In this episode of Democracy Works from The McCourtney Institute for Democracy, the team discusses democracy’s many doomsayers and how to heed their warnings for the future without falling into despair.
Podcast: On democracy's doomsayers
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King Charles III and U.S. President Donald Trump attend a state arrival ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House on April 28, 2026 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Two kings. Really?
May 17, 2026
Last month, the King of England came to Congress and schooled us on what it means to be American. This would be hysterical if it wasn't so tragic.
To understand why, you need to understand two things happening inside our government right now.
The first is the unitary executive theory -- the idea that the president has sole, total control over every agency, every employee, every decision in the executive branch. Not leadership. Control. For most of our history this was fringe. Congress created independent agencies -- the Federal Reserve, the FDA, the National Weather Service -- precisely so expert, nonpartisan work could be insulated from whoever happened to be in office. Madison called the concentration of all powers in one set of hands "the very definition of tyranny."
But in February 2025, Trump signed an executive order declaring all federal agencies "must be supervised and controlled" by the president. Project 2025 laid the blueprint. Then came the purge: FTC commissioners fired, a Federal Reserve governor targeted, USAID dissolved, inspectors general removed, thousands of civil servants stripped of protections.What does this look like in your life? The National Weather Service lost roughly 600 people. Then on July 4, the Guadalupe River rose 26 feet in 45 minutes and more than 130 people died across central Texas, including 27 campers and counselors at Camp Mystic. The administration's 2026 budget proposes eliminating the NOAA lab that developed key flash flood prediction tools. At the NIH, about 2,300 grants totaling $3.8 billion were terminated, affecting at least 383 clinical trials. The FDA lost nearly 4,000 employees. Foreign food inspections hit historic lows.
The second thing is a strain of nationalism, championed by Israeli political theorist Yoram Hazony, that argues a nation isn't built on ideas like "all men are created equal" but on tribal bonds -- shared blood, language, religion, ancestry. Hazony's conferences feature regular speakers like JD Vance, Marco Rubio and Sen. Josh Hawley. This philosophy has entered the White House.
You can hear it when Trump calls immigrants people "poisoning the blood of our country." You can see it in ICE's transformation: at-large arrests up 600%, nearly 70,000 people in detention, two U.S. citizens shot dead by federal agents.
I know many of us have been told -- by the administration, by the news, by people we trust -- that immigrants are driving crime. I understand why that's frightening. But the data doesn't support it. Immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, commit crimes at lower rates than native-born citizens. The administration's own records confirm that the majority of people arrested in these operations have no criminal record. Because throughout history, when leaders need the public to accept an extraordinary expansion of power, they first have to make people afraid enough to let them.
Which brings me to this week. Trump welcomed King Charles to the White House and spoke of settlers who "bore in their souls the blood and noble spirit of the British," of founders whose "veins ran with Anglo-Saxon courage." He rejected the idea that America is "merely an idea."
King Charles told a different story. He called Congress "this citadel of democracy created to represent the voice of all American people." He said the founders "drew strength in diversity." He cited the Magna Carta -- the charter that established no one, not even a king, is above the law. He urged America to "ignore the clarion calls to become ever more inward-looking."
He was not being polite. He was sounding an alarm.
Then, apparently without irony, the White House posted a photo of the two men with the caption: "TWO KINGS."
This country was founded because we didn't want kings. The unitary executive seizes the power. The nationalism decides who it's used against. A real king came here and reminded Congress what makes nations strong. Our president stood in the same building and spoke of bloodlines and genetic inheritance.
I know which vision I recognize as American.
Sara Sharpe LaMance of Chattanooga is a writer, communication strategist and the founder of The Letters Project and STILL/WILD.
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A former Navy Lieutenant Commander warns that Trump and his associates are profiting from the Iran conflict through defense contracts, crypto ventures, and prediction markets while putting American troops and taxpayers at risk.
Getty Images, gopixa
The Blood Money Presidency
May 12, 2026
Trump is running a war racket. Between arms dealing, prediction markets, and crypto, the war in Iran is looking more and more like a not-so-elaborate scheme to rake in blood money for himself and his cronies. Even his own Defense Secretary attempted to buy defense stocks on the eve of the war. At least, if you have been wondering what we’re still doing at war with Iran, then Trump’s financial dealings may offer an explanation.
The Trumps are war dogs. Powerus, a startup based in West Palm Beach, was founded only last year, specializing in counter-drone tech tailored for none other than Middle East operations. Then, in March, just after Trump started a war in the Middle East, the company went public–and Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump joined the board with sizable equity stakes. The conflict of interest may be their entire business model. Just weeks after the brothers came aboard, the Air Force gifted Powerus its first military contract for an undisclosed number of interceptor drones. At the same time, the company is pitching drone demonstrations to Gulf countries that know buying from the President's sons is sure to curry favor. As former chief White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter put it: “This is going to be the first family of a president to make a lot of money off war — a war he didn’t get the consent of Congress for.”
Now, the Trump family is propping up and profiting from an industry that allows Americans to essentially gamble on blood: prediction markets. Airstrikes used to require strategic necessity, and ones that harmed civilians used to be called tragedies; now, they are “event contracts” for a young man–and a Trump insider–to trade. And regardless of who places the bet, the prediction markets benefit through transaction fees. Lo and behold, Don Jr. just became a paid adviser of Kalshi and an investor in and an unpaid adviser to Polymarket. What’s he doing there? Bet you can piece it together. The First Family’s cozy relationship with these prediction market platforms has turned geopolitical instability into a tradable asset–and they get a cut.
A chaotic global landscape is good for business in other ways too. Trump and his associates stand to see immense financial gains from increased black-market transactions using a digital financial system that allows our enemies to bypass our sanctions. I’m talking about crypto. While many call crypto worse than a Ponzi scheme, its main selling point is that it is decentralized and untraceable. That opacity is useful if you smuggle drugs, arms, oil, or humans (by the way, Epstein had unsurprisingly deep ties to crypto). Sanctioned regimes stand to benefit from backdoor crypto dealings. Now, so does the President of the United States, and so do his friends.
Trump won the 2024 election with the help of crypto megadonors and has been returning the favor ever since, with his family even co-founding the cryptocurrency company World Liberty Financial. Now, a new report just revealed that “the same exchange that holds the vast majority of Trump's USD1 stablecoin has now facilitated billions of dollars in transactions for Iran and designated terrorist organizations.” Iran is charging $1 per barrel of oil passing through the Strait of Hormuz, in crypto. Trump wants to talk about crushing terrorists, but he is creating the conditions that fund them. He doesn’t mind, though, because he’s also getting a payout.
Our own Department of Commerce is being led by Trump-appointed and Epstein-affiliated Howard Lutnick, whose connections to the stablecoin Tether, the primary vehicle Russian oligarchs use to move sanctioned Iranian oil to China, are well-documented. Meanwhile, Trump continues to send Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff to negotiate peace deals. But Witkoff was a co-founder of World Liberty Financial with the Trump family! Why would any of these guys want to end the war when they’re getting a piece of the action, making billions of untraceable money? Clearly, they don’t. Saying “the arsonists are selling fire extinguishers” doesn’t quite cover it when the fire extinguishers are filled with more fuel.
Ultimately, the Trump regime is running a vertical integration of war where the policy, the weaponry, the financial bypasses, and the outcomes are all controlled by a small group of people enriching themselves at each step. American tax dollars are being funneled into a drone company owned by the President’s sons, who are profiting off a nouveau-gambling trend where users can cash in on casualties, all while the war feeds industries that strengthen our adversaries. They are turning the war, and our service members, into one big short. And they have the audacity to ask the American taxpayers to foot an ever-growing bill.
I got out of the Navy in June as a Lieutenant Commander. I crossed the Strait of Hormuz for the first time in 2013 as part of Operation Enduring Freedom; it was a stressful exercise even when we weren’t at war with Iran. Now, the President is putting American troops in harm’s way (and gutting programs Americans rely on to pay for it) to serve his bottom line. It is viscerally sickening.
Our military deserves a government that isn’t checking its stock options while indefinitely extending deployments. The American people deserve a government that doesn’t use their tax dollars as a personal checkbook. And the global community deserves stability unthreatened by the greed of a gang of billionaires. Congress is asleep at the wheel, and if the American people don’t get more involved soon, we’re all gonna crash. It’s time to investigate the entanglements at the highest levels and end the collusion–for the sake of our resources, our morality, and our hope for a peaceful future.Julie Roland was a Naval Officer for ten years, deploying to both the South China Sea and the Persian Gulf as a helicopter pilot before separating in June 2025 as a Lieutenant Commander. She has a law degree from the University of San Diego, a Master of Laws from Columbia University, and is a member of the Truman National Security Project.
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President Donald Trump speaks during an arrival ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., on April 28, 2026.
(Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images/TCA)
Trump’s petty pursuit of his ‘enemies’
May 09, 2026
When the history books write about Donald Trump, they’ll have a lot to say — little of it positive, I’d be willing to wager.
His presidencies have been marked by rank incompetence, unprecedented greed and self-dealing, naked corruption, ethical, legal and moral breaches and, as we repeatedly see, a rise in political division and anger. From impeachments to an insurrection to who-knows-what is still to come, the era of Trump has hardly been worthy of admiration.
But don’t tell that to his loyal supporters, for whom no one stands in higher esteem, despite Trump’s obvious shortcomings. Where we see an embarrassment, they see the fulfilment of a promise. Where we find horror, they find jubilation. We are truly living in two different Americas.
It’s remarkable that Trump can so clearly be two opposing things depending on whom you ask, and that stark contrast is often revealed in moments where he’s waging war on perceived enemies.
This week, Trump’s Justice Department, under the leadership of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, announced it had indicted former FBI Director James Comey over an Instagram post in which Comey had photographed seashells on a beach to spell out “86 47.”
To be clear, “86” is common restaurant jargon to “nix” a menu item, and “47” refers to Trump. Blanche’s DOJ is claiming that this amounted to a threat of violence.
If that sounds silly, it’s because it is. But Trump’s got it out for Comey, and he tried this once before. This indictment, like the last one, isn’t likely to result in a prosecution.
But the indictment was met with predictable praise from MAGA loyalists, for whom Trump’s revenge campaigns are a titillating projection of his strength and a righteous use of presidential power.
For the rest of us, they are just another humiliation for Trump and the country — a weaponized and compromised DOJ that’s already seen one AG fired for failing to throw enough Trump opponents in prison, and a president who is pathologically consumed with old and irrelevant grudges.
Trump fans love it when he’s playing the bully and swinging at the people he’s told them to hate, from Jimmy Kimmel to Sen. Mark Kelly to New York Attorney General Letitia James.
For all of his efforts at projecting strength, Trump never looks weaker than in these moments, when he’s pursuing these personal vendettas — and losing.
Just in the past year, Trump’s DOJ has lost numerous high-profile cases it sought to use to appease the president’s bloodlust.
It failed to get an indictment against six Democratic lawmakers, including Kelly, over a video they released regarding illegal orders.
Grand juries rejected cases against protesters in Washington and elsewhere, including trying to charge a man with felony assault for throwing a sandwich at an officer.
Attempts to prosecute James, former CIA Director John Brennan, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell have thus far failed.
Trump has also failed to successfully sue a number of opponents, from Hillary Clinton to the DNC, the New York Times to CNN.
Judges have overruled his attempts at silencing news outlets, blocking a Pentagon policy limiting reporter access, ordering the White House to lift restrictions on the AP after Trump had banned the news agency for refusing to use the term “Gulf of America,” and blocking an executive order to cut funding for NPR and PBS.
Trump has lost so many of these petty fights, it’s hard to imagine why he keeps going back to the trough, only to suffer more humiliating losses.
And yet somehow, his fans don’t read these abject failures the same way the rest of us do. Where we see impotence and incompetence, they still see power and strength.
I can’t make it make sense, but I’m fairly confident that the history books, at least, will get it right.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.
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Agents draw their guns after loud bangs were heard during the White House Correspondents' dinner at the Washington Hilton in Washington, D.C., on April 25, 2026. President Trump is attending the annual gala of the political press for the first time while in office.
(Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images/TNS)
Whenever political violence erupts, Washington starts playing the blame game
May 02, 2026
A heavily armed California man was caught trying to storm the White House correspondents’ dinner Saturday with the apparent intent to kill the president.
It didn’t take long for Washington to start arguing. Democrats denounce violent rhetoric from the right, but the alleged assailant seemed to be inspired by his own rhetoric. President Trump, after initially offering some unifying remarks about defending free speech, soon started accusing the press of encouraging violence against him. Critics pounced on the hypocrisy.
The argument about hypocrisy isn’t about mere inconsistency. The point of the accusation is to say that condemnations of violence are insincere. “Your team says it’s against violence” or “your side says my side encourages violence” but just look at what your language inspired!
The hypocrisy is bipartisan.
Indeed, for two decades now, it seems that whenever political violence erupts, there’s a moment where partisans wait to learn the motives of the perpetrator so they can start blaming the other side for inciting it. Sometimes they don’t even wait. Jared Loughner, the man who shot former Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed several others, was instantaneously labeled an agent of the tea parties and Sarah Palin. The truth is he was such a paranoid schizophrenic, a court found him incompetent to stand trial.
I don’t have the space to run through the dozens of examples — the congressional baseball shooting, the Charleston AME church slaughter, the El Paso Walmart massacre, the recent murder of Minnesota lawmakers, the Jan. 6 riot or the failed attack Saturday night. But in the wake of these bloody crimes, partisans of left and the right will scour the killer’s social media or read their “manifestos” and place the blame on the rhetoric of the team closest to the assailant’s ideology.
Now, my point isn’t to say that blaming the rhetoric of nonviolent people for the crimes of violent people is wrong. It is wrong, of course, particularly as a matter of law. If I quote Shakespeare and write, “Let’s kill all the lawyers,” I am not responsible for someone who actually shoots a lawyer (nor is the Bard). But that doesn’t mean violent, extremist rhetoric is laudable, healthy or blameless for the sorry state of American politics or society or that it never plays a role in inspiring wrongdoing.
However such rhetoric might encourage violence, it certainly encourages the sense that something is broken in American life. More specifically, it fuels the idea that our political opponents are existential enemies.
“Outgroup homogeneity” is the term social psychologists use to describe the very human tendency to think the groups you belong to are diverse and complex, but the groups you don’t belong to aren’t. A non-Asian person might think all Asians are alike, but for Asians the differences between — or among! — Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Indian people are both obvious and significant.
American politics right now are almost defined by outgroup homogeneity. Many Democrats and progressives think all Republicans and conservatives are alike, and vice versa. That would be bad enough, but the problem is compounded by the fact that each side tends to think the consensus on the other side is defined by their worst actors and spokespeople. This is sometimes called “nutpicking.” You find the most extreme person on the other side and hold them up as representative of all Democrats or Republicans.
Partisan media amplifies this dynamic at scale. Pew finds that Republicans (who watch Fox News) are more familiar with the term “critical race theory” than Democrats, the supposed devotees of it. Democrats recognize the term “Christian nationalist” more than supposedly Christian nationalist Republicans do.
Consider the recent debates over Hasan Piker and Nick Fuentes, both prominent social media influencers, one far left the other far right, who say grotesque, indefensible and stupid things. The arguments within the two coalitions are not over whether they should be spokesmen for their respective sides, but whether their “voices” (and fans) should be welcome inside the broader Democratic or Republican tents. Few accommodationists endorse the worst rhetoric from Piker or Fuentes, but they oppose “purity tests.”
On the merits, I think both should be shunned and condemned. But even if the question is purely a political one, they should still be ostracized. Why? Because people outside the respective coalitions will — however fairly or unfairly — hold up the extremists on the fringe as representative of the whole. The only way for either party to prove it opposes extremism to people outside the tent is by opposing it inside their own tents first. Otherwise, their hypocrisy will continue to define them.
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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Some MAGA loyalists have turned on Trump. Why the rest haven’t