Infrastructure has been the bedrock to America’s development and progress. Roads to highways, dams, bridges, electric grids, railways and then airports and now Internet and more. Can we learn from history, assess current needs, understand the economics and have a vision for our future? The team from the Network for Responsible Public Policy discusses infrastructure’s past, present and future.
How can the Democratic Party regain public trust? Ronald Hirsch argues for a renewed mission centered on equality, opportunity, fiscal responsibility, and American democracy.
During the 20th century and for the first part of the 21st, the Democratic Party certainly led the nation in advancing the cause of equality and the ability of people to pursue their right to life, liberty, and happiness. At the same time, they led the nation by increasing its military might and advancing its power around the world to protect the human rights of others.
The American worker would likely still be toiling for low wages in industrial hell-holes were it not for the laws that Democratic-led Congresses passed to increase the rights of workers vis-a-vis employers and the rights of unions. Black individuals and other people of color would still be burdened by widespread discrimination—official and otherwise—were it not for the laws that Democratic-led Congresses passed to protect their rights as American citizens. This is not to say that we have achieved equality, but we have made much progress.
Democrats have also been firm supporters of this nation's military—not giving the defense establishment everything it wanted, but ensuring a strong military that was the best in the world. And it was Democratic Presidents and Congresses that led our entry into WWI to ensure the defeat of Germany and its allies and the freedom of Europe and much of the world. Although misguided, our entry into the Vietnam War was also in this tradition.
But Democrats seem to have lost their oomph. Ever since the end of the Obama Presidency and the rise of Donald Trump, the Democratic Party has lost its bearing. Perhaps the "Party" only ever had an amorphous bearing, and it was the leaders of the Party, the Presidents or others, who harnessed that bearing and energy and fashioned its greatness and contribution.
Since Obama, no one has risen who had the greatness in him or her to lead the Party to make America even greater than it was and its people more equal and prosperous than before. But America and Democrats cannot sit and wait for such a person to rise again from the midst of the Party.
The Party and its leaders must fashion a structure that enables them to lead even when out of power and lacking the galvanizing presence of a President. Walter Mondale said, after the defeat of John Kerry in 2004, that “we really need to work on the question of what we are for. Unless we have a vision and the arguments to match, I don’t think we’re going to truly connect with the American people.“ And this was after a presidential election—the quadrennial defining moment for the Party!
Prior to that election, I wrote the book, We Still Hold These Truths: An American Manifesto, to answer the question—what should the Party stand for—both for the Party and the American people. I used the famous words of the Declaration of Independence as a touchstone to examine all aspects of government policy and propose the direction government policy should take.
I also wrote a mission statement for the Party based on the Declaration:
“To build a country of greater opportunity where:
These words from the Declaration of Independence are the moral philosophy, the heart, the soul of American democracy. This is, or at least until recently was, America’s common faith. Democrats must restore that faith. To further that promise of equality and opportunity with fiscal responsibility should be the clear mission of the Democratic Party.
This should be the litmus test. All the policies of the Party should flow from this mission statement, and any proposed policy that does not further the mission statement should be dropped. Government should support industry and commerce insofar as they support this mission. But if industry interests do not further this mission, if they seek power and riches for themselves without benefit to the people, the Party should not support those interests.
Too often, when proposing measures to protect the people in the areas of finance and industry regulation, Democrats have held back somewhat because of the interests of industry. And in some areas, like free trade agreements, they have capitulated to the interests of industry in spite of the valid objections of unions. And so the American worker and public have suffered, destroying their faith in the Party.
All American men, women, and children are owed the support of government policies in education, health care, civil rights, security, the economy, the environment, and taxation that provide a foundation of equal opportunity for all to pursue their right to life, liberty, and happiness. That is the American social contract.
But it is not just in the development of policies that the Party must improve. It is in communicating those policies in ways that are effective. They must also speak to the American people about the state of our country on a regular, probably weekly, basis—creating a Democratic presence. See my articles, "Where is the Democratic Party's Clarion Call?" and "The Democratic Party - Missing in Action."
The Party must become once again a real factor in the lives of the people; no more an irrelevant voice in far-away Washington.
Ronald L. Hirsch is a teacher, legal aid lawyer, survey researcher, nonprofit executive, consultant, composer, author, and volunteer. He is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Chicago Law School and the author of We Still Hold These Truths. Read more of his writing at www.PreservingAmericanValues.com
Josh Hokit on April 11, 2026 in Miami, Florida.
It happened in a moment so small that many viewers may have missed it. After a UFC fight, athlete Josh Hokit used his victory speech not to celebrate his win but to demean former First Lady Michelle Obama, repeating a long‑running racist and sexist trope by calling her a man. Standing beside him, the President of the United States did not correct him. He did not defend a woman who served this country with dignity. He did not reject the bigotry embedded in the remark. Instead, he offered a smirk — a half‑smile of approval that traveled farther than any microphone could carry.
That smirk mattered. It was a signal. And millions recognized it for exactly what it was.
This is how authoritarian drift works in modern democracies. Not always through shouted commands or sweeping decrees, but through the quiet permission of a leader who rewards cruelty and refuses to challenge it. A leader who lets others cross the line, then communicates approval through body language, silence, or a knowing grin.
And this moment did not stand alone. In November 2025, aboard Air Force One, the president told Bloomberg White House correspondent Catherine Lucey to “Quiet, piggy” when she asked about the Epstein files — a remark captured on video and widely reported. It was not the first time he had singled out a woman reporter for humiliation, nor the last. Outlets such as NPR and The Independent have documented that when challenged by women, especially on topics he wants to avoid, his attacks become more personal, targeting appearance, demeanor, or intelligence. The pattern is consistent across press briefings, Air Force One gaggles, and impromptu exchanges.
What happened at the UFC event was not random. Michelle Obama represents Black excellence, female leadership, education, competence, and dignity. She is a counter‑model to the president’s style of leadership and remains one of the most admired public figures in the country. For people who see politics as a zero‑sum identity battle, she is not just a former First Lady — she is a symbol of everything they believe he is fighting against. When authoritarian‑leaning leaders attack someone repeatedly, supporters often adopt the same target as a way to show loyalty. The fighter may well have believed he was pleasing the president. That is a common dynamic in leader–follower psychology.
And the specific insult he used has a long, ugly history. Calling Black women “men” is a racist, misogynistic trope used to strip femininity, deny humanity, undermine dignity, and signal dominance. It has been used against Serena Williams, Michelle Obama, and other prominent Black women. The fighter didn’t invent it. He pulled it from a well‑worn script. And the president’s silence — his smirk — reinforced that script. The remark was unacceptable, but Americans must have the courage to convey that message to him.
What troubles me most is not only the president’s behavior, but the reaction it receives. At rallies and public events, I have watched women cheer as he demeans other women. Some interpret his aggression as strength. Others separate the behavior from the politics, insisting they dislike the insults but approve of the policies. Still others internalize the attacks as deserved, believing he only targets people who “go after him.” And in large crowds, cruelty becomes contagious; people cheer because the crowd cheers. When supporters excuse, minimize, rationalize, or applaud cruelty — whether by calling it strength, dismissing it as irrelevant, blaming the targets, or simply following the emotional current — they are not just responding to the drift. They are normalizing it.
And here is the contradiction that should stop us cold: parents teach their children not to call their siblings names. Teachers intervene when students demean one another. Principals enforce consequences for verbal abuse. School districts write policies defining harassment, intimidation, and bullying. State and federal civil rights laws require schools to maintain environments free from discrimination and verbal harassment, especially when it targets protected classes. The U.S. Department of Education explicitly warns against harassment, bullying, and retaliation.
Yet on the world’s largest stage, the president models the very behavior schools are legally required to prevent.
The unstated messages we are sending to children are devastating. When the president mocks women, demeans reporters, or smirks at bigotry while adults cheer, children learn that cruelty is leadership, humiliation is entertainment, and power excuses behavior that would get any student suspended. They see a country that tells them not to bully while its highest officeholder models bullying on a global stage. They see schools enforcing anti‑harassment laws while adults excuse the same behavior in politics. And they learn the most dangerous lesson of all: that rules are for the powerless, not the powerful. That is how democratic norms erode — not only through what leaders say, but through what children come to believe is acceptable.
This cultural shift is not happening in a vacuum. As one analysis put it, “hate used to hide in private. Now it shows up first.” Social media rewards the most extreme expressions of contempt with attention and validation, making cruelty feel normal, even desirable. Stress, inequality, and “us vs. them” thinking lower empathy thresholds, making cruelty easier to commit. When marginalized groups are treated as disposable or “waste products” of society, cruelty becomes a tool of exclusion and control. Repeated exposure without moral or legal consequences desensitizes the public. And when political leaders use cruelty as a political tool, the culture adjusts to it.
Stopping this cultural slide will not be easy because the cruelty is coming from the top and performed on a public stage. But the fact that it is difficult does not mean it is impossible. Congress has a role to play by enforcing norms of conduct and refusing to reward leaders who traffic in humiliation. Civic leaders — from mayors to school board members to faith leaders — can model the dignity and restraint that national politics has abandoned. Parents can remind children that name‑calling is wrong, no matter who does it, and that power does not excuse cruelty. Schools can continue enforcing the anti‑harassment policies that federal civil rights laws require, even when national figures violate the very standards the U.S. Department of Education promotes. And citizens can stop accepting, excusing, or normalizing behavior they would never tolerate from a child, a coworker, or a neighbor.
Experts who study political communication emphasize that reducing name‑calling requires a combination of personal accountability, institutional discipline, and cultural change. They warn that insults erode trust, deepen polarization, and make leaders appear unworthy of the offices they hold. They recommend shifting political debate back to issues rather than labels, setting norms for respectful discourse, and teaching the public — especially young people — to recognize the harm that contempt‑based politics inflicts on democracy. None of these steps alone will solve the problem. But together, they form a path back toward a political culture that values truth over spectacle and dignity over derision.
Ultimately, we know what is right and what is wrong. We teach it to children every day. The question is whether we will demand the same from the adults who lead us. The work of repairing our political culture begins with refusing to normalize what we know is harmful — and insisting that our leaders meet the same standards we expect of our children.
I imagine an America where cruelty is no longer a political language, where dignity is not optional, and where children grow up seeing leaders who reflect the values we teach them. I imagine an America without authoritarian drift — and I believe we can still reclaim it.
Carolyn Goode is a retired educational leader and former principal who has served as a teacher specialist, human relations coordinator, and adjunct instructor at the university and community college levels. She writes about democracy, political culture, and civic responsibility, with a focus on how public behavior shapes what children learn about leadership.
Supporters of Nicolas Maduro burn a United States flag during a gathering near Miraflores palace after explosions and low-flying aircraft were heard in the early hours on January 03, 2026 in Caracas, Venezuela.
“Right now, we have more workers than at any time in the history of our country…And people want to come in, and in some cases, they want to take advantage of that, and that’s okay,” President Donald Trump said in a 2018 statement. “And we want them to come in, but they have to come in through merit.”
These narratives paint a vivid picture of America’s struggle with immigration: a "city on a hill" slowly becoming overrun by foreign nationals, purportedly due to open-border policies. The rhetoric suggests the United States suffers from its own success, attracting immigrants who arrive in search of "government handouts" or to evade criminal charges.
According to the Commonwealth Institute, 3 million people in the United States had refugee or political asylum status as of 2016. Many more arrive fleeing natural disasters and violence that do not qualify for "political asylum." Some immigration opponents argue that those fleeing difficult situations should remain in their home countries to effect change. While this is a hopeful perspective, it fails to account for the historical factors that drive migration to the U.S.
The argument assumes that populations in disadvantaged countries possess the infrastructure and capacity to catalyze significant change at a low personal cost. However, in many nations, gang violence, government corruption, and perilous living conditions preclude the possibility of citizens "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps."
Acknowledging the humanitarian drivers of migration is only the first step. Research consistently demonstrates a clear link between U.S. foreign policy trends and immigration rates.
Migration increases from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras as recently as the 2000s are deeply connected to U.S.-backed peace agreements in the 1990s. These exoduses stem from the pursuit of neoliberal privatization and "market-friendly" economic policies that undermined progress toward sustainable social peace. Furthermore, foreign investment in extractive sectors displaced rural and Indigenous populations.
The policies of major international institutions—the U.S. government, in particular—exacerbated these trends, leaving people without livelihoods and in danger. Criminal gangs and drug-related violence are manifestations of these underlying processes, which drive waves of "survival migration."
El Salvador serves as a helpful case study when examining U.S. intervention during the Cold War. Scholars have analyzed how U.S. support for the Salvadoran government during its civil war, followed by enforcement-centric immigration policies, created an environment that compelled Salvadorans to flee—a trend that continues today.
El Salvador also serves as a critical example, illustrative of broader U.S. policies toward North Central America (Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador) and Latin America as a whole.
As Amanda Dixon writes in her research on the intersecting causes of immigration: “The failure of both the Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton administrations to consider the interconnectedness of their foreign and domestic agendas exacerbated the issue of irregular immigration from Central America.”
Research has also illustrated a clear causal relationship between the U.S.-backed Contra War in Nicaragua and an influx of Nicaraguan immigrants into the U.S.
Further, U.S. influence contributed to the Latin American debt crisis, which caused several economies to plunge. Domestic causes of the crisis can be traced to fiscal deficits incurred between 1978 and 1982 and the expansionary monetary policies used to finance them. U.S. commercial banks pushed loans on Latin American countries, creating heavy debt obligations. Subsequently, wealthy countries, including the U.S., raised interest rates to fight inflation, which skyrocketed borrowing costs for Latin America and exacerbated economic conditions that led many to seek a brighter future in the U.S. today.
These historical examples are often viewed as niche or contrarian interests. While significant, they have virtually no impact on how we evaluate current immigration policy beyond a reactive hope that "that doesn’t happen again."
Yet, the U.S. government shows no indication of altering its foreign intervention strategies to mitigate harm or reduce migration, particularly in Latin America.
Operation Absolute Resolve ousted Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, leading to the release of political prisoners and sparking a brief era of optimism. However, Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, assumed power, and no significant regime change appears imminent. Venezuelan funds were subsequently routed through Qatar, which gifted a new Air Force One plane to President Trump, and the New York Times has revealed that Secretary of State Marco Rubio has effectively been managing the country.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has also made clear his intention to pursue regime change in Cuba, which has been under U.S. embargo since the 1960s.
Similarly, President Trump has directed significant capital into Argentina to support political allies. The Trump administration intervened financially in the October 2025 Argentine midterm elections by tying a massive economic bailout to the electoral success of Argentine President Javier Milei, emphasizing that Milei’s far-right party must remain in power for U.S. aid to continue amid the country’s persistent inflation and economic instability.
Where does this leave the immigration conversation? Is there value in adding nuance to an already polarized issue? There are no perfect answers, and arguing for either absolute open borders or indiscriminate deportation is unfeasible.
However, few immigrants choose to circumvent the law lightly. The "illegal" route to the United States is difficult, expensive, and dangerous—but it is often the fastest way to escape immediate harm, a role the United States has played a significant role in facilitating.
We cannot remove immigrants from U.S. history, nor can we remove the United States from the history of immigrants. If we continue to pursue foreign policies that ignore the past, we are bound to recreate the problems of the present. Moving forward requires discarding a rose-tinted view of U.S. policy in favor of developing sustainable, evidence-based solutions.
Isabel Papp is a summer fellow with The Fulcrum and a student at Northwestern University, double‑majoring in Journalism and Political Science. A bilingual journalist, she is a proactive, equity‑centered storyteller committed to elevating underrepresented voices.
America was born out of rebellion against oligarchy.
When a majority of citizens disagree with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose.
Last year, voters strongly rejected Viktor Orban’s authoritarian Hungarian government, rife with corruption. Economic stagnation played a role, but corruption was the decisive factor.
America could be next. The decades of pay-to-play corruption at the center of America’s political system have delegitimized its democracy. Except in individual instances, however, corruption has rarely proven sufficiently potent at the ballot box to be determinant. That dynamic will be sorely tested in 2026 thanks to President Trump.
The Irony of America’s Oligarchic Governance
The Founding Fathers would be gravely disheartened at the state of their grand democratic experiment after 250 years.
American politics in recent decades has largely been the domain of oligarchs. It has devolved ironically to resemble the elitist political and economic system that inspired the Revolutionary War - a replica of the despised England the colonists first raised arms against at Lexington and Concord in 1775.
True, colonials believed their just cause was the rejection of an oppressive monarchy. In reality, the offending practices and policies blamed on the figurehead King George III - the tariff on Indian tea, for instance - were dictated by a Parliament dominated by oligarchs - nabobs like Sir Robert Clive and Cecil Rhodes. The 1688-89 Glorious Revolution, which deposed James II, also stripped the English monarchy of absolute power. Political, social, and economic power had abruptly migrated from the monarchy to the wealthy oligarchs who dominated Parliament– a transition that “dramatically curbed kingly authority.”
Like the England of 1775, America’s policies today are largely dictated by wealthy oligarchs like Elon Musk, many of whom share President Trump’s hostility toward taxes to fund social program spending. Charles Koch, for instance, has lobbied for cuts similar to Trump’s 2025 tax law, removing 4 million from food assistance and eliminating Medicaid health insurance for an estimated 17 million of America’s poorest, forcing rural hospitals to close.
Reduced food and health care for the least advantaged is just one facet of the consequences of America’s pay-to-play political system. Republicans, beginning with Goldwater and later Reagan, fully embraced pay-to-play, genuflecting to the wealthy who still dominate their Party. Partisan loyalists appointed to the Supreme Court have legitimized the practice, ruling, rather mystically, out of whole cloth, that money is constitutionally protected political speech. We are all entitled to a corner soapbox. But it seems you are also entitled to drown out my voice a million-fold, wallet permitting. They have even ruled that the legal fiction of corporations enjoys those same speech rights, ruling in Citizens United that ethereal political donors can be incorporeal wallets.
Political scientists term America’s faux democracy a functional oligarchy like Egypt or Turkey, or 18th-century England. But most American men and women view it simply as corruption - enabling the wealthy to profit by stacking the economy “against people like me.”
A Brennan Center survey in May 2026, for instance, found that 90% of independent voters believe “corruption is responsible for policies that benefit billionaires and big corporations at the expense of the American people.” This belief has become increasingly evident since 2017. Some 57% of respondents to a March NBC poll, for instance, believed that the rich and powerful are above the law – corruption that has grown worse in “the past five or ten years,” fostering a second Gilded Age.
This erosion of America’s democratic integrity has been recognized abroad: U.S. democracy fell on Transparency International’s government Corruption Index to a record low 29th globally in 2025 from 16th in 2015, below authentic democracies that limit the role of money in politics.
The Corruption Awakening
One important reason for growing sensitivity to corruption is rising American income inequality - the record surge in wealth at the top coming at the expense of workers. Real hourly compensation - wages and benefits - has virtually stagnated for the lowest earning 80% (111 million) of nonfarm salaried workers since the Reagan administration. (You may want to read that again.) Pay-to-play politics permits employers to offshore jobs while weakening unions, labor rights, and antitrust enforcement. That enabled employers to raise profits by capping workers’ pay, thereby doubling the national income share of the top 1% since 1979.
A second factor has been blatant global grifting by Trump – a Boeing 747 from Qatar and tungsten mines in Kazakhstan – corruption in flagrant violation of the Constitution’s Articles I and II emoluments clauses.
A Political Corruption Edge?
Only rarely has corruption provided a partisan electoral advantage to either political party. But this may be one of those moments, with surveys finding that corruption offers Democrats an electoral opportunity in 2026 and 2028.
An extensive 2025 analysis drawn from a panel of nearly 2000 voters, for instance, found that independent voters view Republican Party office holders as more corrupt than Democrats. These swing voters believe Republican politicians are nearly 30% more likely to be “very corrupt” than Democrats (29% of independents believe Democratic politicians are “very corrupt” while 37% believe Republicans are). Moreover, 38% of these independent panelists believed that the wealthy have the “most influence” on the Republican Party, while only 20% believe they have the most influence on Democrats. And a study of campaign spending by billionaires in 2024 found they favored Republicans by at least 2.5:1 - and that excludes their hidden dark money spending. The margin in seven pivotal 2024 Senate races was at least 7:1.
Restoring Democratic Legitimacy
Pivotal independent voters have come to believe that political corruption is widespread, multi-faceted, deeply embedded, and adversely affecting household economics. The 2026 and especially the 2028 elections offer them opportunities to rebuild the legitimacy of American democracy.
Should reformers prevail at the ballot box, a top priority is upgrading the Supreme Court that has championed pay-to-play for decades. Congress and the President can reform the Supreme Court by term-limiting justices or by imposing judicial jurisdiction limits as permitted by Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution. But opposition will be fierce, led by billionaires determined to preserve the central role of money in American politics and their dominance.
Voters can rekindle the Founders’ high hopes for democracy in the coming elections. The question is whether the corruption issue has sufficiently ripened and economic conditions have become sufficiently dire that democratic reformers can attain a trifecta at the polls in 2028.
George Tyler is a former deputy assistant treasury secretary and World Bank official. He is the author of books including Billionaire Democracy and What Went Wrong.
