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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President Donald Trump at the White House on Oct. 14, 2025, in Washington, D.C.
(Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images/TNS)
Liquid Governance is Casting a Shadow on the American Presidency
May 17, 2026
To understand the current state of the American executive, one must look past the daily headlines and toward a deeper, more structural transformation. We are witnessing a presidency that has moved beyond the traditional "team of rivals" or even the "team of loyalists." Instead, the second Trump administration has become an exercise in "liquid governance," where the formal structures of the state are being hollowed out in favor of a highly personalized, informal power center.
The numbers alone are staggering. So far, the revolving door of the Cabinet has claimed high-profile figures with a frequency that would destabilize a mid-sized corporation, let alone a global superpower. The removal of Attorney General Pam Bondi, the exit of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and the recent resignation of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer represent more than just standard political turnover. They signal a fundamental rejection of the idea that a Cabinet secretary is an institution's steward. In this White House, a Cabinet post is a temporary lease, subject to immediate termination if the occupant’s personal loyalty or public performance deviates even slightly from the president’s internal barometer.
The volatility does not end with the pink slip. The recent civil contempt resolution filed by House Oversight Democrats against Bondi for defying subpoenas related to the Epstein investigation is a vivid illustration of the "liquid" model: an official is discarded the moment their utility expires, leaving the individual to navigate the institutional wreckage alone, while the administration simply flows toward the next loyalist.
The most consequential shift is occurring within the national security apparatus. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has moved with startling speed to reorganize the military hierarchy. By removing the Army’s top officer and the head of the Navy during a period of active friction in the Middle East, Hegseth is executing a mandate to "de-bureaucratize" the Pentagon. But the cost of this purge is the systematic removal of institutional memory. When you replace seasoned commanders with those whose primary qualification is ideological alignment, you make the military more brittle.
This focus on internal purging is particularly alarming given the current geopolitical climate. As the administration continues its high-stakes involvement in the Iran conflict, the lack of stable leadership at the top of the military branches creates a vacuum. In that vacuum, strategy is replaced by impulse.
The irony of the current moment is that as the official Cabinet becomes more volatile, the real power has consolidated in a "Shadow Cabinet" of unconfirmed advisors. Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff now operate as the primary envoys for America’s most sensitive diplomatic portfolios. From negotiating nuclear red lines with Tehran to managing the complex endgame in Ukraine, these two individuals—neither of whom holds a Senate-confirmed position—are the true architects of U.S. foreign policy.
This arrangement creates a dangerous disconnect. While the official Secretary of State or Secretary of War handles the administrative affairs of their departments, the real deals are made in private by men whose primary bond to the president is personal or commercial. This is a return to a pre-modern form of governance, one in which familial ties and personal trust outweigh professional expertise and public accountability.
The standard critique is that the president simply selects incompetent people. But this misses the point. The individuals being removed—like Bondi or Noem—were not outsiders; they were loyalists. Their failure to survive suggests that the problem is not a lack of competence, but a lack of clarity in what the job actually entails. If the job of a Cabinet secretary is to act as a decorative placeholder for a policy that is actually being run out of a private suite at Mar-a-Lago, then independent judgment, by definition, is seen as a form of resistance.
The result is a talent drain. The "best people" the president frequently cites are increasingly unwilling to serve in an environment where the professional risks are high and the actual authority is low. This leaves the administration with a narrowing circle of candidates: the true believers, the opportunists, and the relatives.
The world is watching this administrative volatility with growing unease. For decades, the stability of the American executive was the "anchor tenant" of global order. Allies and adversaries alike could rely on a certain degree of continuity in the State Department or the Pentagon. That continuity is now gone.
When a government is in a state of permanent reshuffling, it loses the ability to project long-term intent. Foreign capitals are no longer calling the State Department to understand American policy; they are trying to figure out who is currently "in" or "out" of the inner circle. This unpredictability might serve a real estate developer in a tactical negotiation, but it is a disastrous way to run a global superpower.
The tragedy of the second term is not that the president is changing his team; it is that he is effectively dismantling the idea of a "team" altogether. We are left with a government of one, assisted by an informal circle of associates, presiding over a bureaucracy that is increasingly paralyzed by its own instability. In the long run, the greatest threat to American power may not be a rising China or a belligerent Iran, but the steady erosion of the very institutions that were built to project and protect that power.
Imran Khalid is a physician, geostrategic analyst, and freelance writer.
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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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