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Well, the much-ballyhooed autopsy on the 2024 election has arrived from Democratic National Committee’s headquarters, and it is a shame it didn’t stay buried in a trashcan in one of their offices deep inside the Beltway, and as far away from real people as possible.

Before moving on just as quickly as I can, from this unmitigated mess of typos, redactions, double-talking and sniping — and better yet, the leadership who allowed it — I want to underline some finer points, and hard-earned lessons we can take from it, and the disastrous 2024 campaign season.

First, given all the unprofessionalism, money-wasting, bickering, and out and out dysfunction in the party, it’s a wonder Kamala Harris didn’t lose by 25 points. It is clear that because of a series of self-inflicted wounds, the Democrats were not ready to do battle during the most important election in U.S. history.

That is tragic.

The report, and the way Democratic leadership comported itself, is truly embarrassing. Anybody who was a part of it, needs to be banished, and never allowed near a campaign again.

They’ve helped elect enough Republicans.

In the wake of of the report’s release Thursday I typed this in a huff on social media:

1) The dysfunctional DNC is a major problem for the party, not an answer.
2) Navel-gazing, self-doubt and sniping like this are what damaged the party in the first place.
3) The autopsy itself is a joke and illustrates how out of touch the Inside the Beltway party “hierarchy” is with voters. There is no mention of Biden’s advanced age, going back on his promise not to run again, Israel, Gaza, the pick of Walz for VP, or the shitshow that resulted in Harris getting all of 100 days to run. All factored heavily in the terrible outcome.
4) Read No. 1 again.

I stand behind all of that now.

But there is a sliver of good news here ...

Maybe the people who have been claiming the election was somehow stolen will finally go quiet, and use their considerable energy to start focusing on the myriad problems within the party that so severely mucked up that crucial election.

Look, if it helped you to believe Trump stole the election in its gory aftermath, I won’t judge, I really won’t. Those were some very hard times emotionally, and our sensibilities had just taken a severe pounding by a lewd racist and his soulless cult who have no standards, and an unlimited capacity to always go lower.

That has to stop now. Too much is on the line.

If after everything we’ve learned from Democratic leadership itself, you are still repeating this hogwash, I want to tell you gently that you sound a lot like the people on the Right who are still hollering about the 2020 election being stolen from Trump.

That just isn’t a good look, and I am doing you a favor telling you this.

By implying the 2024 election was swiped away from Democrats you are also implying that the party, starting with Kamala Harris, had evidence it somehow was, and decided for some bizarre reason not to pursue it, and to just forget the whole thing.

That would be absolutely catastrophic, of course, and leaves me wondering why you would support a party that is incapable of defending itself from the greatest heist in world history. Your issue should be with the party, not the boogeymen who allegedly somehow stole the election.

Even I, a steady critic of recent DNC leadership, don’t believe this happened in a million years. They ran an inept campaign, have admitted it in so many millions of jumbled words, and are even now still bashing away at each other, and pointing fingers.

The party is a mess, and most Americans know this. Thankfully, they aren’t real hot on the Republican Party right now, either.

Frankly, my real ire here is not directed at those who believe in these conspiracy theories, but the hucksters who are still lining their pockets by preying on people’s hurt and anguish by spreading all this manure. They know who they are and should be ashamed of themselves. Unfortunately, they won’t be, because they have proven to be no better than the troublemaking trolls on the Right who do the same thing.

Thankfully, most of this is contained to the spurious realm of social media, and in the dark corners of Substack, and other content-providers, where too many facts go to die, and people deal in impulse and emotion, not reason.

By implementing MAGA’s playbook to complete their grift, these phonies are preventing people from doing the truly important work of processing what really happened, and demanding better from the leadership of a party that clearly has no sense of itself.

The DNC is a complete wreck, and if that surprises you, then it really is time for you to start paying attention, and stop with all the stupid conspiracy theories.

Now some truly good news:

Despite all this madness, Democratic candidates have been winning one election after another since the 2024 nightmare, because America under Trump has been an unmitigated disaster area, and roughly 65 percent of the American electorate knows it.

While voters are still cool on Democrats, they have seen about enough of Trump II: The Disaster Area.

So before I get out of here, a quick question:

Is the DNC even needed?

As a new resident to the state of North Carolina, I plan to attend my first meeting with Democrats down here this week. I will be interested to see what party long-timers here are saying about this autopsy and the state of the so-called party leadership — if it is even addressed at all.

(NOTE: If it isn’t, I plan to make sure it is. I will not work with a party that refuses to work on itself, and position itself properly for the November election and beyond. Too much is at stake.)

Democrats need to do a better job of framing their message, and shouting out all the good things they stand for instead of re-litigating the 2024 election, claiming it was stolen, and punching themselves in the face. Trump’s Republicans should be easy to beat in November because they have nothing to run on.

The asinine release of this mess of an autopsy when Democrats have actually been getting some momentum, is proof Democratic leadership STILL hasn’t learned.

They are ineffective, useless, and hurting a helluva lot more than they are helping.

Can’t we all at least agree we deserve better than this?

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.

President Donald Trump is trying to become an American Caesar, argued one of President George W. Bush’s advisers in a recent Substack post — but returning to America’s core ideals can stop him.

In his Sunday argument, Steve Schmidt ventured back 90 years to 1936, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt was running for his second term and the Nazis under Adolf Hitler were ascendant in the burgeoning German empire. After describing how the Nazis’ persecution of Jews in Europe was matched by America’s persecution of African Americans across the Atlantic, Schmidt quoted a Roosevelt speech that summed up the fundamentally American qualities that he believes can ultimately take down Trump.

“Faith — in the soundness of democracy in the midst of dictatorships,” Schmidt quoted Roosevelt. “Hope — renewed because we know so well the progress we have made. Charity — in the true spirit of that grand old word. For charity literally translated from the original means love, the love that understands, that does not merely share the wealth of the giver, but in true sympathy and wisdom helps men to help themselves.”

Schmidt then connected Roosevelt’s rhetoric to modern American politics.

“What Franklin Roosevelt laid out is an indictment of our age of selfishness in which an accumulation of factors has arisen in perfect symmetry with the most dangerous man in American history,” Schmidt argued. “Donald Trump is a liar, a cheat, a narcissistic sociopath, a convicted sex abuser and conman.”

He concluded, “He is well on his way to becoming an American Caesar, unequal in stature, above the law and in absolute control over vast institutions that can yield power through control. The American citizen is becoming a leashed dog tethered to the state, which grants favors to some, and punishment to others. This must be opposed. It must be defeated — or we will lose America, and there is nowhere left to go.”

Last week Schmidt explicitly connected his ongoing argument that Trump is becoming a dictator with the president’s $1.776 billion slush fund to Jan. 6ers and other political supporters (as well as possibly institutions directly connected with himself).

“It is remarkable,” Schmidt argued. “Donald Trump has just been given more than $1.8 billion by his lawyer's signature, who is now the Attorney General, creating a slush fund for extremists that Donald Trump can reward them, give them recompense, give them reparations. Donald Trump didn't invent corruption, but he has perfected it. He has created a vicious cult of personality.”

After pointing out that in 2020 there was a massive breach of IRS data that impacted more than 400,000 people, none of whom has received a settlement, Schmidt concluded that “millions of Americans work hard and they pay half of what they make to the IRS — to taxes — to fund the schools, the roads, the military. What's happening with Trump isn't just not right. It is an insult, a mockery of every hardworking person who plays by the rules. Donald Trump is laughing at us.”

He added, “And so is his family. They are the greatest collection of takers in all of whole history of the United States. There are no examples of corruption that are even in the same galaxy as this. It is truly, truly incredible. Mind-boggling. And yet it rolls on, and it will continue to do so until there's a Democratic Congress that makes it stop.”

President Donald Trump seems indifferent to public opinion, according to one political analyst — and that poses a grave threat to the future of democracy.

“His approval rating has plunged into the 30s, and he doesn’t seem to care,” MS NOW’s Paul Waldman wrote on Sunday. “Americans think the economy is terrible, and Trump seems indifferent. Instead, he’s putting his time and attention into a series of projects that could not be better designed to make him look corrupt and out of touch.”

Waldman proceeded to list Trump’s various actions that Republicans believe are counterproductive to their goal of retaining control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. These include his proposed gold-plated ballroom, his proposed Virginia arch, his $1.8 billion slush fund for supporters including Jan. 6 rioters and his revenge campaign against Republicans who do not always vote as he wishes. He also has vocally expressed indifference to problems that Americans are concerned about including the Iran war and rising gas prices.

“Indeed, if Trump were trying to engineer a defeat in November for his party, it’s hard to imagine what he would be doing differently,” Waldman argued. “Where does this indifference to both his own standing and the political fortunes of his party come from? He may have a version of senioritis, the way students stop caring about classes as the end of high school approaches. Trump does care about his legacy, but as far as he’s concerned, that legacy isn’t written in legislation or policy victories; it’s physical and tangible. If he’s loathed by two-thirds of the public when he departs the White House, it may not matter to Trump so long as there are gigantic buildings with his name on them.”

He added, “Even more, Trump may see this indifference to the public’s judgment as a kind of liberation. He spent a lifetime attempting to free himself of any and all constraints, so he can do whatever he wants. Before he was president, it was the constraints of the law, ethics, convention and civility that vexed him; in politics it’s the law and ethics (again), political norms, international alliances and agreements, the bureaucracy, Congress and the courts. The political interest of his own party, and even his own popularity? That’s just one more thing tying him down. And he’s going to cut those cords.”

Indeed, Washington Post reporter Luke Boradwater recently noted regarding last week in the president’s career that Trump’s political standing continues to deteriorate week-by-week basis.

Life finally man-handled President Donald Trump like it typically abuses Democratic presidents: with pushback and disappointment. But don’t expect to see this brand of ego acknowledge it, says Washington Post writer Luke Broadwater.

“By pretty much any estimation, President Trump has had a very bad week,” said Broadwater. “New poll numbers show his approval rating has hit a second-term low. He is weighing whether to restart a bombing campaign in an unpopular war against Iran. Gas prices are high and inching higher heading into Memorial Day weekend. And his grip over Republican lawmakers is beginning to slip after he proposed a pair of deeply unpopular spending items, prompting an unusual revolt from the Senate.”

He added that Trump is acting like a man who does not need to concern himself whatsoever with public approval in order to retain his power.

“But Mr. Trump has decided to double down, presenting himself as politically all-powerful even in the face of indications that he is not,” Broadwater wrote.

President Donald Trump’s tariffs are wrecking America’s economy, a conservative wrote on Sunday — and it is doing so in the way he said they would help.

“Trump’s trade wars have jeopardized the jobs of the hundreds of Americans whom Weyco actually does employ, in those twenty-first-century jobs that the United States excels at creating,” The Bulwark’s Catherine Rampell wrote, referring to the footwear company that distributes Trump’s favorite Florsheim shoes. Last week Rampell interviewed the CEO of Florsheim, who broke down how his company has suffered due to Trump’s tariffs. After breaking down how tariffs on Weyco shoes “reached as high as 161 percent. Which adds up,” Rampell explained how Thomas Florsheim decided he had “had enough” when his company was hit by a surprise tariff bill of over $1 million last December, prompting his company to sue the Trump administration.

Now that Trump has been ordered by the courts to reimburse companies that were forced to pay illegal tariffs, Rampell analyzed the fallout — which has been quite messy.

“Most companies I’ve spoken with in recent weeks have indeed decided to claim what’s theirs,” Rampell wrote. “In part, they’re hoping for safety in numbers: More than 300,000 importers of record are eligible for refunds. Surely, they reason, Trump’s Customs and Border Protection agency can’t audit all of them.”

She added, “Plus, for some firms, filing for a refund felt like something of a civic victory—the triumph of the rule of law over an imperialistic president who had been arbitrarily swiping money from companies and consumers.” As one midsized fashion brand CEO confidentially told Rampell, “I would like [the] rule of law to win the day. Capitalism exists by the permission and structure of democracy. But there’s a reason I’m not speaking out publicly. Like, my board of directors would have a heart attack if I was speaking out publicly about it.”

By contrast, the Balkan plum brandy importer Stephen Chamberlin is applying for the refunds because he risks going out of business if he does not.

“The tariff threw us way into the red last year,” Chamberlin told Rampell. “Never even occurred to me not to apply. That $19,000 is just too important to us.”

Yet even though some of the companies illegally tariffed by Trump will get compensated, this does not mean the negative ramifications of Trump’s tariffs will dissipate too.

“The ongoing trade uncertainty—plus Iran war–related cost spikes, and various erratic market interventions from this president—suggest that the tariff refunds trickling out may be less of an economic tailwind than once seemed possible,” Rampell wrote. “Multiple companies told me they’re not planning to use their tariff rebates to expand or hire because they needed it to patch holes in their balance sheet. Or they planned to sock the funds away just in case their tariff rates surged again.”

She continued, “Ironically, this lack of clarity about the tariff landscape may also be discouraging firms from reshoring manufacturing—Trump’s stated goal—because they too don’t know what their costs will be.”

Other conservatives have also blasted Trump’s tariffs for their economic impact. Writing for The Wall Street Journal last month, former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas) and Donald J. Boudreaux, a professor of economics at George Mason University argued that “if the economy was 'dead' in 2024, there's no evidence Mr. Trump's tariffs have brought it back to life,” adding that when he announced his tariffs “most economists predicted that the economy's performance would be negatively affected. Thus far data overwhelmingly indicate that is what has happened."

Additionally, they shared Rampell’s analysis that the tariffs have in no way helped revitalize manufacturing in the United States.

"The world isn't deglobalizing,” Gramm and Boudreaux explained. “It's reglobalizing around partners who commit to rules rather than those who wield tariffs like a club." To prove this, they cite how "in 2025 the pace of losing manufacturing jobs accelerated to 1.2%, faster than the decline in 2024 of 0.7%. In 2017 manufacturing jobs actually increased by 0.7%."

Mona Charen, another pundit for The Bulwark, warned in February that Trump’s tariffs may even contribute to Republican losses in the 2026 midterm elections.

“Voters are rarely able to connect policy to outcomes, but they have done so in the case of tariffs,” Charen wrote. “Back in 2024, Americans were about equally divided on the question of trade, with some favoring higher tariffs and roughly similar numbers opting for lower tariffs. Experience has changed their views.”

President Donald Trump’s supporters defy objective reality on key issues, according to a political analyst — and the consequences of their ignorance on those matters is desire for America.

“Recent polls, however, show that substantial numbers of Republican voters simply don’t believe these statements,” wrote MS NOW’s Ryan Teague Beckwith on Sunday. Beckwith was referring to the facts that solar power is one of the cheapest forms of electricity in the world, that American importers bear the brunt of tariff payments and that noncitizen voting is extremely rare — all of which a majority of Republicans do not believe because Trump tells them they are not true.

“That’s bad for the country, because it’s harder for us to solve problems and decide how to move ahead when we can’t agree on the facts,” Beckwith added. “It’s also bad for Republican politicians — and they have only themselves to blame.”

He continued, “Led by President Donald Trump, many members of the GOP in recent years have made their case by attacking the underlying facts, making baseless claims and undermining the credibility of independent experts who could contradict them. The result is a party that is increasingly out of touch with voters outside its ideological bubble and unable to come up with good arguments or practical solutions.”

Beckwith then broke down the numbers, pointing out that 51 percent of Republicans believe tariffs are “fees foreigners pay for selling products in the United States,” 43 percent said solar power is more expensive to consumers than most other energy sources and 82 percent said large numbers of noncitizens cast fraudulent ballots in American elections.

“The sheer number of Republicans who believe things that aren’t true distorts the political landscape,” Beckwith pointed out. “As problems arise, they effectively box Republican politicians out of making certain arguments or trying specific solutions. When Trump’s broad-based tariffs lead to increased prices, how can Republicans in Congress push back if their own supporters don’t see the link?”

In addition to making Trump’s base a force for injecting falsehoods into American discourse, Beckwith pointed out it also leaves Republicans vulnerable to Democratic attacks.

“The result is a party whose debating skills have grown rusty, preaching the same tired sermons to an ever smaller choir of supporters as the day of reckoning grows closer,” Beckwith concluded.

Similar to Beckwith, former Trump-supporting Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) wrote in February that the president has turned his party into a cult of personality — which is evidenced by their poor understanding of the issues.

“I thought you wanted him to end wars all over the world,” Walsh said. “You said you wanted him to end American entanglement in conflicts and wars around the world. America shouldn’t be involved in these wars, you said. That’s why you’re voting for Trump, you said.” Then, despite Trump’s wars against Venezuela and Iran, his base still supports him.

“And you don’t like when people call you a cult, Trump voters?” Walsh argued. “What else are people to think when you voted for Trump to get us the hell out of wars around the world, and instead he gets us involved in wars around the world and starts new wars, and you still sing his praises and support him? What are we to think, MAGA, but that you are a cult?”

He added, “You’ve got no argument against people calling you a cult. And if he takes us to war against Iran, and you clap and applaud and throw him flowers, Trump supporters, I will be at the front of the parade calling you a cult.”

Lawyers are notorious for disagreeing with each other on a wide range of issues, but a surprisingly large majority share one view — President Donald Trump’s behavior during his second term poses a grave threat to American law and order.

“At the lower-court level, judges have repeatedly ruled in ways intended to check Trump, most notably when it comes to violating civil and constitutional rights in pursuit of his indiscriminate immigration dragnet,” the Los Angeles Times’ political columnist Mark Z. Barabak wrote on Sunday. “The tendency to slow-walk his administration’s response to those rulings — and ignore others that Trump thinks he can safely snub — only contribute to the perception of presidential lawlessness and a sense that our judicial system is being strained to something approaching a breaking point.”

Pointing to “a new survey of legal experts — including federal judges, top-tier lawyers and scores of professors from some of the country’s leading law schools,” Barabak explained that the nonpartisan Bright Line Watch poll analyzed “21 federal judges, 113 lawyers, 193 law professors, 652 political scientists and a nationally representative sample of 2,750 Americans.” In the process, as Safeguarding Democracy Project director Rick Hasen told the Times, it became apparent that “across the ideological spectrum and across judges, lawyers and law professors, there was considerable agreement that the rule of law in the U.S. is under tremendous stress,” which poses “a real risk to democracy.”

Specifically legal experts pointed to the facts that Trump excessively uses executive power, that he has appointed Supreme Court judges (and pressured others) in ways that suggest they will not handle Trump-related cases impartially and how Trump has politicized law enforcement to prosecute his perceived enemies.

“Eight in 10 of those surveyed said federal officials fail to comply with court orders somewhat or very often, and nearly 9 in 10 said political appointees in Trump’s Justice Department mislead federal judges somewhat or very often,” Barabak added. “Talk about contempt of court — not to mention our vital system of checks and balances.”

Even lawyers who have worked closely with Trump warn about the threat he poses to the rule of law. Former Trump lawyer Ty Cobb, for example, recently told CNN’s Erin Burnett that Trump’s acting attorney general Todd Blanche has forfeited his integrity in order to do Trump’s bidding, most recently by being a “toady” in supporting Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund, which he described as “the culmination of [his] transformation from a once decent lawyer into the complete toady that he's become.”

“He's given up any character and integrity that he ever had,” Cobb explained to Burnett. “Lawyers who used to work with him and actually were optimistic that he would perform his duties consistent with the oath, no longer feel that way. It's never been apparent to me that he was worthy of that confidence, but he's shown that he will do anything that the president wants, including giving away $2 billion that belonged to the taxpayers in an effort to buy the attorney general permanent position.”

He added that, unlike the previous attorney general Pam Bondi, Blanche was never a member of Trump’s political cult of personality.

“He doesn't have her excuse. I mean, he's not an ideologue,” Cobb said. “He was not wedded to Trump. You know, for years and years … he didn't have the MAGA credentials of Pam Bondi. This is pure and unadulterated ambition. And somebody who, you know, for dollars and power has sold his soul.”

President Donald Trump is facing heated criticism for engaging in over 3,600 stock trades during the first quarter of 2026 — but a powerful senator is arguing that Trump’s actions are merely an egregious symptom of a much more systemic problem.

“Over 80 percent of Americans believe that their elected officials are engaged in some type of corruption, and over 80 percent want to see bans on stock trading — not just in Congress, but across the country,” Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) told The Bulwark’s John Avlon in an interview that dropped on Sunday. The interview was featured in an article with the headline, "Sen. Andy Kim Exposes Congress’ Dirty Secret."

“He just went to China. He brought 17 CEOs with him. [Fifteen] of those companies had CEOs with him. He is invested in their companies. He has stock in those companies. We have seen him take on Palantir stock. I helped pass one of those pieces. So we're really showing the magnitude of what President Trump is doing right now.”

After Avlon pointed out that Trump’s trading amounts to $700 million, more than all of Congress combined, Kim argued that Trump’s actions are part of a larger pattern of politicians making money despite their conflicts of interest. Yet Trump, he added, has taken things to the next level.

“The way I frame it is: if you have a job whose job description is in the Constitution of the United States — whether that means you're a president or a vice president, a member of Congress, a Supreme Court justice, cabinet officials, senior officials across these three branches — you should be held to the highest of standards,” Kim told Avlon. “There should be no doubt about whether or not you are taking action that is going to benefit the country or benefit your own bank account and stock portfolio. That's what is causing so much distrust right now.”

If there is any silver lining to the current scandal, Kim added, it is that it creates an incentive for Americans to push for legislation reforming the status quo.

“I think that there is momentum towards banning members of Congress from trading stocks — that's a sea change from when a few of us started down this path back in 2019, when a number of us were elected into Congress, many of us elected because of our anti-corruption platforms,” Kim wrote. “Even the president, in his State of the Union, talked about banning members of Congress from trading stocks — but not for him. So that's the problem, right? We may very well end up getting some more momentum on banning members of Congress, but without it applying to the president. We've heard about Hegseth and others and some potential actions that they've taken. This is the absolute right time for us to be able to move forward and say, we need something across all three branches.”

Kim added that he and his fellow Senate Democrats “are already drawing up the lists, as well as the understanding of what investigations need to be done” to learn more about Trump’s stock trades and other financial scandals, including the $1.8 billion slush fund for his political supporters.

“What is it that we can do with subpoena power?” Kim asked. “What documents, what people do we want to come before us? And the prioritization of that is going to be so important — both for bringing to light the documents that are necessary to show the paper trail of the crimes that are being committed now, and for setting the stage for accountability on as many different platforms as we can moving forward.”

Kim has been one of the most outspoken members of Congress in terms of opposing Trump’s agenda. In December, for example, he vociferously spoke out against Trump adding his name to the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts despite him lacking the legal authorization to do so.

"If that’s correct, this needs to stop as it’s illegal to change without Congress," Kim warned.

President Trump's decision to postpone a voluntary artificial intelligence testing executive order has exposed a deepening divide within his administration over governance philosophy and decision-making authority. The postponement, announced shortly before a scheduled White House signing ceremony, revealed fundamental disagreements between officials and highlighted how Silicon Valley figures continue to wield outsized influence over administration policy.

The delay underscores a pattern of internal friction that has increasingly characterized Trump's second term. The president told reporters he was concerned the order "could have been a blocker" to U.S. innovation and technological superiority over China after conversations with tech industry leaders including David Sacks, Elon Musk, and Mark Zuckerberg. The postponement was also partly due to scheduling difficulties, with major tech CEOs including OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei unable to attend on short notice.

The chaos surrounding the delayed signing reflects deeper organizational problems. National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett had proposed an FDA-like review process for AI models, signaling a more regulatory posture. Yet Chief of Staff Susie Wiles has emphasized that the administration is "not in the business of picking winners and losers," indicating competing visions for how the administration should approach emerging technology governance. The draft order itself attempted to bridge this divide, explicitly disclaiming any intent to create mandatory requirements—yet even this cautious middle ground proved insufficient to move forward at this time.

Policy analysts have characterized the postponement as symptomatic of broader White House dysfunction. Observers noted that Sacks "seems to have the ear of the president on this topic," raising questions about institutional decision-making processes. Dean Ball, associated with the White House AI Action Plan, suggested the postponement signals that governance of AI development will rest substantially with the private sector rather than through coordinated federal frameworks.

The episode illustrates how Trump's administration continues to struggle with unified messaging. Hassett's regulatory inclinations and Wiles's pro-innovation stance represent genuinely competing philosophies that the White House has yet to reconcile. When even a voluntary, industry-friendly measure cannot proceed as scheduled, observers question whether consensus on any governance question is achievable within the administration's current structure.

What emerges is a picture of a White House where major policy decisions can shift rapidly based on last-minute discussions with industry figures. The postponement occurred shortly before the scheduled ceremony, creating significant logistical complications and raising questions about decision-making processes at the highest levels of government.

The episode also raises questions about the role of unelected tech executives in shaping federal policy. Sacks, Musk, and Zuckerberg did not campaign or stand for election, yet their input apparently carries sufficient weight to delay presidential action. This dynamic—where industry figures can influence the timing and scope of stated administration initiatives through direct access—suggests ongoing tensions between different power centers within the administration.

Meanwhile, the administration's inability to finalize a unified AI governance approach has created a policy vacuum. California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an AI-related executive order addressing potential job losses from the technology, proceeding even as the federal government remained unable to establish clear national direction. The administration has expressed desire for federal preemption of state regulations, yet its own internal process challenges have hampered policy development.

The AI order postponement joins a pattern of recent episodes reflecting White House operational challenges: delayed announcements, competing public statements from different officials, and decisions apparently subject to rapid revision based on external input.

President Donald Trump keeps clashing with the Supreme Court, even though he repeatedly gives them exactly what they want.

“With the court preparing to issue major rulings in the coming weeks that will determine the fate of key aspects of the president’s agenda, Mr. Trump has vacillated between combative and conciliatory in his treatment of the justices,” The New York Times reported on Sunday. “He has seemed ever aware and at times resentful of the critical role the justices play in determining the lawfulness of his policies, with the court representing perhaps the one force in American government truly able to thwart his agenda. At the heart of the tension: a president who appears to believe that justices, especially those he appointed, should be loyalists rather than independent actors in a separate, equal branch of government.”

The Times added that Trump is “furious” with America’s most powerful bench because it invalidated the sweeping tariffs he passed without congressional approval earlier in his term. He has also attacked the court preemptively in recent weeks as he prepares for possible losses on issues like his crusade to get rid of birthright citizenship.

“It would be a disgrace if the Supreme Court of the United States allows that to happen,” Trump said last week. “It’s all up to a couple of people, and I hope they do what’s right.” He reinforced this desire to seemingly intimidate the justices by becoming the first sitting president to attend a Supreme Court oral argument in person, which he did in April for roughly an hour before abruptly leaving. He subsequently took to social media and complained that the Supreme Court had “not even recognized or acknowledged” that he was in the courtroom.

Despite Trump’s complaints, the Supreme Court has ruled in his favor far more often than not, from giving him unprecedented presidential powers in Trump v. United States (2024) to a ruling to make it easier for Republicans to gerrymander in Louisiana v. Callais (2026) while not hearing a case involving the Virginia Supreme Court striking down voter-approved new congressional maps when it would make it easier for Democrats to gerrymander.

“The president gave a surprisingly frank assessment of his view of the Supreme Court — and how he expects personal loyalty from the justices that he appoints to it,” The New Republic's Matt Ford wrote earlier this month. “In the lengthy post, Trump criticized two members of the High Court for voting in Trump v. Learning Resources, the case that nixed his purported ability to impose hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs under a Cold War-era emergency-powers law. The Supreme Court held 6-3 that Trump had exceeded the powers laid out in the statute…. It would be hard to find a better example than this of Trump's thinking that the justices that he nominated to the High Court should be personally loyal to him."

Ford added Trump believes he is entitled to total obedience from Supreme Court justices "simply because he appointed them,” which raises troubling questions about what he has demanded from appointees for lower court positions.

"If this is his public thinking about the justices," Ford argued, "it casts doubt on whether any second-term Trump appointee can be trusted to place the national interest or the law ahead of Trump's personal and political goals…. If Trump is willing to demand personal loyalty from Supreme Court justices, what about his lower-court nominees?"

He added, "The Supreme Court has given him nearly everything that he has wanted over the last two years — and he still isn't satisfied. This is the same Supreme Court that just boosted his party's midterm chances earlier this month by demolishing what's left of the Voting Rights Act."

I keep hearing that one of America’s biggest problems is we’re “divided and polarized.” For example, New York Times columnist David French: “We’ve known for a long time that America is deeply polarized, and we’ve known the problem is only getting worse.”

This is bull----. The problem is not that we’re divided and polarized.

The problem is that a significant portion of America is buying Trump’s violent, hateful, lawless crap. Some of those buying it are white supremacists. Others are conservative fundamentalist Christians. Others are xenophobic nationalists.

I feel compassion for those who’ve been seduced into supporting Trump after being brutalized and mistreated for years by employers, big corporations, Wall Street, and America’s oligarchs. As I warned 32 years ago, widening inequalities of wealth, income, and opportunity would eventually persuade some on the losing side to support a demagogue.

But an explanation for why some of Trump’s followers have bought into his neofascism isn’t a justification for them to do so. And it’s certainly no reason for us to put aside our differences and compromise with them.

As you undoubtedly know, Trump has created a violent police state inside America. He is conducting an illegal war abroad. He has usurped the powers of Congress and defied court orders. He is taking bribes. He’s criminally prosecuting his enemies and pardoning his criminal supporters (he has even set up a slush fund to compensate them). He has gotten his Justice Department to immunize him and his family from any future tax audits. He is silencing critics. He is fomenting racism and bigotry.

None of us should fall for the false equivalency between this, and opposition to it. The contest today is not between “right” and “left,” as the two sides have traditionally been understood in America. It’s not even between “Republicans” and “Democrats,” as we’ve defined the two major parties over most of the past century.

No, the contest today is between democracy and authoritarianism. It’s between tolerance and bigotry. Between a multiracial, secular, inclusive society and one that believes in white Christian nationalism. Between the rule of law and neofascism.

The two sides in this contest do not merit equal weight. If we are going to have a decent society, the nation must come down on the former side.

As long as Trump has followers who support his bigotry, racism, corruption, and violence, the nation will remain divided and polarized. That is necessary and proper.

We shouldn’t “reach out, or “meet halfway,” or “find middle ground,” or “split the difference,” or any other of today’s hackneyed expressions for putting aside what divides us and agreeing.

Generations of Americans fought and died for the ideals of democracy, freedom, social justice, the rule of law, and equal opportunity. We have never fully achieved them, but they remain our ideals. Tomorrow we celebrate Memorial Day to honor those ideals and the memories of those who died for them.

There cannot be, must not be, any compromise with neofascism.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.