Witness the current state of the Republican Party: a lame duck president with dismal polling numbers who still forces his loyal acolytes to bend the knee to an abject failure of a presidency. It is embarrassing to witness this level of cowardice by those whose allegiance is so misplaced.

The behavior was aptly demonstrated by a trio of Donald Trump nominees who have been on Capitol Hill this week for their confirmation hearings. While they are up for very different jobs, the three have one salient thing in common: publicly debasing themselves to prove loyalty to their benefactor. It is a prerequisite for this president.

Let’s start with Todd Blanche. He has been Acting Attorney General since April, when his boss, Pam Bondi, was fired for not being ruthless enough. He is a clear Trump favorite. “We have a man who’s doing a great job, I’ll tell you. I knew it! Because he kept me out of jail for years! Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche,” Trump beamed at a Rose Garden event in May.

During his hearing on Wednesday, before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Blanche made a telling faux pas, saying, “I’m his lawyer… was his lawyer.” Exactly. The attorney general of the United States is supposed to be the people’s lawyer, not the president’s consigliere.

Blanche, the architect of Trump’s IRS suit settlement, defended the part that would shield the president and his family from past tax violations. Then he had a hard time convincing senators that the $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” (slush) fund was dead. That’s taxpayer money for January 6 rioters.

Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) could quickly kill Blanche’s confirmation. The senator will be out of job come January, in part because Trump backed his primary challenger who then won the nomination. Cornyn has big doubts about the demise of the slush fund, suggesting it could easily be resurrected. Republicans have a one-vote majority on the committee. A “no” vote from Cornyn would doom Blanche and offer some measure of revenge from the soon-to-be former Texas senator.

Over at the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Trump’s nominee to head the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) got a grilling that was met with a lot of non-answers. Dr. Erica Schwartz, a former deputy surgeon general, was asked if she would challenge Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who is a vaccine and science skeptic. She didn’t say an outright yes.

She promised to “never compromise on the science,” while also saying she believed Kennedy wouldn’t implement policies that are not scientifically sound. To avoid answering direct questions, on more than one occasion she said, “The secretary absolutely will allow me to be the CDC director.”

Committee chair, Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), wasn’t buying what she was selling. “You can be CDC director and just take orders. We need a CDC director that will actually stand up to crazy, stupid things being said that undermine faith in immunization.”

Cassidy, another victim of the Trump loyalty test when the president endorsed his primary challenger, is finally speaking his mind.

Jay Clayton, currently U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, is Trump’s pick to replace Tulsi Gabbard as the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). Like Blanche and Schwartz, he stuck to the shameful script.

If you haven’t seen Senator Jon Ossoff’s (D-GA) interrogation of Clayton, it is worth two minutes of your time. Ossoff started by asking a simple question.

Ossoff: “Who won the 2020 election?”

Clayton: “You know, we’re not, I’m not, I’m not going to do this with you.”

Ossoff: “This is a job interview. We have established that you have an obligation to be honest and forthright with the committee, yes?”

Clayton: “Yes”

Ossoff: “Who won the 2020 election?”

Clayton: “I said, I’m not going to get into that with you. I think I’ve answered the question.”

After several more evasions from a convictionless Clayton, Ossoff closed his line of questioning with this, “Isn’t it humiliating to be unable to answer this question? To have to indulge the president’s delusions? We know, you know, everybody in this room knows the truthful answer to that question. Why can you not give it?”

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Indulging the president’s delusions is the crux of all of these hearings. Nominees, indeed anyone looking to join the administration, must prove fealty to Donald Trump by discrediting themselves in front of Congress and the nation.

“I should not feel bad for those who humiliate themselves to gain a position in Trump’s administration. But I do feel sorry for anyone so lacking in self-worth that they blow up their hard-earned reputations to gain a temporary position with a lame duck politician. It is sad,” Joe Scarborough of MS NOW posted on social media.

If Blanche, Schwartz, and Clayton are seemingly willing to lie to Congress, or at least resort to sophistry to get their jobs, what might they be willing to do once in their positions?

Clayton’s refusal to say that Joe Biden won the 2020 election — not by a little, but by more than 7 million votes — was a litmus test of Trump’s number one conspiracy theory.

Under Trump, the DNI is no longer an intelligence advisor, but rather the Cabinet member focused on re-litigating the 2020 election, an obsession of this president, something he cannot and will not stop talking about.

So much so, he is giving a primetime speech about it on Thursday. Almost six years after the election, he claims to have “big news.” But because no one in the White House seems to know exactly what Trump is going to say and because many of you will be reading this after the speech is given, we won’t speculate.

It is interesting to note however, that this speech is also a test of sorts for the TV networks. Will they or won’t they break into programming to broadcast the speech live?

Belief is widespread that Trump will continue to pedal repeatedly debunked lies about the 2020 election. While the networks have tried to avoid amplifying his lies about the election, they risk blowback from a White House happy to mete out punishment for perceived slights.

Networks are not required to carry a presidential address. Speeches by Gerald Ford, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden were not broadcast live.

Money comes into play here. Networks lose revenue from commercials when they carry presidential speeches.

When asked if the networks have a responsibility to air this speech, Federal Communications Commission Chair and Trump lackey Brendan Carr told NewsNation, “Broadcasters have an obligation to operate in the public interest.” As of this writing, ABC and NBC will air the speech only on their streaming channels. CBS hasn’t said what it will do.

Trump’s approval ratings, plus an affordability crisis and an unpopular war, are pointing to the loss of control of one, if not both, houses of Congress. The president seems unwilling to do the hard work to fight to keep Congress. Instead, he is filling his Cabinet with even bigger sycophants and undermining election integrity in hopes that will guarantee his political power for the next two years.

He is unlikely ever to accept the results and move on. No advisors have the spine to tell him the truth. And here’s the reality: Six years later he’s far less popular than he was after his 2020 defeat. Pushing election denialism could be helpful for Democrats, but it’s certainly the last thing Republicans need, especially for those on the ballot in November. Trump is once again questioning a long-ago election while ignoring what many voters are insisting on now: undoing the damage he’s already done.

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If Donald Trump was the head of a Fortune 500 company, he would have long been relieved of his duties — for a list of reasons as long as your arm — but most notably, he would be fired as the country’s CEO for his vacillating and chaotic handling of the war with Iran.

Americans know and cannot be distracted from this hard truth: It is a sad and dangerous state of affairs that our country is being dragged behind a demagogue who seems clueless about how to get us out of a war he created. And on Monday, he made it worse by stating the United States was taking control of the Strait of Hormuz — again — and would begin charging a fee to guarantee safe passage of cargo ships.

It was less than a month ago that his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, called a similar plan by the Iranians illegal. “No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway,” he said.

Trump’s “leadership” on Iran is so abysmal that it is hard to keep track of where we actually are and what is actually happening. But we must try, because this is a perilous time for our country and the world. It is imperative that we understand the circumstances and the consequences of the war. Even if the president doesn’t.

Projecting strength, rather than competent leadership, is Trump’s modus operandi. He knows it is red meat for his base, regardless of the outcome. It means he will stick to his old ways, come what may. That is exactly what he is doing with Iran.

Known for lies and inconsistent messaging, Trump’s dealings with Tehran are even more whiplash-inducing than usual. Before signing the memorandum of understanding (MOU) in June, he called the Iranians “strong,” “smart people,” who are “not radicalized.” The MOU, which was more than generous to the Iranians, lifted sanctions, ended the U.S. naval blockade, and contained the framework for a $300 billion reconstruction plan.

Then, last week at the NATO summit in Turkey, he did a 180, calling Iranians “scum,” “liars,” and “vicious, violent people,” before canceling the ceasefire, resuming the blockade and the bombings, and revoking sanctions waivers.

Why the flip-flop? Is Trump crazy like a fox and doing it to keep his adversaries guessing? No. Is he making decisions on a whim based on what his last adviser suggests? Or, more concerning, is he going on what he calls his gut instinct, which he has long trusted more than intelligence gathered by government agencies? “Gut instinct” has a nice connotation, but it’s nothing on which to base a war.

Whatever the reason, the potentially catastrophic consequences are the same. Trump is continuing to destabilize the world economy. His behavior makes what is left of our allies even more wary of dealing with the United States, while making our adversaries less fearful with each act of incompetence.

The Iranians have been planning for the possibility of this war for decades. Trump can’t strong-arm the Ayatollah, or cajole him, or wait him out. For Iran, this war is existential, and therefore they believe they have nothing to lose by playing hard and tough. Add the massive leverage of controlling the Strait of Hormuz, and “winning” for the U.S. is increasingly hard to envision.

Prior to the start of the war, one-third of the world’s oil and one-fifth of liquefied gas traveled through the Hormuz chokepoint free of charge. One hundred thirty ships passed through daily. That number has dwindled to about a dozen, with the added burden of a $1 to $2 million per ship toll. Max Boot of The Washington Post calls Iran’s control of the strait “a weapon of mass economic destruction.”

Trump does seem to understand the importance of the strait, which is why on Monday he told “Fox & Friends,” “We’re taking over the strait… We’re going to hit [Iran] very hard and keep the strait, and probably run it.”

When he says “run it,” he means the U.S. will extort money, just like the Iranians. “As a matter of FAIRNESS, [the U.S.] will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped, for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World,” he posted on social media.

Before the war Trump started, anyone could travel through the Strait of Hormuz for free. It is Trump’s actions that caused this “section of the world” to become “volatile,” necessitating security measures.

The Iranians were incredulous at Trump’s assertion. The foreign minister mocked Trump on social media: “POTUS is absolutely right. Whoever provides secure and safe passage of commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz should be compensated for this service. Iran has always been the GUARDIAN of the Strait and will remain so FOREVER. 20% is of course too much. We will be fair.”

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Also, Iran vehemently maintains it is still in control of the strait. A spokesperson for the Iranian military said the country “will not, under any circumstances, allow the United States to interfere in the management of the Strait of Hormuz, and we will not do so in the future.”

Even with the language barrier, Iran is hip to Trump’s disinformation campaign. “Lying has become part of the U.S. administration’s behavioral pattern, and they have become addicted to it,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said.

Wresting control of the Strait of Hormuz from Iran would mean invading Iran with American ground troops. Ground troops would mean U.S. casualties well beyond the 13 service members killed since the start of hostilities in February. It is doubtful the country would countenance such an escalation. The latest polling on the war shows deep opposition to it and Trump’s handling of it.

Iran is setting the terms and playing Trump like a fiddle. If they wanted to end the war, they could, but they chose not to. Not yet, anyway. Prolonging it helps them and hurts Trump. They don’t want more bombing, but it is a price Iran is willing to pay as they wait him out. They are using the timing of midterm elections as critical leverage, holding global oil prices hostage. And the president knows it.

What does a bully do when he is backed into a corner? He lashes out. That is what Trump did by ripping up the MOU, attacking Iran again, and claiming control of the strait.

After all of this back-and-forth, oil futures are up more than 6% on Monday, with gas prices sure to follow and fewer than four months until the midterms. Lest we forget: All of this makes Trump more desperate.

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Simple, heartfelt lyrics, a catchy melody, and great harmonies, Bill Withers’ — “Lean on Me” checks all of those boxes and is this week’s reason to smile. Fifty-four years ago this week, Withers’ song reached No. 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and soul charts and has since become a classic.

Withers grew up in the small coal-mining town of Slab Fork, West Virginia. After serving in the U.S. Navy, he moved to Los Angeles in 1967 to pursue a career in music. Withers said he missed the tight-knit community of his youth and that the support he felt there was the inspiration for “Lean on Me.”

Withers was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2015. He, along with John Legend and Stevie Wonder, performed his Grammy winning song during the induction ceremony.

We chose “Lean on Me” for all of these reasons and because in these troubling times it is important to remember that sometimes “we all need somebody to lean on.” We here at Steady are ready to be leaned on at any time. That’s what makes our community special. Thanks for your comments and for your support.

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You might think that because horror stories about mass deportations have mostly faded from the headlines that Donald Trump has eased up on his draconian immigration policy. He has not. And what happened in Houston on Tuesday brought ICE and its immigration crackdown back into the spotlight.

While he tries to divert our attention with ballrooms and reflecting pools, Trump has actually doubled down on the mass deportation agenda he implemented one year ago. This is despite his policies, which caused the deaths of two American citizens and dozens of undocumented immigrants, notwithstanding the hundreds of federal judges who ruled against the administration thousands of times, and regardless of public sentiment shifting hard against his immigration policy.

As the president and his immigration policy architect, Stephen Miller, mark the anniversary of their brutal and often illegal campaign, the family of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo is in mourning.

Salgado came to the United States from Mexico almost 35 years ago. He built a successful construction business, building homes in the booming Houston suburbs, but did not possess documentation to legally live and work in the United States. Salgado and his wife had three sons, whom they put through college.

Early on Tuesday morning, Salgado was heading to a job site after picking up his brother and two others when two unmarked SUVs started following his white van and boxed him in on a Houston side street. Things quickly escalated, and Salgado, who has no criminal record, was fatally shot in the stomach by a plain-clothed ICE agent.

ICE claims he “refused to follow several verbal commands” from agents in the SUVs and that he rammed their car with his, “weaponizing his vehicle.”

A passing car captured video of Salgado crying in agony on the ground. He could be heard saying, “Help me. They shot me!” It was posted to social media, which is how his sons discovered that their father had been killed. Additional videos cast doubt on the ICE agents’ account of what happened.

The public may never know all the facts since Trump’s Justice Department is running the investigation. It has blocked local law enforcement from conducting a parallel investigation, which is the norm, according to the Harris County district attorney.

“What other profession has the power to take somebody’s life in the middle of a street? When Democrats take the House back, ICE, you better buckle up. Because we will be investigating you day after day after day until this lawlessness and this militarism stops,” Rep. Christian Menefee (D-TX) said at a press conference.

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When Trump first rolled out his mass deportation policy, he promised to get rid of “the worst of the worst.” But federal data paints a very different picture. As of April, the most recent month for which data is available, 71% of detainees have no criminal record, and among those who do, many are for minor offenses. Even border czar Tom Homan claims that only half of those taken into custody are criminals.

For an administration more than happy to flaunt its horrific behavior, it is keeping some of its worst conduct intentionally quiet. This is a marked shift from the start of the mass deportation campaign, when former Department of Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem trumpeted their efforts.

Noem invited camera crews to tag along on midnight raids of apartment buildings, rousing children from their beds and separating them from their parents. She warned undocumented immigrants to leave the country or face deportation in a slick and pricey ad campaign. She ordered ICE and Border Patrol agents into Democratic cities like Minneapolis, resulting in violent clashes, multiple deaths, and widespread protests around the country.

Two months and a flood of terrible publicity later, Noem was out, replaced by Oklahoma Senator and Trump loyalist Markwayne Mullin. Along with the change in leadership came a change in strategy: keep deporting the undocumented, but do it quietly.

They are doing it quietly but also more successfully. ICE is now averaging 2,000 arrests a day, doubling the number from just a few months ago. A big reason is a threefold increase in funding. In June, Congress appropriated $70 billion for immigration enforcement.

Mullin’s new strategy includes using facial recognition software and spreading agents around the country to red and blue states, rather than targeting specific cities. This is cutting down on lawsuits and bad press while reducing the number of incendiary videos that go viral.

Immigration is not the winning agenda item it once was, which is likely why Trump has muted his anti-immigrant public relations campaign. A new Gallup poll shows that 58% disapprove of “deporting all immigrants who are living in the U.S. illegally back to their home country,” while 73% of Americans believe immigration is a net positive for the country.

It doesn’t help when ICE arrests people like Sister Leticia Ugboaja, a Catholic nun and registered nurse who was on her way to Mass in Texas. She was released after several hours in detention.

All of this is happening after the Supreme Court handed down two important immigration rulings at the end of its term, one win and one loss for Trump.

The loss, rejecting his bid to end birthright citizenship, comes with a slight caveat. Even though legal experts say there is no avenue for it, Trump says he will ask the Court for a rehearing.

That win for Trump ended a federal humanitarian program that protected immigrants from eligible countries who had faced armed conflict, environmental disasters, or other extraordinary conditions. The revocation of temporary protected status would allow for the deportation of more than 350,000 immigrants who have had legal status. You can practically see Stephen Miller rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

Houston is one of America’s most diverse and fastest-growing cities. It has a so-called majority-minority population with twice as many Latinos as whites. That is, Latinos have a plurality but not an outright majority. The city is home to an estimated 650,000 undocumented immigrants, many of whom are vital to the Houston economy. Half a million of them hold jobs, especially in the construction industry. Men like Lorenzo Salgado Araujo helped build the city’s boom.

The country’s immigration policies may be in need of changes, but not like this. Killing men in the street is not the answer.

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As is often the case, Donald Trump will attempt to direct the news in ways that benefit not the country, but him. The latest example involves the president interfering in the world’s biggest sporting event, soccer’s World Cup.

Trump put his thumb on the scale for the reinstatement of an American soccer star who was disqualified from playing an upcoming match.

While the outrage from that move reverberates around the world, giving people more reasons to hate the American president and lose respect for our country, another story involving international maneuvering begs for your attention. It may not get as many headlines or internet clicks, but its potential for long-ranging consequences is far greater.

On Monday in Ankara, Turkey, the head of the North American Treaty Organization (NATO) said what would have been unthinkable ten years ago. Secretary General Mark Rutte told reporters that the current alliance between Europe and the United States is no longer sustainable.

This is a major development and comes just hours before the annual NATO summit that could be the beginning of the end for the 77-year partnership. For decades, European security has also meant American security. NATO, a group of 32 nations, has long been the bulwark between Russian aggression and the rest of Europe.

The alliance was founded at the end of World War II to guard against a similar war from ever happening again. In the decades since, the United States has been the foundation holding NATO’s defense strategy together.

Trump claims the U.S. does not get “any benefit” from being a member and consistently complains that most countries do not give their fair share, while the United States pays too much. He is obviously over-simplifying a complex international alliance that absolutely benefits the U.S., considering the importance of European security to this country and the world.

Using “flattery diplomacy,” Rutte attempted to keep the president in the fold. Last June, he handed Trump a huge win, with an agreement that member nations would increase their contributions from 2% to 5% of GDP by 2035. Reportedly, Rutte and others told reluctant leaders not to worry, no one is going to hold them to that much of an increase.

Even so, the ensuing year has seen a 20% increase in NATO’s coffers. Rutte fawned over the American president and his initiative, calling the windfall “Trump Trillions.”

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Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently announced a six-month review of U.S. forces in Europe, while reducing its troops “to pre-2022 levels,” on top of a “reduction of 5,000 forces earlier this year.”

All the while, the war in Ukraine continues into its fifth year, with Kyiv holding its own against its bigger, richer neighbor Russia. Any argument for the U.S.’s continued membership in NATO runs through this war. If Putin wins, the consequences for European and global security are an open and chilling question.

With this as the backdrop, Trump is begrudgingly attending this week’s summit as many European leaders are quietly discussing NATO without the U.S.

According to The Wall Street Journal, French President Emmanuel Macron believes Europe’s overreliance on the U.S. is a grave risk to European security. He said, “there is no going back,” that the rupture between Europe and America is insurmountable and NATO needs to become strategically independent.

Leaders of the U.K., Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands have also voiced concerns. Even Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, historically a Trump supporter, admitted in March that Trump “is not reasonable.”

While international leaders are pondering the existential threat to the most successful peacekeeping alliance ever, the rest of the country and the world is tugging its collective hair out over Trump’s soccer moves.

Last week, the top scorer on the U.S. team, Folarin Balogun, fouled an opposing player and was shown a red card during the American victory over Bosnia and Herzegovina. A record 33 million Americans watched. A red card means an automatic one-game suspension. FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, has no official means of appealing such a call.

That didn’t stop Trump from phoning his good friend Gianni Infantino, the head of FIFA, to urge him to review the suspension. Four days later, Balogun’s suspension was lifted, allowing him to play in the round of 16 against Belgium on Monday night. Belgium’s appeal was lodged and quickly denied.

Rather than downplay his involvement, Trump thanked FIFA “for doing what was right, and reversing a great injustice!”

Trump and Infantino’s relationship is no secret. FIFA rents office space for its U.S. headquarters at Trump Tower in Manhattan. And remember when Trump was kicking the dirt because he didn’t win the Nobel Peace Prize? It was FIFA who rode to the rescue, creating its own peace prize and awarding it to none other than Donald J. Trump, trophy and medal included.

Trump is happy to interfere in an international incident that might mean the difference between America winning or losing a game. But he does not want to be involved in an alliance that might mean the difference between the world winning or losing its security.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, an American president was considered the leader of the free world. That title has been eroded as we watch walls go up and relationships shatter. Instead, Trump is hunkering down in his isolationism, closing borders and ending alliances, with no strategic endgame.

And let us pause to note that this is the same president who wants to be carved into immortality alongside some of America’s greatest presidents on Mount Rushmore. He’s promoting the idea again, as if his odds increase the more times he talks about it. Those leaders made a positive difference. They didn’t continually find new paths to degrade and endanger the nation.

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Patriotism can mean different things to different people. For me, patriotism is a deep love for one’s country, rooted in civic pride and duty, coupled with a commitment to uphold America’s foundational ideals, chief among them freedom and liberty.

Patriotism doesn’t belong to a political party. It is not tied to where you live or whom you vote for. And it cannot be co-opted by a president.

Patriotism is what we celebrate on the Fourth of July, the anniversary of the Founding Fathers declaring independence from Britain. Two hundred fifty years ago, 56 delegates to the Second Continental Congress did the most patriotic thing imaginable, though many believed it was treasonous. They signed Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence.

To celebrate one of the bravest acts in American history, we have chosen an oft-overlooked song that honors this great country. It was our unofficial national anthem for a hundred years, until “The Star-Spangled Banner” was adopted in 1931.

“My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” originally titled “America,” and was written by Samuel Francis Smith in 1831. He paired his lyrics with a well-known melody, that of the British national anthem, “God Save the King.”

What you are about to watch is one of the most powerful renditions of the song I’ve ever heard. The music is incredible, but it’s also the moment — a time in our country when there was less anger and for many, more hope.

Please enjoy the United States Marine band, also known as The President’s Own, accompanying Kelly Clarkson at President Barack Obama’s second inauguration. Ms. Clarkson gave the song her all. And her “all” is amazing.

The song is associated with several acts of patriotism.

In 1939, Marian Anderson, an acclaimed Black singer, was barred from performing at the Daughters of the American Revolution Constitution Hall because of its whites-only policy. Instead, she held a concert outside at the Lincoln Memorial that included “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.”

During Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963, also at the Lincoln Memorial, he recited the first verse of “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.”

My country, ‘tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims’ pride,
From ev’ry mountainside
Let freedom ring!

Let freedom ring indeed. Happy 4th to you all!

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Despite what you may hear from the president, the rise of democratic socialism is a far cry from the “godless communists” he claims are taking over the Democratic Party.

Donald Trump would have you believe Karl Marx is on the ballot. But today’s socialists are not the old school communists who demanded state ownership of everything. Historically, socialists have sought collective control of major means of production — such as factories, steel mills, power plants, and natural resources. Democratic socialism differs from straight-up socialism because it includes democratic principles like voting.

In our time and place, Republicans’ cult-like behavior has swung the political pendulum so far to the right they can be called autocratic or worse. Some Democratic voters, desperate to find an alternative, are going further to the left with democratic socialism.

In steps Trump, the master of fear-mongering. He can’t stop talking about the “Communist threat” and calling democratic socialists “animals.”

“I think it’s the biggest threat to our nation there is, maybe since our founding. That includes World War I, World War II, September 11th, it includes the Pearl Harbor attack,” Trump said with his trademark hyperbole.

The Republican Party has been selling fear for as long as I can remember.

In the 1950s it was Senator Joseph McCarthy’s communist witch hunt and the first Red Scare. Then Richard Nixon frightened white voters with his “Southern Strategy,” condemning advancements in civil rights.

When Ronald Reagan became president, he built political advantage on people’s concerns about a second Red Scare, which allowed him to up the Pentagon’s budget to counter what there was of a real Soviet threat.

Then there was George H.W. Bush and Willie Horton. In 1988, the Bush campaign released a misleading ad depicting Bush’s opponent, Governor Michael Dukakis, as soft on crime. Horton, a convicted murderer, escaped while on furlough and went on to commit more crimes.

Republicans have known for a long time that fear sells, which is why the recent primary wins by a handful of democratic socialists is red meat for the right. And they are gleefully spreading the word.

“You can call it the Bolshevik Revolution of 2026,” Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said with a smirk last week. Let’s hope he isn’t teaching civics anytime soon.

The Republican National Committee is so confident the surging democratic socialists will mean losses for Democrats nationally, they sent a condolence card and flowers to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

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But the wins may not be the political kryptonite Republicans are hoping for. First, let’s clear something up: Communism and democratic socialism are not the same thing.

Communism is a form of government popularized by Marx, in which a violent revolution by the working class seizes the means of production. Communal self-governance is the stated goal.

The former Soviet Union, China, and Cuba, among other countries, attempted to adopt this type of modern communism. In practice, these countries have turned away from the ideals of Marx’s manifesto. The regimes are now one-party systems that completely control the public and private lives of their citizens.

The ideals of pure communism have never been achieved. We can leave the why to political theorists, but that doesn’t stop Republicans from trying to paint the Democrats with a red brush.

Democratic socialists are a subset of Democrats. When they run for office they usually run as both. Defining democratic socialism can be a challenge, which helps Republicans hoping to cast it in a bad light.

“It’s a very ambiguous term, and there’s a great deal of confusion about what it is and isn’t,” Marc Farinella, a senior advisor to the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, told TIME Magazine. He says the definition has shifted over time, as have their policy goals, with some moderation.

According to the Democratic Socialists of America website, democratic socialism aims to move power from big corporations and billionaires into the hands of the majority of Americans who are not wealthy. They believe capitalism, as it is now practiced, is corrupt and shot through with cronyism.

Using the democratic process, most importantly through voting, they want to replace capitalism with an economy driven by social needs rather than profits. That’s the theory. Will it ever be adopted in the United States as a whole? Who can say. But at present it does not seem likely.

A version of what is already seen in parts of Europe and elsewhere is catching on in parts of the U.S. It includes universal healthcare, free higher education, raising the minimum wage, replacing fossil fuels with green energy, and paid family leave. You could find any number of these ideas on the websites of Democrats, even moderate ones.

However, the Democratic Socialists’ core platform also aims to eliminate the Electoral College, restructure the Senate, expand the House, close local jails, open U.S. borders, give legal status to all undocumented immigrants, demilitarize the police, and drastically cut military spending.

Even with these far-left policy stances, democratic socialists are making headlines for recent wins. Last week, all three congressional candidates endorsed by popular New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is a democratic socialist, won their primaries. Two of them unseated long-standing incumbents.

Some pundits believed the democratic socialist wins would be confined to deep-blue New York City. Not so.

In Tuesday’s congressional primary in Denver, Melat Kiros, a 29-year-old democratic socialist, beat 15-term incumbent Rep. Diane DeGette. Kiros was not even born when DeGette was first elected.

“If we share the same goal of delivering affordable health care to Americans, of delivering affordable housing to Americans, then I think it’s worthwhile to have that conversation and have that debate about what’s the best course of action to get that done. That’s what a Democracy is supposed to look like,” Kiros told 9News.

In Washington D.C., Janeese Lewis George won the primary to be the city’s next mayor. Trump wasted no time attacking her. He said he would not let D.C. “be destroyed by a Communist adherent” on social media.

All of these candidates won in heavily Democratic districts, so they will be favored to win the seats in November.

At a time when approval of Congress is sitting just above single digits, Republicans are considered enablers of an autocrat, and Democrats are called “weak” and “ineffective.” Many people are looking for an alternative. Right now, democratic socialists are one option because they are considered outsiders. In addition, their young, energetic, multicultural candidates appeal to people who are sick of the establishment getting richer while they struggle to make ends meet.

Democratic socialism, certainly to the left of many mainstream Democrats, is gaining in some appeal for an electorate that sees the gulf between the haves and have-nots growing every day. Some of what we are seeing is a reaction to the MAGA agenda. Historically, when politics swings one way, in this case to the right, it is common for there to be a pendulum swing in the other direction.

Among younger voters, Millennials and Gen Z, democratic socialists are doing better than with older voters. For these younger voters, the idea of a true communist threat was something they may have learned in history class or just heard mentioned by parents or grandparents. They don’t remember McCarthyism, the Cuban Missile Crisis, or the Cold War.

Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser, believes Republicans and Democrats both need to wake up and recognize the political shift that democratic socialism represents. “People don’t understand that they’ve taken — really, the Obama playbook, and the Trump playbook. Modern politics shows you it’s not about the money. It’s about voter engagement by people, one on one. They have momentum because they engage people with their message,” he told POLITICO.

Many credit Mamdani’s win last November in New York City to his enviable ground game. He had more than 100,000 volunteers knocking on doors, making calls, and getting out his anti-establishment message.

As we near our country’s 250th birthday, the electorate is exhausted and disillusioned. They are looking for real change and fresh voices. It is a testament to the failure of both political parties that we are trying to find something, anything, that will help everyday Americans get ahead. For many voters too young to remember, socialism is just a word, not a danger.

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Americans’ most sacred right, the right to vote, was given a lifeline by the Donald Trump-packed Supreme Court. If not for today’s ruling, millions of Americans could have been disenfranchised from casting their ballot.

The president must be seething.

Not only did the Court refuse to hear his appeal of the $5 million verdict against him in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case today, but it also ruled against his multiyear effort to restrict mail-in voting.

Trump loves to create a problem out of whole cloth and then ride to the rescue, manufacturing a solution that, unsurprisingly, benefits him. Mail-in voting may be his most egregious use of this tactic.

Falsely insisting voter fraud is a massive problem is Trump’s cause célèbre. He has built his entire political persona and his cult-like grip on his loyalists around the issue.

For the past six and a half years, he has claimed he won the 2020 election, but that Joe Biden was sworn in as president only because he stole the election. The January 6 insurrectionists were goaded by Trump’s lies and conspiracy theories about voting irregularities. He made no mention of any problems in 2024, when he won.

Trump insists, with zero factual evidence, that mail-in voting allows for widespread election abuse. The facts show that such abuse almost never happens. A study conducted by the Brookings Institution, using data from the far-right Heritage Foundation, found that mail-in voting fraud was statistically insignificant, happening in just 0.000043% of cases. That works out to four out of every 10 million votes cast.

Trump’s obsession with curtailing mail-in voting is rooted in data. He knows that late-arriving mail-in ballots tend to come from young voters of color, who tend to vote Democratic.

Today’s Supreme Court ruling in Watson v. RNC upheld the Mississippi law that allows for a grace period for late-arriving mail-in ballots, postmarked by Election Day. The 5-4 decision rejected Trump’s insistence on invalidating state law in Mississippi, 18 other states, and several territories.

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Writing for the majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said that “by ‘default,’ however, ‘responsibility for the mechanics of congressional elections’ belongs to States.” She also noted that the constitutional framework for presidential elections is similar.

On Thursday, a federal court dealt another blow to Trump’s assault on free and fair elections. Judge Indira Talwani sided with almost two dozen states that challenged his March 2026 executive order attacking — you guessed it — mail-in voting and requiring the creation of a federal voter registration list. She ruled that the order is unconstitutional and exceeds the president’s power by encroaching on states’ rights to administer elections.

As is his wont, Trump directed his Department of Justice to appeal the ruling. Not because there is a reasonable legal basis for the appeal, but because he refuses to admit defeat.

In yet another setback for Trump, on Wednesday, a judge halted an earlier executive order that would require people to show documentation to prove their citizenship when registering to vote. Every state already has mechanisms in place to guard against registration and voter fraud.

Noncitizen registration is incredibly rare, and noncitizen voting is even less common. In addition, voting by noncitizens is a felony punishable by deportation.

With all of these rulings going against him, Trump has become like a dog with a bone when it comes to the passage of the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility or SAVE Act.

The SAVE Act would require Americans to show proof of citizenship (birth certificate or passport) to register to vote, eliminating online and mail-in registration. It would also direct states to purge voter rolls and give voter lists to the Department of Homeland Security for citizenship verification. (Please see above for all the reasons this is unconstitutional and unnecessary.)

The House has passed several versions of the bill, but even the most slimmed-down version can’t get through the Senate. It would require a filibuster-proof 60 “ayes,” which it is not close to having.

Trump has been rage-posting about the SAVE Act for months, demanding it get pushed through the Senate. Some of his MAGA loyalists have taken up the mantle, slamming Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) online for not doing the president’s bidding.

Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) defended Thune, blasting “keyboard warrior-geniuses and grifters who are ignorant of Senate rules and precedents who have miraculously become experts in its arcane rules.”

Trump is so insistent on the SAVE Act that he reportedly berated Republican Senators in a closed-door meeting on Friday for not using the “nuclear option.” The nuclear option is the elimination of the filibuster. It is a very risky move because if Republicans lose control of the Senate, they will want and need the filibuster to limit Democrats’ legislative power.

Screaming at Republicans in person and on social media does not seem to be working, so Trump is holding legislation hostage, in the hopes that will move the needle.

He tried to scuttle the reauthorization of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and almost stopped Republican efforts to pass reduced immigration enforcement spending. He won’t sign a hard-fought bipartisan housing bill that could help Republicans in close midterm races. That tactic likely won’t work since the housing bill has such broad support and may become law even if Trump vetoes it.

The president and his MAGA allies are unabashedly trying to disenfranchise millions. They believe most of those impacted would likely vote for Democrats. The irony is that notion, on which Trump has bet the ranch, is likely incorrect.

Many experts believe that his tactics to make registering to vote more difficult would disproportionately hurt Republican voters. Such voters tend to live in more rural areas of the country. Women who change their last name when they marry are more likely to be Republican. And Democrats are more likely to have passports.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) thinks Trump’s obsession with voter fraud is unfounded and misplaced. “We won all the damn elections, and we’re in charge, and what are we doing with it? We’re bankrupting the country, we’re starting new wars, we’re violating the Constitution, we’re not cracking down on the fraud. The problem is not the elections,” he said.

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Happy birthday to one of the most celebrated and prolific composers of American musical theater, Richard Rodgers. He and his more than 900 songs are this week’s reason to smile.

Born on June 28, 1902, in Queens, New York, Rodgers began his musical journey at age six when his prescient parents got him piano lessons. He continued to grow as a pianist and composer through high school, eventually attending Columbia University and the Institute of Musical Art, which is now The Juilliard School.

Rodgers is best known for his songwriting partnerships. His first was with lyricist Lorenz Hart in the 1920s and ‘30s. “Pal Joey” and “Babes in Arms” are among their collaborations.

Rodgers’ second pairing, many would argue even more successful than his first, was with Oscar Hammerstein. The two are credited with modernizing musical theater by focusing on characters and drama, in shows like “The Sound of Music,” “South Pacific,” and “The King and I.”

Their first Broadway show, “Oklahoma!” was an unprecedented critical and commercial success. It did not win a Tony, but only because the award debuted four years after the show did in 1947.

The 1955 movie version of “Oklahoma!” was also a huge hit, starring Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. The musical’s opening number, “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’,” is undeniably smile-inducing.

The New York Journal American called the musical “a beautiful and delightful show, fresh and imaginative, as enchanting to the eye as Richard Rodgers’s music is to the ear. It has, at a rough estimate, practically everything.”

Rodgers continued to compose until his death in 1979. He was the first ever EGOT — winner of an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony award, as well as a Pulitzer Prize winner and Kennedy Center Honoree.

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We are constantly bombarded by propaganda posing as news from this administration. Every day, the egomaniacal president demands attention — and gets it — dictating his agenda to an all-too-often pliant press. The president speaks and the media reports, no matter the quality or the veracity of what he says. That’s the reality of Washington today.

But so much is happening beyond the periphery of the president, especially in like-minded circles, that you need to know about. Look no further than Project 2025 to understand how right-wing ideology can quickly become policy. That is especially true for women’s rights.

Trump’s campaign promise to protect women, “whether the women like it or not,” has become more of a threat. His policies and executive orders undermine women’s economic and reproductive freedoms while pushing them out of the workforce and into the home.

The president wants to defund Planned Parenthood, saying it only provides abortions. In reality, it delivers high-quality, affordable reproductive healthcare, including cancer screenings and prenatal care, at a time when millions of women have been forced off of health insurance because of Trump’s cuts to Medicaid and his refusal to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits.

Trump’s Department of Labor has targeted programs that help women attain high-paying jobs in male-dominated fields. His Department of Defense has killed programs expanding women’s roles in the military. And the Department of Health and Human Services is actively emphasizing “natural family planning,” while eschewing medical birth control.

And then there is the SAVE Act, which Trump refuses to let die, though it has so far not passed in the Senate, and likely won’t. The SAVE Act is a voter suppression bill that would disproportionately disenfranchise women. Eligible voters would be barred from registering to vote if their legal last name does not match their birth certificate. Millions of women change their last name when they marry. A Pew Research study found that 79% of women take their husband’s name and 5% hyphenate their last names.

With policies like these, it is no wonder Trump has widened the gender gap. While he improved his standing with women voters from the 2020 to the 2024 election, that support has slipped steadily since he took office. The president’s approval rating nationally is hovering just below 40%. Among all women, it is around 29%, and among women under 30 years of age (Gen Z), it is even lower.

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The MAGA wing of the Republican Party is hellbent on keeping power, even after Trump, their founder and standard-bearer, has gone. To do so, they need to stem the tide of defectors from the Trump camp, starting with Gen Z women, the most anti-Trump demographic.

So the president, with the help of the Heritage Foundation and the MAGA coalition, is actively trying to appeal to young women, though the message and their methods make that challenging.

Much of the rhetoric revolves around birth rates, which have been in decline for two decades, down 20% since 2006. Teen pregnancies have seen the biggest drop, down 80% since their peak in the 1990s. Trump & Co. are preying on women’s patriotism, telling them it is their civic duty to have more children.

The president is also trying to buy his way to higher birth rates, financially rewarding parents for having babies. The “Trump Accounts” initiative deposits $1000 into investment accounts for American children born between 2025 and 2028. He has proposed the National Medal for Motherhood, a financial incentive for women to have families of six or more children.

The Heritage Foundation, author of Project 2025, is out with a new plan called “Save America by Saving the Family.” The crux of the lengthy report is the belief that America will be saved by pushing women to marry young, have large families, not work outside the home, and solely rely on their husbands for financial security.

Turning Point USA (TPUSA), a conservative group founded by the late Charlie Kirk to recruit young people to the MAGA cause, has clearly read the report. Now helmed by his widow, Erika Kirk, TPUSA held its curiously named “Women’s Leadership Summit” earlier this month.

Several thousand young women gathered in San Antonio, Texas, to celebrate submission to men, demonize contraception, rail against feminism, and advocate for “household voting” where only the husband has the right to cast a ballot.

During the opening ceremony, Mrs. Kirk echoed her husband’s beliefs, chief among them that feminism leaves women “lonelier, resentful, confused and weaker than before,” and that, according to feminists, motherhood is a “burden,” marriage a “trap,” and men are “the enemy.”

“For years, Charlie Kirk used this event to lecture young women on the importance of ‘biblical womanhood’ and organizing their early life around attracting a husband. His approach was consistently belittling and dismissive. He once told a 14-year-old girl in braces she should only go to college to get an ‘Mrs. degree’” wrote Madeline Peltz, author of “Good Girls and Alpha Males: How Conservative Media Is Targeting Gen Z.”

Ground zero for the war on women has been the battle for reproductive rights.

Four years on from Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court’s decision that overturned the federal right to abortion, that battle has only escalated. The latest salvo in this fight is over who is legally culpable when an illegal abortion is performed.

Since Dobbs, 41 states have limited abortion, and 13 have near or total bans. Yet the number of abortions in America has increased, up more than 20% annually since the decision was handed down. If the goal of the Court’s decision was to eliminate abortions in America, then Dobbs has been a disaster.

That increase is thanks mostly to the availability of medication abortions, even in states that ban surgical ones. Up until now, women who get abortions are spared legal repercussions, while doctors and abortion providers are not.

A growing number of frustrated anti-abortion activists have decided to endorse a controversial position, according to The New York Times. Sixty anti-abortion leaders and conservative influencers recently signed a petition to remove the “legal immunities” that protect women, believing the only way to stop the practice is to arrest those who get abortions. No mention of the men who get them pregnant.

Doctors and abortion providers have long been the target of the anti-abortion movement. But now this new idea— prosecuting women who have abortions— is gaining traction. So far, Republican politicians and candidates are silent on the proposal. Earlier this month, the Texas Republican Party endorsed repealing the state’s legal protections for women who get the procedure.

This draconian change in the fight against abortion rights is part of a larger campaign to exert control over half the population.

Here’s the reality: Women make up a majority of college graduates and the workforce. Seventy-seven percent of jobs created under this president have been taken by women. Imagine what would happen to the U.S. economy if all those women were home having babies. It feels nonsensical to imagine the rollback of rights envisioned by so many conservative groups. But, as we’ve seen from this president and right-wing groups who support him, nonsensical can suddenly become reality.

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All the ink spilled and lies spewed about the corrupt refurbishing of the Reflecting Pool, the court-ordered removal of Donald Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center, the taxpayer bill of $307 million for the “privately funded” ballroom are distractions.

Each is a worthy outrage for citizens who continue to watch the bar on this presidency fall to new lows. But for those who closely monitor Trump, including some members of Congress, these distractions may be part of a much bigger and perhaps more menacing plot.

Regular readers of this Substack know that Steady has long been reluctant to write about the many stories regarding plots that swirl around the internet and various podcasts. But there is a current one that may be worth attention.

Jamie Raskin, a high-ranking Democratic congressman from Maryland, knows Trump well. He was one of the House managers who led Trump’s second impeachment for inciting a violent insurrection against the Constitution. That impeachment failed in the Republican-dominated Senate.

Raskin is currently the ranking minority member on the House Judiciary Committee. He also served on the January 6 Select Committee. Though Democrats are in the minority and have had negligible power to stop Trump, Raskin has remained a vocal critic. And as cracks in the MAGA coalition widen, more people are listening to him and taking him seriously.

Last month, Raskin introduced legislation to block the $1.8 billion slush fund created to pay Trump’s allies and to nix the immunity deal shielding the president and his family from any past or future criminal, civil, or tax prosecution.

The fund was the eyebrow-raising “settlement” in the frivolous $10 billion suit Trump brought against the IRS. You’ll recall the stories about the president suing himself, and, no surprise, he won! $1.8 billion.

In a recent, wide-ranging interview with Puck, Raskin explained the need for the legislation, even though acting Attorney General Todd Blanche told a congressional hearing that the fund was “not going forward, period.”

Here’s the most important part. The congressman believes Trump “wants a political slush fund for his movement to turn that January 6 army into a permanent private militia for future political entanglements.” Once the former insurrectionists are paid, they will be beholden to Trump.

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He could call them up to “monitor” midterm voting or intimidate his perceived rivals. We’ve already heard Trump talk about using ICE or other federal law enforcement to ensure election integrity for the midterms. Many of the now-pardoned insurrectionists would be ready to go again for their guy.

On the pro-democracy website Fulcrum, ethics lawyer James Kobak writes, “Controlling sources of compensation, whether through the slush fund settlement or some other means, gives Trump a new tool from the autocrat’s playbook: rewards for the insurrectionists and encouragement for them to do it again. This time, they would be primed in advance and would have other administration-appointed allies. This time, compensation from the slush fund would allow them to be well-resourced and well-armed. This time, they might succeed.”

“Everybody can see what’s going on here,” Raskin told Puck. He clarified that the fund is not only sinister but illegal. “The vast majority of Americans and members of Congress say no, the president cannot act as the legislature and appropriate $1.776 billion to give away to his political foot soldiers in MAGA, and the Proud Boys, and Oath Keepers, and Three Percenters, to pay them for their service working for insurrection against the government.”

When the slush fund was announced last month, Republicans got to Trump and convinced him what a terrible idea it was, especially so close to the midterms. He uncharacteristically heeded their advice and dropped it. Or did he? Is funding for the slush fund just on pause?

Last week, a federal judge requested that the Department of Justice provide the court with a written declaration confirming that “they will not take any action to create or operate the Anti-Weaponization Fund, and that the Anti-Weaponization Fund will not proceed in any manner, or under any name.”

Blanche, Trump’s former personal defense attorney, refused to put anything in writing, pointing to his congressional testimony, promising the fund was dead.

That may not be enough for senators who must vote on Blanche’s confirmation as attorney general next month. He is making the rounds on Capitol Hill to assuage any concerns lawmakers might have. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), who is up for reelection, described her meeting with Blanche as “very good.”

“We had an extensive discussion on the Anti-Weaponization Fund, which he has assured me with no equivocation at all that he is not for it, will not pursue it, that it will not exist,” she told Politico.

Collins was famously assured by Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings that Roe v. Wade was “settled law,” and he would not touch it. As we know, Justice Kavanaugh did in fact join five other justices in overturning Roe. Earlier this month, Collins said she did not regret her vote to confirm Kavanaugh.

Trump’s corruption-laden vanity projects, including the slush fund, are diverting our attention from Trump’s bigger failures and grifts: losing his war against Iran, his multifaceted criminal enterprise operating with impunity, and the president’s most recent executive order about voter identification that could disenfranchise tens of thousands of Americans.

The throughline for all of these things is Trump’s mounting rage as he is backed further into corners. Anyone who has been following his presidency knows Trump is an angry man. Angry men often become violent men.

Trump goaded an angry mob of his supporters to storm the Capitol when he lost the 2020 election. He ordered the destruction of unarmed boats in the Caribbean Sea, killing dozens. He promised to end all foreign wars and then started an unnecessary and unprovoked one. He seems to relish the role of an angry, dangerous man. Just look at his increasingly vitriolic and sometimes downright unhinged rhetoric toward Iran.

Five weeks into the war, he posted on social media, “There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F****in’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”

A few weeks later, he threatened to send Iran “back to the stone age where they belong,” and posted an AI-generated image of himself carrying an assault rifle with the caption, “NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!”

On Sunday, effectively derailing the negotiations, he said, “We may take over the Strait if we have to. I’ll blow the s--t out of them,” he told Fox (News).

When not blowing up at the Iranians, Trump turned his ire on Raskin. “Jamie Raskin, a Loser in Life, who worked endlessly during my First Term to impeach me, will guaranteed be [SIC] trying to do it again despite one of the most successful Presidencies in history.”

Raskin says that if the Democrats reclaim the majority, nothing is off the table, including impeachment. But this time, it is about so much more than that. It is about accountability. It is about corruption and graft. As Raskin added, “We have a number of different mechanisms for checking the corruption and lawlessness that have overtaken our country.”

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We could all use a reminder that public service is a noble cause, that there are people who enter public life because they want to make others’ lives better, not their own. This week’s opening of the Barack Obama Presidential Center fits that bill and is our reason to smile.

At a time when our politics have become a blood sport, it is restorative to witness a celebration instead of a fight, joy in place of angst.

The star-studded dedication ceremony was capped off with a group of A-listers performing for the Obamas, three other former presidents and their spouses, and the rapt crowd. For the last number, Stevie Wonder was accompanied by John Legend, Jennifer Hudson, Bruce Springsteen, Common, Christina Aguilera, and Eddie Vedder, backed by The Roots on his classic, “Higher Ground.”

Barack and Michelle Obama were very thoughtful about what they wanted the center to be, not just a traditional presidential library, filled with documents and a few mementos. It is the repository for the Obama presidency archives, the first fully digital presidential archive, but it is also meant to be a place where people can gather, talk, and play.

Built on the South Side of Chicago, where Mrs. Obama grew up and where President Obama was a community organizer, the $850 million center expects to draw millions of visitors every year. If you can get a ticket — the next available is for December — you will enter the museum and educational center through the John Lewis Plaza. You can then enjoy the full-sized basketball court, public park, garden, a playground, and borrow a book from a branch of the Chicago Public Library.

The center opened to the public on Friday, Juneteenth, the holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States and honoring the contributions of Black Americans.

Mrs. Obama spoke about the importance of the center at this moment in our history.

“The Obama Presidential Center was created as a beacon of hope, a monument to our unshakable values, the ones my husband has exemplified his entire life: equality, empathy, honesty, inclusion, fairness. And especially during these anxious and divisive times, it is so important that we remember that those values are not unique to my husband. They are the same ones that your husbands and wives, your parents and children, your friends and neighbors exhibit and pass on. Every single day, millions of people in this country wake up doing their very best to live decent and purposeful lives.”

President Obama talked about the power of our shared values.

“And it’s why the exhibits here focus not just on policies but on the shared values that make democracy possible. A belief in the intrinsic dignity and worth of all people, and that no one is above the law or beneath its protection. A belief in checks and balances in our government, and an accountability that comes with an independent judiciary, and a robust free press. A belief that our military and law enforcement owe allegiance not to any president or political party, but to the people and our Constitution. A belief in the peaceful transfer of power after the people have spoken in fair and free elections, recognizing that in a large, complicated society like ours, no group or faction gets its way 100% of the time. And a belief that qualities of character, honesty, integrity, kindness, compassion, a sense of duty and honor, those things matter in our public dealings, just as they do in our private lives.”

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Bombs and bullying didn’t cut it. Neither will real estate buddies as peace negotiators. Nevertheless, there is a deal to end it. Or so says the president.

With this war, as with almost everything else having to do with this president, skepticism is wise. For what it may be worth, we are told that after a 100-plus day war with Iran, it is over. By any objective analysis, Donald Trump lost. The buck and the blame begin and end with him.

American citizens lost too, those who voted for him and those who didn’t. Because of the president’s misguided adventure, we are all left with horrific inflation, much higher gas prices, and a country with diminished standing around the world.

If the deal was so great, why did they keep it a secret for days? It leaked, of course, and now we know why it was kept under wraps. What Trump is offering the Iranians is dangerously close to a white flag. Why? This war and its consequences are damaging the president politically and he wants out.

This war Trump chose to start and struggles to end cost Americans and the world dearly. What began with a barrage of bombs and triumphal bluster is ending with a whimper, if it is indeed ending.

More than 5,000 human lives were lost to this war. American, Iranian, Israeli, Lebanese, and Iraqi lives. An additional 35,000 people are estimated to have been injured.

Thirteen members of the American military have been killed and 413 wounded. Those are the official Defense Department numbers.

The financial cost is in the tens of billions of dollars. The Pentagon, no longer a provider of trusted information, puts the direct military cost of war at $29 billion. It has also requested $200 billion from Congress to cover shortfalls, war-related repairs, and equipment replacement.

The reputational cost to the United States is harder to calculate. Our (perhaps former) allies in Europe and Asia have ample reason to distrust their once stalwart partner. China, Russia, and North Korea figured to be emboldened by Trump’s loss.

None of those costs seemed to have been taken into account as Vice President JD Vance, Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and Steve Witkoff, the president’s friend, negotiated this latest deal to end the war.

The pending memorandum of understanding (MOU), a precursor to a final deal, will be signed on Friday in Geneva. The one-and-a-half pager is short on details and teeth. Here are the highlights:

• Extension of the cease-fire for 60 days as final details are hammered out

• Iran will open the Strait of Hormuz within 30 days.

• Iran will not charge a fee to go through the Strait of Hormuz for 60 days, though after 60 days is anyone’s guess.

• Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium will be “adequately addressed” (whatever, if anything, that may mean).

• Iran will be allowed to sell oil.

• Sanctions will be lifted and assets unfrozen (a tremendous haul of money for the Iranians).

• Iran will be given $300 billion for Gulf state neighbors to rebuild, provided the strait remains open and they promise to never produce a nuclear weapon.

A lot is missing from this agreement. For one, uranium won’t be seized. Trump defended that decision on Tuesday. “You could make the case, ‘Why are you even bothering?’ Because it’s not really valuable,” he said. The most glaring omission from the MOU is an enforcement mechanism, unlike the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, President Obama’s 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, which took two years to negotiate.

It restricted Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium, limited the development of new technology, dismantled several nuclear facilities, and, most importantly, gave the International Atomic Energy Agency authority to conduct inspections at will.

Trump called that “the worst agreement” and withdrew from the accord during his first term. This led to Tehran expanding its enrichment program, which in turn precipitated the U.S. bombing of Iranian nuclear sites a year ago.

Any mention of or comparison to Obama’s deal with Iran enrages Trump.

Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said there is no comparison. The 2015 pact was “a very detailed and very technical agreement” with “implementation mechanisms and oversight… This [Trump] thing sounds like something that was pieced together over WhatsApp messages,” he told the Financial Times.

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None of the stated goals of the war, a moving target at best, will be achieved with this deal. Regime change? No, though the Ayatollah was killed, his even more hardline son took his place. Freedom for the Iranian people? No, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard put down any protests. Elimination of the Iranian nuclear program? No, only a promise to never acquire nuclear weapons. Destruction of terror proxies? No, Hezbollah and the Houthis remain largely intact.

In addition to not achieving his objectives, Trump seems to have lost the plot. On Wednesday, at the G7 Summit in France, he called the Iranian government “very rational people. They are nice to deal with, they are strong and smart people. They are not radicalized, and they are looking to help their country.” To be clear, Iran is a brutal authoritarian theocracy that has put down any attempt by its citizens to protest its hardline policies.

Almost no one is happy with the deal, including many Trump loyalists.

“Trump has surrendered to Iran.” - Erick Erickson, conservative radio host

“…all the makings of a humiliation after all of the president’s tough talk.” - The National Review editorial

Giving billions to Iran is like offering “the Marshall Plan to rebuild Germany while the Nazis were still in power.” - Marc Thiessen, Fox (News) commentator

“Unless you were homeschooled by a day drinker, no one’s confident that Iran is going to do anything.” - Senator John Kennedy (R-LA)

Even Iran war-fan and Trump enabler Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has reservations, though he suggested only “the architect of the deal, Vice President Vance” come before Congress to defend it.

Trump would like nothing more than to put his critics and this ill-conceived war behind him. But don’t think he is done dabbling in international affairs. He reportedly has his sights set on regime change in Cuba. And acquiring Greenland is not off the table.

With the midterms just months away and his status as a lame duck president looming, Trump is trying to stay relevant through one foreign move after another.

Meanwhile, even if the new version of a peace deal holds, we will be considerably worse off than we were the day before the war started. Most notably, the roles have been reversed with Iranians emerging more powerful, and our president more pathetic.

And more dangerous.

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One trillion dollars is an almost unfathomable amount of money. It is one million millions, a thousand billions. It would take someone spending $1 million a day for 2,700 years to unload a trillion dollars. It is also what Elon Musk is now worth, thanks to the initial public offering (IPO) of his space exploration company, SpaceX.

Musk is the first person ever to amass this level of wealth. Even by multi-billionaire standards, it is extraordinary. He is worth more than the next four richest people in the world combined. The average American is closer to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s net worth than Bezos is to Musk’s by three-quarters of a trillion dollars.

Musk didn’t get rich in a vacuum. He had a lot of help along the way, including assistance from the United States government and Donald Trump himself, whom Musk backed in his run for president to the tune of $270 million.

Prior to Inauguration Day 2025, there were 32 open federal investigations of Musk’s companies — for unfair labor practices, worker and vehicle safety issues, environmental damage, and conflicts of interest. Then, Trump tapped Musk to helm his newly established Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk was now overseeing the very agencies investigating his companies. This may come as a shock, but none of those investigations led to any charges or fines.

He has also benefited directly from the largess of the federal government. SpaceX received a $500 million bailout in the form of NASA grants when the fledgling company was nearly broke. Tesla received a $465 million federal loan and profited from increased sales because of clean energy subsidies and tax credits.

It should come as no surprise that the SpaceX IPO broke a lot of rules, and not just on the record-shattering $75 billion it raised in the first day.

Before adding a new stock, market indices require a seasoning period for new companies, usually a year, to make sure they are profitable. The Dow Jones refused to lift this rule for SpaceX, but the Nasdaq agreed to Musk’s demand. Just 15 days after the IPO, SpaceX will join the Nasdaq.

This is why, even if you don’t want to spend $178 to buy a share of SpaceX, you may well become an investor. Your 401(k), pension fund, or mutual fund invests in index stocks, which hold all or a representative sample of stocks in an exchange. The Nasdaq is the second-largest stock exchange in the world. The New York Stock Exchange is the largest.

Employees and pre-IPO investors are typically barred from selling shares for 180 days, but Musk didn’t like the rule, so SpaceX wrote a new policy bypassing it, making the stock even more appealing.

Once a company goes public it almost always has increased oversight, transparency, and an independent board of directors. Not so with SpaceX. Musk has retained near total control with 85.1% voting power. And he can’t be fired.

The frenzy around this IPO was unprecedented, especially for a company that posted a net loss of $4.94 billion in 2025. And its stated mission, to colonize Mars, is years, likely decades in the future.

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Musk’s greed that spurred the SpaceX IPO is a by-product of the exponentially increasing wealth gap in America. The rich get richer because they want to get richer and they have the means to compound their wealth.

The president is a member of that club. Since taking office a second time, Trump’s net worth has nearly tripled from $2.3 billion to $6.2 billion, according to Forbes. His children have also seen their bank accounts bulge.

At a time when a majority of Americans are struggling financially, when a tomato costs almost twice what it did a year ago, when half of the country isn’t able to save for retirement, the richest man in the world wasn’t satisfied with his billions. He needed a trillion and hasn’t ruled out the possibility of becoming a quadrillionaire.

The wealth gap has existed since our country’s founding, but it has exploded in the last half century. In 1965, CEO to worker compensation was 20 to 1. In 2025 it ballooned to 285 to 1. For the top 20 companies with low-wage workers, like Walmart and Chipotle, the average is 900 to 1. The CEO of Starbucks makes 6,600 times more than the average barista.

Many of Trump’s policies and decisions have widened the financial chasm. The war with Iran has cost Americans more than $59 billion in extra fuel costs, according to Brown University’s Iran War Energy Cost Tracker. Trump’s tax and spending bill of last summer hurt the most vulnerable by cutting Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), while giving tax cuts to Musk and his billionaire friends.

And then there is Social Security. On Monday, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson called for cuts to the social safety net program that benefits 68 million Americans. Last week, a Social Security trustees’ report said that without congressional action, benefits would automatically be cut in 2032 by 22%, sooner than expected.

We have been told for decades that Social Security needs reform if it is to remain solvent. The president’s policies have moved that timeline up. According to the Social Security Administration, Trump’s tax cuts, expelling immigrants who pay into the system but receive no benefits, and other actions have significantly reduced revenues.

The biggest irony is that the president founded his MAGA movement on the promise to make America great again, whatever that meant. Seventy-seven million voters bought into his hokum. Many believed it would be a return to a simpler time. Trump’s billionaire oligarchy is not that.

Trump, Musk, and their billionaires brethren are getting richer by the hour, and left unchecked, their crypto, AI, and data center investment schemes could cripple this country’s workforce.

Meanwhile, it is the working class that is struggling. A quarter of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. A recent study by the Century Foundation, a progressive think tank, found “From health care to groceries, Americans can’t afford the basics of a healthy, stable life in Trump’s economy — leading many to take drastic measures to stay afloat.” Those measures include skipping meals and medicines.

Thinking back on all those rallies where Trump made all of those promises, to see where we are today, is tragic. MAGA is a big con — one of the biggest of all time — brought to you by a pretend populist who has demonstrated that he cares little or nothing for average Americans. He worships money, power, and the likes of Musk, but his loyalty is only to himself.

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The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, known by millions as The Kennedy Center, is a national treasure. Let’s not lose sight of its decades of work promoting and honoring the performing arts in America. It is this week’s reason to smile.

Conceived as a “living memorial” to President Kennedy, a lover and supporter of the arts, the Center opened in 1971. For 55 years, it has hosted dance performances, concerts, operas, plays, and musicals. It is the home of the National Symphony Orchestra and, until recently, the Washington National Opera. It also provides arts education and outreach locally and nationally.

It is best known for the Kennedy Center Honors, which are awarded annually to five artists for lifetime contributions to American culture and the performing arts. It is one of the most recognizable and coveted national arts prizes.

To date, 263 people or groups have received the honor — choreographers and dancers, singers and songwriters, performers, actors, and directors, in almost every performance genre. Together, they represent nearly every corner of the performing arts, from jazz, classical, pop, rock, and country music to ballet, modern dance, tap, ballroom, theater, comedy, musicals, and opera.

Among the highlights of the televised awards ceremony are the performances by big-name artists honoring their mentors. It was hard to choose just one, but we settled on a knockout performance of a rollicking musical number — Beyoncé’s tribute to 2005 recipient Tina Turner with her version of Turner’s hit, “Proud Mary.”

In case it wasn’t clear before, the Kennedy Center was named for the 35th president, not the 47th. Work crews removed the current president’s name from the facade, which he illegally added last year. It was taken down in the small hours of Saturday morning by court order. A tarp was draped over the scaffolding to block the public’s view. In a sense, the infamously thin-skinned president redacted his removal. Blocking out his name is not unusual for this administration. But rest assured, it is gone.

The legal wrangling over names and artistic direction is a shame that detracts from the Center’s mission of “bringing artists and audiences together through performances, education, and creative experiences that inspire communities across the country.”

Legal courts and the court of public opinion are helping to move the Kennedy Center back to its core values: the arts.

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For 507 days, you have had a front row seat to the wholesale dismantling of American democracy. Since Donald Trump was sworn in, he has commanded an executive branch riddled with corruption and incompetence, focused on gaslighting, aggrandizement, and retribution — not governing.

In the ensuing 17 months, the president pardoned convicted insurrectionists, imposed illegal tariffs, dismantled scientific and medical research, started a war of choice that he can’t seem to end, caused inflation to double, pushed millions off health insurance, and inflicted draconian immigration measures. He forced mid-decade redistricting because his party can’t win without cheating, granted himself and his family tax amnesty while seeing his net worth balloon by billions, all while continuing to discredit the 2020 election results.

The word unprecedented has become almost meaningless because most of what Trump does has not been done before, and for good reason — it is either immoral or illegal.

And yet, my Steady friends, we have learned to survive this. How? The power of perspective.

Living through the onslaught of norm-eroding maneuverings by this president is a daily trial. When you do a quick compilation, it’s staggering what he has wrought. So it is important to take stock and not become numb to his megalomania.

In just five months, you will be able to do something more than wring your hands, march in your communities, shake your head, call your congressman, or pull your hair out in frustration.

You will be able to vote — the most powerful collective action you can take.

Trump claims he “doesn’t care” about the midterm elections. He says he isn’t thinking “even a little bit” about Americans’ finances, or apparently, inflation.

As of this week, inflation hit 4.2%, the highest it has been in three years. In an Oval Office press availability, when asked about the new numbers, the president said, “I love it. The numbers are great. I love the inflation.”

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He may love inflation, but Americans don’t. In a new survey by IPSOS, one of the world’s leading polling operations, 72% of respondents disapprove of Trump’s handling of inflation. His numbers on the overall economy and the cost of living are similarly bad.

In an effort to spin the unspinnable, Speaker of the House and Trump lapdog Mike Johnson claimed the president’s remarks were taken out of context. What context? Trump said it just as it is written, in a room full of reporters with cameras rolling.

There are some other numbers Trump might nonsensically claim to love, but no doubt concern him. A Fox poll (yes, Fox) has Trump’s approval rating at 33%. That is 12 points lower than it was before the 2018 midterm elections, when Republicans lost 40 seats in the House.

Nothing on Trump’s political horizon assures that any of these numbers will improve dramatically.

The war in Iran, a war Trump chose to start, has caused a global financial crisis, one that many economists fear may lead to a recession. Trump promised the war would be quick. Two to three weeks, he said. We are 15 weeks in with what is still called a “ceasefire” crumbling amid new attacks from both sides.

Trump says the Iranians have “taken too long to negotiate a deal.” He threatened they would “pay the price” for not accepting one. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth clarified what that price would be. “If we need to negotiate with bombs, we’ll negotiate with bombs. And we’re very good at it.”

Trump tossed the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which was designed to suppress Tehran’s ability to acquire a nuclear weapon. It took the Obama administration 20 months to negotiate. Trump treats diplomacy like speed dating.

Even if the war ends tomorrow, which it won’t, the financial damage has been done. Undoing it will take months, if not years.

And now the Epstein files are back on the front page of The New York Times, at least. This week, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan reported on the administration’s freakout over the release of the files last summer.

In late June, Attorney General Pam Bondi promised to release the files and claimed to have the “client list” on her desk. It was a bluff. In a panic, top Trump administration officials gathered in the Situation Room, according to the Times, a place usually reserved for high-level national security meetings, to strategize. They needed to figure out how to control a massive story that could do significant harm to the president.

What followed was a bungled, slow-drip release of heavily redacted files. The president’s name is mentioned thousands of times. Why there is no smoking gun — either because it doesn’t exist or has been redacted — is anyone’s guess. Rightly or wrongly, the story continues to haunt Trump and the Republican Party.

Trump’s attempts to honor himself, because deep down he knows no one will do it when he’s gone, are hitting legal roadblocks. He didn’t get the congressional funding he demanded for his ballroom, while his triumphal arch is mired in procedural issues.

Perhaps the most encouraging story comes from the Kennedy Center in Washington, where a judge has ordered Donald Trump’s name removed from everything, including the website and building’s facade. The judge has demanded it be done by Friday.

In the grand scheme of Trump’s destructive acts, what’s happening at the Kennedy Center may be of less importance. However, the removal of the president’s name from anything in Washington is hugely symbolic for many frustrated Americans.

An arts nonprofit has installed a live camera trained on the Kennedy Center so everyone can watch when it happens. Stay tuned.

Trump has overplayed his hand. He still believes he can convince anyone of anything. But after a year and a half of broken promise after broken promise, only his most diehard supporters are still buying what he’s selling, even if they can’t afford it.

The midterms will come down to this: which candidates can get the electorate excited enough to turn out. Trump still has the power to do that within the base. But that base is shrinking.

To prevail in November, both parties need to expand their tents. Trump’s actions are making the Republicans’ tent smaller. His go-to issue, undermining faith in the election process, may only tamp down turnout, specifically among Republicans. Tamping down the electorate’s desire to stop Trump and vote in a Congress he can’t control may not be possible.

Especially if he keeps saying things like, “I love the inflation.”

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You may have seen a video of Sunday’s hostile interview the president had with NBC’s Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press.” He yelled at Welker and insulted her. No elected official, much less the President of the United States, should behave that way. Donald Trump has a problem with women, especially female journalists who ask tough questions.

Welker was asking about California’s primary election and the multi-day vote count when Trump began his rant.

While this behavior was beyond boorish, it carries a reminder of something more important — stay alert for the midterms because Trump gave away a big part of the Republican game plan. This president and his party will do anything to raise questions about the validity of your vote.

The laundry list of things that Donald Trump does poorly is a mile long. But one thing he is good at is sowing doubt. The more desperate he is, the more aggressive he gets. And he is desperate.

His approval ratings are abysmal. His “quick” war with Iran has dragged on for 100 days. Prices for most everything continue to rise. All of which points to the Republicans losing control of the House and possibly the Senate come November.

Trump knows he can’t win on the strength of his policies because they are very unpopular. Instead, he is returning to his 2020 playbook of preemptively casting suspicion about the integrity of elections. California is his current ground zero.

During the interview, Welker asked the president for evidence after he accused California of rigging its recent primaries. Since he had none to provide, he lashed out at her.

“You are either crooked or you’re stupid. You play right into their hands with this crap,” he spat at Welker. He had some other choice words, including damning legacy media outlets. “Your elections are crooked and you’re crooked, and ‘Meet the Press’ is crooked. And so is ABC and CBS and CNN,” he said as he unclipped his microphone and walked off the set.

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Trump’s disinformation campaign about California’s election integrity is off to a decent start, being parroted by the usual suspects in the right-wing media. It is important that the whole country understand why he is trying to undermine California and its unconventional voting process.

First, Trump hates the Golden State. The most populous state in the country is deep blue. It has 23 million registered voters, far more than second-place Texas, which has 18.7 million. The prosperous state is helmed by Governor Gavin Newsom, who has been an outspoken and cheeky thorn in the president’s side. The Trump-engineered Texas redistricting plan was neutralized by California’s own redistricting, which was orchestrated by Newsom.

Now, to California’s election procedure. The state employs what is called a jungle primary, in which the top two finishers move on to the general election, regardless of party affiliation. In an effort to get the highest voter turnout possible, the state mails ballots to every registered voter. Because of this, 80% of votes cast are by mail.

Mail-in ballots take longer to count. First, though they must be postmarked by Election Day, they have seven days to be received. Second, all mail-in ballots are checked by hand. If there is an issue with a ballot, say a signature does not match, the voter has 22 days to fix it.

Initially, in the governor’s race and the Los Angeles mayor’s race, Trump-endorsed candidates were doing well. They were in the top two in each race. As more mail-in ballots were counted, their percentages slipped, since Republicans are more likely to vote in person, while Democrats are more likely to vote by mail.

As of Sunday evening, Trump’s candidates had both dropped to third, and possibly out of their respective races. By no coincidence, it wasn’t until Sunday, five days after polls closed, that Trump cried foul.

The president has fixated on the time it is taking California to finalize its vote, suggesting, nonsensically, that the slowness of the vote count indicates the election is rigged. In reality, a place Trump seldom visits, slowness should suggest a more thorough count, not a corrupted one.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles announced it has opened “multiple election fraud investigations” related to the primary election. No other information has been provided. A federal prosecutor was sent to “monitor” vote counting at an election center in L.A.

Election fraud in the United States is extremely rare. A study conducted by the Brookings Institution found only 0.000043% of cases of fraud in mail-in voting, which works out to four out of every 10 million votes cast.

California has weathered criticism of its process for years. To curtail concerns surrounding this year’s primary, Newsom sent a letter to election officials warning that delays could lead to disinformation.

“We face an assault on our democratic values unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes, and it’s our job to safeguard those values,” Newsom wrote.

He is right to be concerned. A National Academy of Sciences study found that trust in elections fell from 67% to 60% when there were unexplained delays in results.

Trump’s attack on California is just one part of his plan to undermine the 2026 elections.

His Department of Justice (DOJ) has attacked voting rights around the country. The Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. He issued executive orders giving him the power to take over elections, which is unconstitutional. He lobbied hard for the SAVE Act, a voter suppression bill. It failed in the House almost a dozen times. Meanwhile, 2020 election denialism has become a litmus test for his judicial nominees.

You would think someone who continuously cries wolf about election integrity would do what he could to ensure free and fair elections. But that is not what Trump wants. He wants to win by whatever means are available. And his best bets in the 2026 midterms are to suppress the vote when he can, then question the validity of the votes that are cast.

Here’s the unsurprising irony. According to political news website NOTUS, the DOJ has canceled all election integrity training and deleted its guide to prosecuting election offenses. There is no director of the Election Crimes Branch, and most of the lawyers in the Public Integrity Section have been fired. Normally, by this point prior to a national election, an election integrity command center has been established to address emergencies. There is no evidence that the command center will exist.

The country has witnessed this president’s thuggish behavior for more than a decade, and it’s beyond time for someone in his party to stand up and say, “Enough.” Odds of that happening are not encouraging, with Trump-backed candidates winning most of the Republican primaries.

Trump’s current conspiracy theories of election rigging in California are just a prelude to what he will do in November. Remember, democracy is not a spectator sport. The best defense against his disinformation campaign is action. Whether you are a Democrat, Independent, or anti-Trump Republican, these are things you can do to blunt his campaign: register to vote, encourage others to do so, then vote and stay informed. You can also volunteer with your election board or with voting-rights organizations.

This is one of the most important mid-term elections in the history of the country.

There is no excuse for citizen apathy.

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With the Tony Awards happening on Sunday, we thought we’d turn to the Great White Way for inspiration for this week’s reason to smile.

When “West Side Story” premiered on Broadway, no one could have predicted its enduring popularity and cultural significance. Or maybe they could, since the production team was the best in the business.

Jerome Robbins conceived, directed, and choreographed the show, a retelling of “Romeo and Juliet.” Leonard Bernstein wrote the music with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, his Broadway debut. The book was by Arthur Laurents.

The musical was such a success with audiences that it was made into a movie just four years later. The 1961 film was an even bigger smash, winning ten Academy Awards, including a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Rita Moreno as Anita.

The soundtrack for the movie hit No. 1 on the album charts when it was released in May 1962 and stayed there for 54 weeks. It still holds the record for the most cumulative weeks at No 1.

Robbins’ innovative choreography, his incorporation of jazz, and use of dance as a central storytelling device are all evident in the song “America,” which features Moreno’s Anita.

The musical has been revived on Broadway multiple times, and the movie was remade 50 years after the original. Ariana DeBose won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar also for playing Anita. The 2021 version of “America” does a fantastic job of simultaneously paying homage to the original and modernizing it.

The song is as timely now as it was in 1957 — an exploration of the immigrant experience and the pursuit of the American Dream.

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For anyone who watches the next season of “60 Minutes” this fall, understand this: It is not the “60 Minutes” we have all come to trust and respect. It will be a diminished, Trump-approved version.

There is a tendency to view this as a story about journalism and corporate finance. But more than anything it is about big business in bed with big politics to monopolize news for their benefit, not for the country as a whole.

It pains me to write this, but the president and the corporate billionaires who curry his favor have eviscerated the best news program in the world, one that I called home for many years. So far, three correspondents have been fired, one left, and the broadcast’s top producers were let go.

Sharyn Alfonsi, one of the three correspondents dismissed, wrote, “They fired the best of us and anyone wondering whether ‘60 Minutes’ is over can stop wondering. What’s left will carry the name, but without the spine or courage that made it matter.”

Going forward, every interview, every story, every shot should come with an asterisk superimposed on the screen right next to the CBS eye: *“This story was approved by Donald Trump.”

He won’t personally read the script or sanction the stories, of course, but the higher-ups know what Trump wants to see, and especially what he doesn’t. The president is no doubt thrilled at the demise of a journalistic nemesis that continually called his bluff.

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David Ellison, the CEO of Paramount Skydance, CBS’s parent company, may have pulled the trigger, but Trump, in effect, ordered the hit. Ellison and his father Larry are huge Trump supporters who have bent over backwards to make and keep him happy.

Remember when Trump sued CBS? David Ellison quickly came to heel, paying the president a $16 million settlement on a bogus suit.

Bari Weiss, the editor-in-chief of CBS News, is a bit player in this drama, executing decisions that are made far above her pay grade. Ellison paid $150 million for her conservative media company, The Free Press, before installing her at CBS. The former opinion writer, with no television news experience, is now working to move CBS News to the political right to garner Trump’s approval.

Scott Pelley, who was fired from “60 Minutes” on Tuesday, accused Weiss of “murdering” the broadcast. I agree and would add that it was premeditated. No objective-minded person would destroy something that has been the most successful news program in television history for almost six decades, made tons of money, and is the gold standard for broadcast journalism.

Just two weeks ago, Paramount issued a press release celebrating “60 Minutes,” which included the following accolades:

• 60 MINUTES closed out the 58th season as America’s #1 news program, for the 52nd straight season – extending its record-setting performance.

• 60 MINUTES averaged 9.1 million viewers in its 58th season, according to Nielsen most current ratings, up 9% from its season 57 average. The CBS newsmagazine is also up 5% in the key A25-54 demo.

• 60 MINUTES reached more than one in three Americans at least once this season on linear and live streaming.

• 60 MINUTES made the top 10 for every week this season and top five 12 times.

• Nearly 20 billion minutes of 60 MINUTES have been consumed this season across linear and streaming.

• The total video views across 60 MINUTES social platforms are up 185% year over year.

• The total engagement with our content across 60 MINUTES social platforms is up 137% year over year.

• Our views for TikTok are up 85% year over year.

• Our views for Instagram are up 65% year over year.

• The digital traffic for web articles on CBSNews.com is up 18% year over year.

The release also stated, “Tanya Simon is the executive producer of 60 Minutes.”

Well, not for long. That record, which would be the envy of ANY television producer, news or otherwise, wasn’t good enough. Simon and her top deputy were fired just days later. In a way, the success of “60 Minutes” is the issue. If it wasn’t as good as it is and fewer people watched, the president wouldn’t care as much.

With that covetable season, the nonsensical changes at the broadcast clearly are not because it is underperforming, though Weiss is trying to spin it that way. She claims the program must change to survive the “new media landscape.” Unless that landscape is on Mars, I don’t know what she’s talking about. You can see for yourself it wasn’t just surviving but thriving, before she blew it up.

The first episode of “60 Minutes” aired in 1968. More than 2500 episodes later, it is going strong. Why? Because we are a country that craves a national conversation and “60 Minutes” was often the catalyst for tough discussions about important issues, but ones that don’t have a Trump-sympathetic censor.

More than any other news program, “60” took us to undiscovered places and introduced us to insightful people with stories that needed telling, shot in that intimate, close-up “60 Minutes” style.

The news magazine’s talented corps of investigative producers and reporters found and executed stories no one else could. These stories are expensive and time-consuming to produce.

The “60 Minutes” formula is replicable, with the right people, enough money, and a platform willing to air it. We have heard from a former “60 Minutes” insider that such discussions are in the works. Fingers crossed. Until then, we are left with a sanitized “60” that will play well for an audience of one.

I’m left saddened by the knowledge that this American institution is being killed. Although it can’t be duplicated, I’m hopeful that efforts to build something like it may succeed.

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Two hundred fifty years ago, our nation’s Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence. The American Revolution was already underway, and we were five years from the decisive Battle of Yorktown, but that brave act of signing on July 4, 1776 is the one that has defined our country and our ongoing commitment to independence.

Plans to celebrate this anniversary have been in the works for years. In 2016, Congress established America250, “a nonpartisan initiative working to engage every American in commemorating the 250th anniversary of our country,” according to its website. Please note the word “nonpartisan.”

Apparently, the events being planned by America250 are not Trump-centric enough for the president, so he created his own competing organization by presidential decree. It’s called Freedom 250. Trump has ironically decided to replace the celebration of rejecting a monarch with festivities for himself, a self-proclaimed king.

What could have been an easy tip-in for a president with abysmal poll numbers — a convivial, patriotic celebration to bring a fractured country together — has turned into a colossal, partisan mess.

Within 48 hours of announcing the line-up for a series of Freedom 250 concerts, seven of nine artists canceled. “I was presented with an opportunity to perform at a nonpartisan event but that turned out to be misleading,” country singer Martina McBride wrote on social media. Rap artist Young MC had a similar experience. “The artists were never told about any political involvement with the event,” calling the concert a “bait-and-switch.”

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In true Trump style, he mocked the artists and pivoted to an even more partisan event.

“We should have a giant MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN RALLY, for 250, instead of having overpriced singers, who nobody wants to hear, whose music is boring, and yet who do nothing but complain,” he wrote on social media.

The litany of egocentric things Trump wants to commemorate for the anniversary is cringeworthy, going well beyond the banners of his scowling face hung all around the city.

He wants that same face on a new $250 bill. U.S. currency can not include the visage of a living person, so Congress is considering a bill to allow it. How do you think that vote will go?

He is erecting a massive cage on the South Lawn to host a mixed martial arts match and painting over the natural concrete of the Reflecting Pool with “American Flag” blue.

Trump’s love of all things gold, everything from escalators to Oval Office adornments, is well known. In his effort to “clean up” Washington, DC for the 250th celebrations, Trump is expanding his affection for gilt.

The White House has engaged a Maryland gilding studio in a no-bid contract to coat four massive bronze horse statues in Washington with a thick layer of almost pure gold. The cost? Five million taxpayer dollars, according to NOTUS. That political news website also reported that $20 million of the nearly $100 million the White House is spending to “beautify” the nation’s Capital has not been disclosed.

Trump’s obsession with control of America’s 250th is as disturbing as it is predictable. He prefers planning a party to governing a country. To actually govern, Trump would have to fight his narcissistic impulses and be a leader of all 340 million Americans.

He could have waited to announce his $1.8 billion slush fund for January 6 insurrectionists and other supporters, but he didn’t. Instead, he announced it the morning there was supposed to be an important vote on an immigration enforcement spending package. Incensed Senate Republicans decided to go home early instead of jeopardizing passage of the immigration bill by having to deal with the slush fund at the same time. On Monday, Politico reported that Trump has backed away from the fund, succumbing to mounting pressure.

Let’s call this rare political retreat by the president a birthday gift to America. Devising the slush fund was perhaps the most tone-deaf political move in the history of Trump.

What is going on with this president? Plenty have questioned his mental health because of his bizarre and endless social media rants. But it goes far beyond that.

Rather than staying out of mid-term election primary races, the standard for a sitting president, Trump supported candidates running against incumbent Republicans he doesn’t like. All of his candidates won, but most may now be in much tougher races that will cost the Republican Party millions of dollars.

Rather than sitting back and letting the Iran war plummet into month four, enough Senate Republicans may back a war powers act, which would be politically embarrassing for the president.

Trump rarely does anything expected or precedented, but his recent head-scratchers — backing challengers over incumbents, starting a war no one wanted and not finishing it, ignoring Americans’ economic suffering — make little sense as we get closer to the midterms. It has become increasingly evident that Trump may not care about holding on to the House or Senate for two reasons.

One, he needs an enemy with whom to do battle. Who better than a Democratic controlled Congress? It will make for great TV or clips on social media and indicate to his base that he will continue to fight for them.

Two, the wins by Trump-backed primary challengers show that he still has a lot of political clout among his MAGA coalition. For Trump’s post-presidency, that is what matters. It’s so he can maintain his vice grip on the Republican Party even when he’s no longer in the White House.

“What Trump would mind, what he does fear, is a Republican Party with a spine. He fears a Republican Party in which members of Congress begin to participate in the investigations of his scandals or they abandon him as his fortunes fall. And so he’s made his choice. He is showing them that to oppose him, even from the right, is to light your political future on fire,” Ezra Klein wrote in The New York Times.

As Trump celebrates himself, he is thumbing his nose at all those Congressional Republicans who have allowed him to run roughshod over the Constitution and American Democracy. He needs the support of his base to remain relevant. And nothing, no election, no partisanship, is likely to change his mind. It is and always will be all about him.

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Stay Steady,
Dan