Even though American democracy continues to face challenges from within and is on the decline, according to various studies, national leaders are continuing their efforts to support democracy abroad.
Within the past week, officials took steps to support the governments of Taiwan and Ukraine despite pressure from China and Russia to stay out of their respective neighborhoods. These actions, which garnered bipartisan support, stand in stark contrast to the polarizing battles over election administration, voting rights and investigations of the former president.
Tensions between Taiwan, China and the United States ratcheted up after Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited the island on Aug. 3, becoming the highest ranked U.S. official to visit Taiwan in 25 years.
China claims Taiwan is a part of its territory while other countries, including the United States, believe it to be independent. The Taiwanese people have their own democratic government and a capitalist economy, a sharp juxtaposition from China’s communist system.
Pelosi’s visit has been labeled by some as “ reckless and provocative ” by some, although she defended the trip as a symbol of U.S. solidarity with, and support for, Taiwan, arguing that her “visit should be seen as an unequivocal statement that America stands with Taiwan, our democratic partner, as it defends itself and its freedom.”
China has threatened to unify Taiwan with the mainland using its military authority many times in the past several decades. The threat has taken on a whole new meaning following China’s crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2019. In the few years that have passed, more people have taken China’s warning to heart, especially Taiwanese people and the United States.
Pelosi’s visit came at a time where China’s authoritarian tactics have become increase, with the government censoring journalists, limiting free speech, spreading misinformation, and seemingly committing human rights violations in Hong Kong and through the Uyghur genocide.
China has retaliated against the speaker’s visit by firing several missiles into the waters surrounding Taiwan and launching large-scale military drills around the island on Thursday. In their attempts to further deepen the divide between the mainland and the US, Beijing officials announced that they were ending cooperation with the United States on topics including climate change and military issues.
However, the conflict has created some unity among Democrats and Republicans. Several lawmakers from both parties urged Pelosi to carry out her plan to visit Taiwan in the face of China’s threats. The chairman of the Senate GOP’s campaign committee, Rick Scott of Florida, said: “I think it’s important that we go over there and tell Taiwan that they are an important democratic ally. We ought to be clear there is no ambiguity that we will support them if they get invaded by communist China.”
Several Democrats echoed this sentiment. “Nobody should not go someplace because the Chinese government — which is guilty of genocide — is speaking in threatening terms,” said Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts.
Pelosi also claimed that China’s Communist Party is a threat to democracy and drew parallels between the Taiwan-China conflict and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, writing: “I conveyed to President Volodymyr Zelensky that we admired his people’s defense of democracy for Ukraine and for democracy worldwide.”
And on Monday, the Pentagon announced it would be sending another $1 billion worth of military equipment to Ukraine, to further its defense against the ongoing Russian invasion. That brings the total financial support for Ukraine, since the invasion began, to approximately $9 billion. And in general, both parties have been supportive of U.S. efforts to help Ukraine push back against authoritarian Russia.
However, here at home, democracy has seen better days. According to the most recent Freedom House report, countries under democratic rule have been declining over the past 16 years; with authoritarianism on the rise. And the United States continues to drop in the rankings. More broadly, 38 percent of the world’s countries are considered to be “not free” or under some sort of undemocratic government compared to only 20 percent of the countries that are considered “free.”
Continued aggression from China and Russia will determine the future of democracy in Taiwan and Ukraine.
According to Freedom House, “democratic governments need to strengthen domestic laws and institutions while taking bold, coordinated action to support the struggle for democracy around the world.”
While the United States has made conscious efforts to show political support for Taiwan by rallying behind the island, it has not made substantial changes in actual foreign policies that uphold democracy abroad. The Biden administration has continually aided authoritarian militaries — like Saudi Arabia — despite publicly denouncing their decision to send airstrikes that killed civilians in March 2022.
Ben Droz
Ben Droz
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Pinnacle Bank Expo Center on the Nebraska State Fairgrounds on October 05, 2026 in Grand Island, Nebraska.
The President Invited Iran to Bomb My Home
I was driving home to San Diego from Los Angeles on Monday night when I heard that the President of the United States had offered both cities up to Iran as bomb targets. At a rally in Nebraska, defending his war, Trump told the crowd, “let [Iran] take out Los Angeles, let ‘em take out San Diego.” It was, he said, “a very small price to pay.”
I was coming from a Bernie Sanders rally for Proposition 40, the one-time tax on California billionaires that would send 90% of its revenue to healthcare. We desperately need it to pass because, in order to give tax breaks to billionaires, Trump signed a law that will strip health coverage from 10 million Americans; this tax will make sure we can still cover Californians. Call me crazy, but I think taxing billionaires one time so we can make sure kids in California get to see a doctor is a very small price to pay. I also think that even if Trump were joking, it is indefensible to make jokes about the potential destruction of so many lives. Human life is never a small price to pay. Human life is priceless.
Plus, the reality is: here in San Diego, we’re already paying the price for Trump’s actions, and it’s not small at all. He has gutted FEMA, tried to kill climate resiliency programs, and destroyed public health standards, while his signature law is set to cut off health insurance and food support for hundreds of thousands of San Diegans. Like plenty of American cities, San Diego is already busy finding local solutions to respond to the problems this president has recklessly created.
Not to mention, at least 19 American service members have been killed in this war already. Human rights monitors have documented more than 3,600 dead in Iran by April alone. Here at home, gas is sitting just pennies below its all-time record. Taxpayers have already spent more than $45 billion on the war, while Trump’s oil and gas portfolio has grown by roughly $15.5 million this year alone. Of course anything is a “small price” to someone paying free.99 for this war, and profiting from it. Meanwhile, We the People are paying twice: first for the war, and then for the consequences of that war. But now he wants San Diego to pay a third time, flippantly offering us up to Iran.
It is worth noticing which cities he thought to name. Were San Diego and Los Angeles strategically chosen to signify something to his audience, or were they simply the first cities that came to mind as expendable places? Either way, the effect is to normalize—-and to gauge a crowd’s reaction to–the idea of massive violence in major California cities, suitable targets because of their perceived liberal lean. So what if Iran needs to bomb a little bit of America before the war can be over? Who cares, says Trump, if they target Los Angeles and San Diego?
By the way, why didn’t he offer up San Francisco, the free-love hippie-town MAGA loves to hate (and also my birthplace)? Could it be because that’s where the tech titans live? The same ones who joined Trump for Xi Jinping’s state dinner, a guest list worth a combined $2.4 trillion?
San Diego may have fewer billionaires, but it is home to more than 115,000 active-duty service members and 230,000 veterans. One in six active-duty sailors–in the entire Navy–is stationed here. So is one in four Marines. You cannot throw a rock in this county without hitting a military family: brats and spouses and veterans are among us. I got out of the Navy last year after ten years, and eight of those were here in San Diego. When Trump says “let ‘em take out San Diego,” he’s talking about the backbone of the United States military. He’s also talking about the people fighting his war.
San Diego has not been watching this war from the sidelines. Today, the USS Abraham Lincoln returns to North Island after an almost yearlong deployment to the Middle East that featured food shortages, broken toilets, and mold in the showers after 286 days at sea without a single port call. Eight sailors in the Lincoln’s strike group attempted suicide, but in August, when a reporter asked whether the deployment had gone on too long, Trump said “not nearly long enough.” Now he has told a crowd in Nebraska that we should let Iran take out the city those sailors call home. These are sociopathic sentiments.
Last week at Quantico, Pete Hegseth closed his address to the force by telling them, “President Trump has your back and so do I.” To the contrary, President Trump has put one of the biggest military towns in the country forward as a target for our adversaries. With friends like these, the “domestic” in “against all enemies, foreign and domestic” starts to sound a lot less hypothetical.
San Diego is home to Naval Air Station North Island, Naval Base San Diego, Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, the Point Loma submarine base, Camp Pendleton, and Miramar (and I have been permanently stationed at or trained at all of them). If Iran bombed San Diego and Los Angeles, aside from the devastating loss of life, it would cripple an immense share of our national security readiness.
And for what, exactly? Trump says the war is “essentially almost over with.” This is the same man who claimed in June 2025 that Iran’s nuclear program had been “obliterated,” then launched a war over it anyway on February 28. More than seven months later, he wants us to believe two things at once: that we’ve basically won, and that we might need to sacrifice an American city or two to finish winning. If the war is almost over, why does anybody need to take out San Diego?
I wonder if Trump’s endorsed candidate for California’s 48th District here in San Diego County will respond to these remarks. He recently said “no pain, no gain,” when referring to the gas prices San Diegans are paying. Jim Desmond, would you apply that same mindset if we were bombed? Or do you have the moral courage to stand up for the people you’re running to represent?
Last November, six Democratic members of Congress, all veterans, including Senator Mark Kelly, recorded a video reminding troops of their duty to disobey unlawful orders, restating the law that says so. Trump called it “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH,” and then his Justice Department went looking for an indictment, which a grand jury refused. The president treated reading the law out loud to the troops as a capital offense, but then he himself invited a foreign enemy to destroy two American cities, possibly as a punchline. Is anyone calling the latter sedition? Who is demanding accountability?
Calling our lives a small price to pay affirms a moral bankruptcy, as well as an obvious dereliction of duty to the office he holds. While we can’t impeach him or invoke the 25th Amendment ourselves, we must stop being so quiet about what we’re paying already. We can make our voices heard by calling our representatives, writing op-eds, knocking doors, phone banking, and voting in defiance of the man who threatens the safety of our city. Ballots are already arriving in mailboxes. Vote, and vote yes on 40 (and no on 41 and 42).
Trump has been harming our cities for a while, but now he is inviting our military adversaries to join him in the harm. If we have any self-respect as Americans, we must not tolerate our leaders disregarding the dignity of lives in this way. We must fight for our home.
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.