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accountability
Automated Activation on ICE Body Cameras Is Common Sense
ICE rejected the recommendation to implement automated activation technology for use, making claims that are baseless and somewhat puzzling, especially since some federal law enforcement officers already use automated activation.
Oct 16, 2026
The Government Accountability Office, an independent non-partisan watchdog agency, released a report this month finding that the US Customs and Border Protection and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement have unsuccessfully implemented their body camera programs, with ICE failing to meet its own policy initiative of “accurately documenting events” to promote transparency and enhance public trust.
The GAO report noted, “ICE lacks a reasonable assurance of compliance with activation requirements in policy” and for this reason recommended that automated camera activation be used to ensure that body cameras are activated in accordance with its policy. ICE policy stipulates that agents activate their body cameras “as soon as practical at the beginning of an Enforcement Activity and deactivation when the activity is concluded.”
Automated activation technology guarantees that a body camera is automatically switched on the moment an officer draws their firearm or conducted energy device (commonly TASER) to capture as much as an enforcement activity (from start to finish) as possible.
Automated activation for body cameras is already used by federal law enforcement officers, so why not for ICE?
ICE however rejected the recommendation to implement automated activation technology for use with its body cameras citing “significant operational risks, including inadvertent or false activations during routine movement,” while suggesting that accidental activations of its body cameras could record sensitive information, violate privacy, and even contravene the First Amendment.
These claims are baseless and somewhat puzzling especially since some federal law enforcement officers already use automated activation, as do other police agencies across the country.
Consider the VA Police who are federal law enforcement officers of the US Department of Veterans Affairs. According to their policy, body cameras are automatically activated when an officer draws their firearm.
In the case of an accidental activation, VA Police policy classifies such footage under the category of “false activation” and when designated as such, denotes that the accidental footage can be stored for 30 days before deletion whereas the retention of footage categorized as “investigation” may be retained for as long as 25 years.
The VA Police use Axon body cameras, the same devices used by ICE and by many police departments in the US.
Axon body cameras have a “false activation cancellation” option as an additional feature of their body-cameras products, providing law enforcement officers with the ability to “stop accidental or undesired recordings” should they occur. The option is initiated with the simple press of a “cancel button” on the screen of the body camera.
There are obvious worries of the unauthorized deletion of recordings, but such concerns can be addressed with good policy. Consider Section 11 “Accidental Recordings” of the body camera policy of the San Jose Police Department (SJPD) as an example.
Section 11 outlines the process for the handling of body camera recordings that have no evidentiary or investigative value. In such circumstances, the “officer will submit a request for deletion via email” to their direct supervisor. The policy specifies that the request email is to be forwarded through the chain of command. The receiving commanding officer is then responsible for reviewing the accidental footage prior to approving (or denying) the request for deletion. The email chain provides a shared written record to deter any malfeasance and to ensure accountability.
As if all of this wasn’t enough to warrant automated body camera activation for use with its body cameras, ICE has maintained that it will only release footage that “is in the best interests of the agency.” Presumably then any “false activations” of ICE body cameras that capture sensitive information or violate privacy would not be released anyway.
Automated activation for body cameras is already used by federal law enforcement officers, so why not for ICE?
The logical conclusion is that ICE’s failure to adopt automated camera activation into its body camera program is merely a blatant attempt to evade any semblance of transparency and accountability.
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Dear Pete Heg-Trash
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has repeatedly attacked anonymous complaints while presenting his campaign against what he considers politically correct military culture as a return to strength, yet there is nothing strong about creating more fear around reporting abuse, harassment, or misconduct.
Oct 02, 2026
Nothing taught me more about the danger of silence in the military than surviving rape twice while wearing the uniform of the country I volunteered to serve, because I learned firsthand how quickly an institution built around honor, courage, and loyalty can become terrifying when the person who has been violated must decide whether speaking up will cost them even more.
Our service members understand that fear, which is why attacks on anonymous reporting should alarm anyone who actually cares about protecting the people who serve.
Being able to report misconduct without immediately exposing yourself can mean the difference between speaking and staying silent when rank, retaliation, career consequences, and the instinct to protect the institution are stacked against you.
Let us stop calling silence discipline, stop calling environmental disregard strength, and stop pretending accountability somehow makes our military weaker.
Once those protections are weakened, the misconduct does not magically disappear; the person experiencing it simply has fewer safe ways to expose it.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has repeatedly attacked anonymous complaints while presenting his campaign against what he considers politically correct military culture as a return to strength.
Yet there is nothing strong about creating more fear around reporting abuse, harassment, or misconduct, especially inside an institution where power and rank shape nearly every part of a service member’s life.
I call that feeding the conditions where rape culture survives, because I know personally what happens when silence becomes easier for an institution than accountability.
Survivors should never have to prove their toughness by enduring abuse quietly.
Disregard for accountability also appears in Hegseth’s approach to another responsibility the military cannot escape: what it does to the land, water, and communities where it operates.
In his own words, “No more climate change worship,” but treating environmental responsibility as weakness ignores the damage military activity has already left behind in American communities.
Service members and Mother Earth have something painful in common: Both have been expected to absorb damage in the name of a mission and remain silent about the scars.
Pollution from military operations has contaminated land and groundwater on Guam, the island where I was born, where decades of military activity have left contamination near an aquifer our people depend upon for drinking water.
Our community here in Tucson knows another version of that story, with PFAS contamination threatening groundwater and military facilities, including Davis-Monthan, identified among the sources requiring investigation and cleanup.
Strength cannot mean demanding unlimited sacrifice from people, communities, and the planet while treating accountability as an inconvenience.
As a veteran, a survivor, and someone born on an island carrying the environmental scars of America's military presence, I cannot separate these issues, because both force us to confront what happens when powerful institutions decide that accomplishing the mission matters more than acknowledging who or what gets harmed along the way.
Bodies can be raped, land can be violated, water can be poisoned, and although those harms are not identical, they grow from a dangerous belief that something valuable can be used, damaged, and discarded because those holding power have decided the cost is acceptable.
Let us stop calling silence discipline, stop calling environmental disregard strength, and stop pretending accountability somehow makes our military weaker.
Enough: No service member, no community, and no piece of Mother Earth should ever be treated as disposable.
xoxo, military members & Mother Earth
P.S. Read the first letters of each paragraph.
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The Ballot Box as a Check on War
A vote need not endorse a party’s entire agenda. It can demand answers from those responsible for war.
Sep 30, 2026
On September 24, the Senate rejected a resolution directing the president to remove US forces from hostilities with Iran. In American politics, the end of military operations does not necessarily end a war’s political consequences. Some wars enter a decisive phase when the public judges their costs. Missiles may fall silent, troops return to their bases, and governments announce agreements or claim victory, but questions remain: Who decided? Why was war necessary? How transparent was the decision? What did it cost taxpayers, soldiers, allies, and America’s credibility? Who should answer for it?
Elections do more than transfer power between parties. They are among the few institutional channels through which Americans can translate dissatisfaction with foreign policy into political action. A vote need not express partisan loyalty or simple opposition to a president. It can demand answers for decisions whose consequences outlast any administration.
One of American democracy’s fundamental contradictions is that the government makes decisions with far-reaching international consequences while citizens often have little direct power to shape them. Launching or expanding military operations, deploying troops to crisis zones, and allocating billions to foreign wars involve executive and congressional powers, security considerations, and classified intelligence. This setting can distance decision-makers from those who bear the economic, human, and geopolitical consequences. War becomes a question about the quality of political representation: Can democratic institutions balance government power with the public’s right to know, question, and judge?
Voting cannot solve every problem. Its value lies in its capacity to turn passive observers of foreign policy into participants who take positions on government direction and the limits of its authority.
A government that goes to war in the name of national security must explain its objectives, costs, and prospects for an end. A war that begins with a specific justification but continues without a clear endpoint, public evaluation of its outcomes, or political accountability can turn an emergency policy into a permanent condition. It may persist because of the political difficulty of admitting failure, the cost of withdrawal, or institutional and security interests, rather than a new necessity.
This is where elections matter. If citizens cannot intervene when a war begins, can they judge how it is managed, prolonged, or ended? Choosing a candidate can also convey a demand about war, military spending, or presidential powers without endorsing every part of that candidate’s platform.
A vote can register dissatisfaction, demand a change of direction, and warn officials who believe they can manage the political costs of war without public accountability. Someone may approve of a government’s economic policies while opposing its war, or disagree with parts of a party’s social agenda while seeking limits on the incumbent administration’s military powers. Elections allow these conflicting preferences to find expression through political choices, primary contests, civic participation, and pressure on representatives.
America’s two-party system, money in politics, the influence of interest groups, and the many issues bundled into electoral contests can prevent a single concern from translating clearly into a political outcome. Those limits do not necessarily leave citizens with a powerless ballot. They make deliberate use of the vote more important.
Foreign wars are often shaped within security, military, and executive circles whose language centers on threats, deterrence, national interests, and urgent action. During crises, that language can narrow public debate: Opposition may be accused of undermining national security, while demands to end a war may be portrayed as retreat. Democracy requires that national security remain open to scrutiny. Citizens are entitled to know the objectives, measures of success, how costs are financed, and when responsibility for decisions will be assessed.
Supporting the armed forces does not require unconditional acceptance of decisions about their use. Respecting soldiers is compatible with criticizing the politicians who send them to war. Those who hold political power remain responsible for defining missions, setting objectives, and explaining why they must continue.
The long-term costs of Middle Eastern wars, the social consequences of deployments abroad, and doubts about whether interventions were worth their costs can fuel public dissatisfaction. But war fatigue alone does not necessarily change policy. Discontent must move beyond scattered emotions and become a political demand that can be pursued and sustained. Elections offer one route.
When war becomes an electoral issue, candidates and parties face pressure to explain military costs, objectives, and the limits of foreign commitments. Congressional decisions on defense budgets, authorizations for military force, and oversight of foreign operations can affect voters’ trust and lawmakers’ futures. These are not merely technical matters detached from public opinion. A protest vote may not end a war, but it can form part of a chain of pressure through civil society, the media, Congress, and oversight institutions, raising the political cost of leaving questions unanswered.
Accountability must extend beyond ending a particular conflict. Even after fighting ends, the question of how the United States enters future wars remains. If politicians can invoke ambiguous threats, shifting objectives, and vague promises to enter wars, then move past their consequences without clear explanations, changing administrations will not necessarily change how decisions are made.
Are presidential war powers subject to sufficient congressional oversight? Do voters have the information needed to evaluate foreign policy? Are war costs transparent in the budget? Do officials remain accountable after fighting ends? These questions concern the architecture of power, the limits of executive authority, public oversight, and the meaning of representation.
When war decisions can cost billions, endanger lives, reshape regional orders, and have consequences lasting generations, political indifference carries a cost beyond withdrawing from an electoral contest. Beyond deciding who occupies the White House or controls Congress, citizens can remind officials acting in their name that power without accountability eventually becomes detached from representation.
For Americans who see endless wars as a rupture between the public’s will and foreign-policy decisions, voting can express a clear demand: National security must not become a blank check for unlimited wars. Politicians must not be allowed to hide responsibility behind geopolitical complexity, classified information, or partisan competition.
Voting cannot solve every problem. Its value lies in its capacity to turn passive observers of foreign policy into participants who take positions on government direction and the limits of its authority. It is not a final answer to endless wars. It can begin to reclaim a right that opaque decisions and unaccountable foreign policy have pushed beyond the public’s reach: the right to ask why a war began, why it continued, and who should be held responsible for its consequences.
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Republicans’ Belated Reckoning With the Iran War
More and more Republicans are calling for an end to the Iran War as the midterm elections approach, but is this an opening for true accountability or merely a ploy to win votes?
Sep 29, 2026
On September 21, Iowa Rep. Ashley Hinson, the Republican Senate nominee, called for a “successful and immediate end” to the Iran war. In Washington, the conflict still appears primarily to be a question of presidential power. In Michigan, Iowa, and Ohio, however, it has become a question of Republican candidates’ ability to win or retain office. As the midterms approach, the White House continues to define the war through its own authorities and objectives, while Republicans facing voters increasingly have to explain how it should end. Their cautious distancing suggests less a change in foreign policy than a belated confrontation with political accountability.
Republican appeals to party loyalty rest on a familiar premise: On national security, the party should stand behind its own president. But a war without a clear end in sight raises a difficult question: Can party loyalty substitute for an explanation of where a military conflict is heading? Or do elected representatives, even when they support their own administration, have a duty to ask why the war continues and under what conditions it can end? The recent positions of some Republicans suggest that these questions are no longer confined to debate among analysts; they have entered the governing party itself.
Alongside Hinson, Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers, Iowa Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Michigan Rep. John James, and Ohio Sen. Jon Husted have called for an end to the war, while others continue to support it. Retiring Sens. Joni Ernst and Thom Tillis have also questioned its duration or the lack of a clear path to its conclusion. Yet on September 22, Senate Majority Leader John Thune appealed for Republican unity. The next day, he encouraged candidates to run their own campaigns, even when they disagreed with President Donald Trump. These positions suggest a party in which alignment with the president carries growing political costs.
Republicans cannot indefinitely choose loyalty to the president over accountability to the public.
The significance lies not simply in the number of Republicans calling for an end to the war, but in their changing political language. The issue is no longer merely whether to support or oppose the president. It is also how representatives explain a prolonged war to voters who may demand answers about its necessity, purpose, and prospects. Calling for an end to the war becomes a way of redefining the relationship between lawmakers and their constituents—a relationship that cannot remain indefinitely obscured by party discipline or loyalty to the White House.
This shift does not necessarily indicate a principled reassessment of Republican foreign policy. Distancing from the war may stem from electoral calculations, concern about voters’ reactions, or an effort to reduce the political costs of a protracted conflict. Even if some lawmakers have concluded that continuing the war conflicts with the preferences of some voters, their positions cannot yet be treated as a strategic break with Trump’s approach. What is emerging is cautious distancing: an attempt to avoid the war’s political costs while preserving ties with the party leadership.
Nevertheless, that caution reveals an important reality: The war can no longer be treated solely as a matter of executive decisions and geopolitical calculations. Responsibility extends beyond the White House to lawmakers who have supported its continuation, remained silent, or used party unity as a substitute for public debate. Accountability is no longer simply an external demand imposed on the party; it has become an internal issue affecting its credibility and cohesion.
Thune’s appeal for unity matters in this context. Party unity during wartime can be presented as a sign of strength and political stability. Yet as disagreements over the war grow, that unity risks becoming organized silence. The party may ask lawmakers to stand with the president, but loyalty must not render the ballot powerless or erase constituents’ questions. Unity that cannot articulate a clear objective or a conceivable endpoint for the war may turn from a political asset into a liability.
The midterm elections are thus becoming a mechanism of political accountability. Lawmakers who once explained the war primarily through party loyalty must now demonstrate whether they accept responsibility for limiting it, defining the conditions for its conclusion, and responding to public concerns. This demand does not necessarily imply opposition to every aspect of the war. Voters may support the administration’s security objectives while demanding explanations for the conflict’s prolonged duration, the absence of an exit strategy, and its uncertain costs. Republican politicians are increasingly being forced to take that distinction seriously.
From this perspective, some lawmakers’ distancing from the Iran war is less evidence of an abrupt transformation within the party than a sign that accountability has entered Republican political calculations belatedly. Calls to end the war are growing louder because the conflict is no longer merely a presidential decision; it can affect politicians’ relationships with voters. Yet that delay leaves a fundamental question: Why has explaining how the war should end gained such urgency as the elections approach?
Political accountability has meaning when it begins before a crisis becomes an electoral threat, not when politicians conclude that continued silence may cost them votes. If Republicans are calling for an end to the war, they must pursue that position beyond campaign statements through clear demands concerning the conflict’s objectives, limits, and exit strategy. Otherwise, their recent distancing may amount less to accountability than to managing the consequences of a policy that previously escaped scrutiny.
The Iran war is not merely a test of Republican foreign policy; it is a test of when responsibility is assumed. Republicans cannot indefinitely choose loyalty to the president over accountability to the public. The question is not who distances themselves from the war first, but why calls to end it have grown louder as the elections draw closer. If that question remains unanswered, these positions will signal not a change of course, but only that the cost of silence has finally become greater than the cost of dissent.
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The Senate Can and Should Take an Important Step Toward Ending Israeli Impunity
A vote is expected early next week on Senate Resolution 852 to hold Israel accountable for its horrific actions against US citizens killed or detained by Israel.
Sep 26, 2026
Last week, I was pleased to once again participate in a meeting with one of my US Senators, Democrat Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, a consistent leader for peace, justice, and human rights in Congress, and especially for ending US support for Israel’s genocide, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing against the people of Palestine.
The subject of the meeting was his bill, with a vote expected early next week, Senate Resolution 852, to hold Israel accountable for its horrific actions against US citizens killed or detained by Israel. The goal of the resolution is very simple: within 30 days of passage, to require a State Department report on Israel’s alleged killings of nine US citizens, and more broadly, on the commission of “gross violations of internationally recognized human rights by Israel.” The resolution cites US law, section 502(B)(c) of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961.
The resolution reads, in part “...since January 2022, at least nine United States citizens have been killed by violent Israeli settlers or Israeli security forces in the West Bank, including Omar Assad, Shireen Abu Akleh, Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, Mohammad Khdour, Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, Amer Rabee, Sayfollah Kamel Musallet, Khamis Ayyad, and Nasrallah Abu Siyam” and “...the killings of these Americans in the West Bank have been met by a lack of accountability from the Netanyahu government and an inability to secure justice by the United States Government.”
This resolution can help bring an end to US support for Israel’s atrocities, something most people in this country, especially nearly three-quarters of Democrats, support.
Asking the Department of State to produce such a report sounds like the absolute minimum we, as taxpayers, deserve from our government, and certainly the families of those killed by Israel, likely with US-provided weapons, deserve that and much more. The resolution is supported by 84% of voters, on a bipartisan basis, in a just-released poll, and has 24 Senate co-sponsors. And as the resolution states, and many supporters note, protecting US citizens abroad is constantly touted as the top priority for US foreign policy, even by the current rogue Trump regime that regularly flouts domestic and international law, with the most egregious example being the illegal US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran.
Peace advocates regularly support much stronger legislation, and will do so repeatedly, until peace, justice, and human rights are the real foundations of US foreign policy, and not just paid cynical lip service. Soon there will likely be a Joint Resolution of Disapproval (JRD) in Congress to stop the proposed shipment of 40,000 one-ton bombs to Israel. The Biden administration, as bad as it was in its support for Israel during the razing of Gaza, had put this sale on hold, but President Donald Trump is now moving it forward. But the relatively modest Van Hollen resolution would be an important step toward ending Israel’s impunity, and if we can’t get justice for American citizens killed by Israel, then Congress is completely derelict in doing its job.
Peace Action and our colleagues have already generated over 57,000 letters to the Senate in favor of Sen. Van Hollen’s resolution, and many groups are pushing to get that figure close to 100,000, if not more.
With the mess in Congress (not to mention the administration and Supreme Court), there is no guarantee this resolution will pass, or even get a vote, though it is considered privileged, so it can’t be bottled up indefinitely under Senate rules. It could get punted to the lame-duck congressional session after the midterm elections. Regardless, along with other proposed legislation such as the JRD in the pipeline, this resolution can help bring an end to US support for Israel’s atrocities, something most people in this country, especially nearly three-quarters of Democrats, support.
While I doubt hardcore supporters of Israel in this country will be swayed by much of anything, there is a growing political inevitability at play here. Regardless of what one thinks of the state of Israel, its actions, or its “right” to certain territory, US taxpayers are not going to continue to put up with endless amounts of US weaponry and military going to support genocide, apartheid, and gross human rights violations. And it’s easy to connect to the “affordability crisis” in the US and elsewhere. Young Americans who can’t afford to buy a car, let alone a house, and lack the free universal healthcare Israelis enjoy, have especially turned against Israel. The pipeline of US military support is going to be shut off eventually, and perhaps sooner than expected. Politicians of any party ignore this reality at their own peril.
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How Progressives Can Lead the Dems Out of the Foreign-Policy Blob
What begins as opposition to the conventional Democratic approach to Israel could evolve into a broader challenge to the party’s establishment—and ultimately rescue Democrats from their disappointing foreign policy record.
Sep 19, 2026
For the past two decades, the Democratic Party has struggled to articulate a coherent foreign policy doctrine. From the Iraq War to the rise of China to the Russia-Ukraine war, Democrats have had little exciting to offer. Too often, they have converged with Republicans on militarism, occasionally tinging it with a dose of liberal internationalism in an effort—often fruitlessly—to demonstrate that they are different.
But that uninspiring foreign policy may finally be facing a serious reform movement in the wake of the latest round of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As the Democratic establishment once again turns to militarism to defend the US-Israel alliance, insurgent progressives—once on the fringes of the Democratic Party—are gaining momentum to reverse that tradition. For all intents and purposes, what begins as opposition to the conventional Democratic approach to Israel could evolve into a broader challenge to the party’s establishment—and ultimately rescue Democrats from their disappointing foreign policy record.
Make no mistake: Democrats once knew how to do foreign policy. Those who succeeded in building a robust foreign-policy identity shared one important trait: They all connected their foreign-policy principles to their domestic agenda. In doing so, they created a coherent foreign-policy philosophy that could resonate with mainstream Democratic voters, who generally care more about domestic affairs than foreign policy.
Connecting Foreign Policy to the Domestic Agenda
The idealist Woodrow Wilson framed American entry into World War I and the creation of the League of Nations in terms of protecting American security and prosperity. Likewise, the pragmatist Franklin D. Roosevelt presented his recognition of the Soviet Union as part of a broader effort to advance American economic interests during the Great Depression. Jimmy Carter framed nuclear arms control with the Soviets as a means of reducing the economic burdens of the arms race and preserving resources for domestic priorities. A business-friendly Bill Clinton presented China’s accession to the World Trade Organization as an opportunity to expand American exports, create jobs, and strengthen the US economy.
That foreign-domestic policy nexus largely disappeared after 2004. When Democrats rallied behind John Kerry, they hoped that his military service in Vietnam and his vote authorizing the Iraq War would give him the credentials to challenge George W. Bush as an accredited commander in chief. But they overlooked a fundamental flaw: Kerry had an internally contradictory foreign-policy record. He supported several US military interventions while remaining committed to multilateralism. The result was that Kerry, the liberal hawk, alienated anti-war Democratic voters without giving hawkish voters a compelling reason to prefer him over Bush. More importantly, in their effort to portray Kerry as a strong grand strategist, Democrats failed to answer the question that mattered most to their own base: How would a Democratic president with an inclination toward Republican-style military intervention actually make Americans better off?
The Kerry puzzle seems to have haunted the Democratic foreign-policy agenda ever since, with occasional exceptions. Yes, Barack Obama had some notable foreign policy achievements, such as the Iran nuclear deal and the normalization of US-Cuba relations. And those achievements, pitched domestically either as a means of enhancing US national security or of expanding economic opportunities for Americans, suggested that he had the potential to reform, if not transform, the rigid Democratic foreign policy orthodoxy. But the unexpected rise of Donald Trump abruptly brought that process to a halt, shifting Democrats’ focus from opposing Republican foreign policy in general to opposing Trump, the person.
US primacy should not be the premise on which American foreign policy is built. Rather, it should be the American people.
Democrats’ obsession with Trump left his Democratic challengers—from Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden to Kamala Harris—stuck in the limbo of status-quo foreign policy. They became so eager to deliver an immediate and defining foreign-policy victory, in the hope of reassuring voters of their ability to handle global affairs, that they lost sight of a more fundamental task: developing a set of principles that the party could consistently defend rather than maintaining the status quo through piecemeal policies. Many of the top officials in the Biden administration, for instance, had been involved in negotiating the original Iran nuclear deal, which sought to advance cooperative internationalism, yet his administration showed little appetite for restoring it.
Nor did Biden make good on his promise of a foreign policy for the middle class. His administration proposed redirecting part of the defense budget toward technological workforce development to preserve America’s innovative edge and strengthen long-term readiness. Yet defense spending continued to grow throughout his presidency. Likewise, he promised to move away from promoting democracy through costly military interventions, but his administration repeatedly relied on military force abroad, including strikes against Houthi militants in Yemen without congressional authorization and US involvement in conflicts across multiple regions.
Biden epitomizes the conundrum confronting the Democratic foreign-policy establishment: It has one foot in the present to search for reform while the other remains firmly planted in the past. That dilemma helps explain why liberal hawks so often prefer ad hoc decisions to a systematic strategy for the long game. And the poignant yet unavoidable consequence is that Democrats still lack a robust foreign-policy identity, leaving their pursuit of national security credentials always several steps behind their Republican opponents.
Kamala Harris may have recognized this dilemma and attempted to break with it by making the bold move of picking progressive Tim Walz as her running mate. But putting aside Walz’s progressive domestic agenda, his realist approach to foreign policy rendered the Harris-Walz ticket, at most, slightly-left-of-center and unlikely to bring genuine change to the party’s foreign-policy outlook. Their broad alignment with Biden’s policy toward the Gaza conflict only reinforced the impression that they would remain tethered to a Democratic foreign-policy establishment operating within a bipartisan “Blob” whose worldviews have been monolithic.
That said, the only way for Democrats to escape this quagmire is to stop tinkering with—or, worse, simply repeating—some version of the tired conventional Democratic “wisdom.” That approach has proved ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst over the past two decades. What Democrats need is an outside-in reform. And as quixotic as it may sound, this is something only genuine progressives—the outsiders of the Democratic Party—can deliver.
The Outsider Agenda
Progressives, by nature, embody an egalitarian imagination. Their dissatisfaction with the US status quo can easily translate into opposition to the Democratic foreign-policy establishment’s hunger for “normalcy.” Because progressives view conflict as anchored in structural inequality at multiple levels, they seek to reshape the very inequality-based “normalcy” that gives rise to traditional security problems. Therefore, they possess a quality desperately needed for foreign-policy reform that is difficult to find within the Democratic establishment: a willingness to reconsider America’s changing place in the world increasingly defined by inequality.
The greatest challenge is the Democratic Party’s fixation on US military dominance, which progressives increasingly view as an important contributor to global inequality. In defending that dominance, the Democratic establishment reveals the gap between its ideological commitments and its actions. It champions cooperative internationalism as a means of reducing inequality yet repeatedly returns to militarism in ways that can perpetuate it. Given Hillary Clinton’s advocacy of a no-fly zone in Syria, Obama’s airstrikes against Libya, and Biden’s use of military force in Yemen, it doesn’t take a policy wonk to figure out how the next Democratic president would respond if a skirmish broke out in the South China Sea.
In stark contrast, progressives are dedicated to dismantling US military dominance and reconstructing American exceptionalism from within. Free from the establishment’s unbreakable ties to militarism, progressives avoid conflating “effective US foreign policy” with “military intervention”—as Democratic elites often do—thereby bringing domestic clarity to foreign policymaking.
Progressives, equipped with direction, determination, and time, will be the only viable counterforce capable of ultimately revitalizing a modern Democratic foreign-policy identity that actually speaks to Democratic voters.
This domestic clarity enables progressives to offer a clearer foreign policy vision than the establishment. By working toward social transformation at home, strengthening the democratic legitimacy of the American state, and reinforcing the moral legitimacy of its economy, the United States can increase its capability to marshal diplomatic pressure on behalf of allies around the world. By doing so, Democrats can reclaim the domestic-foreign nexus that Democratic grand strategists once wielded so effectively and present their voters with a foreign policy that speaks directly to their interests.
The most direct benefit of restoring that nexus is exactly what Democratic foreign policy needs: giving voters the ability to hold policymakers accountable for poor foreign policymaking. Due to the notoriously self-forgiving nature of the foreign-policy establishment, Democratic elites can often walk away scot-free despite the consequences of their policy advice. Biden’s behind-the-scenes hawkish advisers Jake Sullivan, Antony Blinken, and Brett McGurk were responsible, for instance, for the administration’s near-unqualified support for Israel. Yet they were never meaningfully held accountable for their advice. A foreign-policy agenda grounded in progressive accountability would give voters a more effective means of judging the consequences of such decisions.
And the result of this shift toward accountability would be a clearer answer to what Democrats should pursue in an era of intensifying geopolitical rivalry: not ex post facto militarism, but ex ante diplomacy. This progressive vision was on display in the remarks of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) on Taiwan at the Munich Security Conference this year. Despite her stumbles, Ocasio-Cortez captured an ethos fundamentally different from a militarism-based approach to US foreign policy: Rather than emphasizing how the United States would defend Taiwan and democracy through strength, as many centrist Democrats might, she emphasized the need to work toward ensuring that the United States and China “never get to that point.”
The Democratic establishment ridiculed that progressive vision and tried to keep it under control by stopping democratic socialist Bernie Sanders’ presidential bids in 2016 and 2020. Little did it know that the progressive spark Sanders ignited a decade ago would grow into a political cyclone in 2026, sweeping through one state after another in a string of electoral victories. From Melat Kiros and Abdul El-Sayed to Peggy Flanagan, progressive candidates have repeatedly defeated AIPAC-backed establishment figures and, in an ironic twist, have benefited politically from the warnings of Democratic elites. In a broader sense, this progressive wave is also reshaping the party’s stance on the litmus test of Israel. In July, over half of House Democrats voted to support cutting $3.3 billion in US aid to Israel, a shift that would have been difficult to imagine even five years ago.
Accountability Matters
Perhaps that is what a real progressive revolution is supposed to look like: not top-down reform, but a bottom-up revolt. The grassroots movement that has catapulted the left forward now gives progressives an opportunity to capitalize on their momentum and forcefully expose the uncomfortable elephant in the room that the Democratic foreign-policy establishment has long avoided: US primacy should not be the premise on which American foreign policy is built. Rather, it should be the American people.
Under pressure from the left, Democrats will have to rediscover that their foreign policy must ultimately remain answerable and vulnerable to the demands of mass politics. They will have to take seriously voters’ growing frustration with the longstanding shibboleths of American exceptionalism and US global leadership when those grand ambitions do little to make healthcare more accessible or everyday life more affordable. And they will also have to recognize that the rise of a progressive pro-Palestinian foreign policy is not simply a manifestation of youthful political naïveté but reflects a grassroots revolt against a US-led global order that many young Americans increasingly see as inseparable from the economic inequalities they experience at home.
The establishment might be strong, but its outdated militarist doctrine will not endure forever. And progressives, equipped with direction, determination, and time, will be the only viable counterforce capable of ultimately revitalizing a modern Democratic foreign-policy identity that actually speaks to Democratic voters. Such a foreign policy would put people before US primacy, diplomacy before militarism, human rights before geopolitical calculations, and the needs of ordinary Americans before bloated Pentagon budgets and forever wars.
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Opioid Settlement Funds Belong to the Public: Communities Want Healing, Not Punishment
This money was won because communities suffered extraordinary harm and hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives, so funds should build and expand capacity of much-needed health infrastructure and create lasting systems of care.
Aug 31, 2026
Nearly $58 billion is now flowing into states and local governments after the recent settlement with Purdue Pharma and other companies whose actions fueled the overdose epidemic, one of the deadliest public health crises in American history. For the first time in a generation, local communities have a critical opportunity to decide how this money is spent and allocate funding to build systems on their own terms, systems that actually save lives and provide care rooted in dignity.
The question is whether state, county, and municipal officials will actually take that chance.
The settlement money belongs to the people that paid the price. It is restitution for those lives lost, for families devastated, and for communities harmed not only by addiction and overdose, but by decades of failed punitive policies that criminalized suffering instead of treating it. It doesn’t belong to politicians, hospital systems, police departments, or consultants.
That means people directly impacted by overdose, addiction, incarceration, homelessness, and family separation should help decide how these dollars are spent. Too often, they are shut out of that decision entirely. In many states, opioid settlement decisions are made in private meetings with little public awareness, minimal reporting requirements, and limited opportunities for ordinary residents to participate. Some local governments still have no meaningful public process at all.
As federal health and social service funding faces growing cuts, many states and localities are quietly eyeing opioid settlement dollars to backfill budget gaps or prop up systems that should already be publicly funded.
When people get involved, the results improve. More states are passing legislation requiring reports on opioid settlement spending. In Hancock County, Maine, there was initially no public framework for opioid settlement spending. After a local advocate stepped forward to engage county officials, authorities created a committee of community stakeholders, including people with firsthand lived experience, to help advise how to spend those funds. In Buffalo, New York, public scrutiny and press attention around the use of settlement spending on things like police equipment and snowblowers pushed local leaders toward better investments, such as recovery coaches and treatment clinic upgrades, in later funding rounds. We can see how public engagement changes outcomes.
New Jersey committed nearly $119 million to expand harm reduction centers offering naloxone distribution, syringe access, mobile outreach, and connections to care. Kentucky continues to invest in a network of legal aid providers helping people impacted by drug use expunge their criminal records. Portland, Maine spreads its opioid funds across three efforts: a needle buyback program that removes used syringes from public spaces; a housing first program that gets people into stable housing without requiring sobriety first; and contingency management, which rewards people with incentives like gift cards for staying off stimulants such as meth and cocaine.
We also know what does not work. Nevertheless, across the country, settlement dollars are still being spent on police equipment, surveillance technology, jail expansions, and outmoded treatment programs that forbid modern medications, and ineffective "just say no" style prevention campaigns. Some jurisdictions have purchased drones, tasers, license plate readers, police dogs, and narcotics detection equipment using funds that were supposed to heal communities harmed by overdose.
The most insidious trend may be one the public cannot easily see: supplantation. According to best practice guidance from Johns Hopkins University and endorsed by more than 60 organizations including my own, supplantation advises that opioid settlement funds must not replace existing funding sources. But as federal health and social service funding faces growing cuts, many states and localities are quietly eyeing opioid settlement dollars to backfill budget gaps or prop up systems that should already be publicly funded. Settlement dollars should not replace Medicaid; they should not compensate for cuts to public health infrastructure. They were never meant to become a government slush fund.
This money was won because communities suffered extraordinary harm and hundreds of thousands of people lost their lives. Funds should build and expand capacity of much-needed health infrastructure and create lasting systems of care, not patch holes created by shifting political priorities. It’s not that settlement funds should never stabilize existing programs; in some cases, communities may need to use these dollars temporarily to sustain lifesaving services that would otherwise disappear. But those decisions must happen transparently, with public input, and with a clear understanding of the trade-offs involved. Advocates have issued guidelines that can help jurisdictions think through these challenging decisions.
There is reason for cautious optimism. Advocates, impacted families, and community organizations across the country are building models for transparency, accountability, and evidence-based investment. A new National Roadmap for Spending Opioid Settlement Funds can help communities understand their local processes and push for smarter spending. It also documents problematic and promising spending across the country. Advocates in Maine, New York, and New Jersey have created websites to help community members get involved in directing opioid settlement funds. The Maine Recovery Action Project has created a national toolkit that anyone can use to start organizing residents to have a say in spending decisions.
Residents should ask simple but critical questions, such as: Where is the money going? Who benefits? What evidence supports these investments? Who was consulted?
The overdose crisis was perpetrated by decisions, made over the course of decades, that never faced accountability. We cannot afford to repeat that mistake now with resources made available to repair the damage.
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We Cannot Allow ICE Killings to Become Normal
We cannot allow these deaths to become routine, and we cannot let them disappear into statistics. Every death should force us to ask what kind of country we are becoming.
Aug 29, 2026
Jose Chajon-Raxon, an immigrant from Guatemala, died this August at Delaney Hall, a controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in New Jersey. His death marks more than 50 deaths in ICE custody since President Donald Trump took office last year.
Despite all the controversies, ICE keeps killing people—a sentence that should never feel normal. We should never find ourselves counting the days between deaths or waiting for the next headline. But somehow, we have.
Earlier this year it was Renee Good, then Alex Pretti. This summer it was Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero. Before them were Silviero Villegas Gonzalez and Ruben Ray Martinez. Those are only the names we know—many others will never make national news.
The day I read about Durán Guerrero’s death, I was returning home from work. I glanced at the headline and kept going. That’s what scared me the most. I wasn’t shocked that ICE had killed someone—I expected it.
No matter where you were born, what political party you belong to, or whether you support stricter immigration enforcement, no government should have the power to kill or imprison people with so little accountability.
Only later, when I stopped and read the details, did it hit me: He was shot multiple times. His 3-year-old daughter, wearing Bluey pajamas, was in the car when it happened. According to his family’s attorney, Durán Guerrero was lawfully present in the United States and had a work permit. And he wasn’t even the person ICE was looking for when he was shot.
After shooting Durán Guerrero, officers pulled him from the vehicle and handcuffed him. By then, he may already have been dead.
These are not tragic misunderstandings. These are choices.
Imagine seeing armed people in tactical gear—no body cam, their faces covered—surrounding your car. Most people would be terrified. Most people would try to get away. Durán Guerrero tried to stop, but it did not matter—the agents fired on him anyway.
ICE continues carrying out operations with masked agents in unmarked vehicles, creating confusion and fear before a single word is spoken. Immigration officers have fired on at least 30 people since President Trump returned to office. Eight of those people were killed.
Each time, the government tells us the agents acted in self-defense. Public statements quickly frame the victim as the threat. Witness testimony and video evidence often cast doubt on these accounts, but they still shift the focus away from the loss of human life and toward justifying why it happened.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of people are still being detained every month.
In June 2026, ICE arrested more than 43,000 people, about 1,400 every day. By July, nearly 68,000 people were being held in immigration detention. The overwhelming majority of those arrested had no criminal convictions.
This includes over 6,000 children. Children who are spending their birthdays behind bars. Children who should be back in school, safe and protected. Many have been detained for 100 days or more—five times longer than the 20-day limit for detaining immigrant children.
They’re being held in facilities like Delaney and others, where human rights groups have warned repeatedly that dangerous conditions are leading to preventable deaths. ICE deaths reached their highest level in decades last year, and this year is on track to be no better.
These numbers matter. Every statistic was someone’s father, daughter, husband, neighbor, friend.
I’m afraid of how easy it has become to read another headline and move on. I know because I caught myself doing exactly that.
No matter where you were born, what political party you belong to, or whether you support stricter immigration enforcement, no government should have the power to kill or imprison people with so little accountability. No family should have to watch a loved one become another name on a growing list.
We cannot allow these deaths to become routine, and we cannot let them disappear into statistics. Every death should force us to ask what kind of country we are becoming. We cannot normalize these killings, and we cannot stop demanding justice and accountability.
We should never get used to counting ICE’s victims.
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An ICE Killing in Maine Shows Why Vets Need Vetting—And Not Just in Politics
Under current circumstances, no friends, family members, or employment counselors of young veterans should encourage them to answer the siren call of ICE—no matter how much they need a job.
Aug 12, 2026
The media spent a lot of time this summer examining whether a certain Maine oysterman and Marine veteran seeking federal employment should have been better vetted by those around him.
Even after Graham Platner abandoned his US Senate bid, his friends and foes argue about whether service-related conditions—which earned him a 100% disability rating from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)—contributed to past substance abuse, mental health problems, and aggression against intimate partners.
Now, in the same state, the spotlight has shifted to David Brouillette, a troubled Afghan war vet who might also have been better off harvesting oysters. Brouillette spent eight years in the US Army and state National Guard before getting hired for not one, but two federal jobs. Thanks to an ill-advised push to recruit more ex-military personnel for law enforcement roles, without proper background checks, he got to carry a gun again.
Last month, after serving as a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) police officer, a prison guard, and then joining the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Brouillette fatally shot Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero, a young Colombian immigrant, during a traffic stop in Biddeford, Maine.
The Vet-to-Cop Pipeline
Thanks to Congress allocating $30 billion to create 10,000 more positions for that agency between 2025 and 2030—and job cuts at other federal departments, which often employ veterans—more ex-soldiers are getting hired into a paramilitary workforce, with insufficient screening, minimal training, and leaders who valorize brutality. Those who have already been cops go to the head of the line for signing bonuses as high as $50,000.
Brouillette is among the 200,000 veterans disproportionately represented in the nation’s nearly 1 million law enforcement jobs, ranging from local police departments to the fast-growing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
During a 10-year period, nearly one-third of more than 500 cops involved in a shooting incident were veterans.
For their own good and the welfare of all Americans, some of these vets should not trade one uniform for another. That’s because past military service not only produces Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD); it can also leave former service members with traumatic brain injuries that trigger aggressive and impulsive behavior.
In the case of Maine mass shooter Robert Card, a longtime Army Reserve grenade range instructor who never served in combat, that condition led to the slaughter of 18 neighbors at a bar and bowling alley in Lewiston, Maine, almost three years ago. Far more common is the rocky personal transition to civilian life typified by twice-divorced Brouillette, whose father and brother also served in the military.
Mental Health Issues
According to Brouillette’s first ex-wife, Ashley, he first became verbally and physically abusive after joining the military in 2007. His subsequent misbehavior, she told The New York Times, included choking her, slamming her to the floor, and pushing her against a wall. In 2012, such “threats and harassment were so persistent,” she fled the state to escape him. “He has mental health issues, he’s short-tempered, he’s reactive, [and] he should be in treatment,” she says.
Seven years later, his next ex-wife sought a restraining order against Brouillette after he “broke her door down, destroyed her belongings, and dumped her clothes over a bridge,” and spat in her face. In her court filing, she expressed fear about his stalking her by “coming to my home or sitting in the parking lot of my work.” So, as CNN found, a judge twice issued temporary orders requiring Brouillette to relinquish any firearms in 2019 and 2021.
To make matters worse, when Brouillette retrained to become a firefighter in 2021, a heavy I-beam fell on his head, inflicting serious damage. In a lawsuit over the accident, he confessed to having “impaired memory, cognitive deficits, headaches, vertigo, and high sensitivity.”
Long before he fired the shots that killed Guerrero, he had already worked among VA patients and staff in Maine, as part of an agency police force with its own troubled history of using excessive force. And then he moved on seamlessly to ICE last December, despite a checkered court record and non-military head injury that should have been disqualifying.
A Bad Career Choice
When we were researching an earlier book on veterans, two retired Army officers, both West Point grads, expressed deep concern about policing, of any kind, as a post-military career among veterans at risk for substance abuse and suicide because of PTSD, chronic pain, or traumatic brain injuries.
Daniel Sjursen, a much-decorated major who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, told us that, “when you leave the service, there’s no de-programming…They just load you up on meds, and then you go straight to the police academy.” Because “military-style of policing is based on the notion that high-crime areas should be treated like occupied countries, a guy can come back to Baltimore, Camden, or Detroit and function the same way we did when occupying Kabul or Baghdad.”
As his fellow officer, a Gulf War combat vet and military historian Andrew Bacevic noted, “To the extent that we’ve got a bunch of damaged young people, then maybe the last thing we want to do is put them in a job where they carry a gun in an environment that’s going to make things worse.”
So don’t hold your breath waiting for justice for Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero. For the last 18 months, federal immigration agents have operated with far less public oversight and accountability than any local police department.
Even during Barack Obama’s administration, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) was not listening to such knowledgeable insiders. Instead, the DOJ provided local police departments around the country with tens of millions of dollars to fund veterans-only positions.
As noted in a 2017 report by the Marshall Project, “When Warriors Put On the Badge,” this combination of special funding and preferential hiring mandated by state or federal law has made it harder to “build police forces that resemble and understand diverse communities.” The new hires benefiting most have been disproportionately white, because 60% of all enlisted men and women are not people of color.
Inappropriate Use of Force
Under the first Trump administration, the DOJ had little interest in tracking the later job performance of recently hired veterans or how their military background might affect their behavior.
By that time, however, the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) had already raised concerns about “the integration of military personnel” into law enforcement. In their own 2009 hiring guide, the IACP noted that, in the case of returning combat veterans from Iraq or Afghanistan, their combat environment and their policing environments may appear surprisingly similar.”
As a result, prior military service in the Middle East “may cause returning officers to mistakenly blur the lines between military combat situations and civilian crime situations, resulting in inappropriate decisions and actions, particularly in the use of lethal force.”
Cosponsored by the DOJ’s Bureau of Justice Assistance, this IACP report also noted that vets who have PTSD and related “depression, anger, withdrawal, and family issues” may have “a low tolerance for civilian complaints” and greater propensity for the “inappropriate use of force.” Some police chiefs interviewed reported that veterans under their command had come back “ill prepared for the civilian world” because their PTSD left them with “exaggerated survival instincts.”
Officer-Involved Shootings
Researchers at the University of Texas School of Public Health found that Dallas Police Department officers with military experience used their guns while on duty more than non-veterans. During a 10-year period, nearly one-third of more than 500 cops involved in a shooting incident were veterans. Those who had been deployed overseas were nearly three times as likely to have fired their weapon; those who had not been deployed were still twice as likely to be involved in a shooting. This study, published in the Journal of Public Health, concluded that some veterans employed by the Dallas police department lacked “critical thinking skills” when confronted with “high stress scenarios.”
The Marshall Project reported similar findings after it studied use-of-force complaints and fatal police shootings in several cities. In Boston and Miami, officers with military experience generated more civilian complaints of excessive force. Nearly one-third of the Albuquerque officers involved in a total of 35 fatal shootings between January 2010 and April 2014 were veterans. One of the officers sued after killing an unarmed motorist was an Iraq War veteran whose PTSD caused flashbacks, nightmares, and blackouts. Nevertheless, as the Marshall Project discovered, he was “assigned to patrol a high-crime area of town known as ‘the War Zone.’”
“To ensure public safety and guarantee a stable, reliable, and productive workforce,” Marshall Project researchers cited the need for clear and consistent police department policies to “evaluate employees’ mental and physical fitness. Yet local police department screening practices, around the country, remain far from standardized or effective. Some agencies employ the use of administrative interviews and psychological evaluations to assess how veteran officers will perform the essential functions of their position, while other agencies revert to their department medical officer, or lack any policy at all.”
No Local Constraints
Whatever unhelpful contribution to militarized policing has been made by hiring too many post-9/11 vets, new and old cops in Dallas, Boston, Miami, and other cities at least walk the streets without masks on. They display badges with their names and, in most places, wear body cameras as well. If they screw up in a high-stress situation, they are subject to internal affairs investigations or civilian police review board questioning, particularly if an officer-involved shooting has occurred.
When an Army veteran named Derek Chauvin put George Floyd in a fatal choke hold six years ago in Minneapolis, he was even prosecuted and sentenced to a long prison term. When another military veteran named Jonathan Rose—a former machine gunner in Iraq deployed in the Twin Cities last winter as an ICE agent—fired on Renee Good, did he face any criminal charges for killing a gay non-immigrant mother of three? Not yet.
So don’t hold your breath waiting for justice for Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero. For the last 18 months, federal immigration agents have operated with far less public oversight and accountability than any local police department. In the process, they have killed 23 people under circumstances that homicide detectives and local prosecutors have been blocked from properly investigating.
The Department of Homeland Security has just doubled down on its policy of not releasing the names of officers involved in these fatal encounters. Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have been directed to stop investigating claims by those, like David Brouillette, who say they used lethal force in response to being endangered.
Under current circumstances, no friends, family members, or employment counselors of young veterans should encourage them to answer the siren call of ICE—no matter how much they need a job. As one former ICE official told the Boston Globe, ”We should all be concerned… that they have lowered standards, that they have rushed hiring, and they have made offers to people before their vetting is complete.”
Even if applicants from military backgrounds lack the self-confessed “cognitive deficits” of Brouillette, wearing camo again—while stopping traffic, knocking down doors, brandishing automatic weapons, and engaging in car chases—is not a healthy career choice, for them or us.
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The Presidency Is a Public Trust, Not a Personal Monument
The Trump administration has devoted extraordinary attention, taxpayer dollars, and even the power of government to projects centered on the president himself instead of the challenges facing the American people and the core responsibilities of government.
Aug 10, 2026
While Americans worried about rising costs at home and another war in the Middle East, President Donald Trump spent much of June talking about construction projects at the White House.
According to a Washington Post analysis of the president's speeches, interviews, social media posts, and other public remarks, he discussed his construction and beautification projects on nearly 4 out of every 5 days in June—more often than healthcare or wages, and about as often as inflation and prices.
That focus has become so pronounced that veteran White House reporter Maggie Haberman recently remarked that roughly "70%" of President Trump's attention appears devoted to his renovation projects.
The issue isn't just President Trump's construction projects. It's what they reveal about this presidency's priorities. Again and again, this administration has devoted extraordinary attention, taxpayer dollars, and even the power of government to projects centered on the president himself instead of the challenges facing the American people and the core responsibilities of government.
Americans should expect the same urgency in pursuing justice for survivors and greater transparency that this administration showed in protecting a presidential monument.
To begin with, consider where President Trump has chosen to focus his attention.
Over the past several months, President Trump has repeatedly returned to his new White House ballroom, the rebuilt Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, triumphal arches, portraits, flagpoles, and other additions that bear his personal imprint. When asked who his proposed triumphal arch was intended to honor, he answered with one word: "Me."
But few presidents have devoted so much attention to themselves while Americans confronted far more pressing challenges. Families continue to struggle with the cost of groceries, housing, childcare, and healthcare. Students and parents are trying to pay for college. Small businesses face rising costs and tariff uncertainty. Conflict in the Middle East threatens American service members, regional stability, and higher energy prices here at home.
Second, consider how those same priorities have shaped the way taxpayer dollars have been spent.
A recent New York Times analysis found that the known costs of the president's construction projects total roughly $1.2 billion. In my home state of Illinois, that same money could restore Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits for almost all families expected to lose them this year or preserve Medicaid coverage for nearly 130,000 residents at risk of losing it.
Finally, the most troubling example is how this administration has used the power of government.
The Justice Department aggressively pursued people accused of damaging President Trump's Reflecting Pool. One defendant, former Olympic canoeist David Hearn, faced a felony carrying up to 10 years in prison before prosecutors acknowledged last week that the damage was caused by a botched installation—not vandalism—and dropped the case.
Since Jeffrey Epstein's 2019 federal arrest, no one beyond Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell has been criminally prosecuted in the United States for participating in Epstein's sex-trafficking network, yet acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has defended the administration's refusal to release additional Epstein records while arguing there is no current basis for further prosecutions.
Years of litigation, congressional investigations, investigative reporting, and millions of pages of records have documented the network around Jeffrey Epstein. Leon Black paid Epstein more than $158 million. Lesley Groff spent 18 years as Epstein's longtime assistant, scheduling thousands of massages while Epstein abused underage girls. Yet the Justice Department has shown little urgency in pursuing accountability beyond Epstein and Maxwell.
The administration rushed to bring a felony case over alleged damage to President Trump's Reflecting Pool before acknowledging the damage resulted from a botched government installation—not vandalism—and dismissing the case. Yet when it comes to the people who enabled one of the largest sex-trafficking operations in modern history, that urgency has been nowhere to be found.
Every prosecution must rest on the evidence and the law. But Americans should expect the same urgency in pursuing justice for survivors and greater transparency that this administration showed in protecting a presidential monument.
The presidency is a public trust. It should be measured not by the monuments a president leaves behind, but by whether Americans are stronger, more secure, and more prosperous because of the choices he made.
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