Term limits for Supreme Court Justices have been proposed as a way to make the Court more representative of the partisan makeup of the country. In this episode of You Don’t Have To Yell, Suzanna Sherry, Professor of Law at Vanderbilt University, explains how this would result in more partisan judges, more partisan rulings, and legal instability.
A demonstrator holds a sign in front of the Federal Courthouse in Detroit, Michigan.
When American forces carried out airstrikes against suspected Islamic State militants in northwest Nigeria on Christmas Day 2025, the operation offered a glimpse of renewed security cooperation between Washington and Abuja. But for Nigerians living in communities threatened by terrorism, kidnapping and armed attacks, a more pressing question remained: Would the strikes make their lives any safer?
That question deserves attention in Washington. The United States has spent decades helping Nigeria combat terrorism through military equipment, intelligence sharing and training. Yet armed violence continues to disrupt everyday life across northern Nigeria, raising doubts about how the success of American counterterrorism assistance should be measured.
The December operation followed a diplomatic confrontation after President Donald Trump accused Nigeria of failing to protect Christians and threatened military intervention. Nigeria subsequently welcomed American assistance, leading to coordinated strikes against suspected militants in Sokoto State.
Military strikes can disrupt terrorist operations, destroy equipment and eliminate commanders. But they cannot, by themselves, guarantee the safety of communities or restore confidence in government institutions.
The United States and Nigeria have maintained security cooperation for more than five decades. According to a 2024 State Department fact sheet, Washington had $590 million in active government-to-government military sales cases with Nigeria. Major transactions included a $497 million sale of 12 A-29 Super Tucano aircraft and a $997 million sale of 12 AH-1Z attack helicopters.
Between fiscal years 2019 and 2023, the United States also provided more than $8 million in counterterrorism training, equipment and advisory support, alongside approximately $5 million for international military education and training. These figures cover different programs and stages of assistance, rather than a single amount already spent.
The partnership extends beyond weapons. It includes military professionalization, intelligence cooperation, border security and efforts to improve accountability within Nigeria's security institutions.
These investments have strengthened areas of Nigeria's military capacity but the continued vulnerability of civilians raises a larger question: What should count as success?
In northeastern Nigeria, Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) have sustained an insurgency that has devastated communities around the Lake Chad Basin. In the northwest, armed bandit networks have expanded kidnapping for ransom, cattle rustling and attacks on rural settlements. Although some groups operate in overlapping areas, their motivations and organizational structures differ.
That distinction matters treating every armed group as a terrorist organization risks overlooking the criminal economies, local grievances and failures of law enforcement that sustain different forms of violence.
The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project (ACLED) reported more than 400 kidnapping incidents across northwest Nigeria in 2026 by the time of its analysis. In June, at least 39 civilians were abducted in Maradun, Zamfara State, after reportedly traveling to negotiate improved relations with an armed group.
A separate ACLED assessment found that armed bandits accounted for more than 80 percent of recorded mass abductions since the beginning of 2025.
These figures do not establish that American counterterrorism operations have failed. They demonstrate that Nigeria's civilian-security crisis extends well beyond the militant organizations targeted by airstrikes.
Having reported on terrorism and violent conflict in northern Nigeria, I have seen how insecurity affects communities beyond the immediate violence. Farmers struggle to access their fields, families live with uncertainty, and residents face restrictions on movement that interfere with ordinary economic and social life.
For people living under these conditions, security is measured less by the number of militants killed than by whether they can travel safely, earn a living and send their children to school.
This is where Washington should reconsider its approach.
The United States and Nigeria have already recognized the importance of broader security reforms. During the 2024 U.S.–Nigeria Binational Commission, both governments committed to deepening military and law enforcement cooperation while protecting civilians, respecting human rights and strengthening democratic institutions.
They proposed a standing security working group and closer cooperation on border and aviation security, terrorist financing, criminal investigations and explosives detection. They also discussed specialized police units to respond to kidnappings, improved police complaint mechanisms, crime mapping, police reform and stronger criminal justice institutions.
Their commitments extended to civilian harm prevention, community peacebuilding, farmer–herder conflict resolution and protection of freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and religious liberty.
These agreements offer a starting point for measuring whether cooperation is improving everyday security. Washington should press for transparent assessments of civilian casualties, kidnapping trends, accountability for abuses and the ability of displaced communities to return safely.
It should also support Nigerian institutions responsible for investigating and prosecuting violent crimes, rather than relying predominantly on military responses.
Religious freedom must remain part of this policy. But Nigeria's security crisis cannot be understood exclusively through attacks against Christians. Muslims have also suffered extensively from terrorism and banditry. A policy focused on protecting all civilians would better address the country's complex security realities.
The stakes extend beyond Nigeria. As Africa's most populous country and an influential regional democracy, Nigeria plays an important role in West African stability and international cooperation. Persistent insecurity weakens public confidence in elected leaders, disrupts civic participation and creates opportunities for armed groups to exercise influence where state institutions are absent.
For the United States, supporting Nigeria therefore involves more than defeating terrorist organizations. It means helping a democratic partner build institutions that citizens can trust.
A stronger bilateral relationship should connect security assistance with civilian protection, public accountability and sustained diplomatic engagement. Such cooperation would demonstrate that American foreign policy can support democratic governance while confronting violent extremism.
Ultimately, the success of U.S.-Nigeria counterterrorism cooperation should be judged by whether Nigerians can live without fear, participate freely in civic life and trust the government institutions responsible for their safety. Until those outcomes become central measures of progress, even successful airstrikes will remain an incomplete answer to Nigeria's security crisis.
Idris Mohammed is a Ph.D. student at the University of Alabama concentrating in Journalism & Creative Media and a fall Fulcrum Fellow.
Colourful vibrant Victorian style houses at Alamo Square in San Francisco, California, USA
San Francisco residents need an organization that can follow public money and decisions before the damage is done. I propose a Community DataBank, beginning with Pacific Heights and Cow Hollow, supported by a modest, publicly approved allocation of our taxes. Residents should be able to find out what government is doing without requiring everyone to research City Hall.
My earlier proposal placed two desks outside the Mayor’s Office, staffed by neighborhood association members who would watch who goes in and out and follow the public business behind those visits. The DataBank would give those desks useful work and reliable records. A visitor’s presence would prompt a question; official documents would establish what actually happened.
Use disclosed calendars, lobbying filings, and public records to follow official business, respecting privacy and building rules. Set scheduled hours so residents know when someone is available. Publish each request and response in the relevant issue file. If officials correct an entry, preserve the correction and its explanation. The record should help residents participate early and give departments a practical way to answer questions once for everyone without repeated paperwork.
Invite the Pacific Heights Residents Association and Cow Hollow Association to develop the first demonstration. Both have newsletter channels, and Cow Hollow has a block captain network. Neither has agreed to participate. Their existing email networks offer a practical starting point without inventing a new organization’s audience overnight.
Each association could send its own invitation. Residents would choose whether to join the DataBank and share contact information. Existing private lists would stay with the associations. Renters, homeowners and people who cannot afford membership dues would have equal access to public information. Phone and paper participation would remain available.
Keep a private contact register, public files on neighborhood decisions and a public money ledger. Every public entry should identify its source, responsible agency, and update date. Show missing answers plainly. Record what officials promised alongside what they delivered, with corrections visible to readers.
Once a week, send a brief that takes five minutes to read and asks residents about a concrete priority. AI can help summarize documents, but people must check accuracy and include differing views. Publish participation totals. Never present an advisory neighborhood response as an official election result.
Start with two assignments: trace a street repair allocation through completed work and follow one development application. Show the applicable rules, applicant, decision dates, review opportunities, and official answers. Residents need this information while they can still participate. The pilot would create no automatic neighborhood veto over development.
The money trail begins with the fund. San Francisco’s General Fund receives local tax revenue and supports many services. Other revenue, including particular grants and bond proceeds, has restricted uses. The Mayor proposes spending; supervisors adopt appropriations. Departments carry out authorized work. A budget, a payment, and a completed repair are different records.
Street history deserves accuracy. A 2005 Public Works report says Dianne Feinstein used millions from a General Fund surplus for street repairs in the early 1980s. It says gas tax and road fund revenues were going to cleaning rather than paving by 2005. It does not establish that Feinstein moved road money into the General Fund.
For a damaged block, identify the responsible agency, funding source, repair schedule, commitments, payments, and completion record. Include dated photographs and service request numbers. When a department cannot connect a payment to the block, ask it to explain. Residents should not have to guess where their repair money went.
Herb Caen joked about rush hour double parking on Pine in 1995. We can document today’s obstructions on Bush and Pine and ask merchants, delivery operators, and officials for workable loading arrangements. Two blocked lanes on a three-lane block leave one moving lane. Photograph the conditions and measure delays before prescribing changes.
I have heard complaints about water department favoritism and poor accountability dating to the Willie Brown years. Those accounts require records and a management response. City rules permit dismissal for cause with procedural protections. Experienced workers should also receive paid time to train successors before their practical knowledge retires with them.
Request $7,520 for a ninety-day demonstration, through an approved General Fund grant supported by existing municipal tax revenue. Funding requires an available appropriation, a sponsoring department, and an eligible operator. Neighborhood taxes are not automatically reserved for associations. No grant, operating agreement, or City Hall space has been secured.
Volunteers would coordinate the database, check records, and staff the desks. Plan for eight coordinator hours and twelve reporting and desk hours weekly, shared among a roster. Record volunteer hours separately from cash spending. Shifts, backup coverage, and training would make the service dependable.
The cash budget provides $2,000 for database setup and secure hosting; $1,500 for limited independent planning or legal review; $1,200 for outreach; $1,800 for administration and insurance; and $1,020 contingency. Publish estimates and actual costs. The volunteer roster would provide scheduled desk coverage during agreed hours.
A qualified nonprofit or fiscal sponsor would administer the grant and support volunteers. Six volunteer resident representatives, three from each neighborhood with tenant representation, would oversee priorities under published selection rules. Disclose financial interests and conflicts. Public information must remain accessible to people who buy no membership or shares.
Start the clock after funding and agreements are in place. Target 200 consenting residents, ten weekly briefs, two maintained issue files and three monthly spending statements. Seek responses from at least fifty distinct residents. Report unanswered questions and missed targets alongside successes. Renewal should depend on results and actual costs.
The grant would support nonpartisan information and participation, with terms expressly prohibiting spending on candidate or ballot measure campaigns. Publish the DataBank’s own grant and invoices. Pacific Heights and Cow Hollow can test the method, then share it with other neighborhoods, with fair support for communities that have fewer resources. Our taxes should help us oversee our city.
John van Sicklen Maeck II is a writer based in San Francisco.
USA and China trade relations, cooperation strategy. US America and China flags on chess king on a chessboard.
Americans tend to treat democracy’s superiority as settled, and the long-run evidence backs them up. A major study by MIT economist Daron Acemoglu and colleagues found that countries that democratize end up about 20 percent richer per person within a generation. But most of the world does not grade governments on long-run studies. For billions of people outside the wealthy West, the test is simpler: does the power stay on, are food prices steady, is there work, and do the roads get built? When the stomach is empty, a ballot can feel like a luxury.
China understands this and sells its model on exactly those terms. Its GDP per capita has climbed from about $300 in 1980 to nearly $15,000 today, by IMF figures, and the World Bank credits it with lifting some 800 million people out of extreme poverty. India, the world’s largest democracy, started from a similar place and sits near $2,800. Beijing’s centralized system, paired with Deng Xiaoping’s market reforms, built power plants, factories and rail lines at a pace India’s more deliberative politics has not matched. Anyone who values liberty will find little to admire in that model. It does explain why the model sells.
Prosperity Usually Comes First
Political science has a blunt finding here. Adam Przeworski and Fernando Limongi found that no democracy had ever collapsed in a country richer than Argentina was in 1975, about $6,000 per head in 1985 dollars, while poorer democracies fell again and again. South Korea and Taiwan industrialized under authoritarian rule and became durable democracies once they grew rich. Singapore took a hybrid road under Lee Kuan Yew, pairing disciplined execution with tight limits on political freedom; its GDP per capita now tops $100,000.
Silencing people is the wrong takeaway. Regimes that crush dissent blind themselves to their own mistakes. The lesson is about the order of needs. A factory worker in Shenzhen or a farmer in Uttar Pradesh wants a reliable bus and a working school first and a freer debate second. A democracy that cannot supply the first will struggle to sell the second.
America’s Vetocracy
That is where the United States should worry. In April, Gallup found just 10 percent of Americans approve of Congress, one point above the record low set in 2013, with 86 percent disapproving. Last fall the government shut down for 43 days, the longest full shutdown in American history, and the Congressional Budget Office estimates the economy permanently lost about $11 billion. This spring the Department of Homeland Security went unfunded for a record 76 days. Continuing resolutions stand in for budgets. A typical federal environmental impact statement takes about four and a half years before a shovel moves. California voters approved high-speed rail in 2008 at an estimated $33 billion; the state’s own estimate is now $126 billion, and the first passengers are not expected until the 2030s. Over the same years, China built more than 50,000 kilometers of high-speed track, more than the rest of the world combined.
The same pattern now reaches the top of the world. As Arctic ice retreats, Chinese container ships recently completed their first season of regular weekly service to Europe along Russia’s northern coast, cutting the Suez voyage nearly in half. America’s answer is a heavy icebreaker contracted in 2019 for delivery in 2024; the GAO now expects it in 2033. Until then, the Coast Guard’s only working heavy icebreaker is the Polar Star, commissioned in 1976. Congress paid for these ships. Washington simply could not get them built.
Francis Fukuyama calls this a “vetocracy,” a system so well defended against overreach that it is also defended against action. Gridlock is usually treated as a domestic annoyance. Abroad, every stalled American project is free advertising for Beijing.
When Pressure Worked
Democracies can still move fast when someone applies pressure on purpose. For years, polite diplomacy left most European allies short of even NATO’s 2 percent defense target. The Trump administration took a blunter, transactional approach, and much of the foreign-policy establishment called it reckless. Yet at The Hague in June 2025, every ally except Spain, which negotiated its way out, committed to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense and security by 2035, with 3.5 percent for core military needs. This March, NATO reported that European allies and Canada had raised real defense spending by 20 percent in 2025, and that for the first time every member cleared the 2 percent bar.
The method has costs. Alliances rest partly on predictability, and an adversary who cannot tell which commitments are firm may miscalculate. Still, deliberate pressure inside an existing structure broke an inertia that decades of consensus diplomacy could not.
Reforms Worth Debating
None of this argues for abandoning checks and balances. It argues for sorting the checks that produce accountability from those that merely produce paralysis. Several reforms would push the system toward delivery without touching the Constitution: a narrow filibuster exception for infrastructure and budget bills; sunset dates that force major programs to be reauthorized on a schedule rather than run on autopilot; and a public, plain-English scorecard for every large federal project. Congress already accepts the logic of the first idea, since budget reconciliation bills cannot be filibustered. In my years running R&D programs, a project with no milestones was one nobody could kill or save.
A bolder idea deserves debate, if only for what it forces us to confront: a president elected to a single, non-renewable term of five or six years, with narrow authority to break legislative deadlock on designated infrastructure and economic bills, subject to full judicial review. It would require a constitutional amendment and carries real risk of abuse, so it should be considered only with guardrails at least as strong as the power it grants. But removing the reelection motive would strip out much of the posturing that fuels gridlock today.
The postwar assumption that democracy wins by default, whether or not it delivers, is wearing thin across the developing world and, increasingly, at home. Ordinary people need full refrigerators more than fine speeches. The contest with China will not be settled by speeches about freedom. It will be settled in part by which system can pass a budget, build a bridge and keep a promise on time. If America keeps mistaking gridlock for principle, it will keep handing its rivals their best argument.
Meda Parameswara Reddy, Ph.D., is the Director of the Reddy Center for Critical and Integrated Thinking.
American soldier in headquarter control center
When American forces conducted airstrikes against suspected Islamic State militants in northwest Nigeria on Christmas Day 2025, the operation signaled a renewal of security cooperation between Washington and Abuja. Yet for Nigerians living in communities plagued by terrorism, kidnapping, and armed attacks, a critical question remained: Will these strikes make their daily lives any safer?
That question demands serious consideration in Washington. The United States has spent decades helping Nigeria combat terrorism through military equipment, intelligence sharing, and tactical training. Yet, armed violence continues to disrupt daily life across northern Nigeria, raising doubts about how the effectiveness of American counterterrorism assistance should be measured.
The December operations followed a diplomatic dispute in which President Donald Trump accused Nigeria of failing to protect Christians and threatened military intervention. Nigeria subsequently welcomed U.S. assistance, leading to coordinated strikes against suspected militants in Sokoto State.
While military strikes can disrupt terrorist operations, destroy equipment, and neutralize commanders, they cannot single-handedly guarantee community safety or restore public trust in government institutions.
The United States and Nigeria have maintained security ties for over five decades. According to a 2024 State Department fact sheet, Washington held $590 million in active government-to-government military sales cases with Nigeria. Major transactions included a $497 million deal for 12 A-29 Super Tucano aircraft and a $997 million deal for 12 AH-1Z attack helicopters.
Between fiscal years 2019 and 2023, the United States also provided more than $8 million in counterterrorism training, equipment, and advisory support, along with approximately $5 million for international military education and training. These figures encompass various programs and stages of assistance rather than a single lump sum already expended.
This partnership extends beyond defense hardware to include military professionalization, intelligence sharing, border security, and initiatives to enhance accountability within Nigeria's security sector.
Although these investments have strengthened aspects of Nigeria's military capabilities, civilians' persistent vulnerability raises a broader question: How should success ultimately be defined?
In northeastern Nigeria, Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) have sustained an insurgency that has devastated communities across the Lake Chad Basin. Meanwhile, in the northwest, armed bandit networks have expanded kidnapping for ransom, cattle rustling, and raids on rural settlements. Although some groups operate in overlapping areas, their motivations and organizational structures differ significantly.
That distinction matters: treating every armed group strictly as a terrorist organization risks overlooking the criminal economies, local grievances, and law enforcement failures that sustain different forms of violence.
The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) recorded more than 400 kidnapping incidents across northwest Nigeria in 2026 by the time of its analysis. In June, at least 39 civilians were abducted in Maradun, Zamfara State, after traveling to negotiate peace terms with an armed group.
A separate ACLED assessment found that armed bandits accounted for more than 80 percent of recorded mass abductions since the beginning of 2025.
These figures do not mean U.S. counterterrorism operations have failed; rather, they demonstrate that Nigeria's civilian security crisis extends far beyond the militant organizations targeted by airstrikes.
Having reported on terrorism and violent conflict in northern Nigeria, I have witnessed how insecurity paralyzes communities long after the immediate violence subsides. Farmers struggle to cultivate their fields, families live in constant fear, and residents face travel restrictions that disrupt ordinary economic and social life.
For those living under these conditions, security is measured less by the body count of neutralized militants than by whether they can travel safely, earn a living, and send their children to school.
This is where Washington should reconsider its approach.
The United States and Nigeria have already recognized the necessity of broader security reforms. During the 2024 U.S.–Nigeria Binational Commission, both governments committed to expanding military and law enforcement cooperation while prioritizing civilian protection, human rights, and democratic principles.
They proposed establishing a standing security working group and enhancing joint efforts in border and aviation security, anti-terrorist financing, criminal investigations, and explosives detection. Discussions also focused on creating specialized police anti-kidnapping units, improving oversight mechanisms, mapping crime, advancing police reform, and strengthening judicial institutions.
Furthermore, their commitments encompassed civilian harm mitigation, community peacebuilding, farmer–herder conflict resolution, and the safeguarding of freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and religious liberty.
These mutual agreements offer a framework for evaluating whether security cooperation is making a tangible difference on the ground. Washington should actively advocate for transparent assessments of civilian casualties, kidnapping metrics, accountability for human rights abuses, and the safe return of displaced communities.
It should also invest in supporting Nigerian civil and judicial institutions capable of investigating and prosecuting violent crimes, rather than relying primarily on military solutions.
While protecting religious freedom must remain a priority, Nigeria's security crisis cannot be viewed solely through the lens of attacks on Christian communities. Muslims have also suffered extensively from terrorism and banditry. A comprehensive policy aimed at protecting all civilians will far better address the nation's complex security realities.
The stakes extend well beyond Nigeria's borders. As Africa's most populous nation and a key regional democracy, Nigeria is central to West African stability and global cooperation. Persistent insecurity erodes public confidence in elected leaders, suppresses civic participation, and creates power vacuums that armed groups exploit.
For the United States, supporting Nigeria involves far more than neutralizing terrorist organizations—it means helping a strategic democratic partner build trusted governance and judicial institutions.
A robust bilateral relationship should align security assistance with civilian protection, public accountability, and sustained diplomatic engagement. Such an approach would demonstrate that U.S. foreign policy can effectively advance democratic governance while confronting violent extremism.
Ultimately, the success of U.S.–Nigeria counterterrorism efforts must be judged by whether ordinary Nigerians can live free from fear, participate in civic life, and trust the institutions charged with their protection. Until these outcomes serve as the primary metrics of progress, even successful military strikes will remain an incomplete response to Nigeria's complex security challenges.
Idris Mohammed is a Ph.D. student at the University of Alabama concentrating in Journalism & Creative Media and a fall Fulcrum Fellow.
