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.
President Trump’s military interventions in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., foretell his plan for other cities.
The Washington Post recently reported on the Pentagon’s plans for a “quick reaction force” to deploy amid civil unrest. And, broad mobilization of the military on U.S. soil could happen under the Insurrection Act, which Trump has flirted with invoking. That rarely used Act allows troops to arrest and use force against civilians, which is otherwise prohibited by longstanding law and tradition.
These developments should sound alarms for all Americans. It is time to oppose such misuse of the military and emergency powers.
When an insurrectionist mob violently attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, then President Trump did not take emergency action to protect officials or federal property. The attack was a consequence of his call for protesters to march on the Capitol and “stop the steal”—part of the ongoing Big Lie campaign, denying his legitimate loss of the 2020 election. He is deviating from the truth again, this time to declare states of emergency where none exist in order to deploy the National Guard, first in Los Angeles and now in Washington, D.C.
On August 11, 2025, President Trump “federalized” the D.C. police department and ordered the National Guard to send 800 troops to the city. That’s in addition to some 500 federal law enforcement officers directed to D.C. the week before.
D.C. authorities did not request federal intervention. Trump justified the occupation with the false claim that city authorities lost control of violent crime. The facts show otherwise. Yes, D.C. has a serious crime problem. However, violent crime in Washington, D.C., is down 26% compared with this time a year ago. Last year, with a 35% drop from 2023, the city recorded a 30-year low.
In Los Angeles’ case, Trump’s deployment of the National Guard and active duty military troops in June was done under the false premise that protests there constituted “a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”
While there had been peaceful demonstrations against ICE raids in L.A., fireworks, bottles, and other projectiles were thrown at ICE and L.A. police officers, and serious property damage occurred. However, there was not a rebellion. Local authorities were taking seemingly effective law enforcement actions and did not request federal assistance. In fact, they opposed the federal intervention.
Make no mistake, mobilizing the National Guard in L.A. and D.C. is a threat to other cities.
At his rambling August 11 press conference, Trump implied that New York, Chicago, Baltimore, and Oakland are among the cities on his list. The mayors of those cities are already opposing such federal military interventions. On August 12, Presidential Advisor Stephen Miller made clear on “X” that the attacks on “big blue cities” are part of an agenda, justified by the preposterous charge that “Democrats are trying to unravel civilization,” while “President Trump will save it.”
The issued presidential memoranda regarding L.A. and D.C. demonstrates both broad intent and overreach as local and state officials were bypassed and no clear “emergency” existed to justify their issuance.
The June 7, 2025, presidential memorandum used to send troops to Los Angeles is so vague that it could be invoked practically any time for deployments anywhere. Neither L.A. nor California is specifically mentioned. It allows the activation of other states’ National Guard for “military protective activities” that the secretary of defense determines “are reasonably necessary to ensure the protection and safety of Federal personnel and property.”
The August 11 presidential memorandum on D.C. parallels the June 7 document, stating:
“...I direct the Secretary of Defense to mobilize the District of Columbia National Guard and order members to active service, in such numbers as he deems necessary, to address the epidemic of crime in our Nation’s capital. The mobilization and duration of duty shall remain in effect until I determine that conditions of law and order have been restored in the District of Columbia. Further, I direct the Secretary of Defense to coordinate with State Governors and authorize the orders of any additional members of the National Guard to active service, as he deems necessary and appropriate, to augment this mission.”
As of August 16, it was announced that West Virginia, South Carolina, and Ohio were deploying hundreds of additional National Guard troops to D.C. In a further provocative escalation, the National Guard troops are to begin carrying weapons, even though no serious confrontations with them have taken place.
A president has broad discretion in deciding to declare a state of emergency, and once done, a president can employ more than 130 statutory emergency powers. The recent presidential memoranda set a precedent for unbridled interventions, sending National Guard and active military troops wherever the President claims an emergency exists. That applies even when governors object and to even use troops from other states.
To protect democratic governance, abuse of presidential emergency powers must be constrained by Congress and the courts and opposed by the public.
California is challenging the legality of the ongoing military intervention in L.A. In June, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer issued an order restraining the deployment, but it was reversed on appeal. Judge Breyer conducted further hearings on August 13-15 on whether the troops’ activities have violated the 147-year old Posse Comitatus Act that blocks the military from civilian law enforcement. The outcome of the case will have national implications.
In D.C., the police are a focal point. Section 740 of the D.C. Home Rule Act allows a president, when “special conditions of an emergency nature exist,” to direct the mayor to order the D.C. police to provide federal “services.” Last week, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrongly attempted to place the police under direct federal command. D.C. challenged her order before District Judge Ana C. Reyes, and the order was rescinded under the judge’s watchful eye.
Under Section 740, the president’s initial D.C. police order may only last 30 days unless the U.S. House and Senate “enact into law a joint resolution” extending the time. Trump has stated that he will seek a long-term extension, which puts the onus on Congress to constrain that abuse.
More than 125 civil rights organizations are jointly calling on Congress to oppose federalizing D.C.’s police and deploying military forces for policing purposes in the U.S. Democrats have introduced a joint resolution to end the D.C. intervention because special emergency conditions do not exist.
The Limiting Emergency Powers Act of 2025, similarly to the ARTICLE ONE Act introduced in 2023, would place limits on presidential emergency powers, including requiring congressional approval for an emergency if it is to extend beyond 30 days. There is noteworthy bipartisan support for such measures. And groups like the Brennan Center for Justice and numerous other democracy advocacy organizations are working for related reforms, though reforms alone may be insufficient to constrain a president who acts beyond the law.
Members of the House and Senate need to hear forceful demands for the immediate enactment of effective limitations. Calling and texting them is in order. Related advocacy group reform efforts also deserve support. And, more than that is needed.
We may be headed to a circumstance where the military is deployed to one or more additional cities over local objections. L.A.’s mayor, police, and public managed to curtail violence without deadly confrontations between protesters and National Guard troops. That may not be the case in the future, and we cannot afford to play Russian roulette with military deployments.
That’s why the public should make clear that presidential deployment of troops to cities over the objections of state and local officials cannot be “normalized” and cannot stand.
Pat Merloe provides strategic advice to groups focused on democracy and trustworthy elections in the U.S. and internationally. He is a long-time resident of Washington, D.C.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 6 of that year, effectively prohibited racial discrimination in voting and required federal oversight to ensure its implementation. But the promise of the now seminal Voting Rights Act is at risk as Americans mark this milestone anniversary.
Sixty years ago, a landmark piece of voting rights legislation was signed into law — a policy that has aimed to course-correct America’s wobbled experiment of representative democracy.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on August 6 of that year, effectively prohibited racial discrimination in voting and required federal oversight to ensure its implementation.
Before then, Americans were routinely denied access to the ballot box based on the color of their skin, despite such practices being prohibited for nearly a century. But people in power still threatened Black and Brown residents — including women of color who had been excluded from the promise of The 19th Amendment in 1920 — with poll taxes, literacy tests and violence.
It would take decades of protest, organized in part by Black women and culminating in brutal public violence, to get Congress to take action.
But the promise of the now seminal Voting Rights Act is at risk as Americans mark this milestone anniversary.
The Supreme Court has struck down key aspects of the law and is poised to further challenge its provisions around race. It has also made it harder to challenge racialized voting maps.
President Donald Trump, who spread disinformation about his 2020 election loss to incite violence at the Capitol, is now attempting to overhaul how elections are run in the United States in part by demanding proof of citizenship — a policy that could disproportionately impact women and transgender people.
This comes as the attorney general guts the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division that helped enforce the federal laws that protect the right to vote and seeks sensitive state voter records.
The 19th continues to report on the fight for voting rights through the lens of everyday people — the women-led election workforce, the freedom fighters still around today, the queer and trans activists, and the local organizers. They’re all still seeking equal access to the ballot box on behalf of their communities — and that work isn’t going away soon.
Marisa Richmond’s formative memories are of an America under Jim Crow. She thinks back to a Hardee’s fast food restaurant in Nashville, Tennessee, a dollar clutched in her 6-year-old fingers, where no one would serve her. She remembers giving in and going outside to her mother, who sighed deeply with frustration.
She recalls the road trip to Dallas to see her maternal grandparents when her mother, who was light-skinned, rented a hotel room for the family, and she and the others had to sneak in under cover of darkness. Richmond was not allowed to leave even to get a Coca-Cola that night.The Civil Rights Act of 1964 substantially gutted discriminatory Jim Crow laws. But the Voting Rights Act of 1965 dealt the final blow to them.
Richmond, 66, who hails from Nashville, would go with her parents to vote. She grew up to teach history and women’s and gender studies at Middle Tennessee State University. And she made it her life’s work to empower people like herself — Black and transgender — to exercise their rights at the ballot box.
In 2008, Richmond became the first African-American transgender person to serve as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. She served for years as the president and lobbyist for the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition and was the first trans person to win an election in Tennessee when she won a spot on the Davidson County Democratic Party Executive Committee.
For her, the fight for voting rights for Black Americans and trans Americans is one in the same.
“I think all liberations are connected,” she said. “First, there are some of us who have multiple identities, but the fight for equality is not isolated to one group in particular. You know, we’re all in it together.”
Today, she is retired and busier than ever. She fought voter ID requirements in her home state last year. And she continues to fight disenfranchisement nationally today.
Danielle Lang is answering what feels like an obvious question posed on this 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act: Why is it important that all people have the right to vote?
Lang is the senior director of voting rights at Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that fights for access to the polls.
“The right to vote is foundational to our democracy,” she said. “And our democracy is foundational to our freedoms more generally, to order our lives as a community, to try to find shared values and govern ourselves according to those shared values, rather than live under the tyranny of elites and under authoritarian regime.The question of who will be able to vote in coming elections, however, is not obvious. In April, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 22, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, also known as the SAVE Act. It’s now before the Senate. The bill has been highly controversial because it forces voters to prove citizenship through documentation like a birth certificate.
Opponents of the measure point out that millions of married women don’t have birth certificates that reflect their legal last names.
Less attention has been paid to transgender Americans, an already disenfranchised minority who could see hundreds of thousands turned away from the ballot box if the SAVE Act becomes law.
According to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, there were approximately 1.3 million transgender adults living in the United States as of 2022. Of those, around 30 percent will seek name changes, according to the nonprofit Center for Transgender Equality. Of those who do, 18 percent will succeed in updating their birth certificates to reflect their lived names.
The result is that 319,800 transgender people who are legally barred from making those updates are likely to be stricken from the voter rolls if the SAVE Act passes.
Transgender people already face steep barriers in making it to the polls. Nearly a quarter (24 percent) reported in 2022 that they were not interested in elections or involved in politics, and 19 percent said they felt their vote would not make a difference.
“Sixty years ago, the country recognized that it was not living up to its ideals and passed landmark legislation that was about stripping away barriers to voting,” Lang said. “And the SAVE legislation would do exactly the opposite.”
Alejandra Gomez’s introduction to organizing came in 2006, in the lead-up to Arizona’s referendum on Proposition 300, which banned colleges and universities from giving in-state tuition or state-funded financial aid to students who couldn’t prove U.S. citizenship or legal residency. The daughter of immigrant parents fought to oppose the measure.
In the midst of that campaign, a fellow organizer told her that she has a voice, and that it matters. “Since that moment, I have not been able to look back,” Gomez told The 19th.
Gomez, 43, is the executive director of Living United for Change in Arizona (LUCHA), a political advocacy group representing the interests of working-class Arizonans. The membership-led organization has worked to significantly expand Latinx political representation and access to the ballot. And its grassroots organizing is credited with helping Democrats clinch statewide victories in the state, particularly by helping turn out low-propensity voters and voters of color.Gomez is reflecting on the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act by leaning on the legislation’s vision to inspire the work that the current political moment demands. The law, Gomez said, was “forged through fire” with the goal of creating a democracy for all.
“Now more than ever, the democratic experiment of building the multiracial democracy that we know that we can be feels mission critical,” Gomez said.
Right now, the most important work Gomez and LUCHA are engaged in is called “deep organizing.” That is, Gomez said, “going into neighborhoods and building what we’re calling barrio teams — neighborhood teams — and inviting our community into a conversation about their vision for Arizona and the power that they want to wield inside of their democracy.”
It doesn’t take seasoned organizers to do this work, Gomez said.
“Pull together your neighbors and start with a conversation about how you feel as a community,” Gomez said. “Then together maybe go to a school board meeting or attend a zoning meeting, a city council meeting, and just begin to understand that these spaces are meant for you to be in.”
The League of Women Voters believes that if 8.5 million people — just 3.5 percent of eligible voters — engage in nonviolent protest, they have the power to fight an anti-democratic administration.
That statistic is what’s driving the organization’s Unite and Rise 8.5: An Initiative to Defend Democracy — a movement of advocacy, civic education and community engagement. The initiative launched in May, as the league saw an increase in attacks on democracy after President Donald Trump’s inauguration.While the program is new, the League of Women Voters’ fight for democracy is not, as a grassroots voter protection and expansion organization founded in 1920. From protesting discriminatory voting laws to challenging gerrymandering, protecting the essence of the 1965 act has always been a generational win for the league.
“Democracy is not self-executing; people have to defend it and be willing to act. This is about visibility, accountability and disruption to injustice that’s being attempted,” said Celina Stewart, the CEO of the League of Women Voters.
The initiative is rooted in a study by the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights that identified the 8.5 million-person figure. The league is calling for people to vote, call lawmakers and donate to democracy-defending organizations as ways to be civically engaged.
With current and pressing attacks on voting across the country and on the Voting Rights Act, Stewart feels that this anniversary demands courage: “We’re not commemorating a relic, we’re continuing a fight that continues to be relevant today.”
“This should be a time of recommitment and not nostalgia, because of what’s happening in this country. Congress has failed to restore the Voting Rights Act for over a decade and as people, I think we’re done waiting. The Unite and Rise 8.5 campaign is definitely a way for us to reclaim that promise,” Stewart said.
The Voting Rights Act Turns 60 — but Its Promise Is Still Under Threat was originally published by The 19th and is republished with permission.
I. The Battle Over Facts
When Donald Trump fired Dr. Kristine Joy Suh, head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, after a disappointing July jobs report, it wasn’t merely a personnel decision—it was a sharp break with precedent. Suh’s removal upended decades of tradition in which BLS commissioners, regardless of who appointed them, were shielded from political retaliation to preserve statistical integrity. In his second term, Trump has made it clear that data isn’t merely information to be reported—it’s a narrative to be controlled. If the numbers align with his message, they’re hailed as proof of success. If they don’t, they’re dismissed as fake—or worse, subversive.
This shift signals more than a partisan impulse—it marks the erosion of institutions designed to uphold objective truth. For decades, federal statistics have anchored democratic governance, offering policymakers, markets, and the public a shared factual baseline. Trump’s approach upends that legacy, promoting the idea that data should serve political ends rather than public understanding.
The war on truth isn’t new, but under Trump, it has escalated into a sustained campaign against independent information. This is no longer just about spin; it’s about restructuring government to control the public’s understanding of social reality. At stake is whether democracy can function at all without a foundation of facts.
II. Data as Narrative: When Numbers Tell a Political Story
Presidents have always tried to spin the numbers. But Trump has gone further—casting doubt not just on interpretations but on the legitimacy of the data itself. During his first term, he routinely dismissed unfavorable jobs reports, distorted trade figures, and undermined the Federal Reserve’s credibility. In his second term, this distrust has hardened into policy: statistical professionals are fired, and institutions are reshaped to serve partisan objectives.
This tactic mirrors authoritarian regimes. Argentina manipulated inflation statistics for years. China’s economic numbers are widely viewed as political theater. The consequences in both cases are well known: investors hesitate, policy flounders, and public trust collapses. Without reliable data, no one—from executives to voters—can make informed decisions.
Trump’s economic storytelling follows this pattern. He claimed to have created “7 million jobs,” despite a slowdown in job growth compared to the Obama years. According to a July 2020 FactCheck.org report, 7.8 million jobs had actually been lost since Trump took office, including 274,000 manufacturing jobs and 7,100 coal mining jobs. Meanwhile, a low unemployment rate disguised stagnant wages and shrinking labor force participation.
These distortions are reinforced by conspiracy rhetoric. Trump and his allies have accused career civil servants of being part of a “deep state.” In 2019, he even blamed the Federal Reserve for supposedly using flawed data to suppress economic growth. In his second term, that rhetoric has justified a sweeping purge and restructuring of federal statistical agencies.
The infrastructure for producing trustworthy data still exists—but its foundations are being chipped away. If people stop trusting official statistics, even accurate ones lose their power. And when truth becomes negotiable, democracy begins to rot—not in a dramatic collapse, but in slow, unnoticed decay.
III. How U.S. Economic Data Is Supposed to Work
For generations, the United States has been the global gold standard for independent economic data. This credibility relies on institutional safeguards that keep politics at bay.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys about 60,000 households and 120,000 businesses each month to report on jobs, wages, and labor force dynamics. These processes are governed by strict scientific protocols and carried out by nonpartisan professionals. The same holds true for the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and other statistical arms of government.
Equally vital is the release protocol: data is published on a rigid schedule—without political preview or interference. Agencies disclose their methodologies, acknowledge margins of error, and correct mistakes publicly. Independent economists and journalists vet the results. These checks are not ceremonial—they’re essential.
The system has withstood pressure before. In 2020, the Census Bureau resisted attempts to manipulate its count of undocumented immigrants. But what once required vigilance now requires urgent defense.
This year, Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) executed a mass purge of federal employees. Over 200,000 workers—many of them statisticians and data analysts—were fired. Elon Musk briefly led the “agency” (it was never officially authorized by Congress), claiming efficiency as the goal. But internal watchdogs saw something else: a targeted dismantling of statistical capacity.
The results are already visible. Survey sizes are shrinking, data processing is slower, and regional offices—especially in underserved areas—are closing. The result is a federal data system that’s less accurate, less comprehensive, and more susceptible to distortion.
This isn’t an abstract threat. When the numbers fail, the system fails. Legislators can’t budget. Businesses can’t invest. Voters can’t judge performance. Without trusted data, democracy becomes guesswork. And once trust erodes, restoring it is far more difficult than sustaining it.
We don’t need a scenario of outright falsification to sound the alarm. Eroding staffing, politicizing leadership, and slashing oversight are enough to poison the well. In today’s fractured environment, even a whisper of doubt can be weaponized.
Defending public data may seem technical, even dull. But it’s fundamental to safeguarding democracy itself. If we can’t trust the numbers, what’s left to guide policy, accountability, or civic debate? Truth is infrastructure. And in an era when power seeks to bend reality, that infrastructure must be defended.
A democracy cannot function in the dark—though you wouldn’t know it from the Washington Post, which once emblazoned a similar phrase as a slogan during Trump’s first term, only to quietly retire it when the marketing calculus changed. At a time when media vigilance is essential, walking away from that commitment accelerates the erosion of facts. The truth, inconvenient or not, still matters.
Robert Cropf is a professor of political science at Saint Louis University.
Democrats Donkey lifts weights
As the 2026 midterms loom, a simmering debate within Democratic circles has reached a boiling point: Should the party abandon the moral high ground and play political hardball?
In recent years, Democrats have leaned heavily on the ethos of civility and hope—famously embodied by Michelle Obama’s 2016 rallying cry, “When they go low, we go high.” But with the GOP embracing increasingly combative rhetoric and tactics, some strategists argue it’s time for Democrats to recalibrate their messaging—and their muscle.
The former First Lady’s husband agrees. At a July fundraiser, former President Barack Obama didn’t mince words. “It’s going to require a little bit less navel-gazing and a little less whining and being in fetal positions,” he told attendees. “And it’s going to require Democrats to just toughen up.” His remarks drew enthusiastic applause—but also underscored growing impatience with the party’s internal hesitations.
Obama elaborated, challenging disengaged voters and party members alike: “Don’t tell me you’re a Democrat, but you’re kind of disappointed right now, so you’re not doing anything. No, now is exactly the time that you get in there and do something.”
While many voters admire Democrats’ emphasis on integrity, others worry it’s come at a cost. Polling from earlier this year shows a growing perception of the party as “too cautious” or “out of touch” with cultural and economic frustrations. This vulnerability is particularly acute among working-class voters who feel overlooked.
Strategists believe that if Democrats continue to avoid bold confrontation, they risk ceding ground not just politically, but psychologically—where grit and conviction win hearts as well as votes.
According to a recent Wall Street Journal poll, 63% of voters now hold an unfavorable view of the party, marking the lowest approval rating since 1990.
The poll paints a stark picture:
Political strategist Susan Estrich echoed Obama’s sentiment. In a recent column she wrote, “It’s going to require Democrats to just toughen up… I’ve been surprised by how many people seem cowed and intimidated, shrinking away from asserting what they believe.”
In his book, Comeback, M. Steven Fish critiques the left’s approach to political communication arguing liberals and their leaders need to renew their commitment to what he calls “the politics of dominance.”
Voters “want to be on the winning team,” Fish writes. “They favor leaders who project indomitability rather than vulnerability. They admire and trust leaders with stiff spines and strong principles.”
However, Mark Elias, founder of Democracy Docket has an optimistic outlook. He said “Democrats have a real opportunity to retake the House and Senate in 2026.”
In a recent column he writes that “History is on the Democrats’ side. Since Trump entered the political scene, Democrats have outperformed in midterm elections. In 2018, they took control of the House — gaining 40 seats — while sharply limiting losses in the Senate. In 2022, they defied expectations by gaining a Senate seat and minimizing House losses.”
Democrats face a double bind: too tough, and they risk alienating moderates; too soft, and they lose their base’s respect. The challenge in 2026 may be finding a tonal middle ground—forceful but fair, passionate but principled.
As the fight for the soul of American democracy continues, Democrats must decide whether “going high” still resonates—or whether, in an age of escalating political warfare, it’s time to stand tall and swing back.
Hugo Balta is the executive editor of the Fulcrum, and the publisher of the Latino News Network.
SUGGESTION: Poll: Democrats In Crisis Amid Shifting Voter Sentiment
democrat donkey Getty Images
