice, and foreign policy into the national spotlight. Jackson proved that a multiracial, progressive coalition was not only possible but powerful.
Rev. Jackson secured the release of Americans detained abroad, including U.S. soldiers held in Yugoslavia in 1999, a U.S. Navy pilot captured in Syria in 1984, and hundreds of women and children trapped in Iraq in 1990. President Bill Clinton awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2000 for these efforts.
His humanitarian work reinforced his reputation as a global advocate for peace and justice.
In his later years, Jackson remained outspoken on issues ranging from voting rights to economic inequality. He criticized political leaders across the spectrum and continued to champion progressive causes, endorsing Sen. Bernie Sanders during the 2020 presidential campaign.
His health began to decline significantly in the 2010s and 2020s. PSP limited his mobility and speech, and he spent periods hospitalized before transitioning to outpatient care in Chicago. Despite these challenges, he continued to make public appearances and remained engaged with Rainbow PUSH initiatives.
"His longevity is part of the story," said Rashad Robinson, the former president of the seven-million-member online justice organization Color of Change. "This is someone who had so many chances to do something else. And this is what chose to do with his life."
Rev. Jackson's critics often accused him of being too ambitious, too outspoken, too willing to insert himself into the spotlight. But ambition is not a sin in the fight for justice. Outspokenness is not a flaw when silence is complicity. And visibility is not vanity when the issues at stake are life and death for millions.
Jackson’s life was defined by a simple but profound conviction: that America could and must be better. His voice may be gone, but the movement he helped build continues to echo through the ongoing struggle for equality.
Hugo Balta is the executive editor of The Fulcrum and the publisher of the Latino News Network.
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An op-ed challenging claims of American moral decline and arguing that everyday citizens still uphold shared values of justice and compassion.
Getty Images, PeopleImages
Americans Haven’t Lost Their Moral Compass — Their Leaders Have
Feb 09, 2026
When thinking about the American people, columnist David Brooks is a glass-half-full kind of guy, but I, on the contrary, see the glass overflowing with goodness.
In his farewell column to The New York Times readers, Brooks wrote, “The most grievous cultural wound has been the loss of a shared moral order. We told multiple generations to come up with their own individual values. This privatization of morality burdened people with a task they could not possibly do, leaving them morally inarticulate and unformed. It created a naked public square where there was no broad agreement about what was true, beautiful and good. Without shared standards of right and wrong, it’s impossible to settle disputes; it’s impossible to maintain social cohesion and trust. Every healthy society rests on some shared conception of the sacred — sacred heroes, sacred texts, sacred ideals — and when that goes away, anxiety, atomization and a slow descent toward barbarism are the natural results.”
Despite having been writing for more than a decade and having hundreds more columns published, I am going to have to disagree with Brooks on this one.
The vast majority of Americans continue to hold shared values of what is sacred. The disconnect comes when we continue to elect officials who no longer act as public servants or representatives. And because of gerrymandering and perverse incentives in primary elections, our representatives no longer represent our cultural values.
None of this is to say that I am not deeply concerned about the state of our democracy. We have a president who is more concerned with accumulating personal wealth than with putting the interests of the American people before his own, and a justice system that is no longer blinded by partisan politics.
But I think it's too easy to blame the American people’s “hyperindividualism” for our current situation, over which they have no control.
An overwhelming majority of Americans are appalled and sickened by the Epstein Files and long to see those who committed the crimes of pedophilia, sex trafficking of minors, and all those involved in covering it up, met with the full force of the law.
A plurality of Americans finds the actions of masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP), especially when shooting citizens practicing their Constitutional rights or ripping 2-year-olds or 5-year-olds from their parents and caregivers and being detained in another state, unpalatable and un-American.
A recent Gallup poll found 67% of Americans trust their local leaders to handle community issues, compared to just 33% trusting the federal government. Another study shows that 84% say democracy is either in crisis or facing serious challenges. So by extension, that 84% is likely to view the raid of a Georgia county’s election facility by federal officials or the arrests of journalists as examples of our civic emergency.
The lion's share of Americans appreciates the forty-four Danish soldiers killed in the United States’ War in Afghanistan, the highest per capita death toll among coalition forces, after the September 11th attacks, with a majority of Americans still supporting the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
A majority of Americans oppose President Donald Trump’s plan to replace the White House’s East Wing with a $300 million ballroom, and while there is no polling yet, these same Americans are most likely to be displeased with the president suing our own Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for $10 billion when many Americans can’t afford their healthcare, let alone groceries.
During the same week Brooks’ column was published, there were countless stories of neighbors helping neighbors and communities providing for their residents during the intense cold and snow that blanketed more than half of the country.
Influencers across the spectrum took to their platforms, telling their followers that what we are living through is not okay and “I see you.” We learned that Alex Pretti’s last words before he was shot and killed were “Are you okay?” and we saw Minnesotans respond by delivering food and coats to those in need.
The American people have not lost their moral compass. Rather, they have lost faith that their elected leaders share it. What we are living is not a descent into barbarism that Brooks fears, but rather a profound disassociation between the values held by ordinary Americans and those practiced by the powerful and connected.
The goodness seen overflowing in communities across this nation, in neighbors helping neighbors, in strangers standing up for what's right, in citizens demanding accountability, proves that our shared conception of the sacred remains intact. Americans still know what is true, beautiful, and good. We still recognize justice, compassion, and human dignity when we see them, and injustice when we witness it.
The challenge before us is not to rediscover our values, but to ensure our institutions once again reflect them. There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed by what is right with America, and what is right with America is, and always has been, the decency of its people.
Lynn Schmidt is a columnist and Editorial Board member with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She holds a master's of science in political science as well as a bachelor's of science in nursing.
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