Molineaux is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and president/CEO of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
I grew up during the Cold War, when we hid under our desks for safety. As a child, I believed that I was doing my part by ducking under my desk and knowing how to respond when the air raid sirens went off. Crouching under a desk seems laughable today. But it gave me a sense of agency that I could survive and eased my anxiety about a world where the adults made decisions that seemed nonsensical.
For me, preparing and having tasks to do was calming. As an adult, this has translated into practical clarity of defining what is needed during moments (or periods) of crisis. Perhaps that is why I’ve spent time reflecting this past couple of weeks on what I would do if I were in Ukraine right now. And I imagine it’s what the people of Ukraine are doing. Or the people in other countries, helping refugees. They are finding shelter, food and supplies. They are banding together to help others to safety. They are taking up arms when necessary. As their everyday lives are at risk, survival is the priority. This is practical clarity.
President Volodymyr Zelensky is meeting his moment with resolve. With love for his countrymen. With truth. He won the presidential election on the wave of The Revolution of Dignity as a counterforce to corruption and oligarchy. His leadership skills were sharpened when he led his people as the former president fled to Russia. He withstood bullying by Donald Trump. He is now in the crucible of transformation, under attack from a desperate man with an old desire for empire building. And Zelensky is asking for our help. Our government is balancing the needs of the United States, Europe and Ukraine. We don’t want to escalate into World War III. It may not be our choice.
The people of the world want to help our brothers and sisters under threat. We’ve opened our hearts, our homes, and our wallets to do our individual tasks. As we witness the attack on Ukraine, we empathize, seeing ourselves under the thumb of an oppressor.
We also see the possibility of ending the modern patriarchy, featuring the authoritarians of our age — Putin, Xi, Kim, Orban, Trump — who want to restore an old world order of strong men. The world has changed despite their desire to control, and has done so without their permission. They will not go quietly into the night.
And so we must face these men and their followers. This style of autocracy has been around for about 5,000 years, beginning with the emergence of tribal communities around the world. They promise security to their supporters. Acolytes of this belief system seek a privileged place in a perverted hierarchy, where denigration, subjugation and oppression are part of everyday life for those not chosen.
Liberal democracy, as defined about 250 years ago, was the enlightened form of governance to mitigate the threat of authoritarians. Our belief in liberal democracy is in the crucible with Zelensky. How will we strengthen our resolve, with love, and avoid becoming the next oppressor?
The world has changed, and we need to meet the populist rhetoric and actions of autocracy to move forward with liberal democracy; where we value the embodiment of democratic processes over all else. When we honor the dignity of others, especially those who have been denigrated and marginalized, that is embodiment. Our shared belief in, and love for, our fellow humans is embodiment. Justice is embodiment. And while effusive and intangible in many ways, when we assume good intentions of our political opponent, that is embodiment.
The war is here. We are in it today. In most of the world, it’s an information war. In Ukraine, it’s a war for survival as an independent nation.
Let’s meet the moment with resolve, and love. The age of authoritarianism is over.
Long live liberal democracy.
Americans across the political spectrum have continued to ask about the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s connections among the political elite. (Angela Weiss/AFP)
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2026. President Donald Trump jolted Republicans during a fiery appearance at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, scrapping a housing bill signing ceremony and clashing behind closed doors with a party rebel who challenged him over the Iran war. Trump had been expected to sign the bipartisan housing.
Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
It was August 15, 2024. Then candidate Donald Trump stepped out of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club’s columned clubhouse to a gaggle of reporters. He was flanked by tables of groceries and signs showing the rising cost of food. Also on one of the tables was a dollhouse, meant to represent the equally alarming rise in housing prices.
It was a speech about the economy, the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, full of promises that went right to the heart of Americans’ anxieties. While former President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris were contorting themselves to posture a good economy that just needed more time to recover from the pandemic, Trump was preying on voters’ very real fears of unaffordable gas, groceries, and homes. It was obviously a winning message.
In that speech, Trump promised, “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction. We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
As of mid-2023, there had been a housing shortage of nearly four million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. Americans all over the country were either priced out of buying new homes due to low inventory, trapped in their existing homes by sky-high mortgage rates, or facing exorbitant rent hikes thanks to corporate investors buying up rental properties. Americans needed help, and Trump promised it.
Cut to March of 2026, when Trump reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a sh*t about housing.”
That kind of thinking may explain why Trump this week suddenly announced he was canceling a signing ceremony for the bipartisan “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” a housing bill co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott that passed the House 358-32 and was approved in the Senate on Monday.
Trump instead demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, his controversial election grievance bill that doesn’t have enough Republican support to get passed in the Senate.
It’s just the latest in a line of policy self-owns where Trump has seemingly intentionally made life more difficult for Republicans hoping to keep their majority. Despite midterm elections occurring in the midst of a blistering economy and an unpopular war, they were surely hoping the housing bill would give them something — anything — to brag about when they returned home to their districts.
And very much to the contrary, Americans do give a sh*t about housing. According to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a whopping 79% say the cost of housing is extremely or very important to them. Eighty-three percent say Congress should take action on the issue — like it just did. Eighty-nine percent say the House and Senate need to work together to pass affordable housing legislation — like they just did. And 63% say they would be more likely to vote for a lawmaker if they helped pass legislation to build more affordable homes and lower housing costs — like they just did.
There aren’t many issues that unite Americans like housing does, and very few bipartisan policy wins Congress can point to, and yet, Trump is holding that bill hostage in order to get his pet project — which doesn’t even have the support of his own party — pushed through.
If you’re trying to make sense of something so nonsensical, as I’m sure many Republican lawmakers are, it’s certainly sad but not actually all that complicated. Trump said what he needed to get reelected and then promptly abandoned his promises in order to pursue his own self-interests, even if those interests are bad for Republicans and bad for voters.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.