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 meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office at the White House on August 18, 2025 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Heaven as a Hashtag: Trump, Ukraine, and the Transactional Soul of Modern Leadership
Aug 22, 2025
When Donald Trump called into Fox and Friends on Tuesday August 19th and mused that "I want to try and get to heaven, if possible," citing his role in the Ukraine peace process as a potential ticket upward, he offered far more than a personal aside.
It exposed the ethos of the man where redemption is transactional, compassion is conditional, and leadership is measured not by empathy but by negotiating oneself to heaven.
None of this should be a surprise to anyone who has watched him for over a decade. Trump's reflection is devoid of empathy and displays a total lack of caring or emotion. The reflection is more about himself and his values of personal gain and perhaps even management of his reputation; for what would people think if he didn't go to heaven?
This moment invites deeper scrutiny:
- What does it mean when a president frames peacemaking not as a moral imperative, but as a strategic move in his spiritual ledger?
- What does it reveal about a man who shows little compassion or love for the less fortunate amongst us?
Trump's framing of "if I can get to heaven, this will be one of the reasons" is in many ways similar to his general approach to life as a transaction. The statement suggests a quid pro quo approach to virtue. His behavior is in shocking contrast to the traditional American virtue of moral leadership rooted in empathy, sacrifice, and care for others.
So many thoughts come to mind as one tries to wrap one's head around Trump's desire to go to heaven. When I hear him speak of his desire to "save 7,000 people a week" by bringing peace in Ukraine, I see this more as a marketing ploy to use compassion as a tool, given how he shows no signs of compassion on the domestic front on issues of immigration, public health, or racial justice.
I see Trump playing a Ukraine peace deal as typical Donald Trump: an attempt to negotiate himself into heaven through geopolitical maneuvering. This reflection on Fox reveals a great deal about the broader ethos of Donald Trump. Who else would treat diplomacy, faith, and even redemption as negotiable assets?
Since surviving an assassination attempt, Trump has adopted a more overtly religious tone. Of course, given Trump's propensity to brand everything, it is not unreasonable to question whether this was a genuine transformation or a strategic rebranding to shore up support from the religious right.
In a time when democratic institutions are at serious risk due to the actions of Donald Trump through polarization and performative politics, the character of leadership matters more than ever. Grand gestures or self-serving declarations do not measure authentic moral leadership. Still, instead, it is revealed in the honest expressions of caring and the capacity to see others not as props in a personal drama but as fellow Americans all deserving of dignity.
Trump's Fox and Friends reflection speaks to the man and should raise concerns about his leadership ability. Great leaders are not just strategists and management experts. They understand and feel the pulse of the nation they lead.
Contrast this with the legacy of leaders who understood peace not as a trophy to be used for personal gain. Mandela's long walk toward reconciliation, Carter's tireless diplomacy rooted in human rights, and King's call to love even in the face of hatred were a moral authority that did not stem from divine reward-seeking but from a radical commitment to justice, empathy, and shared humanity. For them, peacemaking was not a path to heaven but instead the essence of who they were as individuals.
As Americans reflect on this passing comment, we should reflect on what we see in the man. If redemption is merely a brand, and compassion a tool for leverage, then what becomes of the public trust? What becomes of the moral fabric that binds a pluralistic democracy together?
In a democracy, moral leadership must not be based on receiving divine reward systems or reduced to strategic branding. It must be lived, felt, and practiced in the public square, where empathy, accountability, and shared purpose shape the soul of our institutions.
New York Times columnist David Brooks once observed that “Trump’s behavior has aroused great moral indignation. It has aroused in people’s hearts a sense that something sacred is being trampled.” That indignation stems not merely from policy disagreements, but from a deeper unease, a sense that the soul of leadership itself is being hollowed out.
When compassion becomes a branding tool and redemption a strategic asset, we risk losing the moral compass that binds a pluralistic democracy. American leadership must address economic and financial conditions, but it must be rooted in empathy, integrity, and the courage to serve something greater than oneself.
Consider the moral compass citizens should expect from those in power and ask whether redemption without love can be redemptive. Authentic moral leadership begins not with off-the-cuff reflections on Fox and Friends, but with the courage to confront one's limitations and the heartfelt compassion and understanding that comes with the responsibility of leading a nation.
David Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
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A busy city street with people walking and cars driving. The street is lined with buildings and has a crosswalk. Washington, DC
Getty Images, Erik Gonzalez Garcia
Don’t Federalize and Militarize DC's Local Police
Aug 21, 2025
When I walk my toddler home from daycare every evening, it is safe. That's here in Washington, D.C., where I have lived since I moved to work on government accountability 15 years ago.
For perhaps the next 30 days, or longer, District of Columbia residents will be policed by federalized civilian and military officers, per an executive order and presidential memorandum this morning. The executive order directs the police to be federalized to protect "national monuments" (which are in the safest parts of D.C. thanks to the existing park police) and other federal properties, but the memorandum directs the DC National Guard to address crime throughout the capital.
There is no crime emergency here. I live here. I have seen things get better, not worse, with my own eyes. Violent crime is the lowest it has been in 30 years. Overall crime is down this year already. According to 2019 data, crime is worse in Houston and Indianapolis than here in D.C. Like all places, we have crime. I have seen that too. But not more than most.
D.C. is not just the capital district. It is one of the largest cities in the country. It's a great city. I love living here. 700,000 people live in D.C. — that's more than two whole states, Vermont and Wyoming. District residents paid $45 billion in federal taxes in 2024 — that's more than North Dakota, West Virginia, Wyoming, Alaska, and Vermont combined (and more than 21 other states individually).
How many votes do we have in Congress? None. We don't have any say in the federal laws that bind us. But that's not all. Arrests are already prosecuted by federal lawyers, not lawyers that work for the elected DC Attorney General. They enforce local laws that the District's Council has been blocked by Congress from updating.
There is a lot of taxation here and not a lot of representation.
Instead, politicians from far away cities with crime worse than ours use us for their own gain.
It's not enough that federal police officers already police many of the parks here (many of which are national parks), the area around the Capitol (which has its own federal police force), and White House grounds (which has the Secret Service). Now it might be our neighborhoods too. It will not make our communities safer, and it defies the American spirit of a government accountable to its people.
Joshua Tauberer is the founder of GovTrack.us and created the site initially as a hobby in 2004.
Don’t Federalize and Militarize DC’s Local Police was originally published by GovTrack.us and is republished with permission.
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When, in 2026, the United States marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, we should take pride in our collective journey.
Douglas Sacha/Getty Images
The Far-Right's Biggest Lie
Aug 17, 2025
The tactic of "the big lie" was developed by Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels. Tell a lie large enough, often enough, forcefully enough, and people will come to believe you and think that it is the truth.
Donald Trump and his MAGA followers have practiced the big lie often—think of "fake news" or "we are the party of the people"—and it has worked. It is a manipulative strategy to gain control of people's minds and thus of people themselves.
But of their many big lies, perhaps the most pernicious is the lie concerning our founding principles perpetrated by far-right scholars. This deceit is promoted by Matthew Spalding—former Director of the Heritage Foundation's Center for American Studies—in both his widely-read 2009 book, We Still Hold These Truths: Rediscovering Our Principles, and in his video, "We Still Hold These Truths." Because the video is shorter, meant for mass consumption, its lie is starker and more dangerous.
The video starts by quoting from the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident." But then Spalding conveniently fails to note the first and most central of the truths—"that all men are created equal."
To talk about any of the founding principles divorced from the context of equality is to misrepresent, deceitfully, the scope of those principles. Equality means that we all have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So, generally, our laws do not allow someone in the exercise of his right to disturb another person's exercise of their right. No right is absolute.
As Abraham Lincoln put it, "each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases … so far as he in no wise interferes with any other man’s rights;” Even Thomas Jefferson, who was focused on preserving rights, said, “a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement …" Lest this quote be misread, injuring here does not mean physical injury but injury to someone's rights that results from the pursuit of industry and improvement.
Because of the absence of this context, Spalding and MAGA adherents always talk about their rights; they are absolute, and no one can "unjustly" interfere with those rights. They see no responsibility towards others. This take on our founding principles is contrary to our founding documents.
The first principle he talks about is Private Property and Free Markets. His interpretation of this principle is that one has the right to do whatever one wishes with one's property, in the market, or private contracts, free of government regulation. In other words, government regulation is against this founding principle.
Yet as I've just pointed out, that is not true. To secure/protect the rights of the public, consumers, and neighbors, the government regulates activity—business and otherwise—so that others' rights are not harmed. This includes measures such as prohibiting false advertising, regulating chemical and fertilizer run-off into bodies of water, controlling pollutant release into the air, and ensuring a safe workplace for workers.
As recently as the turn of the 20th century, there were no such regulations; industry indeed did whatever it chose to do. As a result, many suffered, and people's rights were trampled upon because of the avarice and insensitivity of big business. That is why the government—under Republican President Theodore Roosevelt—got into the regulation business; it was necessary.
The other thing to note is that the video argues against government regulation by showing there is no need to regulate the small businessman or farmer; the real estate agent in the video says he didn't cause the housing downturn of 2008. But the downturn was caused by actions that major banking and other institutions were able to take because the regulation that they had been under since the Great Depression—the Glass-Steagall Act—had been repealed by the Republican Congress in 1999. A perfect example of why government regulation to protect the public is necessary.
The next principle the video talks about is Freedom of Religion. The video states that faith is necessary for liberty and that one needs to be able to express one's religious beliefs in public.
First, I would note that although the founders were very religious people, the Constitution makes absolutely no reference to "God." They were very careful to guard the separation of church and state. Next, you can be a person of no faith and still cherish liberty. Lastly, we all have Freedom of Religion, which means that you can't impose your views on someone else, so there are limitations. The Pro-Life movement's effort to overturn Roe v Wade is an example of people trying to impose their religious beliefs on the rest of the population. From a free speech perspective, they were in their rights, but from a freedom of religion perspective, the Court should have denied their request.
The last principle discussed in the video is the Rule of Law. This is truly ironic. Spalding says correctly that the rule of law is the foundation of liberty. He says that rulers are subject to the rule of law.
I find this ironic because no President has ever been so dismissive of the rule of law, acting as if he is the law itself, akin to a king or a dictator. Donald Trump's law is whatever he says it is.
The video closes on the note that we stand at a crossroads, a statement with which I would agree, as I said when I wrote We Still Hold These Truths: An American Manifesto in 2004. But again, we have different views of the crossroad. Spalding says the choice is to continue on the road we are on now and become more bureaucratic, socialized, and weak, or to return to our principles (as he sees them).
My take on the crossroad is that we either continue advancing our historic values and respect the balance between private rights, government, and the public good that America has developed over the years, or return to the 19th century era when the robber barons of industry had free reign, where the public had few protections. The poor and people of color had virtually none.
I agree that we are living in an ongoing experiment and that there are many things about how government functions that should be changed, but not for the reasons Spalding and the MAGA movement state.
While it is late in the day, Democrats must find a way to correct this misinformation so that the people have a correct understanding of our founding principles (see my article, "Where is the Democratic Party's Clarion Voice?"). Because it is in going back to these principles ... which address the right of all people—whether White or people of color; whether rich, middle class, or poor; whether male or female—to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ... that our country will be reborn, our democracy will be saved, and America will be made greater than it's ever been.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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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.
LOC; The 19th
The Voting Rights Act Turns 60 — but Its Promise Is Still Under Threat
Aug 13, 2025
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.
‘All liberations are connected’: Marisa Richmond on fighting for voting rights on multiple fronts
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.
‘The right to vote is foundational to our democracy’: Danielle Lang on the overlooked impact of the SAVE Act on trans voting rights
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.”
‘These spaces are meant for you’: Alejandra Gomez on the grassroots work of building our democracy
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.”
‘Recommitment and not nostalgia’: Celina Stewart on reclaiming the promise of the Voting Rights Act
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.
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