In this edition of #ListenFirstFriday, the 17-year-old founder of YAP Politics discusses efforts to bridge the polarizations between political affiliations.
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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a visit to the Fort Bragg U.S. Army base on February 13, 2026 in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
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Reagan’s Strength vs. Trump’s Retreat: U.S. Alliances at Risk
Aug 25, 2026
How a country treats its allies and its adversaries says everything about what it believes strength means — a question that was already on my mind the night I sat in a movie theater watching "The Brink of War" when news broke.
The film reconstructs the 1986 Reykjavik summit, where President Ronald Reagan and General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev spent a tense weekend negotiating over the fate of the world's nuclear arsenals.
The movie is a portrait of an American president who believed peace was earned through strength and credibility because he understood that American reliability was the asset that guaranteed every other negotiation possible.
I checked my phone on the way out and read that President Trump had just ordered the Pentagon to "substantially reduce" the joint military exercises the United States runs each year with South Korea — hours before those drills were set to begin.
Trump’s stated reasons: the cost and Seoul's refusal to help with actions against Iran. He also took the opportunity to note his "very good relationship" with Kim Jong Un, the leader of a nuclear-armed regime still technically at war with the ally whose defense drills he'd just gutted.
The contrast was hard to shake.
Reagan's version of "peace through strength" is often reduced to a slogan. It wasn't. At Reykjavik, he was willing to walk away from a historic deal rather than trade away missile defense, because he believed a president's word — to allies and adversaries alike — had to mean the same thing on a good day as on a bad one.
In the two weeks before Trump gutted the drills meant to deter it, North Korea tested ballistic missiles at least twice — its ninth and tenth launches of the year, part of a pace that includes Kim Jong Un ordering a two-and-a-half-fold increase in missile production back in June.
Pyongyang has said openly that the tests are a protest against the joint exercises, which it calls an invasion rehearsal. The sequence isn't ambiguous: North Korea escalates, and the American response is to scale back the training designed to counter it.
That wasn't a response to reduced danger. It was a response to something else entirely — cost, grievance, a president's stated fondness for a dictator personally.
Kim Jong Un isn't managing a regional standoff on the Korean Peninsula anymore. He's a partner in two wars that are actively threatening American interests. That's who the administration just called "unthreatening and respectful."
Mark Montgomery, a retired Navy rear admiral now at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, has named the pattern directly: "President Trump does not seem to understand that North Korea is part of the 'bad guys' team – a member of the ‘Axis of Aggressors’ alongside Russia, Iran, and China.”
Montgomery went on to say, "Kim Jong Un has backed Putin's illegal war against Ukraine with ammunition, troops, and missiles." And the danger isn't confined to a European battlefield: "North Korea threatens key American allies and trade partners — South Korea and Japan — daily. Kim Jong Un is not America's friend; he cannot be reasoned with, and he won't give up his nuclear weapons."
Pyongyang has sent an estimated 11,000-plus troops to fight for Russia against Ukraine, supplies roughly half of Russia's artillery ammunition, and has shipped ballistic missiles Moscow now fires into Ukrainian cities.
It has spent decades as Iran's missile supplier — the technical lineage of Iran's Shahab and Khorramshahr missiles traces straight back to North Korean designs — and analysts expect that cooperation to deepen now that Iran needs to rebuild what the 2026 war destroyed.
Deterrence is thinning at the same time. The USS George Washington, the Navy's only forward-deployed carrier and until recently on station near the South China Sea, has pulled out of the Indo-Pacific to cover a Middle East gap, leaving the region without a home-based American carrier for the foreseeable future.
Montgomery has also flagged what that gap means in practice: a carrier permanently based in the Indo-Pacific cuts response time to a regional threat by more than two weeks compared to one that must sail in from elsewhere. That's exactly the kind of gap a rival power plans around.
When a president alienates a treaty ally over a war that the ally never signed onto, while publicly courting the goodwill of a regime that is simultaneously arming Russia and rebuilding Iran's missile program — the message isn't fiscal discipline. It's that American commitments are conditional, revocable, and personal to whoever happens to be in the Oval Office.
Reagan walked away from Gorbachev to protect American credibility. This administration is giving away its trustworthiness— to Kim Jong Un, for free.
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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President Donald Trump delivers remarks during a meeting with cryptocurrency executives in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 19, 2026.
(Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images/TCA)
Has Donald Trump lost his golden touch?
Aug 22, 2026
On Tuesday night, Darline Graham, sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, revealed somewhat awkwardly that she is entirely unprepared to be a U.S. senator.
At a South Carolina debate, she was asked a perfectly reasonable and straightforward question: “Are Taiwan and the South China Sea national security issues for the United States?” And, “If so, why?”
She sheepishly responded, “I’m just going to be honest here — I’m not on national security. I’m not that informed on national security, but I do support the military.”
That response — admitting there’s an entire and extremely important category of public policy and governing responsibility that she just doesn’t know — would be humiliating for any Senate candidate, but it was worse considering her brother’s personal interest and commitment to it.
It was also another reminder that President Trump, who has lent considerable support to her candidacy, doesn’t care about qualifications, expertise, or even electability when he backs candidates for public office. All that matters is loyalty.
This is not news. Whether it was his ill-fated support of scandal-ridden Senate candidates Herschel Walker and Roy Moore in 2022 and 2017 respectively, or of current scandal-ridden candidates Ken Paxton and Max Miller, Trump has endorsed some truly awful candidates, often betting that his word alone would be enough to push them across the finish line.
Walker and Moore excluded, he’s had a lot of success, to be sure, and in many cases his support was in fact what propelled otherwise lackluster or problematic candidates to victory. But this primary season has seen a mixed bag for Trump, begging the question of whether his golden touch has lost some of its shine — especially as his approval sinks to an abysmal 32%.
A string of recent losses show voters aren’t entirely sold on Trump’s vision for the next two years.
This week, scandal-ridden Rep. Cory Mills lost his primary in Florida, as did Catalina Lauf.
Megan Degenfelder lost her bid for governor in Wyoming, while election-denier Mike Lindell lost his primary for governor in Minnesota by 11 points.
Earlier this month, Trump-backed gubernatorial candidates in Iowa and Georgia also lost, as did his first pick for governor of South Carolina.
Altogether, 10 Trump-endorsed candidates have lost their primaries, which are as many losses as Trump saw in 2018, 2020, and 2024 combined. One more loss and he’ll tie his worst record for endorsements, in 2022.
With the fight over the majority at stake, it seems an odd year to be so capricious and reckless with his influence, but capricious and reckless he’s been.
In Texas, Trump endorsed Paxton, whose 20-year record of scandals, including a felony securities fraud indictment and an impeachment by his own party, baffles the mind when the well-liked incumbent John Cornyn was also on the ballot.
In Ohio, Miller has been accused by his ex-wife and father-in-law, Sen. Bernie Moreno, of spousal and child abuse, and yet Trump has not demanded he step down. The White House even reportedly pressured Ohio Republicans to lay off Miller.
In the hotly-watched races where Trump’s picks have lost, it means Republican primary voters in red states like Iowa, Florida, and Wyoming — in other words, Trump’s base — are either tuning Trump out or proactively voting against his candidates. Both scenarios are bad for Republicans, especially in the cases where his more controversial candidates, like Paxton and Miller, have to run in a general election.
We know Trump’s lost massive support among independents, young voters, Hispanics, and other coalitions from 2024. But if he can’t turn his base out for his candidates as reliably as he once did, well add it to the pile of reasons Democrats feel pretty good about these midterms — and hope he keeps backing all the bad contenders he wants.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.
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Protesters gather at a Nobody Is Above the Law rally protesting President Trump's interference in the Mueller investigation on November 08, 2018 in Washington, DC.
Larry French/Getty Images
The Double Standard Presidency: When We Watch Leaders Act Above the Law
Aug 17, 2026
Americans are told that no one is above the law. Yet every day, they watch a president behave in ways that would get any ordinary citizen fired, disciplined, confronted, or held accountable — and they watch some Americans excuse it. What makes this moment even more striking is that critics across the political spectrum, including conservatives, now warn that the presidency is operating on a dangerous double standard. This is not a partisan concern. It is a constitutional one. And it is tearing at the fabric of our democracy.
For generations, the Constitution has provided guardrails — separation of powers, checks and balances, oversight mechanisms, and limits on executive authority — designed to prevent any leader from functioning above the law. The framers feared concentrated power more than anything else. They believed that the presidency must be constrained not only by written law but by norms of restraint, dignity, and respect for institutions. Those norms held for centuries because presidents understood that the office was larger than any individual, and Congress understood that oversight was not optional.
Today, those guardrails are weakening. The public sees a president who breaks long‑standing norms, attacks predecessors, ignores bipartisan laws, and treats accountability as optional. They see Congress look away. They see institutions hesitate to assert independence. And they see behaviors that would be unacceptable in any other setting — retaliation, public insults, threats, and victimhood — excused simply because they come from the presidency.
If any ordinary American behaved this way — shouting insults, attacking colleagues, ignoring rules, retaliating against critics, and playing the victim — they would face consequences immediately. They would be disciplined at work, confronted at home, or held responsible in court. Yet when the president behaves this way, some Americans defend it, normalize it, or dismiss it. Retaliation is not power. Revenge is not leadership. Playing the victim is not strength. These behaviors do not demonstrate authority; they demonstrate insecurity. And they are behaviors that many Americans would never tolerate from their own families, friends, neighbors, or coworkers.
The public has watched a president verbally attack reporters, demean citizens, and retaliate against critics — yet demand respect in return. They have watched him warn that he will be impeached if his party loses control of Congress, as if oversight were a punishment rather than a constitutional duty. If a president were acting lawfully and responsibly, the loss of congressional control would not be a threat; it would simply be part of the democratic process. The truth is not that Americans want him impeached. The truth is that they want him checked.
And they have watched something else: powerful supporters — including billionaires who would never tolerate such behavior from their own employees — excuse conduct from the presidency that they would punish in any other context. Analysts note that some do not excuse it because it is acceptable, but because it benefits them. That is not loyalty. That is not leadership. It is a distortion of democratic expectations.
Americans also watched a national milestone — the 250th anniversary of the country, originally designed as a bipartisan celebration — reshaped into a personal spectacle. What should have been a moment of shared pride became another example of how easily national symbols can be repurposed for personal branding.
They also watched as the president declined to divest from his businesses, despite constitutional expectations. Multiple analyses estimate that his businesses generated billions in revenue during his presidency — raising concerns about conflicts of interest and Emoluments Clause violations. No other president in modern history has profited at this scale while in office. That, too, is a double standard.
Americans will never forget Senator Susan Collins saying the president had “learned his lesson” after facing accountability. Months later, the nation witnessed an attack on the Capitol — an abuse of power that contradicted her assurance. Ordinary citizens are expected to learn lessons, follow rules, and face consequences. The president is expected to do none of those things.
Some even accept this behavior, calling it a “new norm.” But lowering standards is not a path to stability. It is a path to erosion — of expectations, of institutions, and of the shared rules that hold a democracy together. Many Americans are exhausted — not by politics itself, but by the constant erosion of standards they once believed were shared. How much are Americans willing to tolerate when it comes to standards?
This normalization is not accidental. Scholars warn that when democratic norms erode, societies begin to tolerate behaviors they once rejected. They call this authoritarian drift — not because the nation has become authoritarian, but because the habits that protect democracy begin to weaken. When leaders retaliate against critics, undermine independent institutions, portray oversight as persecution, and demand loyalty over legality, the system starts to tilt. And when the public excuses conduct from the presidency that they would never tolerate from anyone else, the tilt accelerates.
Some policy proposals circulating today — including those in Project 2025 — reflect this shift. They call for expanding presidential control over federal agencies, reducing independent oversight, and replacing career civil servants with political appointees. Analysts warn that these proposals would weaken the very guardrails the framers designed to prevent executive overreach. Whether these proposals are adopted or not, their existence signals a troubling willingness to reconsider the constitutional boundaries that have protected the Republic for more than two centuries.
Americans must stop normalizing behavior that is not normal. We cannot excuse conduct from the presidency that we would never tolerate from anyone else. Democracy depends on shared expectations — and when those expectations collapse, the system collapses with them. Society punishes citizens for behaviors it excuses in the president. The scales of justice feel increasingly flawed. Ordinary people face consequences for misconduct, while leaders often do not. This triple standard — one for the powerful, one for their allies, and one for everyone else — is incompatible with the rule of law.
If the nation wants to restore stability, it must return to the constitutional guardrails that were designed to protect it. That means insisting that presidents separate personal financial interests from public duty, and that Congress enforce transparency and strengthen conflict‑of‑interest laws. It means restoring congressional oversight as a coequal function of government, not a partisan weapon. It means empowering independent institutions to act without fear of retaliation, and protecting career civil servants from political replacement. It means rejecting the idea that misconduct becomes acceptable simply because it comes from the presidency, and demanding that standards apply equally — to citizens, to Congress, and to the executive branch. And it means reviving a culture of dignity, restraint, and respect for institutions, so the presidency once again embodies character, integrity, responsibility, and accountability rather than spectacle, retaliation, or self‑promotion. Restoring standards is not only a constitutional necessity — it is a moral one.
We cannot keep saying that no one is above the law while watching leaders act above it. We cannot keep excusing behavior from the presidency that we would never tolerate from anyone else. Americans want normalcy — a government free of retaliation, corruption, and revengeful acts; a restoration of separation of powers; respect for the Republic and its people; and fidelity to the Constitution. When conservatives and liberals alike begin warning about double standards and unchecked power, it is a sign that the crisis is not ideological — it is structural. If the nation is to regain its footing, it must return to a simple truth: what’s good for the goose must be good for the gander — and the law must apply to leaders with the same force it applies to citizens. Anything less is not democracy.
Carolyn Goode is a retired educational leader and former principal who has spent her career advancing civic responsibility, equity, and public engagement. She writes about democracy, leadership, and the values that strengthen American communities.
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President Donald Trump walks off of Air Force One at Newark Liberty International Airport on Aug. 7, 2026, in Newark, New Jersey.
(Eric Lee/Getty Images/TCA)
Donald Trump’s Third World presidency
Aug 15, 2026
In October 1980, then-candidate Ronald Reagan asked voters a very important question: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”
It was during the only televised debate he had against incumbent President Jimmy Carter, whose presidency had been marred by one crisis after another, from record-high inflation and rising unemployment, to soaring gas prices and the Iran hostage crisis.
Reagan knew the answer to his question was a resounding “no,” and asking it helped propel him to a landslide victory. It also became a regularly-invoked rhetorical feature of presidential campaigns going forward.
No one knows the cautionary tale of Carter’s presidency more than our current president, who has repeatedly used it as a stand-in for presidential failure and American weakness. Although Carter’s legacy greatly improved in the years since leaving office, he ended his only term with a bleak 34% approval rating.
Donald Trump currently sits at an abysmal 32%, according to Quinnipiac’s latest polling, and likely for many of the same reasons Carter finished where he did, ironically — high inflation, rising gas prices, and a foreign policy crisis in Iran.
So, the question of whether voters are better off than they were two years ago isn’t hard to answer for most — in January of this year just 28% said they were better off than they were a year ago, and in July that number had dropped to 19%.
And it’s no wonder — when you move beyond the economic numbers, which are bad enough, the picture of Trump’s America gets worse and worse with every peak behind the MAGA curtain.
In fact, it can feel at times like America has become a Third World country.
Case in point, the U.S. is in the midst of a measles outbreak, with more cases than it’s seen in more than three decades, thanks to the administration’s vaccine misinformation. We are now at risk of losing our official measles elimination status, which we’ve held for more than a quarter century.
We’re also facing no fewer than 11 foodborne illness outbreaks, including two separate cyclospora outbreaks, as well as outbreaks of listeria, salmonella and E. coli, all since Trump downsized oversight agencies, dropped food-facility inspections, and stripped back mandatory reporting requirements at the federal Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network.
Trump’s dumb war in Iran has depleted American munitions significantly — up to 80% in some categories — straining stockpiles and raising readiness concerns. And there are new reports of sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln, deployed to the North Arabian Sea since November, desperately jumping overboard amidst poor conditions — from clogged toilets to mildewed showers, food supply problems to mental health concerns.
This is America — the superpower? Where college grads can’t find work, where housing is unaffordable for 75% of the population, where families must choose between paying rent or paying doctors bills? Where you can be shot dead for peacefully protesting? Where your government is shuttering important health agencies while spewing junk science about autism and Tylenol? Where our allies are skeptical of us and our enemies no longer seem to fear us?
While Trump fiddles with reflecting pools, golden statues and ballrooms, it feels like America is burning, becoming less and less formidable and functional with every passing day.
And Republicans are asking for two more years of control of it all. Who could possibly want more of this?
Upon the occasion of Carter’s 100th birthday in October 2024, Trump did what Trump does — and insulted him. But only to insult former President Joe Biden worse, saying Carter was happy because he “is considered a brilliant president by comparison.”
Just think what they’ll say about Trump — overseeing all of this chaos, destruction, corruption and incompetence. “Are you better off?” Are you kidding?
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.
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