Today's #ListenFirst Friday video focuses on the importance of overcoming political divides and coming together to combat climate change.
Video: #ListenFirst Friday Ellis Watamanuk
#ListenFirst Friday Ellis Watamanuk
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A fire burns and destroys the city hall after a group of individuals forced entry into the building during ongoing protest action against the "high cost of living," in Limoges, central France on Oct. 17, 2026.
Pascal Lachenaud/AFP/Getty Images/Tribune
What Americans can learn from the French protests
Oct 24, 2026
On Monday, France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez admitted that police have “lost control” as some cities continue to see massive waves of looting and mayhem. Social media brims with images of stores being ransacked, cars burning, and mask-wearing goons running wild. In Limoges, the beautiful Hôtel de Ville was burnt to the ground.
But the chaos, as is so often the case, began peacefully. And many supporters and leaders of the protests have condemned the violence. I think that violence has more to do with France’s miserable record of assimilating immigrants from North Africa and the Middle East than with budget cuts. Call me cynical, but I don’t believe the goons pillaging Louis Vuitton stores are planning to resell the handbags to buy better school supplies or to bolster their teachers’ salaries.
The initial protests were about budget cuts, primarily in education. As allied groups joined in — socialist and communist parties, labor unions, etc. — the argument expanded to generalized complaints about France’s “austerity” policies. In short, they argued, as they have for generations, that the government should spend more on pensions and other entitlements.
The problem is that France can’t afford it. It’s borrowed money to pay for its lavish government sector for a very long time. It has run consecutive budget deficits — i.e., took in less than it spent — for more than half a century. In 1974, public debt was around 15% of GDP. Today it’s at 116%. Government spending now makes up 57% of the GDP (compared with 23% of GDP for the U.S.), and France spends three times as much on “social protection” — including pensions and family benefits — as does the United States, and more than any other country in Europe and the OECD.
Naturally, the blame for this sorry state of affairs, according to some supporters of the protests, falls on capitalism. Famous French economist Thomas Piketty says the country’s woes are the result of the state pursuing the “capitalist logic” of underinvesting in the public sector and undertaxing the wealthy. In terms of personal income taxes alone — France has massive payroll and consumption taxes as well — the top 10% of French taxpayers provide 74% of the revenue. The top 1% provide a third. France also has the highest corporate tax rates of any country in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
I’m hard-pressed to see how just a bit more taxing and spending will solve France’s problems.
I have real sympathy for the nonviolent French youth. Their economy is moribund in large part because retirees have a stranglehold on the state’s finances, consuming 14% of GDP. (Social Security and Medicare account for 9.4% of U.S. GDP. One reason education spending is so tight: A third of the education budget goes toward Education Ministry pensions.
I don’t think retirees should be thrown to the wolves, but such a system is objectively unsustainable. Yet in 2023, when French President Emmanuel Macron introduced reforms to bump the retirement age from 62 to 64, the resulting protests paralyzed the country (that modest reform was suspended last month). France is now caught in what economists call the “dependency trap,” producing too few workers to pay for the lifestyles of its older generations.
When protesters talk about feeling “hopeless,” what they often mean is that the gravy train will run out before they get to partake in it. I don’t blame them for being resentful, but it’s difficult to see how this is a failure of capitalism or “neoliberalism.” As Margaret Thatcher famously said, socialist governments “always run out of other people’s money.”
The most obvious answer to France’s problems is economic growth — much easier said than done, of course. The reason that’s so hard for France isn’t because the government is “unresponsive” to the people and their concerns. It’s because it’s too responsive. For decades, the French have demanded the economic policies that got them into this mess, and the government appeased them.
France is an outlier in its poor economic performance and lavish social spending, but its problems are recognizable across the West, including in America. The U.S. economy has grown twice as fast as France’s over the last quarter-century, but the demands for less “capitalism” from young Americans echo those protesting in Paris.
France has the sort of universal health insurance many insist would solve everyone’s problems here. It hasn’t spared France from political turmoil. Our own Social Security and Medicare aren’t far from insolvency, but demands for higher benefits and “Medicare for All” only grow louder.
The French canary in the coal mine is a good reminder that the best solution to some crises is to avoid them in the first place.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast.
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America’s polarization has closed us off to each other’s humanity. The Golden Rule and the churches may be the way back to common ground.
Getty Images, PeopleImages
Land of the Free, Home of the Brave? How Trump Is Destroying America's Soul
Oct 22, 2026
The recent actions by both some Jewish leaders and pro-Palestinian activists against NY mayor Zohran Mamdani are an example of just how far our nation has come from our ideals under the presidency of Donald Trump.
Even with Mamdani's consistent pro-Palestinian statements, he was called a "coward" and a "sellout" because he stood with the Jewish community in remembering the October 7 Hamas attack. Jewish leaders condemned him for his criticism of Israel and Palestinian sympathies expressed in the same breath as remembrance of the attack. But Mamdani understands the connection between the treatment by Israel of Palestinians and Palestinian treatment of Israel.
The United States under Trump has become driven by hatred and distrust. There has of course always been much hatred and distrust in our country, as there is everywhere in the world.
But under Trump, those feelings have been heightened to the point that we have become so polarized that the two sides—any two sides, not just MAGA and liberals—cannot talk to each other. There is no commonality remaining and there is little hope of finding common ground, so closed off is one side to the other's humanity and its core desire for the same things that we all desire—respect and the ability to live our lives in peace.
We have no freedom if we are caught in this vortex of hate and distrust. There is no bravery if we don't have the courage to listen to the other side's valid sorrows and understand where they are coming from.
In this, as in so many other ways, we are far from the ideals of our founding principles as stated in the Declaration of Independence—equality and the right to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. Or as the Pledge of Allegiance puts it, "Liberty and justice for all."
Let's look at the struggle between Israel and the Palestinians as an object lesson. Both sides have the same dream: to live in a country that validates and protects their existence and their ability to pursue life after decades or centuries of being subject to the control of others, of being persecuted, of having to live their lives in fear.
And so both have tried to create a space—a state—where they can be free to live their lives as human beings. But to do that, they have not just been willing, but felt it necessary to subjugate another people just as they have been subjugated. It's in many ways the same story as the English Puritans who founded the Massachusetts Bay colony. They came to America to escape persecution. But once they got here and founded their own state, they persecuted all other Christians, let alone other religions, who did not agree with them.
So our current dynamic is not a new page in the story of human societies. Nor is it the worst example of how a majority treats a minority. But it is an example of how our founding principles remain, in so many ways, far from achievement even as we as a nation have made substantial progress towards implementing those principles.
Nor is this just a failure to live up to the founding principles of our country. Every religion has at the core of its teaching a version of the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
Yet this principle remains far from the hearts and actions of man; historically, even from that of many religious establishments. To live that rule requires great humility, a characteristic not very prevalent among humans; instead, we are ruled by ego, insecurity, anger, fear, self-righteousness, and a host of other negative emotions.
These are all examples of human nurture, as opposed to human nature. These negative emotions are all a result of how man is raised, the experiences he has—especially as a young child—and the culture in which he lives. These emotions reflect man as he develops, not man as he is born. He is born a child of the Universe (or the child of God, if you prefer) full of light and love, positive energy and joy, equanimity. See my book, Discover Your Power.
But those seeds are not watered by his life experiences, which are predominantly negative, and so his ego grows to be a dominating force, bowling over any effort by his true self to do what is right. You've all seen the cartoons of a person with an angel sitting on one shoulder whispering good thoughts in his ear, and the devil sitting on the other shoulder, whispering negative thoughts in the other ear—it is always the devil that wins out.
How do we as a nation, let alone the world, move towards a world filled with more equality and more understanding? During the civil rights movement, in addition to the civil disobedience of Blacks led by Martin Luther King, Jr., White churches and their leaders were important in making clear that this was not just a Black v White movement, it was a movement by those who fought for equality and respect against those who had no interest in those values, except for themselves.
Today, to move our country forward, the churches must step forward again and be part of a movement (see American Solidarity) to have people come to embrace the principles of equality and respect, to embrace the Golden Rule, treating others the way they want to be treated. To bring about MLK's dream, that one day, "all of God’s children — black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics — will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: 'Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!'"
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
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U.S. President Donald Trump (R) greets Russian President Vladimir Putin as he arrives at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson on August 15, 2025 in Anchorage, Alaska.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
What Would Putin’s Puppet Do Differently?
Oct 22, 2026
This winter, Russia plans to freeze Ukraine into submission. According to an intercepted Russian plan, Moscow intends to use hundreds of ballistic missiles, long-range drones, and glide bombs to strike Kyiv, Kharkiv, and Odesa with such intensity that they are cut off from power, heat, and water, slashing electricity and heat by up to 90 percent and crippling sewage systems. Russia hopes that with an energy system so thoroughly destroyed, millions of Ukrainian citizens would become so cold, sick, and desperate that their country might just surrender. Deliberately attacking the heat and water of civilians is a war crime, but Moscow thinks it can get away with it. Ukraine is running short on the Patriot interceptors it needs to stop ballistic missiles, and Putin is betting Trump will continue to betray Ukraine. It’s looking like a safe bet.
Trump shows no evidence to the contrary. On October 9, he got off a call with the Russian president and then immediately lifted U.S. sanctions on Russian diesel. The next day, after Russian strikes killed at least 17 people in Zaporizhzhia, Trump announced it was “time for Ukraine to get a new president.” Days later, the American-controlled satellite network Ukraine’s military depends on was throttled without warning, knocking out service to the drones Ukraine uses to chase down Russian attack drones. Trump denied giving the order, but The Telegraph reported that Musk pitched the idea and Trump agreed.
Trump chooses Putin even over himself. On September 18, Trump signed the Lindsey Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act. On October 16, he waived its sanctions, two days before they took effect. The Senate passed the bill 86 to 11, the House passed it 262 to 159, and the president signed it into law, only to render his own signature worthless–all for Putin. Then he blamed Zelenskyy, claiming that the Ukrainian president “doesn’t want to end this war, and probably never did.” Trump himself promised to end the war in 24 hours. It’s been a very long 24 hours. Meanwhile, Putin’s investment envoy says Washington is already brainstorming ways to lift even more sanctions. If Congress objects while Trump is listening to Putin whisper sweet nothings, does it make a sound?
Ukraine was promised better. In 1994, it gave up the world’s third-largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for assurances that its borders would be respected. Russia signed that agreement. So did the United States. One signer broke its word by invading. The other is now helping the invader. According to The Wall Street Journal, on that same October 9 call, Putin proposed a summit with Trump and Xi Jinping to settle the war on Moscow’s terms. Ukraine isn’t invited. A former Russian intelligence officer said Putin envisions a second Yalta, where great powers carve the world into spheres of influence. This proposed meeting of the triumvirate could be the soft launch, while Europe and NATO brace themselves for impact. Germany is already preparing its hospitals for war on NATO soil.
None of this should surprise us. Ten years ago this week, in the final presidential debate, Hillary Clinton said Putin would rather Trump be elected because he wanted “a puppet as president of the United States.” She called Trump out for refusing to admit that Russia was behind cyberattacks on the U.S., saying he was “willing to spout the Putin line, sign up for his wish list, break up NATO, do whatever he wants to do.” Trump shot back: “No puppet, no puppet. You’re the puppet.” Clever rebuttal, but I’m not sure I’m convinced.
Turns out, Clinton’s warning was prescient. Spout the Putin line? Trump says Ukraine needs a new president. Sign up for his wish list? Trump continues to ease or flat-out waive sanctions on Russia. Break up NATO? Trump may attend a Yalta-style summit to redraw Europe’s map with no Europeans in the room. What does Trump get in return for doing his puppet master’s bidding? A bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report found that Putin approved and directed Russia’s 2016 interference to help Trump. In 2024, the Justice Department seized 32 Kremlin propaganda domains and charged two Russian state-controlled media employees with funneling nearly $10 million to an American media company. This fall, Bloomberg found Russia was using an army of bots to disseminate fake election videos against Democrats in 20 of 35 Senate races. Trump still calls it all a “hoax.”
If Putin had put a puppet in the White House, what would that puppet be doing differently? Whether Putin is pulling the strings or not, Trump is betraying our closest allies with reckless disregard for the long-term health of our nation and the world. Every country that has ever trusted an American promise is watching what happens to Ukraine this winter. So are our adversaries.
Some Republicans are waking up. Senator Lisa Murkowski said Trump should use the authorities Congress gave him instead of letting Russia rake in revenue. Senate Republicans, including Mitch McConnell and John Cornyn, signed a bipartisan letter calling the diesel deal “a gift to our adversary and a betrayal of our allies.” Representative Brian Fitzpatrick is forcing a House vote on a bill to block it, and in National Review, Andrew McCarthy wrote that Trump is giving Putin “aid and comfort,” the Constitution’s own language for treason, and demanded hearings. Just this week, a bipartisan congressional delegation held a video call with Zelenskyy where they affirmed, despite Trump’s actions, their commitment to Ukraine in ending “the slaughter in Russia’s war of aggression.” It’s a good start, but every Republican who ever praised Reagan for standing up to Moscow should put up or shut up. It’s time they reined in the leader of their party.
The rest of us have work to do, too. Call your representatives. Demand that they enforce the sanctions they passed, send Ukraine air defenses before the cold sets in, and hold hearings on this administration’s dealings with the Kremlin. This winter, Ukrainians will share generators, check on their neighbors, and refuse to break. The least we can do is pick up the phone and vote by November 3.
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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Trump’s 10-to-1 rule aims to cut red tape, but fewer regulations can mean weaker food safety, Head Start services, and checks on presidential power.
Wu Xiaoling/Xinhua via Getty Images
Trump’s 10-to-1 Rule Gives the Presidency Too Much Power
Oct 21, 2026
We only think about the plumbing in our homes when something goes wrong. The same is true for government bureaucracy. Rules, procedures, and bureaucrats operate largely out of sight, making sure food is safe, Social Security checks arrive, workplaces are safe, and children with disabilities receive the services promised to them by law. Yes, there is plenty of red tape in government, just as an old house can accumulate pipes that no longer serve much purpose. But ripping out pipes simply because there are too many of them is not much of a plumbing strategy. Yet the Trump administration has made the number of federal regulations it eliminates a measure of success. That raises a more important question: When does cutting bureaucracy stop making government more efficient and start making it less capable?
1. The Case for Cutting Red Tape
Critics, including Trump, have a point when they say Washington has too many regulations. Rules, like weeds, accumulate over time. With each passing year, some become outdated, others duplicate existing requirements, and for still others, costs start to exceed benefits they once provided. Businesses, state and local governments, and ordinary citizens can spend an enormous amount of time trying to comply with them.
Trump claims that eliminating these rules is a major goal of the administration. Trump's 10-to-1 policy requires federal agencies to eliminate at least ten regulations for every new one they issue. The administration boasts it has already surpassed that goal. This is evidence, according to Trump, that the government is becoming more efficient.
Few would argue with getting rid of rules that no longer serve a useful purpose. Indeed, some should have disappeared years ago. But fewer rules don't automatically mean better government. Food safety rules, environmental regulations, and protections for workers exist because there were things government needed to protect. Getting rid of the rule doesn't get rid of the problem it was intended to address.
2. Rules Make Government Work
Consider Head Start. The program provides important services to children with disabilities. Federal rules govern how children are screened, how they are referred for additional help, how parents are involved, and how Head Start works with other agencies. These may sound like bureaucratic details. But they are also how good intentions get translated into actual services for a child.
Now Trump wants to get rid of many of these requirements, and he frames it as giving local programs more freedom. On the surface, that sounds reasonable. Why should Washington tell every Head Start program exactly how to do its job? The problem is what happens next. Without common requirements, services that children receive in one community may be radically different from those available in another. A right isn't worth very much if whether you receive it depends on your ZIP code.
Environmental regulations present a similar problem. Business owners have complained about their cost for decades, and some of those complaints are justified. But these rules weren't created to make things more expensive for businesses. They were intended to keep pollution out of the air and water. Common sense dictates getting rid of regulations that don't work. But eliminating the rule doesn't eliminate the pollution that gave rise to it in the first place.
Food safety provides another example. This summer, thousands of people became sick in a Cyclospora outbreak linked to Mexican iceberg lettuce. Hundreds were hospitalized, and two people died. We can't say that deep cuts at the FDA caused the outbreak. But those cuts have led FDA staffing to fall and foreign food inspections have declined. Given how much of our food comes from outside the United States, that's something worth worrying about.
Most of us don't think much about food inspectors until thousands of people get sick. Then suddenly the bureaucrats don't seem quite so unnecessary.
3. A Weaker Bureaucracy Can Mean a Stronger President
Something else is going on here. Trump isn't simply getting rid of regulations; he is bringing more of the federal government under his control in the process. White House oversight has been extended to independent agencies, while civil service rules have been changed for some federal workers involved in policymaking. The administration says this makes bureaucrats more accountable to an elected president and hence, indirectly, the people. It also gives the president more control over the workforce who carry out the law.
The Framers would have understood the problem. They distrusted concentrated power, no matter who exercised it. That is why the Constitution divides power among Congress, the president, and the courts and then gives each branch ways to check the others' overreach. Madison wrote about this in Federalist 47. Putting legislative, executive, and judicial power in the same hands, he said, was the “very definition of tyranny.”
This can make American government maddeningly inefficient. That's not an accident. The Framers were willing to sacrifice some efficiency to make it harder for one person or institution to dominate the government. If the Framers lived today, they might say the system's inefficiency was a feature, not a bug.
Trump is attempting to move us in the other direction. Giving a president more control over federal agencies and career officials makes it easier to carry out his agenda. For Trump's supporters, that's part of the appeal. They elected him to change Washington and don't want unelected bureaucrats getting in his way.
But there is a price. A president who faces fewer restraints has more freedom to act on his own. That may work fine when you agree with the person in the White House. It looks rather different when you don't. Fewer checks and balances also mean fewer opportunities to catch mistakes before they become policy.
This is where deregulation becomes about something larger than red tape. Concentrating power in the presidency doesn't by itself make a government authoritarian. But it removes some of the obstacles that make authoritarian government harder. And once presidential power expands, it rarely goes back to what it was before. That is how the threat of authoritarianism grows.
Robert Cropf is a professor emeritus of political science at Saint Louis University.
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