By Larry Atkins

The United States is now governed by two largely-dysfunctional political parties – leaving a plurality of American voters feeling unrepresented and the political system at the mercy of a handful of wealthy donors and Super PACs.

It is fair to say that the reality of two parties that once functioned as “big tents” comfortably embracing a range of views is now gone. Instead, the two parties have moved toward opposite corners and abandoned the center – where reconciliation of major policy differences once occurred. Too often, elections have become popularity contests featuring candidates with no or little prior political experience espousing extremist views. Americans who look to government to make things work are increasingly alienated from their own representatives and the political process itself.

Without substantial reform, the future of our popular democracy may be doomed. We need an electoral system that can make voting meaningful for everyone again.

We need a system that can:

• Enable the views of substantial minorities of citizens to be represented in our governing bodies.

• Defang gerrymandering from being used to exclude substantial minorities from having representation.

• Make it more difficult for untested candidates with no party affiliation to prevail.

• Enable citizens to engage more meaningfully in political parties and the electoral process.

• Focus campaigning on differences on policy rather than character assassination.

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The Founding Fathers Warned Against a Two-Party System

The Founding Fathers never intended a system that would entrench only two political parties. George Washington in his Farewell Address in1796 warned of the consequences of parties in general:

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissention, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual: and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of its own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.

John Adams expressed this concern clearly in a letter to Jonathan Jackson in 1780:

There is nothing I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This... is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.

The words of Washington and Adams have proved prophetic. Over the last 18 months, the current administration has worked tirelessly to entrench a single party and “the absolute power of an individual.” Yet it is not too late to prevent the “ruins of Public Liberty” and forestall both tyranny and disenfranchisement.

Many Reform Ideas are Seeking to Make Elections Matter Again

Already, many states are testing ideas to help ensure that primary elections better reflect the views of unaffiliated and disaffected voters. These experimental primaries are “open” to non-party-members in contrast to the traditional party-controlled, “closed” primary systems in which only party members can vote. Twenty states currently allow “crossover” voting in primaries, letting voters registered as independent or with one party affiliation vote in the other party’s primary. The advantage of these open systems is that they allow people who are not in a dominant party to have a meaningful choice in areas where single-party domination turns general elections into coronations.

But “open” primaries also make party membership less consequential and further weaken the role of parties and their platforms in elections. Some forms of open primaries – such as the “blanket primary” - may actually work against the will of the majority. In the blanket primary, used most recently in California, all candidates of all parties appear on a single primary ballot and the top finishers qualify for a runoff to select the winner. With a large field, it is possible for two minority party candidates to go to the runoff even though the sum of the votes for dominant party candidates would have ensured a dominant party candidate in the runoff.

The Time is Right for Proportional Representation

A better solution that would disrupt the slide toward a one-party state could be proportional representation. This approach is generating widespread interest and growing support. Under this electoral system, multiple congressional districts would be combined into a single large district with multiple members of Congress elected from each district. Several parties could compete in a given district with each of the parties putting forward a slate of candidates chosen through primary elections or conventions of party members.

The number of Representatives elected from each party would be proportional to the share of the vote received for that party’s slate. For example, if five districts were combined to elect five members of Congress, voters in that district could have multiple parties and their slates of candidates to choose from. Each voter would pick a slate to vote for – making the choice of a slate more about the platform of the party than the character of the individuals. If 40 percent of the vote went to one party, the top two candidates from that party would be elected. If three parties each got 20 percent of the vote, each would have a representative.

Another major benefit of proportional representation is that it would end – at least in Congress - the increasing regionalization of the two dominant political parties that has divided the country into “red states” and “blue states.” Republican “Neocons,” “Moderates,” and Libertarians could break from MAGA and Christian Nationalists. Democratic Socialists and the Green Party could break from Blue Dog and centrist Democrats. They would all have a chance to have meaningful representation from different parts of the country where today they are an unrepresented minority.

Under the proportional model, the governing party in Congress would likely need to form a coalition to gain a majority to move legislation. Agendas of minority parties would have an opportunity to move forward. The “my-way-or-the-highway” form of legislating that our current President and Majority Leader favor would no longer work. Collaboration and compromise would, of necessity, return to the halls of Congress – re-invigorating the diverse middle where once most compromise was achieved.

Proportional Representation Would Need an Exceptional Legislative Effort

While the Constitution delegates to states control over the mechanics of elections, it gives to Congress the ability “at any time by Law [to] make or alter such Regulations.” The federal laws that specify the number of members of Congress (435), the size of the population in a congressional district, and the requirement each district elect a “single member” were all enacted in the 20^th century and can be changed by Congress today.

Proportional representation could largely be enacted by Congress, although states (which control elections) would have to implement the specifics. Congress could specify the number of districts in each state and the number of representatives elected from each district. Ideally, districts would be drawn to have at least five members per district. Some states may have sufficient population for only one district with all representatives in a single district.

Some advocates have included a proposal to expand the number of members of the House of Representatives to enable smaller states to have more than one large district, to facilitate a closer relationship between members and their constituents, and to accommodate greater diversity in the composition of the House. This too could be accomplished by Congress.

Proportional Selection Could Also Apply to Presidential Electors

Proportionality would also bring a better result to the action of the Electoral College in determining the outcome of presidential elections. The Electoral College itself is an artifact of the 18^th century when the popular vote counted only for Representatives, and U.S. Senators were appointed by State legislatures.

The idea of using “electors” to determine the outcome of the Presidential election was a late compromise in drafting the Constitution between having the Congress decide or basing it on a popular vote. Electors were to be appointed by the state legislatures, with the number in each state equivalent to the number of Members in that state’s congressional delegation. The method of voting was specified in the Constitution but was amended in 1804 by the 12^th Amendment to divide the Presidential and Vice-Presidential votes, after the controversial election result in the Adams-Jefferson election of 1800. How electors were selected and how they voted was left up to the States. Since then, the operations of the electoral vote process have been amended through legislation, but the constitutional structure remains intact.

States, however, have changed how electoral votes are cast, with all states eventually basing the electoral vote on the popular vote in the state and choosing a “winner-take-all” allocation of electors to candidates. All-but-two states (Nebraska and Maine) allocate all electors to the winning candidate statewide, while the two standouts allocate by congressional district.

In several recent elections, the Electoral College has produced a President who did not win the popular vote. It has also led to a situation where almost all states predictively return either a Democratic or Republican victor, leaving only a handful of states influencing the outcome of tight races. This has led to a focus of presidential campaigning on a select group of states, essentially disenfranchising the vast majority of Americans who are increasingly feeling their presidential votes don’t matter.

While repealing the Electoral College altogether would require a Constitutional amendment, Congress can change how states count popular votes toward electors without having to pass and ratify a constitutional amendment.

Political and Economic Stability Require Voting Reform

The current capture of our national political system by one party reflecting the extreme views of a minority of voters is a warning sign that our two-party, winner-take-all system of governance is failing. Our Founding Fathers warned that political parties could lead us to this place.

While representation that better considers the diversity of needs, perspectives, and interests in our country may be messy, it may also lead to a more deliberative process that ultimately balances out the extremes and reduces wide swings in governance that disrupt social and economic progress.

It can be our hope and our intention that proportional representation will create a more robust and nuanced political discourse, empower more citizens to actively engage in politics, restore the role of parties in shaping policy choices, and leave fewer Americans and their interests unrepresented in a government that aspires to be “…of the people, by the people, for the people…”

Larry Atkins, PhD, recently retired from a 50-year career in public policy serving in state government and in senior positions on U.S. Senate committee staff, in the pharmaceutical industry, and in non-profit health care and aging organizations, with a focus on social insurance, retirement income, and health care policy. He is an avid student of history and observer of our great national experiment. He is a founding member of the Common Sense Coalition.

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Damage Tracker…

“Treasury Scales Back Scrutiny of U.S. Shell Companies,” New York Times. “The Treasury Department said … it was permanently halting the collection of data about the ownership of private American companies that was required as part of the 2021 Corporate Transparency Act. The law, which passed with bipartisan support, was intended to prevent the illicit use of shell companies by giving law enforcement agencies access to information about their ownership structures.”

“New Research: Loss of 111,000 International Students Could Cost U.S. Economy $3.4 Billion and Nearly 40,000 Jobs,” NAFSA: Association of International Educators. “This downturn reflects the convergence of several headwinds: declining application volumes, persistent visa appointment bottlenecks, and newly restrictive immigration policy changes.”

“Kindergarten MMR vaccine coverage still below ideal rate to prevent outbreaks: CDC,” The Hill. “The CDC on Monday released the latest figures on vaccine coverage among kindergarteners during the 2025-26 school year, finding that 92.4 percent of students had received the MMR vaccine… The ideal rate required to prevent widespread outbreaks is considered to be 95 percent.”

“Whistleblower alleges political pressure, lack of evidence in antisemitism probes targeting schools,” Associated Press. “The complaint alleges that the investigations into some of the nation’s most prestigious academic institutions were designed to strong-arm the schools into cutting deals for political purposes. Outcomes of the investigations were ‘predetermined, without regard to the evidence’ in a ‘politically mandated effort’ to extract money from schools through settlement demands and funding freezes under the pretext of rooting out antisemitism, the complaint alleges.

“Trump 2.0 has deleted or altered nearly 400 US datasets, endangering public health, education and more,” The Guardian. “Over the past year and a half, at least 28 federal datasets have been deleted and another 338 data collections have been modified, according to an online tracker released last week from dataindex.us, a group of data policy experts, researchers and developers that formed last year to monitor changes to government data.”

“Homeland Security Paid $464 Million for Airplanes. Then It Parked Them,” New York Times. “Starting last fall, the Department of Homeland Security spent $464 million on a no-bid contract to buy 10 used airplanes from a firm in Northern Virginia….But since then, the department has barely used this new fleet — for deportations, or anything else.”

“3.3 Million US Citizens’ Data Collected for ‘Massive Genetic Database for Policing,’” Military.com. “Researchers said that ICE is now the primary driver of DNA collection growth, correlating its efforts to the contribution of the DNA of more than 900,000 people to The Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) in 2025 alone… They questioned whether the government's broader intent was ‘immigration enforcement,’ or a more comprehensive ‘goal’ to build a DNA database large enough to enable broad genetic policing of the general population.”

“Record cyclosporiasis outbreak tests the response of a ‘weakened’ health system,” NPR. “Federal funding cuts have left local food safety programs across the state grossly understaffed…. ‘It's like we have a house, and we decided to take smoke detectors out,’ said [one public health safety consultant] of the current approach to foodborne illness.”

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Progress report…

“Gates Foundation’s $540 million gift to science comes as the federal government pulls back on funding,” Fortune. “As the federal government has continued to slash funding for scientific research, clean energy, social services, public safety, and education, billionaire philanthropists have stepped in to fill the void.”

“A Small Texas Law Firm Backs Out of HHS Contract After Backlash,” NOTUS. “A small Houston-based law firm announced this week that it had withdrawn itself from consideration for a federal contract, worth up to $150 million, to facilitate legal representation for unaccompanied minors… Earlier versions of staff biographies indicated no one at the organization specialized in immigration law when the contract was first announced. Two profiles on the site were later updated to include ‘immigration and asylum’ as specialties after initial reports about the contract were published.”

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Coalition notes…

• COMING SOON: The 25th anniversary edition of What Is Life Worth?, by founding coalition member Ken Feinberg, based on his experiences as the special master appointed by Congress to create the 9/11 victims’ compensation fund. This new edition includes Ken’s reflections on 9/11 and its lessons for today. Pre-order here. Ken will also be speaking at D.C.’s Politics and Prose in October.

• Ira Shapiro appeared on Larry Rifkin’s podcast, America Trends podcast. Listen here.

• John Lawrence and Ira spoke with KSFR’s Jim Falk on The Forum.

• Anne Kim interviews Brookings Institution expert Elaine Kamarck on the damage done by DOGE for .

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Thanks for subscribing to this newsletter, and please help spread the word by recommending us to your friends.

And please also encourage your friends to vote. One of the most crucial elections in our nation’s history is approaching, and it will be up to every one of us to show up at the polls in overwhelming numbers in defense of democracy.

In January this year, President Donald Trump unveiled his “Great Healthcare Plan,” vowing to lower drug prices and insurance premiums to make health care more affordable.

That promise has been a bust.

The primary culprits, says CBO, are the cuts in Medicaid and CHIP (the Childrens Health Insurance Program) included in the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” passed by the GOP-led Congress last year, as well as the expiration of premium subsidies for people buying coverage through the Affordable Care Act.

Already, Americans are losing their access to care. As many as 2 million fewer children were enrolled in CHIP as of April 2026 compared to January 2025, according to the Georgetown Center for Children and Families. And as of February 2026, nearly 3 million fewer people were enrolled in ACA coverage compared to the year before, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Already, emergency rooms are reporting a spike in uninsured patients who cannot pay their bills.

The Trump administration has failed to bring down prices, and the cost of care has burdened all families, even those who are insured. A survey by KFF found that more a third of respondents skipped care in the past year because of the cost, while 43 percent did not take medication as prescribed because of the expense. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration also plans to end subsidies for Medicare drug plans—a move that could raise premiums by between $11 to $20 a month for nearly half of beneficiaries.

Americans deserve better.

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Damage Tracker…

“The Man Who Runs the IRS Spied on Colleagues When He Worked at JPMorgan,” Wall Street Journal. “At the bank, people familiar with the matter said, he spied on fellow executives—using his authority over the security department and position to access sensitive information and internal communications without an apparent business justification.”

“American Scientists See Prosecutions as Part of Federal Campaign Against Them,” KFF. “The Trump administration has stepped up arrests and public condemnation of federal scientists studying viruses as the world faces one of its worst Ebola epidemics…. In each case, senior U.S. officials and members of Congress have leaned into unproven theories that arrogant scientists damaged rather than protected public health by recklessly experimenting with covid and other killer viruses, including in China. Conservative groups and social influencers have amplified that view through a whirlwind of covid conspiracy theories, bioterrorism fearmongering, and anti-immigration sentiment.”

“1.5 million children lost food aid since last July, analysis says,” Washington Post. “Arizona has seen the sharpest declines since the passage last year of the One Big Beautiful Bill, which tightened eligibility for food aid and pushed states to do more screening. More than 450,000 people in the state are no longer on SNAP, according to data through May, as enrollment declined by half.”

“White House admits it used keywords to kill billions worth of California research grants, CalMatters. “Federal agencies that terminated more than a thousand research grants at the University of California last year admitted that they used keywords related to diversity, gender, vaccine hesitancy and COVID-19 to screen for projects that ran afoul of the Trump administration’s priorities. It’s an admission that lawyers for the research professors say is proof that the agencies illegally cancelled nearly $2 billion in grants.”

U.S. measles cases surpass last year’s total: Tracker, Axios. “The U.S. measles case count for this year has surged past last year's total and now stands at 2,295 — a level that hasn't been seen in 35 years, according to a Johns Hopkins University tracker that compiles state and local health data.”

“The top of Arizona’s GOP ticket is littered with 2020 election deniers,” Politico. “Election deniers who played prominent roles in efforts to overturn the 2020 results triumphed in statewide Republican primaries Tuesday, from Rep. Andy Biggs for governor to state Rep. Alexander Kolodin for secretary of state.”

“Americans Lead World in Viewing Politics as Risk to Safety,” Gallup. “One in 10 U.S. adults identify politics as the greatest source of risk to their personal safety when asked an open-ended question. … The U.S. statistically ties with Hungary (at 9%, measured several months before the recent election) for the highest percentage of adults identifying politics as their top safety concern… Underlying these concerns is a deepening sense of disconnection from the government. In 2025, more than half of U.S. adults (58%) said the government doesn't care about them at all, a record high and 11 percentage points above the figure from 2021.”

“How USAID’s elimination hit US efforts on cyclospora,” The Hill. “USAID helped fund key divisions of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), such as the Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria…. But when USAID was gutted, the CDC suddenly found itself with a $30 to $40 million hole in its budget that needed to be plugged….Cyclospora work was collateral damage.”

“40 percent report buying less produce amid cyclospora outbreak: Poll,” The Hill. “Forty-seven percent of survey participants say they do not trust the FDA to deal with the cyclospora outbreak, while 40 percent say they have some faith in the agency.”

“Trump Administration Admits Canceling Grants to States That Did Not Vote for Him,” New York Times. “In little-noticed court documents, federal officials acknowledged this month that they had terminated the funding “based solely” on political criteria, targeting projects in states that were represented by Democrats and had voted for Kamala Harris, the party’s presidential nominee, in the 2024 election.”

“‘We were shovel-ready’: A Minnesota forest hit by DOGE cuts is now ablaze,” Washington Post. “Last year, the Trump administration delayed a $10 million grant that was supposed to help Minnesota thin out about 4,000 acres of dense, dry forest at high risk of burning. Most of that work never got started, … and now, some of those areas are on fire.”

Progress Report…

“Small Businesses Sue Just Hours After Trump’s Latest Tariffs,” New York Times. “The lawsuit, filed in a federal trade court, argued that the Trump administration had misused the law in its attempt to recreate the same system of duties that judges had already ruled illegal.”

Trump administration drops demands for list of Jewish employees at UPenn, Politico. “Court documents … reveal that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the university reached an agreement in which the agency will not enforce its subpoena seeking information on university employees. Penn, in return, will file a stipulation of dismissal.”

Coalition updates…

ICYMI, Ira and Anne spoke with at “The Long View”

NYT columnist Thomas L. Friedman gave Betrayed a thumbs-up:

Policy magazine’s Colin Robertson reviews Betrayed along with Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan’s Regime Change: “Read together, they provide perhaps the most comprehensive account yet published of Trump’s second presidency. Regime Change explains how Trump governs. Betrayed explains what that style of governing has wrought.”

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Thank you for your readership and support. And if you haven’t registered to vote, do so now. If you are registered, consider voting early in-person this fall to ensure that your vote counts.

Every citizen’s voice will count. Make yourself heard.

By Michael C. Mitchell

On July 4, 2026, the White House Domestic Policy Council (DPC) issued its report, “Saving America’s Story,” as part of its ongoing review of the Smithsonian Institution.  The recently released DPC report is fully aligned with the administration’s systematic effort to control the nature of the exhibits and other information shared with the public by the Smithsonian as reflected in Executive Order 14253, which directs the Executive Branch through the Vice President’s role on the Smithsonian Board of Regents to shape the nature of Smithsonian exhibit and information content. 

The administration’s position, as reflected in both the DPC report and the earlier Executive Order, essentially holds that federal cultural institutions such as the Smithsonian, funded largely by taxpayer dollars, should be subject to White House editorial control despite the fact that they have historically been self-governed. 

This position is a radical break from the past in its encroachment on the institutional independence of the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian was chartered by an Act of Congress in 1846 as an independent trust instrumentality, not as an Executive Branch agency, precisely to ensure that the nation’s official history would not be subject to revision and redirection by whoever holds the presidency at any given time. The Institution answers to a bipartisan Board of Regents, not to the President. The Smithsonian’s Board of Regents includes the Vice President, the Chief Justice, and Members of Congress from both political parties. Nine of its seventeen members are private citizens. This Board of Regents framework ensures institutional accountability. In essence, the Smithsonian is accountable to the country, not unilaterally to the Executive Branch.   

Beyond the rhetoric of the report, the DPC’s complaint is narrow. It is concerned that the American History Museum discusses topics such as slavery, conquest, exclusion, and racism as part of the American story. Acknowledging that these are elements of our past is not “activism” as the report contends; it is a baseline for accurate history. 

Thus the DPC report expresses concern that the National Museum of American History museum exhibits acknowledge the fact that some of the nation’s founders were slaveholders and that the museum refuses to present a single “unified, national narrative” and instead “asks visitors, ‘How should Americans remember their Revolution and the founding of the nation?’ without providing an answer.”

This is a distortion of history, not an accurate accounting of it.  The Organization of American Historians (OAH), the largest body of U.S. history scholars in the country, has observed that treating an honest account of hardship alongside achievement as evidence of “ideological capture” reveals more about the anxieties behind the report than about what the report targets in the museum.  The OAH further stated that the report's underlying goal is to punish the museum for making history reflective of all Americans, rather than serving a political agenda. Essentially, the DPC report equates its discomfort with exhibit content with evidence of bias.

Regardless of how this this tug of war over the future direction of the Smithsonian plays out through the remainder of this administration, damage to the Institution has been done by the White House effort to place its ideological stamp on museum content.  The Smithsonian now operates under a standing threat to either comply with administration content directives or risk losing the significant portion of its budget that comes from congressional appropriations.  In May 2026, the administration directed the Smithsonian to spend its congressionally appropriated funds in line with the President’s proposed budget rather than the budget that the Congress ultimately passed.  This directive could force the Smithsonian to choose between defying the White House and violating the Antideficiency Act, a law dating to the Civil War era that stops government agencies from spending money that they do not have. 

This places Smithsonian staff in an untenable position and diverts staff time, legal resources, and leadership attention away from the Smithsonian’s core missions of research, preservation, and public education.  The administration’s actions have imposed a measurable cost, even if not a single exhibit or presentation is altered by the administration’s ham-handed attempt at oversight. This institution built on scholarly independence has been forced to operate defensively, with the awareness that the funding needed to carry out its mission is now a political lever, not a stable and predictable public trust. 

As this contention over the future path for the Smithsonian carries forward in the remaining days of the Trump administration, it is important to recognize the leadership exerted in this challenging time by the current Smithsonian Secretary, Lonnie Bunch III.  In his July 7 letter to the Smithsonian staff, Secretary Bunch provided a thoughtful and measured response to the DPC report on the American History Museum. 

While acknowledging that there is room for improvement, the Secretary sent the reassuring message to staff that the Institution will continue its work based on a foundation of “scholarship, accuracy, and an uncompromising commitment to tell the fullness of American’s story.”  A hallmark of Secretary Bunch’s leadership at the Smithsonian is to present the full breadth of the American experience and to address the challenging aspects of that experience as teaching moments.  By contrast, the DPC report—like the President’s Executive Order—seeks to replace evidence-based history with an airbrushed narrative.

The Smithsonian Institution and our nation deserve better. 

Founding Common Sense Coalition member Michael C. Mitchell is a former Senate Oversight Committee staffer and vice president of Lockheed Martin.

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Coalition news…

• Ira Shapiro speaks to the Praxis Peace Institute. Watch the video here.

• Kent Hughes speaks with Yale alumni (Watch the video here).

• writes for Washington Monthly on the brutally efficient deportation machine built under DHS Markwayne Mullin.

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Damage tracker…

“Locked Away,” The New Yorker. Conditions at ICE’s largest detention center, located in Fort Bliss, Texas, are deplorable: ““Toilets wouldn’t flush. Running water came sporadically. The detainees ate and slept next to the bathrooms; fetid water leaked into the dining area and under the beds. ‘Since we are not given anything to mop up the dirty water, we have to use our own underwear and socks,’ a Cuban detainee said.”

“Trump’s sons invest heavily in defense tech as father’s administration pours money in,” Washington Post. “Funds linked to the Trump brothers have invested in more than a dozen defense tech companies and other firms seeking businesses from the Pentagon and federal agencies… The companies have collectively generated at least $3.2 billion in direct government business since the sons invested and an additional $3.1 billion in future contract options.”

“President Trump drastically shrinks 2 Utah national monuments — again,” Salt Lake Tribune. “The two orders collectively cut nearly three million acres out of monument protection, including 1.69 million acres of land from Grand Staircase Escalante-National Monument and 1.24 million acres for Bears Ears National Monuments — about 90% of the land previously protected in each monument."… Lands cut from the monument will now be open to mining.”

“Changes to Medicaid could have severe consequences for Americans with HIV,” CIDRAP. “A new rule, called the community engagement requirement, stipulates that adults must work, volunteer, or attend an educational or training program for at least 80 hours per month. Enrollees will have to verify that they meet this requirement twice a year or lose coverage. It’s expected that the additional administrative hurdles will be too onerous and complex for some people, including those with HIV.”

“How Trump Transformed the DOJ’s Civil Rights Office,” NOTUS. “‘We have new hires that have no idea what they’re doing or anything about the substantive law,’ said one attorney currently in the civil rights office. … ‘Now it just seems like you need to not be a Democrat to get hired and you can fall into the job and fumble around,’ the current attorney said. ‘They got rid of everyone they wanted to get rid of and now filling with sycophants.’”

“The new $1 Trump coin doesn’t just buck norms. Experts say it also breaks laws.” NPR. "‘The law prohibits, currently, on currency, the likeness of any person — not just the president — who is alive,’ said Jeremy Paul, a professor and former dean at Northeastern University School of Law who specializes in constitutional law.”

“Trump administration allows killing of species threatened with extinction,” Washington Post. “Last week, the administration repealed a decades-old rule so that habitat destruction will no longer be considered a “harm” to endangered species.”

“Trump’s funding cuts created ‘the perfect storm’ that slowed the government’s cyclosporiasis response,” CNN. “While Trump justified cuts to USAID by portraying it as a wasteful agency helping foreign nations, millions of dollars that it spent on global malaria prevention also indirectly benefited cyclospora work in the United States.”

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Progress report…

“Judge Denounces Trump’s I.R.S. Suit as Improper Exercise in Self-Dealing,” New York Times. “The scathing ruling exposed the negotiations between Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers and senior officials at the Justice Department for what [Judge Kathleen Williams] says they were: backroom dealings that did not arise from a legitimate legal process.”

“Flood of comments on White House grantmaking overhaul is largely negative, analysis shows,” STAT. “A total of 496,769 public comments were submitted before the deadline of Monday at midnight, and an analysis of the 52,322 comments that have been posted in full show an overwhelming rebuke of the proposal…. The substance of that proposal would bring about a fundamental change in the way that science is funded in the U.S., taking autonomy away from scientists and empowering the Trump administration to override the recommendations of peer reviewers, terminate grants at will, and exercise more latitude in the type of research federal agencies support.”

“They Were Charged With Assaulting ICE Agents. The Cases Are Crumbling,” New York Times. “The Trump administration has filed assault charges against more than 550 people who were caught in its immigration dragnet — far more than previously known. Of the more than 400 cases resolved so far, nearly half have unraveled: Juries acquitted defendants, judges threw out charges, or prosecutors withdrew them.”

“Donald Trump booed at World Cup final trophy ceremony,” USA Today. (For full schadenfreude, watch the video here.)

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A recent international poll revealed that global respect for the U.S. is at its lowest point ever, with America the only western democracy suffering a net negative perception, scoring between Iran and Iraq and two notches above North Korea.

The same poll showed that Canada enjoys the second-highest overall rating, after Switzerland.

Happy Canada Day indeed! Well earned.

This is not the product of mere indolence or indifference; the Trump administration has worked hard to achieve this status.

From an unprovoked and economically ruinous war in the Middle East, to forfeiting American global leadership in science and health research, to undercutting premier American institutions of higher learning, to ending international development assistance, and to threatening the sovereignty of other states (including Canada), Team Trump has done an epic job of undermining trust and confidence in U.S. leadership across a dizzying array of domains. And there are two more years to go.

Where does this leave America’s legacy on its 250^th anniversary?

Cycles of failure in U.S. policy are not new. What is different now is the willful repudiation and rewriting of history, and the celebration of cruelty and ignorance as a matter of policy. As Policyreaders know, America actually had a splinter 19th century political party called the “Know Nothings” that celebrated xenophobia and conspiracy theories.

Nearly half of Republican voters now say they are MAGA; more than half the GOP identify as Christian nationalists. This is the evolution from Reagan’s “government is the problem” to Trump’s nativist, populist politics of grievance. It is not symmetrical.

Right- and left-wing populisms are different. Right-wing is based on national and ethnic identities; left-wing on economic class and social injustice. And the numbers on either extreme of the U.S. polity are very different. There are more than 40 House members of the anti-government Freedom Caucus of the GOP; a mere four of The Squad of hard left House Democrats. Sen. Bernie Sanders is the sole Senate Social Democratic.

The good news? Trump is not America. His brand of grievance politics is wearing thin and has simply become boring. That is evident in his dismal disapproval ratings, an epic reversal among Hispanic voters, and — citing the “Dow Jones of U.S. political polling indicators” — a majority of Americans sense the country is headed in the wrong direction.

The American system has a powerful capacity for self-correction every two years. This November will again test that proposition. But voters are becoming increasingly stratified and party loyalties imbedded to such an extent that few House and Senate seats are now in play.

Cycles of failure in U.S. policy are not new. What is different now is the willful repudiation and rewriting of history, and the celebration of cruelty and ignorance as a matter of policy.

Additionally, the Electoral College map means the presidency is seriously contested in only a half dozen states — the rest being solidly blue or red and voting their cultures rather than the national interest. America looks increasingly like a parliamentary system masquerading as a republic form of democracy.

This is no accident. The Supreme Court — now unapologetically political — has hastened this stratification by ruling that 1) money is speech and there are no limits on spending, 2) partisan gerrymandering of voting districts is fine, and 3) voting rights protection is a relic of the past.

What would the road back to less destructive politics look like?

Every one of these Supreme Court social experiments could be overturned by a Congress reaffirming centuries of precedents and rule of law. Ranked-choice voting — a tool increasingly used by state and local governments — would marginalize extreme candidates and advantage moderation.

Changing the Electoral College requires a constitutional amendment, but both major parties complain bitterly about its harsh, unrepresentative, and antiquated structure, so a consensus for reform is possible.

What won’t be cause for celebration is that Trump’s leap through the Overton Window of possible American foreign policy options has reset global expectations for allies and adversaries alike for years to come.

Those of us — Americans and foreigners — who imagined that support for alliances, resistance to rewriting borders by force, and opposition to corruption at home and abroad were immutable baselines in American policy have been educated in how little resistance there is to norm destruction if any political party abandons durable national interests in its devotion to one man and a craven bid for political dominance.

People are policy, and renewing confidence in America’s global role — and its promise — will take decades and corrective action on a grand scale.

But these corrective antibodies and the anniversary could work together. It is more than slightly possible that Trump fatigue and overreach in rewriting American history have started a resurgence of interest in the nation’s true origin story and the obligations to which it gives rise.

From the popularity of carefully researched documentaries to well considered national efforts at outreach and education, the powerful ideas of the American revolution are getting a fresh look in classrooms, book groups, and barber shops.

The renewed interest in nearly-lost icons, including Thomas Paine, Lafayette and the first casualty of American independence, Crispus Attucks, offer a legacy that should be grounding and ineluctable to any who imagine they are proud to be Americans.

The repair work will be long, non-linear and painful. But it is not optional, and it is already underway.

This piece originally appeared in Policy: Canadian Politics and Public Policy and is republished here with permission. Kevin Nealer is a principal of The Scowcroft Group, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former member of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board.

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Coalition news…

• Ira speaks to Joe Kelly for The Australian.

• writes for Washington Monthly on a “narrowing vision of America.”

• Ira presents Betrayed to the Praxis Peace Institute July 17 - Register here.

• Democrats Abroad featured Betrayed in its June “Anti-Authoritarian Book Club” (thank you!)

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Damage tracker…

“New Disease Threats Follow Trump Administration’s Health Program Cuts,” KFF. “The Trump administration has cut investments in programs and agencies that prevent, track, and respond to health hazards the federal government is now confronting.”

“Trump’s Huge Windfall Has Few Known Global Precedents,” New York Times. “New financial disclosures suggested that Mr. Trump [made] at least $2.2 billion in his first year back in the White House, including about $1.4 billion from his family’s cryptocurrency businesses… The Trump family’s earnings, experts said, have moved him into an echelon of enrichment more associated with strongmen in Russia and Turkey.”

“A ballooning problem: Weather warnings face rising risks from budget cuts,” Politico. “Spending reductions imposed under President Donald Trump by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency team last year … have thinned the network of weather balloons the National Weather Service launches twice daily — and which provide crucial information for severe weather warnings for communities across the country.”

“Top Ph.D. Programs Shrink Amid Federal Funding Uncertainty,” Inside Higher Ed. “The number of Ph.D. students admitted to 55 research universities … declined 15 percent over the past year… The California Institute of Technology expects to have 40 percent fewer new graduate students this fall, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is expecting about 20 percent fewer new graduate students.”

“These Immigrant Kids Were Once Protected. Under Trump, Their Deportations Have Tripled,” ProPublica. “Unaccompanied minors living in the U.S. are being detained and removed at about three times the rate they were during the last time President Donald Trump was in office. In addition,… immigration judges … have issued more than 10,000 removal and voluntary departure orders each month for immigrant minors, a rate that is nearly four times higher than in Trump’s last term. The vast majority of unaccompanied minors removed last year had no criminal history in the United States.”

“As Montana’s Medicaid work requirements roll out, cancer patients fear they’ll lose coverage,” NBC News. “Cancer advocacy groups say concerns have been building for months as they’ve sought clear answers from officials about how the state would ensure vulnerable patients keep coverage.”

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Progress report

“Judge orders E. Jean Carroll be paid $5.8M in Trump sex abuse and defamation case,” PBS. “The U.S. Supreme Court recently let the 2023 civil verdict stand, clearing the way for Judge Lewis A. Kaplan to release the money. The initial $5 million award has grown with interest.”

“Judge Voids a ‘Staggering’ DOJ Bid for Georgia Election Workers’ Personal Data,” NOTUS. “The Justice Department cannot collect personal information about people who worked during the 2020 election in Georgia’s most populous county — dealing yet another legal blow to the agency’s efforts to investigate baseless claims of voter fraud.”

“Trump’s federal grant overhaul plan draws strong pushback,” Axios. “Academic scientists, biotech executives and investors, and patient advocacy groups are sounding alarms over the Trump administration’s plans to add political reviews to the process for making research grants… The proposal, posted at the end of May, has already drawn more than 93,000 public comments — an enormous volume compared with other regulatory plans.”

“Part of Florida’s ‘Stop WOKE’ Law Ruled Illegal by Appeals Court,” New York Times. “‘Florida’s salary-for-speech rule is a breathtaking assertion of power to ban unpopular ideas from public discourse in the very places the State’s own statutes recognize as centers of inquiry — classrooms where students are trusted to puzzle through ideas that are good and bad, easy and hard, ideally getting ever closer to the truth,’” the decision said.”

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Yours in democracy,

Common Sense Coalition

By Ira Shapiro

As we approach July 4^th and America’s 250^th anniversary, it is necessary to celebrate our extraordinary history while recognizing that “the American experiment,” which changed the world for the better, faces an unprecedented threat from the second presidency of Donald Trump. Our 250^th year represents a fundamental break from the previous 249. We have a president who threatens the constitutional order by trying to replace our system of checks and balances with an authoritarian model in which he dominates the entire government, and, increasingly, most parts of daily life.

The Common Sense Coalition’s book, Betrayed: America Didn’t Vote for This, covered the first sixteen months—the first third—of Trump’s term. We documented damage that was broad, deep, continuing, and in some areas, still accelerating. Some of the deepest damage—the gutting of the federal government, the undermining of our alliances, the assault on the rule of law—could take many years to remedy. If America had mistakenly elevated an enemy of our country to the presidency, he or she could not have done more damage than the Trump administration has done since its return to the White House.

Polling and focus group data make it clear that many, if not, most Trump voters were seeking lower prices, a strong economy, and secure borders. They were not seeking arbitrary and irrational tariffs that punished American consumers and businesses with higher prices. They did not vote for mass deportations of their neighbors or workers, or the construction of mass detention centers. Nor were they seeking rejection of our closest allies or disrupting the world’s best system of medical research, with disastrous consequences for our nation’s health and economic future. They did not vote for the ill-conceived war in Iran or the coverup of the Epstein files. They wanted reform of our sclerotic institutions, not the destruction of the federal government. And it is certain that they wanted a president to focus on their needs, rather than an endless quest for revenge, self-glorification, and additional billions of dollars in personal net worth.

We live in a singular, perilous moment. The challenges ahead will be difficult, but the overall objective should be clear. We should work with urgency, recognizing that at every stage the threat that Trump posed to our country has been underestimated.

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Coalition news…

• Ira speaks with political strategist Joe Trippi on That Trippi Show.

• Kevin Nealer writes for Canadian Politics and Public Policy on the long road to American renewal ahead.

• Nick Allard writes in the Jacksonville Daily Record on the urgency of embracing American virtues.

• Ira speaks with Pacifica radio host Arnie Arneson on The Attitude with Arnie Arnesen.

• Coalition member Josh Gotbaum speaks with Joan Esposito on WCPT’s Live, Local and Progressive.

• speaks with WCPT’s Richard Chew on Chew’s Views.

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Damage tracker…

The president profits, the vulnerable suffer, and China pulls ahead while the administration’s policies sabotage U.S. universities.

• “Trump Pulled In at Least $2 Billion After Returning to the White House,” New York Times. “That compares to a minimum of $622 million his enterprises pulled in for all of 2024, before he returned to the presidency.”

• “Tennessee to restrict medical aid for critically ill undocumented children,” Washington Post. “The Tennessee legislation is part of a broader effort by the Trump administration and some Republican lawmakers to cut off access to government services for undocumented and some legal immigrants… ‘This is life and death for very, very many of these kids,’ said Michele Johnson, executive director of the Tennessee Justice Center, a health care advocacy organization.”

• “The Quiet Unraveling of America’s Food Safety Net,” Politico Magazine. “Already 3.5 million people nationwide have been booted from [SNAP] and, as the law’s new eligibility terms take effect this year, more are likely to follow.”

• “Fewer than half of Americans say they can afford healthcare: Gallup,” ABC News. “Roughly 2.8 million people no longer identified as being ‘Cost Secure,’ meaning they could no longer afford access to quality care or pay for visits and prescriptions, according to the data. Worry about future healthcare costs, including visits and prescriptions, amongst Americans is also at an all-time high.”

• “Factory job cuts in June neared financial crisis and Covid levels, S&P says,” CNBC. “Manufacturers have indicated job cuts for three of the past four months as they seek to reduce head count over costs and demand concerns.”

• “How the U.S. is losing ground to China in university research,” NPR. “The United States was once the research engine of the world. Now China may be taking the dominant role, thanks to massive investment and a disruptive year for American universities under the Trump administration. Just this year, Harvard lost its top spot in a global ranking measuring academic output to a university in China. In fact, 7 out of the top 10 schools on the list, curated by Leiden University in the Netherlands, are in China.”

• “China Takes Supercomputer Crown From U.S. for First Time Since 2017,” New York Times. China’s LineShine supercomputer test results “were more than 20 percent faster than those of El Capitan, a system at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California that has topped a twice-yearly ranking of supercomputer performance since November 2024.”

• “As international enrollment falls, U.S. students face program cuts and higher prices,” The Hechinger Report. “Since January of 2024, there have been more than 300 instances of universities and colleges eliminating programs, closing departments and laying off faculty and staff, according to the tracking database CollegeCuts. A growing number of schools cite international enrollment declines among the triggers. Many have also announced tuition increases.”

• “Health equity researchers fear unseen level of scrutiny under White House proposal,” STAT, “Deep inside a White House proposal to overhaul how the government awards grants is a short section that health disparities researchers say could disqualify much of their work from federal funding — perhaps the most serious threat yet to the future of their field.”

Progress report…

The Supreme Court handed the Trump administration a major loss with its decision to uphold birthright citizenship (although other rulings were decidedly more favorable to the administration).

Lower courts are holding the line against the administration’s overreach:

• “Federal judge halts Trump administration effort to subpoena Walz in immigration enforcement probe,” Associated Press. Judge Patrick Shiltz accused the Justice Department of “using its investigatory powers to retaliate against state officials for not cooperating with federal efforts to crack down on illegal immigration.”

• “Judge blocks Trump admin’s database of Americans’ Social Security numbers and citizenship status,” Politico. Judge Sparkle Sooknanan ruled that “the administration has fed knowingly inaccurate data to states that are now ‘actively’ and ‘haphazardly’ purging purported non-citizens from voter rolls.

• “Judge blocks Trump order to restrict mail voting,” Roll Call. “The Constitution does not grant the President any specific powers over elections,” Judge Indira Talwani wrote.

And while corporations have been mostly silent in the face of administration pressure (or capitulated), ABC News made a rare move to push back, exhorting viewers to contact the Federal Communications Commission.

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Ira Shapiro and

By Kevin Nealer

In 2015, the Obama administration entered an agreement with Iran—the Joint Plan of Comprehensive Action (JCPOA)—which allowed for the gradual relief of some economic sanctions against Iran and the unfreezing of Iranian assets in exchange for the nation’s compliance with a robust inspection regime and restraints on its nuclear ambitions.

President Trump withdrew from that deal in 2018 despite insistence by his own senior-most defense and intelligence officials that the intrusive monitoring by hundreds of international inspectors and 24/7 electronic surveillance had achieved substantial compliance and unmatched visibility into Iran’s nuclear program.

Trump’s better idea?

Start a war with no international support and only Israeli participation (which complicated the U.S. mission with a significantly different set of goals), putting American lives and prestige at risk with no clear military objectives or end point. Pentagon planners have had targeting strategies ready to deploy against Iran since 1979; they expect civilian leaders to make the case to Americans and the Congress why going to war is the only option and what it will achieve. That explanation was never offered in a way that most Americans agreed with or supported.

Trump’s Iran war of choice has resulted in:

• Thirteen American soldiers’ deaths and 400 or more wounded;

• Dozens of strikes on American bases in the Mideast costing billions in damages;

• Some $132 billion in costs to American consumers (about $450 for every household);

• Costs above $30 billion in munitions and support, reducing US defense stockpiles of the most expensive weapons systems by nearly one half; and

• Forty two US aircraft destroyed, including some of the most expensive and sophisticated planes in the American inventory, along with about a dozen exquisite US radar and SATCOM assets, including the advanced THAAD air defense system, which will cost billions to replace and take months to years.

All this and a significant penalty on the entire global economy, as well as the deaths of well over 7,000 in Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lebanon and the Gulf States—mostly civilians.

Even if a final peace agreement is achieved months from now, the damage to oil and gas production will continue to exact a heavy price on Americans and global consumers. While oil production may be restored in a matter of months, natural gas and derivative products (fertilizer, food, and plastics) will continue to be plagued by the disruption and higher prices for two to three years, according to industry experts.

For what?

Trump’s own intelligence community had consistently assessed before the war that Iran had no near-term prospects of developing a nuclear weapon. There was no imminent threat to the United States.

So what does the framework of a peace deal mean for US interests and regional stability? Few details have been finalized, and failure points are many. The memorandum of understanding (MOU) has been characterized as more like a table of contents than a book.

Some things are certain:

• U.S. allies in the region and global adversaries now know that America won’t escalate a military conflict if that contest raises energy prices too high for too long. The presumption of American protection from over twenty Gulf bases is in question. Every country in the region has been forced to re-examine its security policy and to question American commitments and perseverance.

• Iran has demonstrated it can close the Strait of Hormuz at will; U.S. intelligence assesses its control of that vital passage is greater now than before the start of the war.

• The toll-free movement of goods in international waters—the most basic principle of global trade —is now in doubt, with the status of Iranian tolls or service fees left in question as a result of Trump’s Iran war and notional peace.

There is no question that some of Iran’s proxies in the region have been diminished, but they are still a potent threat, as demonstrated by rising Israeli casualties in Lebanon. U.S, intelligence believes Iran’s ballistic capability retains roughly 70 percent of its pre-war capacity.

Trump’s maximum goal—regime change—has not only failed, but the real regime threat of protests and dissent from within Iran has been brutally repressed. The society has been galvanized by the war, and the current regime’s control has been strengthened. An aged leader in charge of a diminishing system has been replaced by a system led by a younger cadre of hardline members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) now looking forward to receiving billions in frozen asset and sanctions relief.

Iranian dissidents who, before the war, imagined the theocracy was at its weakest since 1979, were shocked and in disbelief when the draft MOU promised the U.S. would not interfere in the country’s internal affairs – a Trump promise that legitimizes brutal IRGC control over the fractious country and makes clear America prefers predictable control by the regime to the rights of ordinary Iranians.

Unbelievably, after ridiculing the JCPOA deal that released a token amount of long sequestered Iranian assets on an “action for action” schedule of Iranian compliance, Trump is doing away with oil sanctions, sidelining the issue of Iran’s nuclear program, and committing to seek funding for a $300 billion fund to “rebuild” Iran.

Trump’s Marshall Plan for Iran—essentially liquidated damages for his failed war— is as unlikely to materialize as his Gaza Reconstruction Fund (current value; $0.00), but the intention is clear: Pay off the radical Iranian regime in the hope that it won’t retake the Strait of Hormuz. And of course, the Trump MOU does nothing to create incentives to move Iran away from its continued support for proxy terrorists or to reduce its ballistic missile stockpile.

Kevin Nealer is a former State Department officer, staff for the Senate majority leader, and member of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board.

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So who, exactly, surrendered?

Coalition news..

• ’s important post on defending election integrity recommends Betrayed as a resource for concerned citizens.

• Founder Ira Shapiro speaks with radio hosts Patty Vasquez and Joan Esposito on WCPT 820 and with Ian Masters on Background Briefing.

• Coalition member and national security expert David Kanin is a featured guest on Spytalk, hosted by investigative journalists Michael Izikoff, Jeff Stein, and Karen J. Greenberg.

Damage tracker…

Sadly, it’s been a rough week for the American project, with more evidence of lawlessness, corruption, and long-term damage from the administration’s actions:

• The Trump Administration Keeps Ghosting Its Congressional Watchdog, NOTUS. “A growing number of federal agencies are either refusing to provide the Government Accountability Office access to information or ignoring the congressional watchdog altogether.”

• Trump Bought Tobacco Stocks and Raked In Industry Donations as FDA Eased Standards, KFF. “In 2025, tobacco interests donated $6 million to MAGA Inc., a super PAC that supports the president, and Trump’s inauguration. …

  The stock trades and political contributions occurred as the Trump administration pursued a broadly pro-tobacco agenda.”

• Trump reviews slowed screwworm response, former officials say, Politico. “‘Devastating’ staffing cuts and spending reviews at USDA constrained the government’s response to the spread of a flesh-eating pest that threatens livestock.”

• Kash Patel accused of directing $1m to ‘slush fund’ to pay bonuses to loyalist agents, The Guardian. “According to information received by the House judiciary minority committee, some agents received payments of nearly $8,000 every two weeks, despite already earning at the federal salary ceiling… The main beneficiaries… were agents serving on Patel’s ‘director’s advisory team.’ The unit was created in 2025 and tasked with examining internal documents and government materials to expose and discredit federal law enforcement officials who had investigated Trump and his allies.”

• Before the Exodus? Young Scientists and the Future of US Science, National Bureau of Economic Research. A survey of 916 young biomedical scientists finds that “barely half of respondents now say they are likely to remain in academia, down 22 percentage points from how they felt six months earlier. The fraction likely to stay in the United States fell by 21 percentage points. Even satisfaction with having pursued a PhD in science declined by 16 percentage points.”

• The DOGE Time Bombs, Third Way. Scholar Elaine Kamarck identifies six key areas, including Social Security, air travel, and vaccine research, where DOGE’s cuts have led to “an unprecedented and dangerous attack on the safety of the American public” in the long term.

Progress report

• America’s doctors just voted for war with RFK Jr., Politico. The American Medical Association has elected vocal Trump critic Sandra Fryhofer as its new president. “‘Measles running rampant, public health destroyed, a trillion dollars ripped from Medicaid, inadequate physician payment, stupid immigration rules,’ Fryhofer told AMA members in promising to call out Kennedy and the Trump administration on all of it.”

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Thanks for your interest in the Common Sense Coalition, and a huge thank you to all of our new subscribers and followers.

Please recommend Betrayed: America Didn’t Vote for This to your friends and neighbors, and let us know what’s happening in your community to spread the word about the facts of Trump’s destructive second presidency.

The Common Sense Coalition

In this edition:

• Coalition member Nick Allard’s message on America’s 250th

• Founder Ira Shapiro on MSNOW

• Damage tracker: The disaster at HHS, corruption galore, and Social Security’s looming shortfall

By Nicholas Allard

Thomas Jefferson, principal author of the Declaration of Independence, wrote:

“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”

Those words ring true today, as they have throughout the history of America. They are inscribed on the southeast interior wall of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington. D.C.

Our 250-year-old American democracy should never be taken for granted.

We can and must continuously reinvigorate democracy. It is not self-effectuating. This is the lesson of democracies that have died, first gradually, then suddenly.

The good news is that the reverse is also true. Democracies can be restored, as evidenced by what so many sacrificed and accomplished in the American Civil War to reunite a divided nation.

It is not redundant to say that we must and can refound democracy again. It is axiomatic. Due to inevitable reversals, over time the effort can feel like a Sisyphean labor. The upward arc of progress also is infinitely asymptotic because perfection is elusive. The best we can strive for is forming an ever more perfect union. As Martin Luther King Jr. and other drum majors for justice taught us, progress requires endurance.

The famous Preamble of the Declaration of Independence states:

“… it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish …, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect [sic] their safety and happiness.”

President Abraham Lincoln prescribed a potent formula for healthy changes of the structure and function of government: “The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves.”

Mining American history, as we should do more often and deeply, unearths the precious shining metal of all the good lawyers who have brightly served the common good of free people in the splendidly ordinary professional quotidian work of our chosen profession. It also lays bare the cautionary example of those who chose a different twisted path.

The best lawyers work every day to uphold the pillars of democracy which are truth, justice, equality, respect for the dignity and well-being of all people and the natural world we share.

In the toughest times, in generationally recurring winters of discontent, lawyers have served as the guardians and often unrecognized, underappreciated guides from darkness back to brighter days alongside the anxious journeys of troubled people on their own contemporary “Road to Emmaus.”

This requires lawyers who are facing a dilemma to make the right choice; a choice between good and bad, a choice between the rule of law on one hand, versus on the other, the unfettered pursuit and abuse of power, self-interest, immorality, ethical impropriety and corruption.

Nostalgia for never so golden as remembered times, and the obvious canard that past traditions and laws are immutable, are shortsighted excuses for washing one’s hands of responsibility for legally righting wrongs. Complacency and inaction are the enablers of injustice.

President John F. Kennedy included in a speech a quote attributed to Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good (people) to do nothing.”

That certainly was not the case for the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence of whom more than half studied law and as many as 34 worked as lawyers. The political landscape of the revolutionary era was shaped by colonial lawyers who recognized the fight for independence as a legal battle.

Affixing their names to what amounted to an indictment of a tyrannical monarchy risked their reputations, livelihoods and property as well as the safety and lives of themselves and families. Many of the signers and their loved ones paid a heavy price during the war for independence.

Who can be your hero to emulate? Perhaps Sir Thomas More, who made the ultimate sacrifice for his belief in law and his faith. John Adams courageously defended the British soldiers in the Boston massacre case. Mild mannered Boston attorney Joseph Welch, the special counsel for the U.S. Army gently, civilly and effectively stood up to the scare mongering demagoguery of U.S. Sen. Joe McCarthy and his serpentine Chief Counsel Roy Cohn in riveting 1954 televised hearings. Disgraced and censured for his reckless cruelty and disregard of truth, McCarthy’s influence evaporated. Cohn’s legal career eventually ended when New York’s highest court disbarred him for fraud and gross ethical misconduct.

U.S. Attorney General Elliot Richardson resigned rather than derail the Watergate investigation of President Richard Nixon. Do not forget the Republican Congressional leaders who delivered the message in person to Nixon that he would be impeached if he did not resign. Think of that.

Other role models include the lawyerly persistence of female suffragettes working to secure voting rights for women at a time they themselves were unable to earn a law license.

So are the lawyers on both sides of the Gore v. Bush contested 2000 presidential election. Their professionalism, skill and civility, not to mention the selfless concession of the losing candidate when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against him, is a stark contrast a generation later of the bad behavior of far too many lawyers who know better.

There is a pantheon of lawyers to mirror. They might be named Lincoln, Gandhi, Mandela or Thurgood Marshall. For inspiration we might look up to trailblazing Black lawyers Robert Morris; Charles Hamilton Houston, known as “the man who killed Jim Crow”; and Jane Brolin, the first Black female judge in the U.S.

A majority of female law students might look to U.S. District Judge Constance Baker Motley and U.S. Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson and the many women law school deans in America.

A worthy hero may well be the lawyer behind a desk down the hall from you, a judge you clerked for, a professor whose words you see in your mind’s eye and especially the people and causes you work for who remind you why you became a lawyer in the first place.

Law school deans, including this dean, are lifted, energized and rewarded by our students’ eager questions, strong answers, purposeful learning and training and genuine desire to serve others, often voluntarily.

Today we face enormous technological change, which paradoxically is nothing new. That was so, for example, when Benjamin Franklin, who was everything but a licensed lawyer, became the most famous person in the world by studying electricity. When the telegraph was introduced in the mid-1800s it precipitated every bit of societal changes as the Internet did, and that now that Artificial Intelligence is doing.

Think about in times of war and peace the impactful advent of steamboats, railroads, automobiles, airplanes, rockets, photography, motion pictures, radio and television. Think about healthcare advances such as antiseptics, vaccines, penicillin, insulin, birth control, cardiac bypasses, cancer and AIDS treatments, organ transplants and so much more, but alas, not so much for baldness.

Consider the automation of physical labor that led to the Industrial Revolution, inventions of efficiently effective means of destruction, mayhem and killing, mind-boggling advances in agricultural production, energy generation, molecular biomedical discovery and now our ability to reach for the stars by venturing deeper into space.

All of these innovations test the limits of existing law as forecast by Jefferson’s words carved in stone.

AI is affecting the practice of governing as profoundly as the printing press did. We cannot imagine the Declaration of Independence producing the American Revolution if the first 200 Dunlap print “broadsides” were not circulated to all the colonies. Similarly, the widespread use of AI, as proved to be the case with the telegraph and the telephone and all forms of wired and wireless communication and computer digital networks, requires government to lean in and use technology in the effort to fulfill human capabilities.

There are new threats and problems of a magnitude never before encountered. The big challenge before us is to continue to embrace the ideas that launched our country and other democracies while recognizing the promise of “unalienable” [sic] rights and freedom we never extended universally to all people, including people of color, women and native Americans.

That includes the legacy of slavery. That indelible stain marked the soul of Thomas Jefferson. He and his work were flawed. This is so for all of us sinners. We can seek reconciliation. We can ask and give forgiveness.

In constitutional democracies, laws are written and sculpted in the past, stretched to meet the present and already late for the future. Ultimately, they are laws “by, for, and of the people” and require the consent of the governed.

Consequentially, democracy is a dynamic symphony in which free people play their legally scored parts in harmony, organized dissonance and even improvise around the theme, beat and key of previously composed laws. They are free to do so until they yield their rights and the vibrant sometimes jarring music of democracy ends.

Remember, every lawyer is both a teacher and a lifelong student of law. We are blessed with good reason to have hope and faith that we have the right stuff to defend and sustain the liberties that so many people have worked for so long and so hard and often at such great personal sacrifice to preserve.

This commentary is adapted from a speech by Founding Coalition Member Nick Allard on May 11 in Washington, D.C. at the American Bar Association’s International Law Section Annual Conference. It was originally published in the Jacksonville Daily Record and is reprinted here with permission. Nick is the Founding Dean of the Jacksonville University College of Law in Jacksonville, Florida, and the former dean of the Brooklyn Law School.

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Coalition news…

• Watch Coalition Founder Ira Shapiro on “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell” on MSNOW…

• Executive Director speaks with …

The Forum with Josh Cowen

Finding Common Ground After Trump's Political Betrayal

This week I’m talking to Anne Kim, co-editor of a new book called Betrayed: America Didn’t Vote for This. It’s a compilation of chapters by seasoned policy experts, and longtime policymakers and advisors at senior levels of the federal government. It’s basically a damage assessment that takes a look at where we are midway through Trump’s second term, what’s bee…

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3 months ago · 4 likes · Josh Cowen

• Read ’s review of Betrayed: America Didn’t Vote for This. “Concise, well-written and documented, Betrayed is not only a tale of Trump’s failures but also their consequences. It ranges across the international, economic, political, constitutional, legal, environmental and societal landscape, describing the debris from the wrecking ball battering the foundations of America’s security and historic success.”

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Damage tracker…

This week’s headlines chronicled the Trump administration’s continuing efforts to hollow out governmental capacity while subverting governmental power to the benefit of its allies. The result: Public health and Americans’ financial security are at risk.

“Kennedy shows minimum engagement with vast health portfolio,” New York Times. “The secretary’s detachment from much of the work of the agency, along with ... deep staff cuts and his attacks on career staff, have driven down morale... It’s a dynamic that could threaten the department’s ability to protect Americans in a crisis.”

“How funding cuts left the world vulnerable to Ebola,” Bloomberg News. “USAID’s former footprint in Congo gave American officials a much clearer picture of what was happening on the ground, especially in the conflict-hit east, where humanitarian funding was concentrated. Much of that “eyes and ears” capability disappeared after missions were closed and staff and funding were cut. … Former US officials and on-the-ground partners say the result of these and other cuts has been a thinner, slower and more fragmented international response system, just as another major Ebola crisis unfolds.”

“The White House intervened to get a $620 million deal for a company tied to Donald Trump Jr.,” ProPublica. “Interviews and Defense Department records reviewed by ProPublica show that [a] request to loan hundreds of millions of dollars to the firm linked to Trump Jr. was made by Peter Navarro, a White House adviser to President Donald Trump and a friend of Trump Jr.’s.

“Social Security trust fall to fall short in 2032, earlier than projected last year,” Axios. “If Congress doesn't act to address the long-anticipated shortfall, millions of Americans would receive a 22% reduction in retirement benefits.” The Social Security Trustees’ report projecting the shortfall was “the first report to account for Trump 2.0 policies — including the impact of the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act and the sharp decline in immigration.”

Progress report

“Federal judge strikes down Trump’s $100,000 fee on new H-1B visas,” Associated Press. “U.S. District Court Judge Leo Sorokin in Boston sided with 20 states and struck down the visa policy, concluding that the executive branch exceeded its authority and violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how federal agencies develop and issue regulations.”

“Kennedy Center removes Trump’s name from website after judge’s ruling,” Washington Post. “Removing Trump’s name from the website is the most concrete public reversal yet in the president’s campaign to take control of the performing arts venue.”

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Citizens can make a difference

The Trump administration has decided to drop its proposed $1.8 billion “slush fund” for supporters and allies after widespread, bipartisan blowback. It’s testament to the fact that citizen outrage can make a difference.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the perpetual immunity from audits granted by the IRS to Trump and his family remains intact. “This is an unprecedented remedy,” former IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel told the Associated Press. “People expect the same tax rules and enforcement framework to apply to everybody.”

Damage Tracker

• “Shock, awe, and economic fallout,” Brookings Institution. This new analysis from Brookings researchers Marcela Escobari, Ian Seyal, and Paul Beach finds that the 2025 surge in immigration enforcement cost the United States 688,000 jobs. “Of the 668,000 jobs lost, an estimated 51,000-297,000 would have been held by American-born workers,” the researchers moreover concluded.

• “Trump Administration Sees Striking Loss of Legal Talent,” New York Times. Roughly one in five government lawyers have left the administration, the Times reports. “Their departures show how rapidly the president has eroded the image of the federal government as the gold standard for lawyers seeking public service roles.”

• “MIT President: Why So Many Optimistic Scientists Are Losing Heart,” STAT. MIT President Sally Kornbluth reports that the university has suffered a more than 20 percent decline in federally funded research. “High-impact science is being damaged and derailed.”

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Betrayed: America Didn’t Vote for This shows how the Trump administration has betrayed America’s founding principles–as well as Trump’s own supporters.

Released at the one-third mark of Trump’s second term, our book examines 12 major areas where Trump has dismantled pivotal institutions, trampled norms of governance, and advanced an authoritarian agenda. Recent polling buttresses the book’s central theme of betrayal–as many as 1 in 5 Trump supporters regret their 2024 vote.

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About the authors

The Common Sense Coalition is a bipartisan and nonpartisan group of experts, former government officials, former military officers, academics, and scholars. Together, we bring decades of experience to our analysis of Trump’s second term.

About the editors

Ira Shapiro is the Founder of the Common Sense Coalition. He is a lawyer, a long-time senior Senate staffer, and a former U.S. trade official. He served as General Counsel in the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) and then as chief U.S. negotiator with Japan and Canada with the rank of ambassador. He is the author of a trilogy of narrative histories about the Senate, starting with The Last Great Senate: Courage and Statesmanship in Times of Crisis (2012), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

is the Executive Director of the Common Sense Coalition. She is a journalist, lawyer, a former senior staffer on Capitol Hill, and a veteran of several DC-based think tanks. She’s the author of Poverty for Profit: How Corporations Get Rich Off America’s Poor (The New Press, 2024) and Abandoned: America’s Lost Youth and the Crisis of Disconnection (The New Press, 2020), winner of the 2020 Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice. Her writing has appeared in multiple national publications.