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For a Future on Our Terms
In the midterm election, American Promise seeks to return power to the American people through campaign finance reform.
Oct 09, 2026
As we approach the midterm elections, our country's most prominent voting concerns are back on the frontline. The US is experiencing historically high voter turnouts, yet voters are expressing record levels of dissatisfaction. Perhaps it is because one of the most salient topics across party lines is missing from the conversation: campaign finance reform.
The upcoming midterm election cycle is projected to be the most expensive in American history. Analysis by The New York Times found that 20 donors have already spent $1.2 billion on this year's campaigns to push candidates in battleground states and integrate corporate agendas into public policy. Special interest groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and Musk’s America PAC are spending big to elect allies friendly to their political and economic interests. Not only do AI groups fund candidates, but increasingly dishonest and weird deepfake AI videos circulate online. Further analysis by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) Action Fund found that 172 billionaire families spent $1.7 billion. Over $1 billion in untraceable dark money is corrupting American democracy.
Americans are unhappy with the state of campaign finance in the US. But how did we end up here? In 1976, the Supreme Court’s Buckley v. Valeo paved the way for campaign finance laws by equating campaign donations to “free speech,” protected as a First Amendment right. In, 2010, the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. FEC ruling enabled the creation of “super PACs,” allowing unlimited corporate donations beyond the previous $5,000 limit. As a result, US elections are dominated by corporate interests and lobbyists, increasing the cost and accessibility of running for office.
The For Our Freedom Amendment is here, and campaign spending limits are not far behind.
Several polls confirm Americans’ discontent. Many in both parties and in all regions of the country have lost faith in our system, feeling elected officials cater to lobbyists rather than constituents. Nearly 80% of voters believe big donations are linked to corruption, while merely 4% of American voters believe the United States’ current political system works well. This pattern is similarly present in congressional elections;8 out of every 10 adults in the US believe that people who donate money to political campaigns have too much of an influence over congressional decisions.
However, while many remain dissatisfied with the state of campaign finance, large majorities are optimistic about reform. Approximately 60% of Americans believe in the possibility of adopting laws that limit spending on political campaigns. An even greater majority desire doing so, with 72% of Americans believing in imposing spending limits on campaigns. All around the country, Americans support enforcing limits by margins of 3-to-1 or even greater.
Although many may be skeptical, wondering how campaign finance reform can take place when unlimited spending is protected under the First Amendment, change is already underway. The pathway lies in the very foundation of the American democratic system: the United States’ Constitution. Supermajorities up to 80% across the country support an amendment to limit campaign spending. Already, the cross-partisan nonprofit American Promise has drafted and is proposing the amendment.
The For Our Freedom Amendment was developed meticulously through the collaboration of citizens, lawmakers, and scholars from all parties. Its text gets straight to the point: It empowers the government by granting it constitutional authority to enforce campaign spending limits. The full text of the amendment is as follows:
Section 1. We the People have compelling sovereign interests in the freedom of speech, representative self-government, federalism, the integrity of the electoral process, and the political equality of natural persons.
Section 2. Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to forbid Congress or the States, within their respective jurisdictions, from reasonably regulating and limiting contributions and spending in campaigns, elections, or ballot measures.
Section 3. Congress and the States shall have the power to implement and enforce this article by appropriate legislation and may distinguish between natural persons and artificial entities, including by prohibiting artificial entities from raising and spending money in campaigns, elections, or ballot measures.
Its concise and clear language makes it accessible to the average American. It conveys a refreshing honesty and constituent-first sentiment recently missing from political debate, placing it at the heart of political and individual dignity.
Not only is it drafted, but support for the amendment is significant. Twenty-three states have passed official resolutions calling on Congress, meaning it has garnered nearly half of the three-quarters majority required for Congress to propose the amendment.
While a constitutional amendment may feel beyond reach, we must keep constitutional change at the forefront of our political imagination. The seeds of reform have already been planted by the electorate. Electing proactive candidates enables conversations and reform in Congress. Rep. Tom Barrett (R-Mich.) proposed the House Joint Resolution 191, Constitutional Campaign Finance Reform Amendment, in collaboration with American Promise. With this, Rep. Barrett expressed unwavering American democratic spirit, and this is just the beginning.
It is now our job as citizens in this election cycle to keep the pressure on, which means greater voter participation. Congressional leaders are in charge of the Committee on Appropriations, which oversees and enforces campaign finance laws. Participating in the election of competent leaders can lead to higher standards of regulation; but beyond that, it may very well be a key stepping stone on the road to ratification.
Unequivocally, the facts do not lie: Americans want change. So, call your friends and family, or chat with your neighbors, and let them know: The For Our Freedom Amendment is here, and campaign spending limits are not far behind. We can make this happen
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Trump 'Gleefully Eviscerating' Efforts to Help Families With 'Illegal' Pocket Rescission
"Donald Trump knows he can’t get these cuts through Congress, so he is illegally making them through the back door," said the House Budget Committee's top Democrat.
Sep 26, 2026
Elected Democrats—and even the Senate's top Republican appropriator—blasted President Donald Trump late Friday for rescinding nearly $1 billion in congressionally approved spending that the White House deemed "wasteful and harmful" through a legally contested process.
In a statement announcing what was targeted, the administration celebrated funding cuts for what it called "pro-illegal immigration programs," a "nefarious" Department of Justice subagency, a program that "propagates America Last climate alarmism," an office that promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)—or "discrimination, and radical woke ideologies"—and more.
House Budget Committee Ranking Member Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) responded in a statement that "Donald Trump knows he can't get these cuts through Congress, so he is illegally making them through the back door."
"Trump's actions are a blatant attack on Congress' constitutional power of the purse," he added. "It is exactly why we need to pass my Congressional Power of the Purse Act and stop any president from illegally overriding Congress."
The Associated Press reported that "under federal law, Congress has 45 days to review the president's proposed spending cuts before they take effect. But Trump made that all but impossible by announcing them with just five days left in the federal fiscal year and the House out of session through the November election."
Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) stressed on social media that "a pocket rescission is an illegal line-item veto. It is the president saying that he and he alone will convert a bipartisan spending bill (that has been signed into law) into a partisan spending bill. He is canceling the lines of spending he doesn't like."
"This violates the core separation of powers embedded in our Constitution in which it is the Congress, not the president, who decides what programs are designed and at what level they are funded," he continued. "Republican colleagues said they would never let this happen. Well, here it is. They should ask themselves: 'How would I like to have a Democratic president canceling out the Republican flavored programs he or she doesn't like in a bipartisan spending bill that has been signed into law?' If they have any integrity or any spine, they will join us in ending this practice."
Noting that the cuts will impact everything from critical health research, to combating the international illicit narcotics trade, Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) declared: "This is theft from the American people, plain and simple. These are funds Congress has delivered on a bipartisan basis and should be helping people—not cut off by a president more focused on building a ballroom than investing in families."
She specifically called out Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russell Vought—a co-author of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led blueprint for a right-wing overhaul of the federal government, who was recently condemned as an "unelected shadow president" by the House Democrat who introduced impeachment articles against him. According to Murray, "Every Republican who voted for these bills should be furious because Vought is saying their votes don't count."
Murray also pointed out that during negotiations for the recently enacted stopgap spending legislation, "Democrats fought to include language to prevent the Trump administration from once again usurping Congress' power—but for the second time in a year, Republicans refused to take common sense action and prevent this from happening."
"While Trump spends tax dollars on ads promoting himself, Congress needs to reassert its powers to help people, and it's past time Republicans join us in that fight," she argued. "Russ Vought's message to Congress is that your votes don't count, and your laws are optional. It is now time for my Republican colleagues who said they would never let this happen to stand up and join us to stop this, and remind this administration this is not how this works."
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) emphasized the impact of the administration's move, saying that "Trump is gleefully eviscerating programs and protections that help hardworking American families live a safe and healthy life, all while he continues to punish them with skyrocketing gas and grocery prices."
"With this rescissions package, the Trump administration is illegally stripping nearly $1 billion in critical funding that supports kids, K-12 students, small businesses, and health and clean air research," he highlighted. "Americans are crying out for relief."
"Instead of ending his Iran War and tariff chaos that are driving up costs, Trump is rolling out the red carpet for our adversaries while stealing funds meant to help American families," he added. "Senate Democrats will challenge Trump's illegal cuts at every turn and continue the fight to help American families, lower healthcare costs and secure our communities."
The administration's rescission announcement came less than six weeks away from the midterm elections. Democrats aim to win majorities, while Trump's Republican Party is fighting to keep control of both chambers of Congress. One of the nationally watched races is that of Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine).
As some congressional Republicans cheered the Friday action, Collins put out a statement denouncing it. She said that "without warning or consultation, Congress just received an $810 million package of pocket rescissions from the administration," which she called OBM's most recent attempt "to undermine Congress' constitutional power of the purse."
"This move shows that OMB intentionally withheld these funds for months to execute this unlawful cancellation of appropriations that were approved on a bipartisan basis and signed into law," Collins continued. "Not only is the delay itself an impoundment that was not reported to Congress, but also it is a usurpation of Congress' appropriations powers. OMB is an agency of the executive branch. It does not get to decide which programs are worth funding."
"The independent Government Accountability Office has concluded that pocket rescissions are unlawful and not permitted by the Impoundment Control Act," she added. "Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law. I will work with my colleagues to address these illegal actions."
While some Democrats had called for their Republican colleagues to make such promises, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) fired back at Collins on social media, writing that "Senate Republicans had chance after chance to stop Trump's illegal seizure of taxpayer money. Time after time, they pledged allegiance to Trump instead of to citizens. And he'll keep rolling them if the Senate doesn't change hands."
So did Troy Jackson, the former Democratic Maine Senate president running to unseat Collins. He said that "Susan Collins voted for Trump's pick to lead the OMB. Now she’s surprised he's doing exactly what he promised to do? She's the appropriations chair who voted with Trump 96% of the time. Expressing concern isn't enough. Mainers see through the bullshit."
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Trump’s Legacy: An Unchecked Presidency and a War That May Outlast Him
The Iran conflict is testing whether Congress can still meaningfully constrain presidential war making—and what powers future presidents may inherit.
Aug 25, 2026
On August 18, President Donald Trump said no talks with Iran were underway or scheduled, while the US naval blockade remained in force and Tehran insisted the Strait of Hormuz would stay closed until Washington met the terms of the June interim agreement. The impasse sharpens the most consequential question surrounding Trump’s legacy: not whether he wins or loses this war, but whether he leaves behind expanded presidential power, weakened constitutional checks on war making, and a diminished commitment to a rules-based international order. A president can leave office. A war can outlive him.
That is increasingly the danger confronting the United States. Trump’s confrontation with Iran has evolved from a military campaign into a constitutional and institutional test: Can an American president initiate and sustain major hostilities without explicit congressional authorization, and can Congress still meaningfully restrain him once the fighting has begun? The answer will shape far more than the remainder of Trump’s presidency. It will establish a precedent for every administration that follows.
The central issue is therefore not simply Trump’s foreign policy. It is the emergence of unchecked presidential power in the conduct of war. The United States entered the Iran conflict without a specific congressional authorization. Since then, the administration has advanced expansive interpretations of executive authority while Congress has struggled to reassert its constitutional prerogatives. The War Powers Resolution remains an important, if imperfect, mechanism for limiting the executive branch’s ability to sustain hostilities without congressional consent.
The danger becomes particularly acute when an administration can redefine the status of a conflict without ending the underlying military posture. The War Powers framework was designed to prevent presidents from converting temporary military action into an open-ended commitment: Absent congressional authorization, the law generally requires the president to terminate the use of US armed forces after 60 days. Yet the Trump administration has challenged the idea that this statutory clock should operate as an automatic constraint on presidential authority.
If lawmakers fail to reassert their authority, Trump’s most consequential legacy may be the normalization of a presidency capable of committing the United States to war without meaningful congressional authorization and leaving later administrations to deal with the consequences.
That creates a dangerous precedent. If a president can initiate hostilities, characterize them as limited or defensive, reinterpret the statutory clock, and then continue military operations without explicit authorization, the constitutional allocation of war powers becomes increasingly theoretical. The consequences are no longer hypothetical.
Congress has repeatedly attempted to invoke its war powers over Iran. In June, the House passed a measure directing the president to remove US forces from hostilities with Iran, and the Senate later adopted it. In July, the House again approved a war-powers resolution by 214-208, while the Senate rejected its own measure, 47-49. These votes expose the political problem: Congress is being asked to choose between institutional loyalty to the presidency and constitutional loyalty to the republic. For Republican lawmakers, the choice is especially consequential. Allowing a Republican president to expand executive authority without meaningful resistance establishes powers that a future Democratic president—or another Republican—could inherit in very different circumstances.
The question, therefore, is not whether Congress likes Trump. It is whether Congress is willing to allow presidential power to become self-expanding. Trump’s legacy also extends beyond the domestic constitutional order. His approach has placed pressure on the foundations of the liberal international system: predictable alliances, institutional constraints, multilateral diplomacy, and the assumption that American power operates within rules rather than merely according to presidential preference.
The Iran conflict demonstrates the problem with extraordinary clarity. The June agreement was intended to extend a ceasefire and create a pathway toward a permanent settlement, including negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program. That framework has effectively collapsed. Trump has ruled out extending it; the confrontation around the Strait of Hormuz continues; and he has threatened military action against Oman, a US partner involved in efforts surrounding the strait. A mechanism meant to create a pathway out of war has become another stage in an unresolved confrontation.
Washington has even declared that it can maintain its naval blockade of Iran indefinitely. This is how wars acquire a life of their own. Once forces are deployed, enemies mobilize, allies become involved, economic interests are affected, and political credibility becomes attached to the outcome, withdrawal grows more difficult. The president who starts the war may eventually discover that ending it is politically more dangerous than continuing it.
And the president who inherits it may discover that he has inherited not merely a conflict, but an entire strategic architecture: deployed forces, military commitments, sanctions regimes, regional alliances, adversaries with incentives to retaliate, and political expectations that make disengagement appear equivalent to defeat.
Trump may therefore leave office, but the war may remain. This is the deeper paradox of his “America First” approach. A doctrine supposedly designed to reduce unnecessary foreign entanglements can instead produce new and potentially durable ones. The more Washington relies on military coercion without a clearly defined political end state, the more difficult it becomes to determine what victory actually means—and therefore what conditions would permit the United States to leave.
The consequences for American democracy are equally serious. Democracy does not depend solely on elections. It depends on institutions capable of constraining whoever wins those elections. If Congress becomes unwilling or unable to prevent reckless escalation without congressional consent, then the constitutional system has lost one of its most important safeguards.
This is why the current confrontation should not be reduced to a partisan dispute between Democrats and Republicans. The real issue is whether the United States still believes that war is a national decision rather than a presidential prerogative. Congress must therefore make a choice that transcends Trump himself: party loyalty or constitutional patriotism.
Republican lawmakers who defend Trump’s authority today should consider what they are actually defending. They are not merely protecting the foreign policy of one president. They are helping define the permissible scope of presidential power for decades to come. Once extraordinary powers become precedent, they rarely remain confined to the circumstances in which they were created.
The United States has survived presidents with radically different visions of executive authority. What allows the constitutional system to survive them is the willingness of institutions to impose limits on presidential power. If lawmakers fail to reassert their authority, Trump’s most consequential legacy may be the normalization of a presidency capable of committing the United States to war without meaningful congressional authorization and leaving later administrations to deal with the consequences. Trump will eventually leave the White House. The precedent he creates may not.
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The US People Must Reject Donald Trump's Standing Army
President Trump's deployment of the National Guard to Washington, DC is designed to normalize something that should never be normal in this country: the use of the military as a domestic police force.
Aug 23, 2026
One year ago, President Donald Trump declared a “crime emergency” in Washington, DC, claiming, without evidence, that the city had been “overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people.”
In response to this alleged crisis, Trump deployed roughly 800 members of the DC National Guard as well as more than 1,000 National Guard members from several cooperating states “to protect law-abiding citizens from the destructive forces of criminal activity.” A year later, 4,600 troops patrol the city against the wishes of the district’s elected local government.
This deployment violates long-standing American traditions, jeopardizes public safety, and has already cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars—all without any discernible impact on violent crime rates in Washington. Yet Trump wants to keep troops here, and he’s counting on Americans to stop paying attention. We can’t let that happen.
From the beginning, Trump’s claim of a “crime emergency” stood on weak footing. In fact, the murder tally in Washington had declined from 274 in 2023 to 187 in 2024.
The founding generation would immediately have seen the danger in a president trying to normalize the domestic use of troops.
But even if day-to-day crime in Washington had instead been trending upward, that would not have justified the invocation of emergency powers. Such powers are intended for sudden, unforeseen crises—the definition of an emergency—that normal legal frameworks and systems are too slow-moving to address. Urban crime, in contrast, is a foreseeable, ongoing problem that can and should be addressed employing the ordinary tools of government.
Use of the military raises additional concerns. A president deploying troops to police street crime is unprecedented; it violates centuries of American civic tradition and political thought. Americans have long rejected military interference in civilian affairs, and particularly military involvement in law enforcement, because an “army turned inward” can easily become an instrument of tyranny. Domestic deployment of the military is a tool of last resort, to be used only when civilian authorities are overwhelmed.
There are other, more immediate reasons to be wary of domestic military operations. Military personnel, including members of the National Guard, are trained to be soldiers, not police officers. Most National Guard members have little or no training in local criminal law, how to uphold constitutional rights, or how to preserve and collect evidence. Over the past year, there have been disturbing incidents where guard members have improperly detained DC residents and, in at least one documented case, used excessive force.
Trump’s use of the National Guard in Washington has also largely failed to serve its stated purpose. Although there was a narrow reduction in opportunistic property crime over the first six months of the deployment, recent analysis has found little to no impact on violent crime. On the other hand, the deployment has proven to be extraordinarily expensive for taxpayers, with a current cost of over $3 million per day.
Those costs will only accelerate in light of the recently announced $292 million deal to provide National Guard members deployed to Washington with apartment-style housing. In return for these huge sums of money, guard members across DC are spending their days standing idle on street corners and in metro stations—a form of non-activity euphemistically labeled “presence patrols.”
Yet Trump shows no signs of reversing course. To the contrary, he has doubled down. A “summer surge” brought the number of guard forces in DC close to 5,000, and the administration has announced that it intends to keep troops here through January 20, 2029, at an estimated cost of $1.4 billion beyond the money already spent.
The duration of the deployment might be what’s most concerning. No true emergency can be predicted to remain in place for another two-and-a-half years. If there was any doubt before, it’s now clear that the deployment was never meant to be a quick response to an immediate crisis.
It is designed to normalize something that should never be normal in this country: the use of the military as a domestic police force. It would be a small step from National Guard forces assisting in the arrest of people who dip their hands in the reflecting pool to guard members policing protests. And if Trump were to try to illegally block Congress’ certification of the 2028 presidential election—this time using military force, rather than exhorting an angry mob—there would be thousands of troops already arrayed within a short distance of the US Capitol.
It is no small irony that armed troops are patrolling the streets of our nation’s capital in the same summer as the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. That document denounces King George III for, among other things, using “among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.” The founding generation would immediately have seen the danger in a president trying to normalize the domestic use of troops.
We must see it, too. The longer the deployment lasts, the less shocking the sight of National Guard forces on nearly every street corner becomes, and the easier it is to view the situation as a new normal. The American people must resist that instinct and demand an end to the deployment.
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Trump’s Newest Unconstitutional, Dangerous Birthright Ban Must Be Stopped
People’s constitutional rights are once again being threatened by a xenophobic administration with no regard for the Constitution or the rule of law.
Aug 11, 2026
On August 6, five weeks after the Supreme Court rejected his first birthright ban, President Donald Trump signed two executive orders aimed at restricting birthright citizenship and ending “birth tourism.”
Birthright Ban 2.0
The first denies automatic citizenship to babies born in the US to two noncitizen parents if at least one of them is: an “alien enemy,” a member of a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” (FTO), a government employee, or has “engaged in fraudulent activity to obtain citizenship.” While the scope of this is technically narrower than his first birthright ban, it is ultimately vague enough that the Trump administration could effectively weaponize it against anyone.
Consider this: On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order designating Tren de Aragua (TdA) and La Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) as FTOs. In March, Trump issued a proclamation declaring that all Venezuelan noncitizens 14 years or older who are members of TdA “are liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as Alien Enemies.” The very same day, the administration announced the deportation of nearly 300 Venezuelan nationals it accused of being members of TdA.
Among these deportees were those whose only crime was having a tattoo that immigration officials had designated as a sign of gang affiliation. Such tattoos included: “stars on shoulder,” “crowns,” “firearms and grenades,” “trains and dice,” “roses and predatory felines,” gas masks, clocks, and even the iconic silhouette of Michael Jordan dunking—the Jumpman. Notably, unlike other gangs, TdA does not require its members to obtain any tattoos. The Trump administration simply used this as a pretext to deport innocent people to El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison, the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
No child is responsible for the circumstances of their birth—even if their parents are guilty of a crime, they are innocent.
Under this latest executive order, the US-born children of those accused of being a member of a FTO—no matter how baseless the allegation—would have their citizenship status jeopardized and more than likely denied. In doing so, it would pave the way for more family deportations. Notably, the Trump administration has already deported several US-born children along with their parents.
Moreover, while TdA and MS-13 are real organizations, the Trump administration has already designated at least one fictional group as a FTO: the Cartel de los Soles. In 2025, the State Department alleged that this organization was “headed by [Venezuelan President] Nicolás Maduro and other high-ranking individuals of the illegitimate Maduro regime.” This was a strategic lie. Like antifa, Cartel de los Soles is not a formal organization with a clearly defined leadership structure. Rather, experts describe it as a loose network of individuals broadly involved in the drug trade.
Nevertheless, that designation gave the Trump administration the pretext to invade Venezuela, kidnap Maduro, and put him on trial for his alleged narco-crimes. After his capture, the Department of Justice (DOJ) revised its indictment of Maduro and abandoned its claim that Cartel de los Soles is an actual organization. Whereas the old indictment made 32 mentions of the fictional cartel, the new one refers to it twice. It claims that Maduro, like former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, participated in, perpetuated, and protected this “patronage system.”
While the DOJ altered its indictment of Maduro, Cartel de los Soles is still formally classified as a FTO by the State Department.
Herein lies the real danger: The Trump administration lies and lies often. For an administration this corrupt and xenophobic, this new birthright ban offers it the ability to accuse any noncitizen, under whatever false pretenses, of being a member of a real or fictional organization to target their children. And, make no mistake, if the Supreme Court allows them, the Trump administration certainly will.
Ending Birth Tourism
The other executive order aims at ending birth tourism, or the practice of traveling to another country to give birth, thereby allowing the child to automatically acquire citizenship. While Trump insists that there are “hundreds of thousands” of such births each year, the Migration Policy Institute notes that the most expansive estimate puts the figure at 22,000 to 26,000 babies born annually in the US due to birth tourism—or less than 1% of all births in the country.
That number, however, is disputed. In 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that 9,576 babies were born in the US to mothers who list their official address as outside the US. A 2026 study by researchers at Pennsylvania State University found that birth tourism accounted for less than 0.3% of all US births in any given year between 2014 and 2024.
This executive order authorizes the Secretary of State and Secretary of Homeland Security “to issue or adopt rules, policies, operational guidance, or other guidance” designed to stop foreign nationals from entering the country via a temporary visa if they have the goal of giving birth on American soil.
Notably, while the executive order decries the purported dangers of birth tourism, it is vague with respect to how the State Department or DHS would actually go about identifying these people.
Since the first executive order explicitly targets the children of noncitizens who “engage in a commercial transaction to ensure that the person’s mother is present in the United States, or a territory of the United States, to give birth,” these departments would be empowered to deport law-abiding visa holders and deny their children citizenship based solely on their own discretion—no matter how disingenuous.
In short, together, these two executive orders would allow the Trump administration to further accelerate its mass deportation agenda while denying citizenship to whoever they want.
Protect Birthright Citizenship
Given the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Barbara, these orders should be ruled unconstitutional. Regardless of whether the parents engaged in fraud or were members of a real (or fictional) terrorist organization, their US-born child would still be a citizen under the 14th Amendment. No child is responsible for the circumstances of their birth—even if their parents are guilty of a crime, they are innocent.
So, what then is the point? Perhaps the Trump administration believes that by framing their birthright ban in terms of terrorism and fraud that the Supreme Court might see things differently.
Perhaps it believes that returning to the birthright issue will help Republicans in the midterms. While Trump is broadly unpopular, 8 in 10 Republicans continue to support his immigration policies. An April 2026 poll by Reuters found that 62% of Republicans support ending birthright citizenship.
Once again, we are put in a position where we must trust the Supreme Court to do the right thing. And once again we are forced to reckon with the fact that we cannot take for granted that it will.
Perhaps the point is to stoke more fear within immigrant communities in hopes that more people will self-deport.
Perhaps the cruelty is the point.
Whatever the reason, the reality is that birthright citizenship is once again under fire. People’s constitutional rights are once again being threatened by a xenophobic administration with no regard for the Constitution or the rule of law. Once again, we are put in a position where we must trust the Supreme Court to do the right thing. And once again we are forced to reckon with the fact that we cannot take for granted that it will.
For the sake of ourselves, future generations, and the country, we cannot allow this to become the new normal. We must continue to protest the Trump administration’s abuses, support the journalists documenting its atrocities, and demand that Congress take actions to rein in its corruption.
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Trump’s Election 'Reforms' Are a Blueprint for Constitutional Capture
Trump's project is less an effort to reform the electoral system than an attempt to hold it hostage from within its own legal machinery.
Jul 29, 2026
In the final days before Congress's summer recess, House Republicans advanced Donald Trump-backed voting restrictions by embedding them in legislation intended to prohibit members of Congress from trading stocks. The legislative tactic reveals the nature of a broader project: using formal legal channels to alter the balance the Constitution establishes among voters, the states, Congress, and institutions of oversight.
American democracy is not a fixed ideal; it is a delicate mechanism sustained by election laws and institutional constraints. For that reason, what Trump and his allies are pursuing under the banner of "election integrity" is not merely a revision of a few administrative procedures. Their proposed legislation would require proof of citizenship when registering to vote and photo identification at the ballot box and, alongside other proposals, would shift power away from voters and toward partisan institutions. That is the central contradiction: using the law as an instrument for hollowing out the spirit of the Constitution. From this perspective, Trump's project is less an effort to reform the electoral system than an attempt to hold it hostage from within its own legal machinery.
The first element of this project is an effort to revive the structural defect in the Electoral Count Act and the role of the vice president by reopening the very ambiguity that turned the transfer of power in 2021 into a national crisis. After January 6, lawmakers from both parties acknowledged that the Electoral Count Act of 1887 was unclear about the vice president's role and the process for objecting to state electoral votes. The Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022 clarified that the vice president's role is purely ceremonial and that the office carries no authority to reject a state's electoral votes. It also raised the threshold for filing an objection from one member of the House and one senator to one-fifth of the members of each chamber.
Trump's political logic draws from the same interpretation that, in 2020, sought to grant the vice president or Congress a role extending beyond the counting of electoral votes. Weakening the 2022 reforms, or interpreting them expansively, would revive the notion that partisan officials may decide the validity of an election result after the votes have been cast—the same ambiguity that brought the peaceful transfer of power to the brink of collapse in 2021.
Allowing a candidate to rewrite the rules of the game in order to shield himself from defeat is not election reform.
The second element is the weaponization of the "independent state legislature theory," an interpretation under which state legislatures would be largely insulated from review by state courts and state constitutions when regulating federal elections. In Moore v. Harper, the Supreme Court rejected the maximalist version of this theory by a 6-3 vote, affirming that state legislatures do not operate outside the legal framework of their own states.
The theory nevertheless remains attractive to Trump's project because it could detach the making of election rules—and, under crisis conditions, the selection of electors—from state-level systems of checks and balances and place that authority in the hands of aligned legislatures. When some of those legislatures do not accurately reflect the popular vote because of gerrymandering, removing gubernatorial and judicial oversight does not strengthen federalism. It concentrates power in a partisan institution.
The third element is the weakening of the Voting Rights Act under the guise of "integrity" through restrictions on voting. Strict identification requirements, voter-roll purges, and limits on absentee voting are justified as safeguards against fraud, but their burden falls more heavily on people with less access to official documents and administrative resources. This raises concerns under the 15th Amendment's prohibition on racial discrimination in voting and the 24th Amendment's ban on imposing a financial cost on the right to vote.
A disparate impact, by itself, is not sufficient to establish a violation. Yet Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibits practices that, under the totality of the circumstances, result in the denial or abridgment of voting rights on the basis of race, color, or membership in a language minority. Eliminating voting mechanisms on which low-income communities and minorities depend therefore cannot be justified simply by repeating allegations of fraud—particularly when Trump's sweeping claims of fraud in the 2020 election were not supported by credible evidence. The phrase "Jim Crow 2.0" refers precisely to this reproduction of voter disenfranchisement through modern administrative tools.
The fourth element is federalism in the abstract and the Republican contradiction over states' rights. For decades, the party has placed "states' rights" at the center of its political discourse and has denounced nationwide standards proposed by Democrats, such as the Freedom to Vote Act, as exercises in federal centralization. Yet Trump's project now calls on the federal government to impose stringent restrictions on voter registration and voting while simultaneously granting greater authority to aligned state legislatures.
The Constitution assigns shared roles to the states and Congress in the administration of federal elections. The Elections Clause in Article I gives the states primary authority, while also allowing Congress to alter election regulations. The problem lies in the selective use of this division of power: defending state autonomy when it obstructs the expansion of voting rights, and invoking federal authority when it entrenches restrictions favored by Republicans. This is no longer coherent federalism. It is an instrument for concentrating electoral power.
In the American legal system, elections are not merely political contests; they are legal processes that guarantee the legitimacy of government. The measures Trump presents as electoral cleanup or election integrity—from restricting access to the ballot to expanding the authority of state legislatures and weakening the safeguards adopted after January 6—all move in the same direction: transferring power away from voters and institutions of oversight and toward partisan actors who may determine both the rules and the validity of the result.
Opposition to this project should not be reduced to Democratic fears of losing elections. Defending the states' role in determining the method by which electors are chosen, judicial review, the lawful authority of Congress, and the equal voting rights of citizens means defending the balance that prevents the Constitution from becoming an administrative document placed at the service of one individual. Allowing a candidate to rewrite the rules of the game in order to shield himself from defeat is not election reform. It is the very danger the architects of the American republic sought to contain by dispersing power and constructing a system of mutual checks.
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SCOTUS as Tyrant: Handmaiden to Corporate America
In exercising its power today, the Supreme Court’s priority is not the state of the nation, but the well-being of corporate enterprise.
Jul 22, 2026
The Supreme Court of the United States today is the final arbiter of public policy—deciding incontestably which laws will stand and which will not—but that power was simply asserted by the court years ago, never bestowed by the Constitution or in law.
Merriam-Webster defines a tyrant this way: an absolute ruler unrestrained by law or constitution; a usurper of sovereignty. Close enough?
In exercising its power today the court’s priority is not the state of the nation, but the well-being of corporate enterprise in America.
A recent example: On June 29, 2026 the court issued its decision in the case of Trump v. Slaughter. It found unconstitutional the statutory isolation of the Federal Trade Commission from partisan political interference. It said President Donald Trump could fire Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter not for cause—inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance, as specified in the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914—but only because she is a Democrat.
By neutering the Voting Rights Act, encouraging gerrymandering, and freeing Trump to gut the Federal Election Assistance Commission, the court is up to its enrobed necks in rigging the upcoming elections.
The largest winner by far was not Donald Trump, but every corporation in America regulated by law. There are dozens of other independent regulatory agencies protecting the American people from harmful activities, conditions, and practices. So critical are these agencies to the health, safety, and welfare of the nation, Congress intentionally set them apart from the executive branch, to insulate them from the back-and-forth of partisan politics. The court has upended that safeguard, exposing the agencies to the whims of Donald Trump—who can staff them now with corporate-friendly Republicans. (Trump wasted no time in decapitating the Federal Election Assistance Commission, the agency funding election security measures at the state level.)
Note how the Supreme Court jeopardized the regulatory agencies. It declared as unconstitutional the provision in the Federal Trade Commission Act protecting commissioners from capricious removal. The court can do this because it holds a power known as judicial review. It measures the laws underlying its cases against the Constitution, and strikes down those it finds inconsistent.
Supreme Court justices were never elected, but they nullify laws enacted by people who were—the Congress and the president. Every time it does so the court literally overrides democracy. Isn’t that tyranny?
This is not remotely what the Framers of the Constitution intended.
Article III Section 2 specifies what the Supreme Court can do. Except for infrequent interstate and international litigation the court functions with appellate jurisdiction. The court can do either of two things: It can uphold a lower court decision, or overturn it. Nothing else. That’s it. The court is empowered to sit in judgment of law cases. Nowhere is it empowered to sit in judgment of the laws.
The Framers meant the court to be subordinate. In Federalist 78 Alexander Hamilton said this:
The Judiciary is beyond comparison the weakest of the three departments of powers... it can never attack with success either of the other two [branches]…
And in Federalist 81 he was explicit:
...there is not a syllable in the plan under consideration [i.e. the Constitution] which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution…
Today’s Supreme Court invalidates laws without a speck of constitutional authority, and it has done so for 233 years.
That takes us back to 1803 and the Supreme Court case of Marbury v. Madison.
Federalist President John Adams in the last days of his term appointed 16 new lower court judges—all of Adams’ Federalist persuasion. Among them was William Marbury. The judges’ commissions were to be delivered by the secretary of state, as specified in the Judiciary Act of 1789, but in the scurry of a departing administration they were not. Then Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson was sworn in as president. Intending to appoint judges of his own party instead, Jefferson ordered his Secretary of State James Madison not to deliver the commissions. Marbury sued for his, citing the 1789 law. John Marshall’s Supreme Court found Madison guilty, but also saw the Judiciary Act as slightly askew of the Constitution. It was the pickiest technicality, but on that basis the court dismissed the case.
Chief Justice Marshall said in the court’s written decision, “It is emphatically the duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is... a law repugnant to the Constitution is void.” So said John Marshall, but nobody else, certainly not the writers of the Constitution.
Marshall claimed judicial review simply by fiat and set the subordinate court on the road to tyranny.
Note where our Supreme Court is today. By neutering the Voting Rights Act, encouraging gerrymandering, and freeing Trump to gut the Federal Election Assistance Commission, the court is up to its enrobed necks in rigging the upcoming elections.
Judicial review was initially benign. After Marbury it wasn’t invoked again for 57 years, and might have remained tolerable had not the court paired it with another appalling action: a decision enabling corporate enterprise eventually to dominate the writing of public policy.
In the 1886 case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, the Supreme Court simply declared chartered corporations were persons as described in the 14th Amendment, with rights guaranteed by the Constitution: free speech, equal protection under the law, etc. The declaration violated the protocols for establishing legal precedents, but later courts cited the case anyway. Corporate personhood—prima facie preposterous—became a matter of stare decisis, “settled law.”
If corporations have constitutional rights and if they can prove in court those rights are violated by a law, they can sue to have the law overturned. They can use judicial review as a weapon.
And after Santa Clara County they did.
The 14th Amendment was meant to grant citizenship to Black Americans, freed from enslavement by the Emancipation Proclamation, and to guarantee their equal treatment under the law.
Three-hundred and seventy-seven cases based on the 14th Amendment were heard by the Supreme Court over the 27 years following Santa Clara County: 19 of them dealt with Black citizens seeking equal protection under the law; 288 were initiated by corporation citizens, also seeking equal protection—primarily to invalidate irksome laws.
As the centuries turned corporations succeeded in overturning minimum wage laws, child labor laws, laws limiting the workday, workmen’s compensation statutes, laws limiting corporate lobbying, and laws regulating utility companies. They sued for and won additional constitutional rights, those granted by the Fourth and Fifth Amendments—rights of privacy and the freedom from unreasonable search and seizure. Between 1905 and the mid-1930’s, the Supreme Court found some 200 corporate-restraining laws and regulations to be unconstitutional.
As the 20th century progressed the toxicity grew. The combination of judicial review and corporate personhood would prove in time to be fatal to democracy.
In a 1976 case, Buckley v. Valero, the Supreme Court found unconstitutional the 1910 Corrupt Practices Act, a law strictly limiting the money political candidates could spend campaigning. No, the court said, spending money is a form of free speech, and the Congress cannot abridge that right. Dollars are words? Isn’t that also prima facie preposterous? Two years later in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, the court overturned the 1907 Tilman Act, prohibiting corporations from spending money on political campaigns. Citing Buckley, the court said the equivalence of money and speech applied to corporations as well.
Bellotti, however, clashed with an existing law, not prohibiting but sharply limiting corporate campaign contributions: FECA, the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1972.
In 2010 the case of Citizens United v. FEC resolved the clash. If corporations could not be restrained at all, then how much they spent was immaterial. Section 441b of FECA was unconstitutional. Out with it. Corporations can spend as much as they please.
But not to worry, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority:
...independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption…The appearance of influence or access will not cause the electorate to lose faith in democracy.
Yes, prima facie preposterous, as documented in a 2026 study by the Brennan Center: 92% of registered voters surveyed said corruption is a major problem in politics and government, citing campaign contributions from corporations and billionaires as the causative factors.
After Citizens United a torrent of corporate money cascaded into the political campaigns of both parties, protected by the right of free speech. And for years corporate lobbying had been protected by their right of petition. The corporate grip tightened in a frontal attack on democracy.
Corporations today outspend citizen interest groups in lobbying by a factor of 86:1. In the 2024 election cycle corporations and their PACs and super PACs contributed 71% of the total of campaign donations, about $10.65 billion. “Large private donors” (read billionaires) contributed another $2.85 billion, 19% of the total. Small individual donations came to $1.5 billion, about 10%.
By any measure corporations and to a lesser extent billionaires are the dominant influencers of federal governance today. Their financing of political campaigns renders elected officials into indentured servitude, open to corporate requests. Then corporate lobbyists specify the details.
Public policy today routinely advances not the well-being of the American people, then, but the preferences of corporate America and its embedded billionaires.
This is what the Supreme Court has enabled, after Marbury, after Santa Clara County, after Buckley, after Bellotti, after Citizens United, after Trump v. Slaughter,
Dollars outweigh votes.
This article is drawn from a book the author is completing, The Triumph of Corporate Oligarchy: How It Defeated Democracy, Normalized Fraudulent Warfare, Devastated a Thriving Nation, and Enabled the Trump Presidencies.
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Killing Trust: The Parlor Games of John Roberts’ Court
By relying on the fiction they invented rather than the president we actually have, the Supreme Court has chosen to treat Donald Trump as someone who not only can be, but must be, trusted with yet more unfettered power.
Jul 05, 2026
While driving home on June 30, my head nearly exploded as I listened to the evening news. Reporting on a raft of last-minute decisions passed by the Supreme Court in advance of the summer holidays, the SCOTUS correspondent explained that certain contra-Trump statutes barely managed to hold on for dear life while a more substantial pile of pro-Trump agenda items flew through with room to spare. It was the “you win some, you lose some” tone of the report that set my blood boiling. It felt like I was being told that, on the one hand, SCOTUS had cleared the way for the private purchase of thermonuclear weapons over the internet, exactly as the framers of the Constitution intended, but on the other, that such weapons could not (at least for the moment) be purchased by children under 12 without parental consent. So it’s a win for both sides.
It wasn’t as blatantly bad as that, I admit. But the strained attempt to keep things balanced, if only for old time’s sake, was certainly there. Times being what they are now, it did not sit well with me.
But the single most infuriating moment of the report was when the SCOTUS correspondent quoted Chief Justice Roberts defending the 6-3 decision to strike down a 91-year-old precedent that barred the president from firing members of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) other than for reasons of “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance.” In writing for the majority, Roberts argued that “the President must have the assistance of officers he can trust.”
It was upon hearing those exact words that my head exploded. Did Chief Justice Roberts actually write what the reporter just claimed he wrote? Could he really have allowed himself to frame the decision in terms of trust?!! The absurdity of the rationale blew my mind. The whole idea of creating multi-member commissions, such as the FTC, as independent agencies in the first place was to ensure that they could be trusted. It is their independence that actually allows the members of the commission to do their work without fear of reprisal. It’s what keeps them from becoming a board of lackeys subservient to the whims of whoever happens to be in power. In a word, the thing that the Supreme Court ruled out by this decision is the one thing that has always allowed us to trust these agencies. Without it, trust disappears.
According to those rules, instead of causing people to tell lies and flatter egos as their best means of survival, the act of investing one man with the power to bully, punish, and fire as he pleases brings about a relationship of “trust.”
One of the biggest problems in states ruled by autocrats is precisely that: Trust goes missing, becoming a rare commodity desperately sought after, but rarely found. During the Hellenistic Period in ancient Greece, regional monarchs would invite Cynic philosophers into their courts so that they might have just one person to talk to who could be counted on to tell them the truth. As impoverished beggars, happy in that condition, the Cynics had nothing to gain by lying, nothing to lose by telling the truth. They were independent.
But Chief Justice Roberts would have us believe that he knows better about such things. He and the wiser minds of his Supreme Court treat their legal interpretations as a kind of parlor game played by experts for the sake of theoretical purity and one-upmanship. Like Medieval scholars arguing over how many thorns were in Christ’s crown, they don their robes, play their game, issue their rulings, and retire to their summer homes. Meanwhile, their decisions have consequences in the world outside the parlor that, somehow, aren’t really their concern. No. Their focus is on the intentions of the Constitution’s framers. They are the ones they want to make sure are happy and well cared for by their decisions. They, the long dead, ghosts of their own invention, are the ones that really matter.
In fact, the one non-dead person whom Chief Justice Roberts expressed a keen interest in helping with his decision was just that: one person. The president. Not the demos of our democracy, the voting citizens of this country, to the tune of several hundred million people who are still very much alive. He worried that that one man’s power might be unduly hampered if he were not allowed to fire whomever he wanted for whatever reason. His rationale amounts to a set of quotes from the rule book of a new game that he and his like-minded friends on the court have invented. They play it within his parlor while sipping brandy. It’s called “The Unitary Executive.”
This is a fantasy game, rather like Dungeons and Dragons. In it, the rules of reality outside the parlor, out in the real world, are called off in favor of the rules of the parlor and of the game itself. According to those rules, instead of causing people to tell lies and flatter egos as their best means of survival, the act of investing one man with the power to bully, punish, and fire as he pleases brings about a relationship of “trust.” It’s all quite wonderful.
To make this game work, Justice Roberts and his parlor friends had to invent an equally fantastical person to do the trusting: a president who has our best interests in mind, one who can always be counted on to act in good faith. This, their game-piece president, is not a vindictive liar, greedy for power. He is a wonderful fiction, good to play with. And so it is that, by relying on the parlor fiction they invented rather than the president we actually have, the Supreme Court has chosen to treat Donald Trump as someone who not only can be, but must be, trusted with yet more unfettered power. But not to worry. They assure us that, according to the rules of the game, nothing bad can come of this.
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SCOTUS’ Ruling Spares Birthright Citizenship For Now, But the Battle Is Far From Over
While birthright citizenship survived today, this ruling exposes how fragile its guarantee has become. This fight is far from over—Republicans will try again, and next time they might succeed.
Jun 30, 2026
On June 30, the Supreme Court struck down President Trump’s executive order limiting birthright citizenship.
This is the obviously correct decision. The 14th Amendment is abundantly clear: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”
The Trump administration’s argument that undocumented immigrants and their children are not “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” was baseless from the start. Not only did it lack any foundation in the Constitution or statutory law, but the meaning of that phrase was never in dispute. Those “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” include everyone born in the US except the children of foreign diplomats, enemy invaders during a hostile occupation, and those born in unincorporated territories of American Samoa (they are considered “noncitizen nationals”).
After several disastrous Supreme Court rulings on Temporary Protected Status (TPS), asylum entries, transgender athletes, campaign finance restrictions, and presidential firing power, it may be tempting to see this decision on birthright as a glimmer of hope. Unfortunately, there are reasons to be concerned.
The Supreme Court is effectively one vote away from fundamentally changing who is entitled to US citizenship and what it means to be an American.
While six justices found Trump’s executive order to be unlawful, only five justices—John Roberts, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Amy Coney Barrett—believe that it violates the Constitution.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh argues that it only violates federal law. He writes: “In my view, the Executive Order does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. But the Order does contravene a federal statute, 8 U.S.C. §1401(a). Congress could—consistent with the Fourteenth Amendment—amend §1401(a) or otherwise enact new legislation establishing exceptions to birthright citizenship for children born to foreign citizens unlawfully or temporarily in the country. But Congress has not yet done so.”
In his dissenting opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch argues that the 14th Amendment clearly does not extend to children of temporary visitors. Yet, he “harbor doubts” whether the same is true for children of undocumented immigrants “who have long chosen to make this Nation their permanent home.”
The issue of a “permanent home” (or “domicile”) was a core component of Trump’s anti-birthright argument. The Trump administration argued that to be “completely subject” to the “jurisdiction” of the US means one must owe “direct and immediate allegiance” and receive “protection” from it. The children of US citizens, permanent residents, and formerly enslaved persons meet this standard because they “have a permanent domicile.” By contrast, the children of undocumented immigrants “do not owe primary allegiance to the United States by virtue of domicile, for illegal aliens lack the legal capacity to establish domicile here.”
Before the Supreme Court, Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that the Trump administration’s “point [is] that allegiance is what the word jurisdiction means.” He further contended that, “For aliens, lawful domicile is the status that creates the requisite allegiance and the text of the [Citizenship] Clause presupposes domicile.”
Notably, Gorsuch does not explicitly reject this argument. What’s more, he, along with Justice Clarence Thomas, believes that the Citizenship Clause does not immediately extend to everyone born on US soil. It requires, as the Trump administration argues, possessing a “permanent domicile.”
Justice Samuel Alito likewise concurs with the Trump administration’s argument but emphasizes the allegiance component. In his view, “the Fourteenth Amendment confers citizenship on only those children who, at birth, owe allegiance solely to this country.” Being born in the US is not enough.
Where this leaves us is at a far more precarious crossroads. Only five justices believe that the plain text of the 14th Amendment automatically guarantees citizenship to everyone born in the US.
Kavanaugh believes that Congress could limit birthright citizenship themselves. A constitutional amendment would not be needed.
The same is arguably true for Gorsuch, Thomas, and Alito. If Congress were to pass legislation that codifies Trump’s Executive Order and formally defines “domicile” status in a way that excludes undocumented immigrants and temporary visitors, then those four justices would likely uphold it.
Ultimately, the problem is that this decision does not settle the issue once and for all. What we needed was a clear 7-2 decision (Thomas and Alito were always going to dissent). One that acknowledged what the Constitution plainly says and what it obviously grants—namely, that if you are born here, you are from here. Nothing else matters; not “domicile” or “allegiance.”
As things stand, however, the Supreme Court is effectively one vote away from fundamentally changing who is entitled to US citizenship and what it means to be an American. While birthright citizenship survived today, this ruling exposes how fragile its guarantee has become. This fight is far from over—Republicans will try again, and next time they might succeed.
We cannot let this happen. Now more than ever we need a left-wing wall in Congress to stop Trump’s assault on our rights, protect birthright citizenship, and defend the Constitution.
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JD Vance's Drunk History
On June 25, Vice President JD Vance told his audience at the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library and Museum that Nixon got a bum rap. The uncontested historical record proves otherwise.
Jun 30, 2026
The Watergate scandal revealed President Richard Nixon’s contempt for the Constitution and his systematic abuse of power. At the time, it was one of the darkest chapters in US history, resulting in the first-ever resignation of an American president.
But on June 25, Vice President JD Vance told his audience at the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library and Museum that Nixon got a bum rap. The uncontested historical record proves otherwise. Vance’s contrary view demonstrates the depths to which he and President Donald Trump have taken the country.
“Facts Are Stubborn Things”
- In May 1972, a group of men connected with the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP) burglarized and wiretapped the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex. One of the wiretaps didn’t work, so on June 17, 1972, they broke in again with a new microphone. A security guard saw door locks that had been taped open and called the DC police, which caught them red-handed. Among the burglars’ possessions was a White House phone number.
- After declaring falsely that no one on the White House staff was involved in the crime, Nixon acquiesced as his aides provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in “hush money” to the burglars. Then Nixon and his top advisers developed a plan to get the CIA to obstruct the FBI’s investigation into the matter.
- As Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein pursued the story, a DC grand jury summoned witnesses who cracked. Nixon aides—including White House counsel John Dean—testified in nationally televised hearings where Sen. Howard Baker (R-Tenn.) asked, “What did the President know and when did he know it?” The answer was “a lot.”
- With the revelation that Nixon had taped his conversations about the cover-up in the Oval Office, the president sought valiantly to block their production.
- When special prosecutor Archibald Cox sued to obtain the tapes, Nixon instructed Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire him. In what became known as the “Saturday Night Massacre,” Richardson refused and resigned. Nixon then told Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox, but he resigned too. Finally, Nixon turned to the third highest official in the Justice Department, Solicitor General Robert Bork, who carried out the order.
- Firing Cox was the futile act of a desperate man. Bork appointed Leon Jaworski as Cox’s successor, and Jaworski continued to press his case to the US Supreme Court. In a unanimous decision, the court ordered Nixon to release the tapes, and the public could hear Nixon’s own voice incriminate him.
- On July 27, 1974, the House Judiciary Committee recommended articles of impeachment. On August 7, Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.), Sen. Hugh Scott (R-Pa.), and Rep. John Rhodes (R-Ariz.) visited the White House to give Nixon the bad news: The full House was going to impeach him, and the Senate would convict him. The next day, Nixon resigned.
Vance’s “Deep State” Fantasies
Vance claimed that Nixon was the victim of a “deep state” conspiracy.
“If you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon,” Vance continued, “it’s not all that different from what the same groups of people, the same institutions, tried to do to Donald Trump in the first Trump administration.”
But the supposed “deep state” actors to which Vance referred consisted of Nixon’s top advisers who turned on him, the most conservative Republicans in Congress, a unanimous US Supreme Court, and two intrepid reporters at The Washington Post.
Timothy Naftali, a historian at Columbia University’s School of International Public Affairs and the former director of the Nixon library, told The New York Times: “We have more than enough information from the Nixon era to know that there was no intelligence conspiracy against Richard Nixon. He brought his house of cards down upon himself.”
“You can hear him suborn perjury on the tapes,” Naftali told The Washington Post. “He’s telling an intermediary, what to tell someone who’s about to be interviewed by the FBI, what to say and what not to say. You can hear Nixon being told that money had been found to hire teamsters to go and break the bones of demonstrators. That’s all illegal.”
Lies Reveal Character
Prof. Naftali observed that, curiously, Vance had likened Trump to a president who had directed the CIA to subvert the Constitution.
“It’s not as if [Watergate] is a matter of partisan interpretation,” Naftali said. “The evidence is overwhelming. If [Vance] does know all of this, he’s telegraphing the kind of president he hopes to be.”
Vance also claimed that Watergate would have been a 12-hour news story today. He may be correct, but that does not diminish the seriousness of Nixon’s crimes.
As prof. Naftali observed, “It’s not that Nixon looks better in retrospect, it’s that we look worse.”
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