Defending Democracy is Not a Partisan Issue

Commentary by Jerry Lanson

I went to New York City this week for a few days’ vacation. By the time I got back, Donald Trump’s Defense Department had stripped articles about the Holocaust and 9/11 from its website. His acting head of Social Security was threatening to shut down the agency that provides me and some 73 million others with monthly checks. And Trump had moved to dismantle the Department of Education, the source of programs ranging from educational support for public school students with disabilities to loans and grants for college students.

There’s much more cutting and outright obliteration to come, of course. It seems to be the only certainty in American politics today.

That’s why we all need to put aside the imprecise political definitions that too often serve to separate us from one another. Instead, we need to work together to restore the very foundations of our democracy. I’m not interested in whether you define yourself as a liberal, a conservative or a libertarian. I don’t care whether you are a progressive, a moderate, or something else. I do care whether you are serious about being pro-American – the kind of pro-American who believes in the constitutional, democratic form of government that has allowed the United States, with all its imperfections, to be a model for the world for many decades.

Do Not Ignore

If you embrace the Constitution, there’s no honest way to shrug as the Trump administration attempts to obliterate or rewrite history. There’s no way to ignore the potential theft of Social Security benefits from recipients who saved them throughout a lifetime of work. There’s no way to stand silent as the government strips agency after agency of the capacity to provide basic national support, from predicting deadly storms to tracking the spread of disease.

It's true. There’s a difference between a threat and an action. When CNN reports that “articles about the Holocaust, September 11, cancer awareness, sexual assault and suicide prevention are among the tens of thousands either removed or flagged for removal from Pentagon websites,” the network is reporting on an action.

When, as The Washington Post reports, the acting head of the Social Security Administration is “consulting with the … Justice Department as he threatens to shut down the agency …. A dramatic move [that]… would immediately begin halting benefit payments to millions of Americans,” it is reporting on a threat. A very sizable threat.

The pace of both actions and threats in the first two months of the Trump Administration is unprecedented. Judges threatened with impeachment for doing their jobs in a co-equal branch of government, universities threatened with the loss of hundreds of millions in federal funds, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris stripped of their security clearances.

Is this the democracy you learned about in American history classes? Is it the kind of America you want to live in?

“The president of the United States has essentially declared war on the rule of law in America,” former federal judge J. Michael Luttig told MSNBC (he’s a conservative if you insist on embracing labels). “In the past few weeks… the president himself has led a full-frontal assault on the Constitution.”

Steven Levitsky, a Harvard University political science professor and the co-author of How Democracies Die, put it this way in an interview with The New York Times. “I’ve never seen anything like it…. These first two months have been much more aggressively authoritarian than almost any other comparable case I know of democratic backsliding.”

That is why in today’s United States there is only one political fault-line that carries overriding importance. On one side are those who believe in democracy and the Constitution in this country. On the other are those who actively or passively support their destruction.

None of us individually can stop what’s happening. Collectively, we stand a chance. I urge you to attend public forums, show up at congressional town hall meetings, find your way to one of the mass protests being planned across the country on April 5.

And I urge you to speak out, not hide behind the illusory safety of silence. That just allows things to slide further and faster toward the abyss of unchallenged authoritarianism.

Contributing Pundit Jerry Lanson writes Jerry’s Substack.

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MONDAY 3/24/25

…meanwhile…

Vice President Vance will join wife Usha in Greenland Friday to check out security of the US Space Force base there, NPR reports. “Speaking for President Trump, we want to reinvigorate the security of the people of Greenland because we think it’s important to protecting the security of the entire world,” Vance said in a video (AP). (Scroll down center column for details of trip.)

Right-column Contributing Pundit Rich Corbett has something to say about left-column Contributing Pundit Jerry Lanson’s “Defending Democracy is Not a Partisan Issue.” Read both in the appropriate columns and add your COMMENTs in an email to editors@thehustings.news -- please indicate your political leanings in the subject line.

WEDNESDAY 3/26/25

Waltz Takes the Blame and Downplays Text Message Importance – Trump White House national security advisor Mike Waltz said that he, and not an underling, is responsible for the “embarrassing” use of Signal to hold a principles committee (PC) discussion of the US military attack on Houthi rebels in Yemen on March 15, in which a magazine editor was asked to participate.

National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe said at a Senate hearing Tuesday that no classified material was shared with the Signal group.

Waltz later Tuesday “confirmed” to host Laura on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle that “no classified information” was disclosed in the texts in the PC group that included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic.

On Wednesday morning, The Atlantic published the attack plans that White House advisors shared on Signal. The magazine’s initial story Monday “withheld specific information related to weapons and to the timing of attacks that we found in certain texts,” Goldberg and Shane Harris write in Wednesday’s follow-up. “As a general rule, we do not publish information about military operations if that information could possibly jeopardize the lives of US personnel.”

But statements by Gabbard, Ratcliffe, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Trump, and other administration officials who say magazine staff are lying about the Signals texts’ content “have lead us to believe that people should see the texts in order to reach their own conclusions.”

--TL

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TUESDAY 3/25/25

MAGA-Yanks Go Home – Greenland’s outgoing Prime Minister Múte Bourup Egede called Second Lady Usha Vance’s trip to his country this week “highly aggressive” and accused the Trump White House of using diplomatic engagements as a smokescreen to cover up the US president’s goal of taking over his country, per Time magazine. Vance announced on Instagram Sunday she will attend a dogsled race and other cultural events in Greenland this week along with one of her sons, National Security Advisor Michael Waltz and Energy Secretary Chris Wright.

The second lady wrote that her visit was “to express hope” that the relationship between the US and Greenland “will only grow stronger in the coming years.”

President Trump wants Greenland for its abundance of industrially important minerals and its strategic location on the global map. But neither Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, nor Denmark, want any of it.

“Greenlanders have tried to be diplomatic,” Bourup said, “but it simply bounces off Donald Trump and his administration in their mission to own and control Greenland.”

•••

Smoked Signals – Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth texted over Signal the US military’s plans to bomb Houthi targets in Yemen March 15 to Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic two hours before the attack on the Iranian-backed terrorist organization. Goldberg writes that four days earlier, he received a connection request from a Signal user “identified as Michael Waltz.’

“I assumed that the Michael Walz in question was President Donald Trump’s national security adviser,” Goldberg writes. “I did not assume, however, that the request was from the actual Michael Waltz. I have met him in the past, and though I didn’t find it particularly strange that he might be reaching out to me, I did think it somewhat unusual, given the Trump administration’s contentious relationship with journalists – and Trump’s periodic fixation on me specifically. It immediately crossed my mind that someone could be masquerading as Waltz in order to somehow entrap me.”

Instead, Goldberg was tapped in to a “Houthi small PC group” – “PC” for principles committee – that included Waltz, Hegseth, Middle East and Ukraine negotiator Steve Witkoff, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, “S M” (whom the editor assumed was White House advisor Stephen Miller) and likely, representatives for Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard.

Democratic leadership is once again flailing at how to make something of this breach of security – unfavorable comparisons to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s release of emails when she was running against Trump in 2016 come up a lot. It goes without saying that the breach potentially put US troops at risk.

Trump says Waltz has “learned a lesson, and he’s a good man,” according to Politico.

But Goldberg writes; “I have never seen a breach quite like this. It is not uncommon for national-security officials to communicate on Signal. But the app is used primarily for meeting planning and other logistical matters – not for detailed and highly confidential discussions of a pending military action.”

--TL

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MONDAY 3/24/25

Israel Considers Ground Invasion of Gaza – Israel is considering a plan for a full-scale military ground invasion of Gaza to establish military rule for Palestinians there, NPR’s Morning Edition reports, citing unnamed sources, noting that it is unknown at this point whether the plans will be carried out. Meanwhile, Palestinians have updated their death count to more than 50,000 in Gaza since Israel resumed its war on Hamas there.

•••

Peace Talks? – Russia continues to strike Ukraine as peace talks between US and Ukrainian delegations have begun in Saudi Arabia, The Guardian reports. What’s more, Trump White House special envoy Steve Witkoff has claimed that some Russian-speaking Ukrainians in Russian-held parts of Ukraine want to remain part of Russia, the BBC reports. Still, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said ahead of negotiations Sunday the talks will be “constructive and beneficial,” according to The Kyiv Independent.

•••

Easing Trump Tariffs, Again – The White House is dropping tariffs for the industrial sector most recently set for April 2, though major trading partners still will be hit with President Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, The Wall Street Journal reports. It appears to be working for the Trump White House – stock futures have “jumped” in early Monday trading on the news. Expect a rally when the New York Stock Exchange opens just before 10 a.m. Eastern.

•••

Former Rep Mia Love Has Died – Former Rep. Mia Love (R-UT), first Black Republican woman in Congress, has died at the age of 49 Politico reports. Love served in the US House from 2015-19. Born in New York City, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, had recently undergone treatment for brain cancer and had received immunotherapy as part of a clinical trial at Duke University.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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MONDAY 3/24/25

A Partisan Weapon in Disguise

Commentary by Rich Corbett

The pitch that defending democracy is a noble, non-partisan cause is a comforting tale, but it’s not the last word on the matter. Instead of uniting us, this slogan has become a partisan bludgeon, swung by one side to hammer the other. Look at the hysteria over Social Security: warnings of an "assault" on this retiree lifeline get paraded as evidence of democracy in peril. It’s a scare tactic, not a shared mission, showing how the concept gets twisted into a political weapon.

Take that claim head-on. Proposals to tweak Social Security—like adjusting eligibility or benefits—are spun as full-scale attacks, proof of democratic sabotage. Yet these ideas often aim to keep the program viable amid real pressures, like an aging workforce. If defending democracy were truly bipartisan, wouldn’t we debate fixes instead of shouting betrayal? The one-sided outrage betrays the game: it’s a rallying cry to energize one faction while branding opponents as threats, not a call for common ground.

The hypocrisy stretches further. When one camp decries election security laws as voter suppression, it’s a crisis of democratic values. When the other side calls out Big Tech censorship or executive overreach—like rules shoved through without Congress—the same voices shrug. If this were a neutral fight, both concerns would matter. Instead, "defending democracy" amplifies selective fears—Social Security today, something else tomorrow—to let one side play savior while painting rivals as villains.

The bias runs deep. The argument props up a "free" press and "independent" judiciary as democratic cornerstones, but a press skewed one way, as bias studies show, isn’t free—it’s a mouthpiece. A judiciary’s independence is a partisan tug-of-war, too, with every appointment a battle. When these institutions echo certain alarms, they’re not safeguarding democracy—they’re picking winners.

The "defend democracy" line assumes we all see it the same way. We don’t. Some view entitlements like Social Security as untouchable; others see reform as survival. Some push majority rule; others guard minority rights. These gaps don’t unite us—they fuel the fight. Democracy isn’t a holy grail to protect; it’s a ring where partisan armies, armed with overblown claims, slug it out.

This vision of a bipartisan defense of democracy is a delusion. It’s a catchphrase hijacked by those who gain from fearmongering, whether over cherished programs or other hot buttons. Unity starts with owning the messiness of democracy—not pretending it’s a saintly ideal we all agree to save.

Corbett writes on a variety of subjects at My Desultory Blog.

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Has the US already descended into authoritarianism after barely more than two months of President Trump’s (and Elon Musk’s) rule? In the left column, contributing pundit Jerry Lanson makes the case for how we are now under authoritarian rule and why you should care – and fight back – no matter how you identify politically.

As always, we invite you to submit your civil comments on the issue, whether you are a pro-MAGA or anti-Trump conservative, a moderate or progressive liberal, a libertarian or populist, or anywhere in-between.

We are also interested in your comments if you have attended a town hall meeting with Republican elected leaders and/or a rally with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

Please submit your COMMENTS to editors@thehustings.news and indicate your political leanings in the subject line so that we may post those comments in the proper column.

Also be sure to read our free Substack here.

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MONDAY 3/24/25

‘Detoxing’ Will Not Sooth

Commentary by Hugh Hansen

How does one even consider Bidenomics vs. Trumponomics? There has not been much time for the new administration's actions to yield numbers, except numbers around sentiment and expectations (bad and down, primarily). It's unreasonable to use 45's results, since 47's personnel and stated goals (with the exception, natch, of extending his huge tax cut expiring later this year) are so different.

Forty-six -- President Biden -- was right to pick essential, strategic American interests for both protection and investment (e.g. the Chips program and green energy). He was wrong? Slow? Short-sighted? Allied with impractical people? Not to mate that with vigorous, targeted deregulation of both techie stuff like what it takes to make changes to the electrical grid, and maddening rules around new housing. Biden and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell rolled boxcars, maybe twice in a row, to bring inflation down without a recession.

Forty-seven and his people are now making noises about "detoxing" as a way to pre-gaslight the pain and damage, that there's a good chance their wild lurches of firings and tariffs will cause.

I've known a lot of New Age sorts who would proclaim the body's wisdom and that anything that felt bad, was bad -- unless it was a sanctioned thing that felt bad, which could only mean that the bad feeling was necessary "detoxing". No toxins were found in, say, the sweat or urine or exhalations of the people feeling bad. Perhaps a Tesla pickup truck and a $Trump coin will protect the detoxing (former) recipients of Medicaid like crystals and algae powder did their ‘90s counterparts.

Contributing Pundit Hugh Hansen is a retired physics and math teacher, living in Northern Michigan.

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FRIDAY 3/21/25

Stagflation Ahoy?

William McKinley, 25^th president (1897-1901).

By Todd Lassa

Right and left have plenty to argue over after just 60+ days of the Trump 47 administration, not the least of which is existential fear about our democracy. But for voters who swung the 2020 election for Democratic candidate Joe Biden and then four years later for Republican candidate Donald J. Trump, it comes back to that famous quote by Bill Clinton’s campaign chief, James Carville: “It’s the economy, stupid.”

Thirty-three years later, President Trump’s infatuation with Gilded Age president Number 25, William McKinley and his tariff policy, have Number 45/47’s staunch MAGA supporters on the defensive (if that’s possible) as swing voters wonder what happened to cutting inflation on Day One.

McKinley “made our country very rich through tariffs,” Trump has said (per Fortune).

The Gilded Age, roughly 1870 to the end of World War I, 1918, brought great wealth and power to the Rockefellers, Carnegies, Vanderbilts and Mellons, just as Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg and Gates stand to expand their political and economic power under a Trump Gilded Age. And just like current times, the original Gilded Age was a time of a deepening gulf between the 0.01% and the poor and lower classes in America.

America’s billionaires are now worth $6 trillion-plus, more than twice the wealth they held prior to President Trump’s tax cuts from his first administration in 2017, USA Today reported last July, quoting Americans for Tax Fairness. Approximately 800 billionaires hold more wealth than half the nation, while the bottom-half of the US holds just 2.5%.

Tariffs will prompt global corporations to build more factories in the US, Trump claims, and extended tax cuts will trickle down to the masses.

Let’s connect the economic dots. “Trickle-down” is the argument President Biden repeatedly rejected, as his policies were designed to reverse President Reagan’s supply-side economics, which in turn was a reversal of LBJ’s Great Society and FDR’s New Deal. The New Deal was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s response to The Great Depression, which was triggered by the Wall Street crash of 1929, which came off the laissez-faire capitalism that followed the Gilded Age.

A recession is defined as lower gross domestic product, versus depression, which is negative GDP. In this week’s meeting of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee, its members projected a GDP growth-range for the year between 1% and 2.4% (growth last year was 2.5%). The median projection for Fed Market Committee members is +1.7%, which clearly would be a recession, far from anything starting with a ‘d.’

But some economists have revived a word from the Ford and Carter administrations that spilled into the first couple of years of the Reagan administration: Stagflation. This is defined as the painful combination of high inflation and high unemployment.

We’re not anywhere near that now, and in fact the Fed’s projections for the coming year are for a slight increase in inflation, but still historically low unemployment.

In this page’s debate, Rich Corbett, in the right column, and Hugh Hansen, in the left column, have very different opinions of where all this is heading.

Read left and right and then send your own COMMENTS to editors@thehustings.news or submit them in the appropriate columns. For emailed comments please indicate your political leanings in the subject line.

Don’t miss our Substack page for more political analysis and commentary.

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FRIDAY 3/21/25

Real Economy v. Fake Economy

Commentary by Rich Corbett

The economic visions of Donald Trump and Joe Biden stand in sharp contrast: Trump’s “Real Economy” emphasizes deregulation, energy independence, and tariffs to bolster American jobs, while Biden’s “Fake Economy” is roundly criticized for government expansion, deficit spending, and inflated metrics. As America awakens to month three of President Trump’s second term, stark differences between the two presidents highlight a pivotal debate over America’s economic future.

Trump 1.0 delivered the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, slashing corporate taxes from 35% to 21%, driving investment and pushing unemployment to a 50-year low of 3.5% as of February 2020.

Energy policies fueled manufacturing and kept costs low. Trump 2.0 is doubling down with tariffs — proposing significant tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada, China, and the European Union — aimed at leveling the playing field for US companies. This strategy incentivizes domestic hiring by making foreign goods costlier, with Trump claiming it will “bring back millions of American jobs” and shift revenue from foreign producers to the US Treasury.

This is a “Real Economy” that makes its priority American workers, without wasting a single taxpayer dollar on DEI or green energy boondoggles.

The Biden administration pumped $1.9 trillion into the American Rescue Plan, driving inflation to 9.1% in June 2022 and swelling the national debt from $27.8 trillion in January 2021 to $36.2 trillion by January 2025 — an $8.4 trillion increase. Foreign aid soared and government jobs ballooned, including $80 billion to hire up to 87,000 IRS employees by 2031. By early 2025, the IRS workforce grew from 80,000 to over 100,000. The result of all this government spending: Inflation. It hit 9.1% in June 2022, eroding wages, while green energy mandates raised energy costs, creating a “Fake Economy” that gave away much of our economic strength.

Trump’s tariffs aim to reverse this by encouraging companies to expand and hire domestically. Biden’s defenders point to stock market gains and low unemployment, but skeptics see a mirage — sustained by borrowed billions and government bloat rather than private-sector strength. With economic pressures mounting, the clash between these diametrically opposed philosophies will be enlightening over the next couple of years.

Contributing Pundit Rich Corbett writes about a variety of subjects at My Desultory Blog.

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FRIDAY 3/21/25

Is the Economy Stupid?

Join the debate on the US economy under President Trump and his tariff policy by emailing your COMMENTS to editors@thehustings.news, and please, indicate your political leanings (which do not have to align with your opinion) in the subject line (e.g., “I lean left” or “I lean right”).

In Friday’s edition of The Hustings pro-Trump contributor Rich Corbett comments on never-Trumper Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay’s right-side columns on the Trump economy. Contributor Hugh Hansen comments in Friday’s left column.

Macaulay’s two recent commentaries are ‘It’s the Economy…” and “This is How to Make America Great Again?”

For more analysis and commentary, please visit our Substack page.

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THURSDAY 3/20/25

Harder Landing

Federal Reserve officials predict weaker growth, higher unemployment and higher inflation than they did last November. Scroll down for details.

THURSDAY 3/20/25

Dropping Out – President Trump is expected to order Education Secretary Linda McMahon, to shut down her new department Thursday, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. Trump is to announce closing of the federal department “and return educational authority to the States” in a White House ceremony Thursday with the Republican governors of Texas, Indiana, Florida and Ohio.

•••

Un-Softening the Landing? – Citing concerns over President Trump’s tariff policy, the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee in its meeting Tuesday and Wednesday lowered gross domestic product projections for 2025 to a median of +1.7%, which is significantly lower than the 2.5% GDP growth the US enjoyed in 2024.

The range projected by the committee range from just +1% GDP to 2.4%.

“Federal projections see the economy dramatically reset by Trump’s election,” The Wall Street Journal reports, after Fed officials previously expected a “soft landing” when it carefully increased interest rates last year while trying to avoid triggering higher unemployment. Fed officials now project higher unemployment, higher inflation and weaker growth.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell (pictured) called the expected effect of tariffs on the inflation rate “transitory.”

“We now have inflation coming in the form of an exogenous source,” Powell said in his press conference Wednesday, “but the underlying inflationary picture before was basically 2½% inflation, 2% growth and 4% unemployment.”

Core inflation was 2.8% in 2024, and the Fed Open Market Committee projected a range of 2.5% to 3.5% in 2025, with a median expectation of +2.8%. The Fed did not cut interest rates this week but despite the tariff threat still plans two cuts later this year.

Trump said Wednesday that the Fed should cut interest rates “as the US tariffs start to transition (ease!) their way into the economy,” Reuters reports.

•••

Happy Happiness Day – Thursday is World Happiness Day, and the World Happiness Report, compiled with Gallup Analytics, again names Nordic countries among the happiest in the world.

Finland is number-one, according to the report, followed by 2.) Denmark, 3.) Iceland, 4.) Sweden, 5.) The Netherlands, 6.) Costa Rica, 7.) Norway, 8.) Israel, 9.) Luxembourg and 10.) Mexico.

Canada is number-18. The US is 24^th.

Number 66 is the Russian Federation and 68 is China.

Ukraine? It’s 111^th. Afghanistan is in last-place at number 147.

Semafor holds a World Happiness Day launch event on YouTube here.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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THURSDAY 3/20/25

How to Become Great

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

No one who is an American, I think, doesn’t want America to be great. There may be some question about the “Again” part.

But the inspirational, exceptional, excellent — who could quibble? But getting there takes more than just adding the word, “again.”

One of the things that is being great — at a personal or a national level — is doing something extraordinary.

Let’s say that you become a great guitar player. It will be known that you are great because you are adding something to the history of guitar playing such that it is something that stands out in a way that is admirable.

From the point of view of a country, it is doing something that the populus can be proud of. This could be by creating systems that take care of the better part of the citizenry when it comes to health care and education.

Or it could be doing something that people are proud of, as in “We did that.”

Take the Hoover Dam, for example.

I don’t think you can see it and not feel impressed by the feat of engineering that went into it.

The dam was built during the Great Depression. The president at the time was Herbert Hoover.

He didn’t name it after himself like someone we are all familiar with probably would.

Rather, Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicated it to Hoover.

Roosevelt was a Democrat. Hoover was a Republican.

Roosevelt didn’t spend time belittling and denigrating Hoover.

Imagine that.

On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy made a speech to Congress that started the efforts to land a man on the Moon.

On September 12, 1962, he made the speech at Rice University and said the words that still ring with greatness:

“We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

Becoming great isn’t easy. It takes effort, whether it is practicing that guitar or educating and taking care of people or building dams.

Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon July 20, 1969.

When he landed, Richard M. Nixon, a Republican, was president.

When speaking of the achievement Nixon didn’t denigrate Kennedy, a Democrat.

But to bring this to today:

What is the Trump Administration doing to Make America Great Again?

Greatness isn’t achieved by firing thousands of people.

Greatness isn’t achieved by setting the Department of Justice after people you feel slighted you.

Greatness isn’t achieved by creating economic conditions that will put less buying power in people’s pockets.

Greatness isn’t achieved by antagonizing allies and cozying up to enemies.

So where’s the plan?

Where’s the vision?

Where’s something that the American people can be proud of?

This is one of the manifold problems today.

There is no plan.

He doesn’t even talk about building the “big, beautiful Wall” anymore.

Breaking things doesn’t lead to greatness.

Building things does.

Funny thing: when Trump wants to get away from Washington he generally goes to Mar-a-Lago, an estate built by Marjorie Merriweather Post between 1924 and 1927.

You’d think if he was such a great builder he’d be at one of his facilities.

In 2016, when Trump was still running for president, an architect named Doug Staker wrote an opinion piece for the highly respected architecture and design magazine Dezeen.

Staker wrote about what he called “Trumpitecture.”

In part the essay says:

“Trump has built his name on his special combination of blandness and opulence, with complete blindness toward anything that makes architecture with a capital A. Architecture is like a revered founding father. It can rise above its time and leave a lasting legacy. It marks a city for generations, and has the power to affect its environment in positive, memorable ways, to create an identity reflecting the values of those who interact with the environment it shapes.”

In other words, there’s no Greatness there.

If there is a legacy, it is likely to be ruin.

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings. Read more of his commentaries on our Substack page.

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THURSDAY 3/20/25

Civil Disagreements Welcome

Email editors@thehustings.news and please indicate your political leanings in the subject line. Please note: We do not expect you to follow right/left or red/blue party lines with your comments, which is why we ask you to indicate whether you are left or right in the subject line.

Contributors for our right column include Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay, a never-Trumper conservative, and Rich Corbett, a pro-MAGA conservative.

Scroll down with the trackbar on the far right to read Macaulay’s “Trump Wants a Putin Victory” and “This is How to Make America Great Again?” commentaries. Contributor Sharon Lintner’s commentary, “About Those Tariffs” is in the left column, opposite a Macaulay column. Scroll further down for a variety of comments, including by Corbett, Macaulay and by Joe Lintner, on President Trump’s recent address to a joint session of Congress.

For more civil political news and discussion, please be sure to visit our Substack page.

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MONDAY 3/17/25

Another ‘Perfect Call’?

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy contacts President Trump Wednesday to learn details of Trump’s two-and-a-half-hour phone call with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin (above, in a Voice of America file photo with Trump) Tuesday. “Today, I will contact President Trump,” Zelenskyy said in a joint press conference with Finnish President Alexander Stubb (per The Kyiv Independent). “We will discuss the details of the next step.”

WEDNESDAY 3/19/25

Can This Democracy be Saved? – Justice John Roberts rebuked President Trump’s call for impeachment of US District Judge James Boasberg Tuesday with a statement released by the Supreme Court’s public information office (via SCOTUSblog), that “(f)or more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

Trump had reacted predictably to Boasberg’s order of a two-week hold on the White House’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to remove Venezuelan migrants, without due process (scroll down this column to see ‘Oopsie’ in Monday’s ‘…meanwhile…’), by calling for the justice’s impeachment and telling Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle host Laura it is “not for a local judge to be making that determination.”

Upshot … Roberts’ rebuke gives some hope to our democracy that SCOTUS will maintain its equal power and independence from the executive branch when myriad court cases springing from the Trump White House’s and DOGE chief Elon Musk’s dismantling of federal departments and agencies reach the nation’s top court on appeal. Smart money says SCOTUS Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump 45 appointee, could join Roberts in siding with Justices Sonya Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Kentanji Brown Jackson in upholding such lower court rulings.

However, this hope is countered by last year’s 6-3 decision in Trump v. United States in which the court’s conservative supermajority gave the president absolute immunity for anything he does while acting as president.

--TL

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TUESDAY 3/18/25

UPDATE: Maybe Not So ‘Perfect’ – Vladimir Putin has agreed to a 30-day pause of Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, following a 90-some minute call with President Trump, The Kyiv Independent reports.

“During the conversation, Donald Trump proposed a mutual refusal to strike for 30 days on energy infrastructure,” the newspaper reports, citing a Kremlin readout of the call.

“Vladimir Putin responded positively to this initiative and immediately gave the appropriate command to the Russian military,” the readout says. The Kremlin also demanded a complete cessation of foreign military aid and intelligence to Ukraine as a “key condition” for escalation.

Ukraine has had some recent success with counter-strikes on Russian infrastructure, the Independent notes, citing a recent drone strike on fossil fuel infrastructure in Moscow.

An artsy deal for Putin, at least.

•••

This Ceasefire is Over – At least 404 Gazans have been killed, including four Hamas government officials and hundreds injured after Israeli forces broke the increasingly shaky “30-day” ceasefire begun in mid-January, The Guardian reports. It appears unlikely, according to the news outlet, that a deal to end Israeli attacks on Gaza can be achieved soon. Plans for a second phase to the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas were not negotiated.

Israel has threatened for weeks to launch an offensive, according to the report, with the country’s leadership saying it would force Hamas leadership to release more hostages. Many of Israel’s hostage families have disputed this.

•••

Constitutional Clash – In the latest example of the Trump White House flexing its constitutional authority over the judiciary, the Justice Department “stonewalled” federal Judge James E. Boasberg in court Monday as the judge tried to determine whether President Trump had violated his order, The New York Times reports, when it deported more than 260 immigrants to El Salvador over the weekend. The White House invoked the obscure wartime Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport what it claims are gang members, including 23 members of the Salvatorian MS-13 and members of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang.

Justice Department attorney Abhishek Kambli argued that the Alien Enemies Act gives the president the broad authority to remove immigrants with little or no due process and he refused to answer detailed questions about the flights to El Salvador, according to the NYT. Kambli is due back in Boasberg’s court noon Tuesday to certify in writing that no immigrants were removed after the judge’s written order prohibiting said removal went into effect.

Meanwhile … Trump border czar Tom Homan took to Fox News Monday to defy judicial authority.

“We’re not stopping. I don’t care what the judges think,” Homan told Fox & Friends. “I don’t care what the left thinks. We’re coming.”

•••

GOP Sees Opportunities – Twenty-six of them. The National Republican Congressional Committee on Monday released its list of 26 House Democrats it plans to target in the 2026 mid-term elections, Roll Call reports, including the 13 Democrats who won districts President Trump carried in the 2024 elections. The GOP currently has a one-vote margin in the House.

“House Republicans are in the majority,” said NRCC Chairman Richard Hudson (R-NC). “Meanwhile, vulnerable House Democrats have been hard at work demonstrating they are painfully out of touch with hard-working Americans. Republicans are taking the fight straight to these House Democrats in their districts, and we will unseat them next fall.”

Meanwhile, in America … The Wall Street Journal Tuesday catalogued “The Collateral Damage of Trump’s Firing Spree,” reporting that staff cuts in Veterans Affairs facilities in Detroit and Denver have cancelled health programs because homeless vets are without dedicated housing coordinators, that Education Department job cuts have slowed the ability to get disabled children to classrooms in Alabama and that “staffing uncertainty” in California’s Yosemite National Park have paused new reservations for more than 500 campsites in the coming peak summer season.

No mention … of President Trump’s scapegoat-in-waiting, Elon Musk, in any of this.

--TL

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...meanwhile...

MONDAY 3/17/25

Another Victory for Authoritarianism – The Trump White House has placed most of the Voice of America’s staff on “indefinite leave,” locking them out of their offices. An English-language daily newspaper in China calls the shutdown “excellent news,” Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, told NPR’s Morning Edition. The VoA along with Radio Liberty, Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia reaches about 350 million people broadcasting in nearly 50 languages to people in countries that repress independent press, such as Russia, Belarus and Cuba, according to the report.

Funding for the VoA and affiliates comes from the US Agency for Global Media, run since the beginning of the Trump administration by the president’s acolyte, failed Arizona gubernatorial and Senate candidate Kari Lake. The White House in a statement said VoA, RFE, RFA and Radio Liberty were shut down for “radical propaganda” and “left-wing bias.”

“I think that demonstrates this is not a cost-saving measure,” CPJ’s Ginsberg told NPR’s Leila Fadel. “It’s politically motivated.”

•••

‘Oopsie’ – It’s no mistake; The Trump White House has invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to “swiftly” deport 238 Venezuelan immigrants accused of being members of criminal gang TdA. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Sunday that President Trump had accused TdA members of being a “terrorist organization,” and that it is “undertaking hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare against the territory of the United States both directly and at the direction, clandestine or otherwise, of the Maduro regime in Venezuela,” according to the Miami Herald.

The Alien Enemies Act was previously used for the War of 1812, World War I and most recently, World War II, where it was used for detentions, expulsions and restrictions of Japanese, German and Italian immigrants, based on their ancestry, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

But the Venezuelan immigrants, who were not processed legally, were not deported back to Venezuela and to the hostile government of President Nicholás Maduro but instead to El Salvador, where President Nayib Bukele reportedly has an agreed to imprisoning the migrants for low cost, at his Terrorist Confinement Center, a mega-prison built to crack down on organized crime.

This, despite a restraining order by a federal judge in Washington, D.C. to block the deportation for at least two weeks while the case continues, issued hours before Rubio and Bukele announced them. Rubio repeated a social media post by Bukele after the order, which the judge issued orally, with the words, “Oopsie … too late,” accompanied by a laughing emoji.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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MONDAY 3/17/25

It’s the Economy. . .

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

Remember the bad old days of Sleepy Joe Biden, the man who with his woke, communist, fascist, radical bunch created the worst economy in American history, the worst conditions in WORLD HISTORY — though we don’t care about the World outside our borders, which are now very, very strong borders--?! Horrible economy. Terrible.

Unthinkable. That’s what everyone says.

Well it seems as though people — regular people who buy things like groceries and cars that aren’t Teslas (“I’m president. I want to pay full price.”) — are beginning to think maybe things weren’t so bad.

That is evident in numbers from the Survey of Consumers conducted by the University of Michigan.

The surveyed are asked about three categories:

Index of Consumer Sentiment
Current Economic Conditions
Index of Consumer Expectations

So it is basically how they are feeling, how they are spending and how they anticipate things will be working out, economically speaking.

According to the preliminary numbers for March 2025, here’s how things look:

Index of Consumer Sentiment: 57.9%
Current Economic Conditions: 63.5%
Index of Consumer Expectations: 54.2%

Now looking at those numbers you might be thinking: “Looks pretty good. All of them are above 50%.”

But then we go back in time to the numbers in March 2024, back in the days of the Biden debacle:

Index of Consumer Sentiment: 79.4%
Current Economic Conditions: 82.5%
Index of Consumer Expectations: 77.4%

That’s right, declines of 27.1%, 23% and 30% from then until now — and we haven’t even started feeling the brunt of the tariffs. Is Trump ushering in an economic miracle or an economic debacle?

Joanne Hsu, Survey of Consumers Director, pointed out:

“Consumer sentiment slid another 11% this month, with declines seen consistently across all groups by age, education, income, wealth, political affiliations, and geographic regions.”

Yes, pretty much sounds like everyone.

Now some people might think that this is a distorted bad, very bad, twisted liberal agenda at play, Hsu pointed out:

“Despite their greater confidence following the election, Republicans posted a sizable 10% decline in their expectations index in March. For Independents and Democrats, the expectations index declined an even steeper 12 and 24%, respectively.”

One factor that is concerning all participants: Inflation.

The most recent number has an expected rate of inflation of 4.9%, “the highest reading since November 2022 and marking three consecutive months of unusually large increases of 0.5 percentage points or more.”

What’s more, looking at inflation expectations in the long run, it was 3.5% in February and is 3.9% in March, “the largest month-over-month increase seen since 1993.”

That’s during the days of Clinton.

The so-called “Golden Age” is apparently, so far as consumers are concerned, a Lead Balloon.

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings. Read more of his commentaries on our Substack page.

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MONDAY 3/17/25

About Those Tariffs

Trump instigates

What does the United States stand to gain by picking a fight with our neighbors? It seems like I've lived my entire life barely aware that Canada even exists. They're quiet, well-mannered neighbors who don't cause any trouble.

It seems the United States has everything to gain by keeping it that way.

Then enter Trump who instigates, starts poking a sleeping bear. From berating the Prime Minister to starting a tariff war, Trump has quickly managed to make an enemy.

We are at the mercy of a madman and

unfortunately, the American people will pay for Trump's political stunts.

--Sharon Lintner

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Pi Day 2025

Senate Passes Budget Bill, 62-38

FRIDAY, Π Day 2025

UPDATE: Budget is a Go – Democratic senators helped Republicans pass cloture, 62-38, to advance the GOP budget to fund the federal government through September 30 early Friday evening, per The Hill. Senate Republicans needed a total of 60 votes to prevent a filibuster that would sink the budget bill. It's headed to President Trump's Resolute Desk for his signature.

Sen. Angus King (I-ME) joined nine Democrats in supporting the GOP-led Senate, consisting of Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (NY) – who changed his mind about trying to shut down the government Thursday – Democratic Whip Dick Durban (IL), Catherine Cortez Masto (NV), John Fetterman (PA), Kristen Gillibrand (NY), Maggie Hassan (NH), Gary Peters (MI), Brian Schatz (HI) and Jeanne Shaheen (NH). Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky was the only Republican who voted no.

Question of whether it was smart or weak for Democrats to cede its remaining smidgen of power to the GOP, and thus to Trump, had kept Democratic leadership awake at-night for at least the past week.

Between Schumer’s 180-turn and the cloture vote, The Onion ran this (satirical, if you’re not familiar) headline: “Chuck Schumer Helps Pull Democrats Back from the Brink of Courage.” (Scroll down for details on Schumer's change of heart.)

•••

Awaiting a Ceasefire – Russia sent “additional signals” Friday to President Trump regarding a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine after special envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Moscow to finalize the agreement already reached with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, according to The Kyiv Independent, which cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. In today’s Right Column Pundit-at-Large Stephen Macaulay outlines latest evidence of Trump’s total devotion to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. In the Left Column contributing pundit Sharon Lintner decries Trump’s diminishing relationship with traditional allies via his tariff policy.

•••

No 'Schumer Shutdown' – Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) did a “180” overnight and said he will vote in favor of the House bill to fund the government for six more months, NPR’s Morning Edition reports. Until late Thursday, Schumer was unified with progressive Democrats to down the House bill in the Senate. Republicans need eight Democratic supporters to avoid a filibuster, as Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) will not vote with the GOP.

“I will vote to keep the government open, and not shut it down,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Thursday.

Bad as the bill is, Schumer said, a government shutdown would be worse, giving President Trump the chance to ravage the federal government even more than he has since January 20.

What happened to the Senate Democrat plan to push a 30-day continuing resolution to force Republicans to give them seats at the table to renegotiate a funding bill the Democrats hate (it passed the House 217-213, with only one representative per side defecting)?

What happened to Congressional Democrats taking a stand against President Trump’s thorough deconstruction of the federal government?

“I think there’s a deep sense of outrage and betrayal,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). The prog-Democrat called a 30-day clean CR proposal a “meaningless gesture,” and called on Senate Democratic negotiators to “fight.”

For better or worse, the spending bill reflects the inherent difference between MAGA-unified Republicans and perpetually disorganized Democrats on Capitol Hill.

Progressive Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) are calling for a vote against the spending bill, The Hill reports. Centrists Sens. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) are caught between Schumer and the hard-left who wanted them to vote against the bill Friday.

If Schumer can’t find three more Senate Democrats along with the three centrists, himself and Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), who has said previously he will vote for the bill, we will quickly find out the difference between a government shutdown and Trump’s second term.

•••

To the Court – Trump administration Acting Solicitor Gen. Sarah Harris has petitioned the US Supreme Court to allow the administration to enforce the president’s executive order ending birthright citizenship (per SCOTUSblog). Three federal courts have issued orders to put a stop on Trump’s EO ending birthright citizenship, on constitutional grounds.

Harris in her brief argued the orders “transgress constitutional limits on courts’ powers” and “compromise the Executive Branch’s ability to carry out its functions.”

•••

Back to Work – Calling mass firings of probationary federal employees by the Office of Personnel Management a “sham,” US District Judge William Alsop ordered the departments of Defense, Treasury, Energy, Interior, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs to “immediately” offer them their jobs back, per Politico. (Many of the probationary employees were not new hires, but longtime employees who had just received promotions, according to NPR’s Morning Edition). Alsop is San Francisco district federal judge appointed by President Clinton.

--Compiled and edited by Todd Lassa

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Pi Day 2025

Trump Wants a Putin Victory

Commentary by Stephen Macaulay

The following was written before the Ukrainian government agreed to a cease-fire and the US allowed the Ukrainian military resumed access to intelligence assets. But for all that, the following still stands. What did the Russian government do in response to the proposed cease fire? Well, for one thing, Putin got dressed up in military fatigues and visited some of the troops. For another, the attacks on Ukraine amped up.

So how will the thesis in the headline be realized?

Putin will remain recalcitrant. There will be no going back. Trump will claim that Putin has “all the cards” and consequently what he wants — including the ceding of the territory the Russians have taken, the prohibition of Ukraine becoming a member of NATO, no peace keeping troops in Ukraine, etc. — is what will be agreed to.

There should be little doubt that at the end of the day, Donald Trump wants Russia, the country that invaded a democracy — the sort of place Americans used to defend -- to win the conflict in Ukraine.

Why? Probably because he likes the style of the Russian leader.

Never mind that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is charged by the International Criminal Court as being “Allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation (under articles 8(2)(a)(vii) and 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute).”

The charge continues:

“There are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Putin bears individual criminal responsibility for the aforementioned crimes, (i) for having committed the acts directly, jointly with others and/or through others (article 25(3)(a) of the Rome Statute), and (ii) for his failure to exercise control properly over civilian and military subordinates who committed the acts, or allowed for their commission, and who were under his effective authority and control, pursuant to superior responsibility (article 28(b) of the Rome Statute).”

Oh, but the International Criminal Court is an international organization and we want nothing to do with the rest of the world unless it is in the financial interest of America.

Deporting children? Who cares?

What’s more, Jack Smith, that “deranged” “Trump hater” “crooked individual” (but just a few of the things Trump has called him), worked at the International Criminal Court, so that place must be rife with bad, bad hombres. Everyone says so.

The Russians have amped up their attacks on Ukraine.

What has the reaction of the Trump Administration been?

It stopped military aid and stopped intelligence sharing with Ukraine.

Why?

Because Trump wants Volodymyr Zelenskyy to lose face and his idol Vladimir Putin to gain land.

Just consider this, from the official White House transcript of a press gaggle on Air Force One, March 9, 2025:

Q Sir, on Russia. Have you made a final decision about what sanctions or tariffs you might impose on Russia and when that might be?

THE PRESIDENT: We’re looking at a lot of things. We have big meetings coming up, as you know, in Saudi Arabia. That’s going to include Russia. It’ll be Ukraine. We’ll see if we can get something done. I’d like to get something done.

A lot of people died this week, as you know, in Ukraine. Not only Ukrainians, but Russians. So, I think everybody wants to see it get done. We’re going to make a lot of progress, I believe, this week.

Q Mr. President, is Putin disrespecting you by attacking Ukraine when you’re trying to make peace there?

THE PRESIDENT: Who? Who?

Q Is President Putin disrespecting you by attacking Ukraine when you’re trying to make peace there?

THE PRESIDENT: What did he do?

Q Well, he’s attacked Ukraine.

THE PRESIDENT: Is he disrespecting me?

Q Yeah.

THE PRESIDENT: Who are you with?

Q I’m Michael Birnbaum, with The Washington Post.

THE PRESIDENT: You’ve lost a lot of credibility. Go ahead. What else?

Notice how Trump deflects any potential criticism of Putin and then minimizes, in his own mind, the reporter. How has the reporter, or the Post, lost credibility by asking a simple question that deserves an answer?

Later, questions from others:

Q Are you going to resume aid to Ukraine if they sign the minerals deal with you?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think they will sign the minerals deal. But we want them to —

I want them to want peace. Right now.

Q How do they show that? How do they show that?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, right now, they haven’t shown it to the extent that they should. I think, right now, they haven’t, but I think they will be, and I think it’s going to become evident over the next two or three days. I think eventually, look, we have to have peace.

And I’m doing this — money is one thing. We’re going to lose — we spent $350 billion on this. But the big thing: human life. Thousands of people — this week — thousands of young soldiers died this week. Hundreds of people died in cities in Ukraine. And we got to get it stopped.

It would have never happened if I was president. And it didn’t happen. This was not going to happen.

Trump wants Ukraine to give up rights to its minerals to pay the US back for the military and other assistance provided to the country still under attack.

Why doesn’t he stipulate that Putin should have to pay for rebuilding the cities he’s wrecked in Ukraine?

The Ukrainians haven’t shown their interest in peace “to the extent that they should”?

Might the missiles raining down on their land from Russian have something to do with this?

“It would have never happened if I was president.”

What would have never happened? That the Ukrainians wouldn’t have defended themselves? That they would have been invaded and then thanked Putin for the invasion?

“Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,” Trump said during the exchange with Zelenskyy in the Oval Office on March 3. He was referring to the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election.

Zelenskyy and the citizens of Ukraine are going through literal hell.

Macaulay is pundit-at-large for The Hustings.

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Pi Day 2025