US onAir Curators

Dear Journalists: Stop Trying to Save Democracy
Journalists who turn themselves into political activists inadvertently undermine democratic institutions.
Yascha Mounk

But while all of us, including journalists, may have a civic obligation to fight for the preservation of our political system in our role as citizens, it is a category mistake to assume that journalists should place that aspiration at the center of their professional identity. Democracies depend on having a few widely trusted news outlets that can objectively inform the public about current affairs. The trust which citizens have traditionally placed in these outlets was premised on a belief that their journalists are at least striving to present events in an even-handed manner. The moment they recognize that this is no longer the case, that trust is shattered—and any hope of building political life on a basis of shared facts vanishes.

As it happens, the reluctance to level with readers ultimately accomplished the opposite of what was intended. It allowed Biden to stay in the race long enough to make the entire Democratic establishment complicit in covering up the true state of his mental health. And it made it virtually impossible to stage an open primary to choose his successor.

Rubio, Gabbard, and Gaetz. . . Oh My!
Oliver Wiseman, The Free Press

But first, three presidential picks—and what they say about the second Trump term.

On Wednesday, Donald Trump announced three more headline-grabbing cabinet nominees. Each represents a strand of the unlikely MAGA alliance that triumphed last week and is set to run Washington in the coming years.

The Submission Chain: The Transitive Property and Trump
The Transitive Property and Trump

“Owning the libs” does not get us far in international politics. Usually democratic power is about multiplication: we bring people together, we can pass some laws, people might benefit.  But Trump’s domestic power is division, making America much weaker than it would be in foreign affairs.  The United States is strong as a republic (flawed though that republic might be).  It is weaker when its ruler aspires to be a divider and a dictator.  And thus the very power that Trump voters see in Trump is, seen from any external perspective, weakness.  This is how the next step of the formula is possible:

There is no conceivable argument from US national interests to propose Tulsi Gabbard for that most critical position.  She has zero relevant experience. The only thing for which she is known is her support of Putin (and Assad). Her candidacy is, quite literally, a proposal that can only have emerged in Moscow, where she is known as a “Russian agent” or as “our girlfriend.”

Trump’s Shock, Mock, and Roll ‘Em Strategy
The president-elect isn’t worried about Senate Republicans growing a backbone. They’re unlikely to prove him wrong.
William Kristol

If you’re surprised, you’re a dupe. President Trump is going to do in his second term what he said he’d do on the campaign trail, and what he tried fitfully to do in his first term. He’s going to turn the federal government into an instrument of MAGA policy and grievance. He’s going to pursue retribution against enemies. He’s going to destroy what remains of the older norms that guide the operations of the government, and of the institutional checks that constrain the abuse of power.

He told us this was his plan. The only surprise is how quickly he’s acting on it.

And Trump is their master. As Rep. Troy Nehls (R–Tex.) said yesterday, “His mission, and his goals and objectives, whatever that is, we need to embrace it. All of it. Every single word. . . . If Donald Trump says, ‘Jump three feet high and scratch your head,’ we all jump three feet high and scratch our heads. That’s it.”

6 Things About Trump’s Hawkish New Defense Secretary That Should Scare the Hell Out Of You
Mehdi Hassan, Zeteo

President-elect Donald J. Trump sent shockwaves through the Pentagon this week, after announcing his pick for secretary of defense: Fox weekend host Pete Hegseth, who has zero experience in government.

But frankly, it’s not the lack of experience or his association with right-wing media that should worry people the most – it’s his clear love for war, war crimes, and war criminals.

With apologies to Donald Rumsfeld, he may be about to become the most extreme defense secretary in American history.