Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Follow Us:
Top Stories

Project 2025: A C-SPAN interview

Beau Breslin on C-SPAN
C-CSPAN screenshot

Beau Breslin, a regular contributor to The Fulcrum, was recently interviewed on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” about Project 2025.

Breslin is the Joseph C. Palamountain Jr. Chair of Political Science at Skidmore College and author of “ A Constitution for the Living: Imagining How Five Generations of Americans Would Rewrite the Nation’s Fundamental Law.” He writes “ A Republic, if we can keep it,” a Fulcrum series to assist American citizens on the bumpy road ahead this election year. By highlighting components, principles and stories of the Constitution, Breslin hopes to remind us that the American political experiment remains, in the words of Alexander Hamilton, the “most interesting in the world.”


Most recently Breslin has also contributed to The Fulcrum’s 30-part series offering a nonpartisan counter to Project 2025, a conservative guideline to reforming government and policymaking during a second Trump administration. The Fulcrum's cross-partisan analysis of Project 2025 relies on unbiased critical thinking, reexamines outdated assumptions, and uses reason, scientific evidence, and data in analyzing and critiquing Project 2025.

While an in-depth analysis of what works and doesn't work in our democracy is a laudable and much-needed task, unfortunately Project 2025 is a biased political report designed to build a case for conservative solutions. The Fulcrum believes that a version of Project 2025 approached from a cross-partisan perspective, void of pre-determined left or right solutions, would serve as a guide for citizens and our elected representatives to ensure the healthy democratic republic we all desire.

Breslin’s interview on C SPAN offered an in-depth overview of the 990-page Project 2025 report and is a much-needed scholarly analysis of the Heritage Foundation’s comprehensive, far-reaching proposal.

In the interview, Breslin discusses the many controversial components of Project 2025, including its neo-isolationist and Christian nationalist temperament. He also discusses what Project 2025 would mean for America and how it promotes a degree of social, racial and religious intolerance. Callers to the show examined topics ranging from foreign aid to DEI policies, the proposed closing of the Department of Education and the reasons former President Donald rump might want to distance himself from the project. Consistent with the mission of The Fulcrum, Breslin tries to find common ground in a polarized and difficult political environment.


Read More

Why Aren’t There More Discharge Petitions?

illustration of US Capitol

AI generated image

Why Aren’t There More Discharge Petitions?

We’ve recently seen the power of a “discharge petition” regarding the Epstein files, and how it required only a few Republican signatures to force a vote on the House floor—despite efforts by the Trump administration and Congressional GOP leadership to keep the files sealed. Amazingly, we witnessed the power again with the vote to force House floor consideration on extending the Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies.

Why is it amazing? Because in the 21st century, fewer than a half-dozen discharge petitions have succeeded. And, three of those have been in the last few months. Most House members will go their entire careers without ever signing on to a discharge petition.

Keep ReadingShow less
U.S. Capitol.
As government shutdowns drag on, a novel idea emerges: use arbitration to break congressional gridlock and fix America’s broken budget process.
Getty Images, Douglas Rissing

Congress's productive 2025 (And don't let anyone tell you otherwise)

The media loves to tell you your government isn't working, even when it is. Don't let anyone tell you 2025 was an unproductive year for Congress. [Edit: To clarify, I don't mean the government is working for you.]

1,976 pages of new law

At 1,976 pages of new law enacted since President Trump took office, including an increase of the national debt limit by $4 trillion, any journalist telling you not much happened in Congress this year is sleeping on the job.

Keep ReadingShow less
Red elephants and blue donkeys

The ACA subsidy deadline reveals how Republican paralysis and loyalty-driven leadership are hollowing out Congress’s ability to govern.

Carol Yepes

Governing by Breakdown: The Cost of Congressional Paralysis

Picture a bridge with a clearly posted warning: without a routine maintenance fix, it will close. Engineers agree on the repair, but the construction crew in charge refuses to act. The problem is not that the fix is controversial or complex, but that making the repair might be seen as endorsing the bridge itself.

So, traffic keeps moving, the deadline approaches, and those responsible promise to revisit the issue “next year,” even as the risk of failure grows. The danger is that the bridge fails anyway, leaving everyone who depends on it to bear the cost of inaction.

Keep ReadingShow less
Who thinks Republicans will suffer in the 2026 midterms? Republican members of Congress

U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA); House Chamber at the U.S. Capitol on December 17, 2025,.

(Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Who thinks Republicans will suffer in the 2026 midterms? Republican members of Congress

The midterm elections for Congress won’t take place until November, but already a record number of members have declared their intention not to run – a total of 43 in the House, plus 10 senators. Perhaps the most high-profile person to depart, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, announced her intention in November not just to retire but to resign from Congress entirely on Jan. 5 – a full year before her term was set to expire.

There are political dynamics that explain this rush to the exits, including frustrations with gridlock and President Donald Trump’s lackluster approval ratings, which could hurt Republicans at the ballot box.

Keep ReadingShow less