Tag Archives: Trump Administration

Federalism

In the United States, states have a long history of being considerably less than united. The Articles of Confederation were so focused on protecting the prerogatives of the individual colonies that they proved unworkable, and were replaced by a Constitution that made its own significant concessions to “states’ rights.”

As the country modernized and experienced increasing economic and social integration, the need for national standards became more obvious. Lawmakers recognized that federal agencies regulating things like health or clean air and water needed to issue regulations that would operate similarly in all the states. The Uniform Law Commission (also known as the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws), was created to draft legislation that would bring stability and conformity to state statutory law in areas where such uniformity is seen as desirable and practical. And there is an obvious need for federal law enforcement to enforce its criminal laws nationally.

But there is still room for considerable variation. Justice Brandeis memorably called the states in our federalist system “laboratories of democracy.”

Americans increasingly operate, live and do business in multiple states–a situation that led me to discount the importance of federalism for a long time. (Different laws in different states, after all, caused some very silly situations; before the Supreme Court found same-sex marriage to be a Constitutional right, people who were married in one state weren’t considered married in others.) I focused on the downside and failed to appreciate the upside.

The Trump administration has reminded me of federalism’s importance. Governors like Jay Pritzker in Illinois and Gavin Newsom in California, among others, have illustrated that importance, and a recent article from Vox called federalism a “hidden constraint” on Trump.

So far, the biggest successes against President Donald Trump’s second-term assault on democracy have come not from Congress and the Supreme Court, but more unusual sources: lower-court judges, “No Kings” protests, a Disney+ subscriber boycott, and Trump’s own indiscipline and incompetence.

After the 2025 elections, we can add the states to the list. And in some ways, this avenue of resistance may prove to be the most consequential one.

The article noted that the United States’ federalist system is unusual among backsliding democracies– and that it creates some “major opportunities for institutional pushback” that aren’t possible elsewhere. It also notes the irony of where we are today, since for most of our history, states (especially in the South) “have been places where pockets of authoritarianism could exist in a nationally democratic society.”

Certain of the powers that are, in our system, remitted to the states — very much including control over the administration of elections — are mechanisms through which we can resist this administration’s authoritarian power grab. We can see this most vividly in Trump’s effort to rig the upcoming midterm elections by asking Red states to engage in improper mid-cycle gerrymanders.

Because election administration is almost entirely devolved to the states in the American system, Trump has very limited powers to actually try and rig elections from DC. Instead, gerrymandering at the state level — threatening and cajoling governors and state legislatures into drawing as many safe seats for Republicans as possible — is his best shot at actually stacking the deck in the GOP’s favor in 2026.

As we are seeing, that effort is currently failing. Not only have Blue states “counter-gerrymandered,” but legislators in Red states like Indiana have (at least so far) refused to go along, deferring to the huge majorities of their constituents who disapprove.

As the article points out, would-be autocrats follow a well-worn path that requires consolidating formal power in their own hands and neutering independent checks on their authority. It’s a lot harder to rig elections or prosecute your political opponents when you don’t control the necessary levels of power. True, strong federalism cannot guarantee democracy: (Our history has ample examples of authoritarianism flourishing at local levels) But that system creates “opportunities for contestation” when the national government is moving in an unAmerican direction.

It’s hard to imagine a more unAmerican–not to mention demented– administration than the one we currently have. In just the last week, our mad would-be King has accepted a bribe from Saudi Arabia, authorized extra-judicial killings of Venezuelan fishermen, called for the death of political opponents who had the temerity to remind our troops that they took an oath to defy manifestly illegal orders, and responded to a legitimate question from a reporter by calling her “piggy.”

Given the fact that we have a Congress of eunuchs and a corrupt majority on the Supreme Court, I have a new appreciation for the role of federalism in America’s system of checks and balances.

Comments

The Real World Consequences

A majority of Americans are aware of the damage being done by this disastrous administration to our governing institutions,  the rule of law, and the economy. I think far fewer are aware of the thousands of preventable deaths caused by Trump’s version of “policy.”

The most visible are those caused by the defunding of USAID. USAID funding helped save an estimated 91 million lives over the past 20 years. Now, a peer-reviewed study tells us that Trump’s defunding of the agency will lead to more than 14 million preventable deaths globally by 2030, a number that includes more than 4.5 million children under the age of five.

Far less visible–but equally horrific– are the likely consequences of Trump’s indiscriminate war on medical science, and his termination of grants supporting clinical trials. A recent article from the Washington Post explored those terminations. Citing research published in JAMA Internal Medicine, the article reported that funding for 383 clinical trials had been pulled, and that the funding disruptions affected more than 74,000 trial participants. The researchers found that the cuts disproportionately affected trials focused on infectious diseases (such as covid-19 and HIV); prevention; and behavioral interventions. More than 100 of the canceled grants supported cancer research.

Robert Hopkins, medical director for the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, said the study showed that funding cuts disproportionately hit areas “that are critical to public health.”

“Clinical research is a long game,” he said. “Developing new vaccines, antivirals and treatments takes years, often decades. Cutting funding now risks slowing progress on interventions that could help save lives for years to come.”

Some of the clinical trials that lost their grants sued, and several got their funding back, but they experienced delays during the course of the trials that are likely to have significant negative impacts on the studies and on their participants. As one researcher explained, “If you pause an experiment, especially when it comes to experiments involving drugs and patients where you need a consistent dose over time and consistent measurements, it’s possible that you just screwed up the entire research.” Another noted that much of the clinical infrastructure was crippled or entirely destroyed during the grant terminations, making it very difficult to resume the research. 

And of course, when clinical trials are delayed or canceled, the patients who were enrolled often lose access to care.

The funding terminations weren’t limited to clinical trials; numerous other research studies also lost funding. A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine in May found that between February and April, nearly 700 NIH grants had been terminated across 24 of the federal agency’s 26 institutes and centers. (It shouldn’t come as a surprise that studies focused on minorities–especially those investigating health concerns of non-Whites and LGBTQ+ citizens–appear to have been disproportionately targeted.)

Partners in Health addressed the likely consequences–and the importance of clinical research to public health.

Some of the greatest advancements made through research include vaccines, insulin, anesthesia, and treatments for infectious diseases. From laboratory studies to clinical trials and epidemiological investigations, scientists around the world use different methods of research to advance disease treatment, enhance diagnostics, and improve our overall understanding of diseases.  

“Research is the key to advancing health on the individual, community, national, and global level,” said Cora Cunningham, PIH Engage member, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health student, and research assistant with the Lantagne Group at Tufts University. “Whether about drinking water quality, disease dynamics, health systems, or the patient experience, research in public and global health is what allows us to access, receive, or deliver quality and patient-centered health care.”

Without research, there would be no breakthroughs, no clinical advancements, and no new cures. Despite its importance to humankind, biomedical research—particularly research funded through the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—has been targeted by the current U.S. administration.

The bottom line is that years of progress in public health have been disrupted. Thanks to a combination of frozen funding, the erection of new, onerous roadblocks to financing, and imposition of overly complicated new procedures, experts predict that the setbacks in research will cause generations of delays in breakthroughs and cures. As the linked article from Partners in Health warns, “patients who were part of clinical trials will face health risks due to the abrupt end to their treatment and support. Advancements made on cures and treatments for various diseases will be squandered. Jobs will be lost, and public health will suffer.”

The question is: why? This particular vendetta wasn’t a response to citizen demands. It isn’t even likely to line the pockets of the billionaires to whom this administration disproportionately caters. Like the destruction of USAID, it is simply gratuitously cruel.

Like Trump. 


 

 

 
Comments

Civil And Human Rights In Indiana

I recently participated in a Zoom Consortium convened by the Hammond Human Relations Commission. I was a member of a panel that discussed the current state of of civil liberties and human rights in our state.

Panel members were asked to collectively address two questions; a third “ask” was specific to our particular backgrounds.

The first question was “What legislative measures by this administration have caused greatest harm or generated positive outcomes pertaining to civil & human rights.” I responded that, in my opinion, virtually everything done by this administration has been harmful. (I added that the damage couldn’t have been done without the cowardly acquiescence of GOP legislators.) The Trump administration has declared war on civil rights, civil liberties and the Constitution.

The public is just beginning to recognize the multiple harms done by the awful “Big Beautiful Bill,” and Trump’s multiple ridiculous and unconstitutional Executive Orders, but the worst–again, in my humble opinion–has been the unrelenting assaults on “wokeness” and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. That federal assault has emboldened state-level culture warriors like Todd Rokita to pretend that good-faith efforts to level the civic playing field are really “reverse discrimination” against straight White men– a patently false excuse for the state’s vendetta against equal rights for women and minorities.

We were next asked if we had observed biases in the way information is disseminated in Indiana. My answer was really a repetition of observations I’ve shared here many times–about the fragmentation of today’s information environment, in which citizens aren’t all getting the same news or occupying the same realities, an environment which encourages people to choose “news” that confirms their biases—if they bother to consume any news at all.

I was then asked to expand on a paper I’d written about the effects of low civic literacy on democratic accountability, and to suggest solutions. (Ah, if only I had solutions…)

 As I explained, scholars attribute the erosion of American democracy to three interrelated causes: ignorance of politics and governance; the growth of inequality— including civic inequality and informational asymmetries—and a resurgent tribalism (racism and White Nationalism, sexism, homophobia, religious bigotry, the urban/rural divide…). Civic ignorance complicates the interactions between citizens and their government, and it exacerbates inequality. Citizens who understand how the political system works are advantaged in a number of ways over those who don’t, including their ability to recognize when elected officials are violating their oath to uphold the constitution.

Americans’ widespread ignorance of the basics of our Constitution and legal system has greatly facilitated the growth of disinformation and propaganda. It has allowed the current administration to obscure the fact that the majority of Trump’s numerous Executive Orders are at odds with the Constitution.

The most obvious was his attack on birthright citizenship, which is explicitly set out in the 14th Amendment. Eliminating birthright citizenship would require a Constitutional amendment—it cannot be done in a petulant Executive Order.

Citizens who’ve encountered the 14th Amendment would know that.

There are many other examples. If citizens knew that the Constitution vests control of spending in Congress—not the executive branch—they would recognize that Trump’s Orders withholding funding formerly authorized by Congress violates the Constitutional Separation of Powers. They would recognize that his “Muslim ban” was a flagrant violation of the First Amendment’s religion clauses. They would understand that his various efforts to root out Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs not only violate the Free Speech provisions of the First Amendment but are also unconstitutionally vague–and why that vagueness matters.

Long term, the solution is to require a much more robust civic education curriculum in the nation’s schools—a curriculum that doesn’t simply educate students about the Constitution and Bill of Rights but also teaches accurate and inclusive history. (I went all through high school and college and never heard about the Trail of Tears, or the Tulsa massacre, for example.) But efforts to strengthen civics education come up against the far Right’s determination to destroy public education—to use vouchers to send public money to overwhelmingly religious private schools, very few of which offer civics or accurate, in-depth history instruction. Worse, attending such schools operates to reinforce tribal identities rather than inculcating allegiance to an overarching American constitutional philosophy. The effort to replace America’s public schools with religious “academies” was set out in Project 2025—and this administration is clearly following the prescriptions of that document.

Reinvigorating our public schools and requiring appropriate civic education is really the most effective solution to what ails us. If there are other solutions, I haven’t come across them.

Comments

Let Us Count The Ways…

It’s impossible for most of us to keep up with the unconstitutional, corrupt and overwhelmingly stupid actions of Trump and his merry band of incompetents and bigots–so today I thought I’d enumerate just a few of the actions that are taking my country down the path to fascism and global irrelevance. 

Keep in mind that this is a very partial list…..

The FCC has threatened to pull licenses from networks whose coverage of our thin-skinned president hurts his feelings. (What First Amendment?)

Is factual economic news negative? The government will eliminate quarterly reports by public companies, tighten controls on the release of employment data, and delay the release of inflation data, obvious moves to suppress facts and prevent citizens from understanding our declining economic health. As Lincoln Square recently reported,

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) abruptly postponed its consumer expenditures report, the dataset that determines how inflation is measured in the year ahead. No explanation was given. No new date set.

Last year, when the release was delayed, the agency cited an error and announced a rescheduled publication; this year it offered neither explanation nor date. The absence is striking because the report is central to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which shapes interest rates, wages, and the daily cost of living. Critics warn the delay is not accidental but political.

It’s not just economic data. The administration has removed statistics from DOJ websites that inconveniently showed that right-wing violence is by far the nation’s biggest domestic threat. RFK’s HHS is removing data that demonstrates vaccine effectiveness. Etc.

The administration is frantically trying to distract attention from its non-disclosure of the Epstein files. (Pretty much confirms that you-know-who is in those files…)

The administration’s war against education keeps ramping up. Assaults against universities, efforts to destroy public education, demands that museums and national parks scrub the parts of history Trump doesn’t like have recently been joined by administration plans to partner with Christian Nationalist organization Prager U to create a new “Civics Education” for the nation’s children. (Can we spell White Christian indoctrination??)

Does our tech sector rely on recruiting “the best and brightest” from around the world? Hit those “furriners” with a 100,000 fee per visa. 

The corruption of this administration becomes more obvious every day. Not only is Trump making out like the bandit he is with patently illegal grifts, not only has he instructed the Department of Justice to bring phony charges against his political enemies (and fired ethical lawyers who refused to manufacture evidence), his administration has also shut down investigation of his border czar’s bribery–despite the fact that Homan’s acceptance of $50,000 from undercover FBI agents was captured on tape.

As I said in my introductory paragraph, this is a very partial list of the wreckage being done every minute of every day by the idiots and grifters currently in charge of our federal government. As Paul Krugman recently detailed in his Substack, what passes for policy in this administration is insane.

We attracted investment from around the world in part because we had rule of law: Businesses trusted us to honor property rights and enforce contracts. So the Trumpists turned us into a nation where the government extorts ownership shares in corporations and masked government agents seize foreign workers, put them in chains, and imprison them under terrible conditions.

We lead the world in science thanks to our unmatched network of research universities and globally admired government agencies like the National Institutes of Health. So the Trumpists are doing their best to destroy both university and government research.

And our economic success — the way we have pulled ahead of other advanced nations over the past generation — rests almost entirely on our leadership in digital technology. So the Trumpists are pulling the rug out from under tech, too.

H-1B visas are a critical ingredient in America’s success. They allow the best and the brightest from around the world to teach in our universities, do research in our research institutes, and work in our tech sector.

Every day, Americans are inundated with propaganda extolling these incredibly harmful attacks on our liberties, our economic well-being and our global preeminence. Thanks to MAGA’s unremitting attacks on those who dare to tell the truth, it gets more and more difficult to separate propaganda from journalism, fact from fiction.

That difficulty is immensely dangerous.

Hannah Arendt said it best, back in 1951, in Origins of Totalitarianism: “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.” 

Comments

Universities And A Fork In The Road

There is no dearth of commentary/punditry addressing the Trump administration’s frenzied effort to discard the Constitution and install a Right-wing autocracy, Much of that commentary is thought-provoking. (And yes, much more of it ranges from naive to dissociated from reality.)

A column in last week’s New York Times was one of the best I’ve read.

The author, M. Gessen, was examining the administration’s war on America’s universities, which she quite accurately noted is being driven by anti-intellectualism and greed. As she writes, “Trump is building a mafia state, in which the don distributes both money and power. Universities are independent centers of intellectual and, to some extent, political power. He is trying to destroy that independence.”

Gessen then makes an incredibly important point–one that requires academia to acknowledge how far higher education has strayed from its central purpose, which must be the production and dissemination of knowledge. As she insists, successful resistance will require more than simply refusing to bend to Trump’s will. It will require abandoning concerns about rankings, donors, campus amenities and the like —concerns that, as she correctly points out, tend to preoccupy university administrations and divert them from their core mission.

Most prominent American universities, most of the time, measure their success not so much by the degree to which their faculty and graduates contribute to the world as by the size of their endowment, the number of students seeking admission and their ascent in rankings by U.S. News & World Report and others, which assess the value of a university education in part by looking at graduates’ starting salaries.

Trump has focused on research grants as an ideal instrument to blackmail academic institutions.

His first target, Columbia University, acceded to his demands within two weeks of losing $400 million in grants and contracts. When Columbia’s first sacrifice didn’t bring back the money, the university made another: its interim president, Katrina Armstrong. That didn’t satisfy Trump, who now reportedly wants Columbia to agree to direct government oversight. He is also brandishing financial threats, separately, at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard, Cornell, Brown, Johns Hopkins and Northwestern — and still there is no sign of organized resistance on the part of universities. There is not even a joint statement in defense of academic freedom or an assertion of universities’ value to society. (Even people who have no use for the humanities may see value in medical schools and hospitals.)

The assault on Columbia has demonstrated the futility of submission.

Slashing and burning its way through the National Institutes of Health, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Wilson Center, the United States Institute of Peace, the Smithsonian, and others, the administration has shown that it considers knowledge production worthless. In the rare areas where the president — or perhaps Elon Musk — may see value in research, the emergent mafia state is almost certain to distribute funds to its friends. One shudders to think what universities would have to do to fit themselves into that category.

Universities in other countries have faced similar assaults, and some have successfully defied them. Gessen provides a “case study,” from Poland which she acknowledges was radical–but which worked.

Adopting such a radical approach, and forsaking the usual concerns of development offices and communications departments, would be costly, to be sure. The universities most actively targeted by Trump have the resources necessary to weather such a radical reorientation. But as Leon Botstein, the president of Bard College, told me, “Too many of our wealthiest universities have made their endowments their primary object of protection.”

I really urge you to click through and read the entire essay. Reading it paradoxically put me in touch with my inner Pollyanna. Perhaps–if resistance to MAGA’s assault on academic and intellectual achievement is successful–it will restore academia’s focus on the essential purpose of education: the production and dissemination of knowledge. Not job training. Certainly not acquiescence to the prejudices and fantasies of a “Dear Leader.”

Gessen’s final paragraphs are worth pondering.

So this is my radical proposal for universities: Act like universities, not like businesses. Spend your endowments. Accept more, not fewer students. Open up your campuses and expand your reach not by buying real estate but by bringing education to communities. Create a base. Become a movement.

Alternatively, you can try to negotiate with a mafia boss who wants to see you grovel. When these negotiations fail, as they inevitably will, it will be too late to ask for the public’s support.

Harvard has just refused to be blackmailed by the administration’s threat to withhold a breathtaking nine billion in grants. Here’s hoping other schools follow its example.

Comments