Radicals Are at the Door

    By Tal Fortgang

Thursday, February 19, 2026

 

The Democratic Socialists of America are ascendant, poised to remake the Democratic Party in their image. To hear Democratic politicians and major media outlets like the New York Times tell it, all the DSA wants is for America to be more like Norway: safe, egalitarian, and governed by an overweening yet benevolent state. America under the DSA would certainly resemble Norway — if Norway’s leaders loathed their own country, were committed to undermining its interests, and actively supported a global anti-Norwegian movement.

 

The slightest bit of digging into the DSA’s leadership, communications, publications, and activities reveals that the DSA is nothing less than an anti-American subversion campaign, rooted in Marxist ideas and maintaining terrorist sympathies. The DSA doesn’t even try to hide it — and why should they? Like all good Marxists, they believe that their revolution is imminent and inevitable.

 

Zohran Mamdani’s rise from no-name activist to gadfly New York State assemblyman to New York City mayor is emblematic of the DSA’s trajectory. The DSA vows that Mamdani’s victory is just the beginning of “a political movement of and for the working class that can defeat the oligarchy and win the political revolution.” Mamdani appeared to moderate his views slightly to ensure that he would cross the finish line, but he is already staffing his administration with classic DSA personnel — criminals, grifters, and America-hating radicals. New Yorkers and other Americans are about to see what that “revolution” entails.

 

Most Americans understandably see the DSA as essentially the progressive wing of the Democratic Party. Left-wing commentators and politicians reinforce that view by discussing democratic socialism as a set of abstractions and principles. Senator Bernie Sanders, for instance, defines a democratic socialist government as one that “works for all the people and not just the billionaire class.”

 

After the DSA had conquered the New York Democratic Party, Governor Kathy Hochul decided to endorse Mamdani for mayor. His commitment to socialism, she wrote in the New York Times, only means building “a New York where children can grow up safe in their neighborhoods and where opportunity is within reach for every family.” Barack Obama called Mamdani to lend his support, too. The New York Times ran interference for the candidate’s animating ideology by publishing an article titled “Zohran Mamdani Says He’s a Democratic Socialist. What Does That Mean?” According to the paper of record, “the simplest way to understand democratic socialism is as an ideology rooted in its opposition to capitalism and wanting to shift power to workers from corporations.” But the Times reassured readers that “the policies that self-described democratic socialists advocate for generally do not involve the complete abolition of capitalism.” Democratic socialists are “closer to social democrats — a common ideology in Europe that emphasizes strong social safety nets and government involvement in areas like health care.”

 

Rank-and-file democratic socialists may simply claim to oppose greedy corporations and fascism. But the reality is that the DSA is an organization, albeit an amorphous one that retains a decentralized structure as a matter of strategy. It has organizing principles, leadership, and a political program. And that program is radical.

 

The New York Times might insist that the DSA is not interested in replacing capitalism entirely, but the DSA’s 2021 convention platform says otherwise. “In overcoming the old, barbaric order of capitalism, the working class will not only liberate itself from its own shackles, but all of humanity from the parasitic death-drive of capitalism,” it states. “As capitalism’s climate crisis ravages the whole Earth, the well-being of the working class is ultimately aligned with the survival of the whole planet.” How very Nordic.

 

The DSA has since moderated some of its public language, while insisting that its chapters and subsidiaries may say things that do not represent the entire movement. That is belied by trends within the DSA’s leadership. Mainstream institutions and movements police their ranks to ensure that they don’t promote anyone who could sully their reputation. The DSA has promoted open Marxist-Leninists who seek to usher in communist revolution. Whistleblower Maurice Isserman, a professor of history and founding member of the DSA, quit the organization after leading figures within it justified the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023. He has described the rise of the “entryists,” communists who are now a majority on the National Political Committee (NPC), the DSA’s ruling body. The national co-chairwoman of the NPC — effectively the leader of the DSA — Megan Romer, is a self-professed “proud” member of the Red Star Caucus, which describes itself as one of several “Marxist-Leninist” subgroups within the DSA. “Socialist countries are not our enemy, U.S. imperialism is,” the caucus’s platform reads. Its central goal is to “abolish capitalism and, ultimately, to achieve communism,” the caucus states in its “points of unity” section. “We do not believe that capitalism can be reformed into socialism — it must be overthrown and replaced.”

 

Overthrowing capitalism and fighting American “imperialism” requires overthrowing America’s constitutional order. The DSA plans to abolish the Constitution, starting with the Senate and the Electoral College, and to “put workers in charge of the government” instead. Dismantling our constitutional republic will, of course, require universal suffrage and fully open borders — the group plans to “extend full voting rights to people with criminal convictions and noncitizens.” And after DSA leaders disarm the military, they will “allow workers to freely migrate between countries to seek employment without restrictive immigration controls.”

 

The DSA is similarly extreme on criminal justice. It calls for “demilitarizing” the police, ending prosecutions for all misdemeanors, and ultimately abolishing prisons, which are seen as instruments of capitalist oppression. With no prisons and no borders, the U.S. will finally have the democratic will to support those who most deserve it: terrorists and leftist dictators. The DSA has long co-hosted events and shared personnel with Samidoun, an organization sanctioned by the U.S., Canada, and some European nations. The U.S. government has designated Samidoun a “sham charity” that exists to raise funds for the terrorist group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). But the DSA and Samidoun have maintained their alliance and continue their joint activities, co-hosting events in Washington, New York, and Philadelphia.

 

It’s no surprise, then, that only a few hours after Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, proceeding to slaughter, rape, and maim thousands and abduct hundreds, the DSA chapter in New York (NYC-DSA) announced a “Free Palestine” rally in Times Square the next day. At the rally — where attendees displayed images of swastikas on their phones and burned Israeli flags — the demonstration leader praised the “resistance” and salivated about murdered Israelis as the crowd whooped and cheered: “There was some sort of rave or desert party where they were having a great time until the resistance came in electrified hang gliders and took at least several dozen hipsters. . . . Our people from Gaza, our young people, are riding their bikes through these settlements.”

 

DSA members seem even more united by their love of terrorism than their hatred of the rich. Russell Rickford, a Cornell history professor who infamously described October 7 as “exhilarating” and “energizing,” is a card-carrying member of the DSA. DSA member Djamil Lakhdar-Hamina, a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland, told NYC-DSA member Jack Lundquist over a Zoom meeting that “the only existing effective vehicle of resistance against Zionist barbarism right now is Hamas.” In May 2024, Romer, the DSA administrator, proclaimed that the DSA does “not, in fact, condemn Hamas,” and “no socialist should.”

 

In May 2025, Israeli embassy staffers Yaron Lischinsky, an Israeli citizen, and Sarah Milgrim, an American, were murdered outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., allegedly by Elias Rodriguez, a leftist who chanted “Free Palestine” during his arrest. In a statement on X, the NYC-DSA claimed to “reject the violence.” (It blocked the ability to reply to the post, knowing exactly what the comments would look like if it didn’t.) But members soon questioned the condemnation, and the DSA backtracked. “Is it good to condemn violence against a genocidal apartheid state?” one member asked. The Liberation Caucus, a DSA coalition that describes itself as “Marxist-Leninist-Maoist,” proudly signed a statement that praised the shooting as a “legitimate act of resistance.” In a later post, it demanded, “Free Elias Rodriguez and all political prisoners.”

 

The DSA is even taking active steps to protect terrorists and other enemies of the U.S. In June 2025, NYC-DSA hosted an event on how to disrupt global trade and stop the flow of weapons and other goods between the U.S. and allied countries. The DSA’s seminar leader encouraged activists to impede American production of the F-35 fighter jet, arguing that “interrupting this logistic supply chain is actually key to interrupting genocide.” (For good measure, the DSA’s description of the event on YouTube praises the Houthis’ “heroic” efforts to target the “movement of weapons and capital.”) Ahmed Husain sits on the DSA’s National Political Committee, coordinating efforts to disrupt international shipping through a private citizens’ arms embargo. Admitting his support for the terrorist groups waging war against Israel, Husain said, “We’re inside the home of empire. . . . As they fight there, we fight here. There’s multiple fronts.” Another DSA member, Abdullah Farooq, has teamed up with the Palestinian Youth Movement activist group in its illegal effort to stop shipping giant Maersk from delivering weapons to Israel.

 

The DSA’s ties to enemies of the West run deep. It is a member of Progressive International, an umbrella group led by Maoist centimillionaire Neville Roy Singham, who is a chief funder of anti–U.S. and pro–Chinese Communist Party radicalism. Even the New York Times has questioned Singham’s activities. According to the paper, he operates “hidden amid a tangle of nonprofit groups and shell companies” and “works closely with the Chinese government media machine and is financing its propaganda worldwide.” Singham’s organization regularly hosts gatherings in Cuba, Brazil, and elsewhere, bringing together American agitators and members of the PFLP, the Cuban intelligence community, and the CCP.

 

The DSA particularly sympathizes with the world’s worst human rights violators. According to its 2024 platform, the DSA seeks to “end economic sanctions that impact the sovereignty of countries whose governments act independently of the United States, such as Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran.” The DSA International Committee (DSA IC) defines its goal as “working toward a solidarity that knows no borders.” It specializes in advancing the interests of dictators.

 

Cuba plays a suspiciously large role in the DSA’s approach to international affairs. The DSA IC emphasizes “DSA Cuba Solidarity,” with the stated aim of “strengthening ties between the labor movements in the U.S. and Cuba.” That solidarity appears to extend to full-on public relations efforts. The DSA is a member of the National Network on Cuba (NNOC), an umbrella organization of groups that aim to create a pro-Cuban U.S. foreign policy. The NNOC, in turn, is a partner of Instituto Cubano de Amistad con los Pueblos (ICAP), an arm of the Cuban government that seeks to influence international affairs. The DSA — NNOC relationship has resulted in legally questionable advocacy for hostile foreign regimes. For example, DSA IC member Jorge Rocha recently joined Calla Walsh — a 21-year-old activist who praised the “Axis of Resistance,” Iran’s alliance with terrorist groups such as Hamas and the Houthis, before apparently defecting to Tehran — on the Guerrilla History podcast to advocate removing Cuba from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list. In October, the DSA sent a delegation of “elected leaders & rank-and-file members” to Cuba to deliver “solidarity aid.” After visiting the Latin American School of Medicine in Havana — which, according to the DSA, “has trained thousands of doctors, including over 100 from Palestine” — they returned to the U.S. “more determined than ever to end the cruel U.S. blockade.” The Foreign Agents Restriction Act requires public bodies that perform work for foreign governments to report such activities to the Department of Justice. Though this is not quite a confession of a violation of the act, it certainly comes close.

 

After the arrest of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro in January, DSA NPC member Luisa Martinez convened a web event titled “Hands Off Venezuela.” The DSA calls upon Americans to “stand in solidarity with President Maduro,” she declared. While Venezuelans celebrated their freedom from Maduro’s tyranny, Martinez called for his release and accused President Donald Trump of preparing America “to fight a future conflict with China.” Naturally, the DSA’s institutional position was to take Venezuela’s and China’s side.

 

The DSA IC’s support for repressive regimes extends further still. It sponsored the People’s Summit for Korea in New York last July, which was headlined by other Singham-funded organizations such as the ANSWER Coalition and the Party for Socialism and Liberation. The People’s Summit featured pro–North Korean speakers who seek to destroy South Korean sovereignty. “For decades,” the summit claims on its website, “US imperialism has blocked Korea’s path to peace, reunification, and self-determination.” After the U.S. bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities, meanwhile, the DSA IC rushed to affirm “Iran’s right to self-defense” on its website. “Iran has long been targeted by the U.S. and its allies for its efforts to establish national self-determination and champion Palestinian liberation,” the group declared. And while it regularly condemns Western capitalism as a source of environmental degradation, the DSA eagerly promotes CCP environmentalist propaganda, whitewashing the world’s worst polluter as an emerging “ecological civilization.”

 

The DSA’s defenders have historically dissembled by saying that the organization is diffuse and takes few institutional positions. Yet it continues to promote individuals and caucuses that express nakedly anti-American views and to organize events and campaigns that advance extremism. Perhaps because it is untenable to argue that Mamdani and other public figures can maintain clean hands as they remain affiliated with a massive subversion campaign, Democratic politicians and left-leaning media outlets have made an intense effort to help the DSA present itself as within the normal bounds of American politics. They are supporting a movement that openly seeks the violent overthrow of America on behalf of socialist radicals, foreign terrorist organizations, and an international alliance of communists. The Venceremos Fund — a central fundraising operation of the DSA IC — openly aims to “build a war chest” to “support the struggle to dismantle U.S. empire.”

 

Calling the DSA a subversion campaign might sound like a modern-day red scare, but the evidence is overwhelming and in plain view. It can be found in the statements and goals expressed by the DSA’s own personnel. The DSA’s Communist Caucus describes the stakes better than any modern-day McCarthy could: “We will seize control of the world that was built through our collective exploitation and domination. All of this we want, yet none can be had exclusively through the ballot box.”

 

Or, take it from Cliff Connolly, an irrepressible NPC member: “Undermining the genocidal U.S. government is one of the best ways to organize for world peace and prosperity. I’m proud to belong to the DS of A.”

 

Consider yourself warned.

Trump, Tariffs, and the Dangers of an Unbound Presidency

By Matthew Mitchell

Sunday, February 22, 2026

 

The Supreme Court has ruled that President Donald Trump’s “emergency” tariffs are unconstitutional.

 

If we were inclined to keep the republic that Ben Franklin and his colleagues imparted to us, that would be that. Trump would concede that the Constitution means what it says when it grants Congress—and Congress alone—the “power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises.”

 

Congress, meanwhile, would reclaim its power. It could use it in one of two ways: either giving the president the tax on Americans he so craves, or declining to do so. Either way, in the words of Justice Neil Gorsuch, it would “tap the combined wisdom of the people’s elected representatives, not just that of one faction or man.” How quaint.

 

Ideally, everyone would grant that there is some virtue in preserving the basic elements of a republican system: that is, a system in which elected officials have certain limited and enumerated powers granted through the Constitution. And any power not explicitly granted to one branch of the government or another would be reserved for the people or the states, respectively.  

 

But, alas, I fear that few in Washington are all that interested in keeping this kind of republic. And so now we wait to see how cute the president tries to get.

 

Getting cute.

 

Two centuries of trade research have shown Adam Smith to have been correct when he declared, “Nothing, however, can be more absurd than this whole doctrine of the balance of trade.” Trump has evidently weighed this research and rejected it. And he’s already shown that he’s not inclined to wait for Congress to delegate tariff powers to him.

 

Though the Supreme Court ruled that he could not use the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 (IEEPA) to levy tariffs, there are other statutes that allow the president limited tariff authority. On Friday—mere hours after the court ruled—he signed an executive order imposing 10 percent tariffs on the entire world under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. A few hours later he thought better of it and raised these rates to 15 percent.

 

Section 122 allows him to impose across-the-board tariffs of up to 15 percent to address “balance of payments” issues. Never mind that the balance of payments deficit is currently zero. And never mind that these Section 122 powers were designed “to prevent an imminent and significant depreciation of the dollar in foreign exchange markets.” This is not about to happen. And, ironically, Trump has long sought depreciation of the dollar. These Section 122 tariffs, however, can only last 150 days. After that, he would need to turn to some other authority. 

 

Next, he might claim that Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 permits him to impose tariffs on any country that has engaged in “unreasonable” or “discriminatory” trade practices. What is an unreasonable or discriminatory trade practice? You might think it is a “practice,” an actual policy adopted by another government. But in Trump’s mind, it is unreasonable any time Americans choose to buy more from the citizens of another country than those citizens buy from us. That, after all, is how he arrived at a 46 percent “reciprocal tariff” on goods bought from Vietnam even though the Vietnamese government imposes only a 9.5 percent duty on goods bought from the US.

 

In any case, a faithful reading of the statute would necessitate a careful and lengthy investigation by the U.S. trade representative before any tariff could be imposed. But Trump could get cute with that too, ordering an expedited and cursory analysis. We’ll have to see how far the courts let him get with that.

 

Next, he might try to use Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. This allows tariffs on goods that pose a threat to the national security of the United States, but requires a careful Commerce Department investigation into what constitutes a threat. Does Europe’s reluctance to hand over Greenland constitute a threat? Secretary Howard Lutnick’s Commerce Department may well see it that way. Don’t forget that last October, Trump imposed an additional 10 percent tariff on Canadian imports—citing IEEPA authority—because a Canadian premier had aired a commercial featuring Ronald Reagan saying some critical things about tariffs.

 

Speaking of Greenland, Trump never bothered to cite any authority for his threatened tariffs against Denmark, Norway, Sweden, France, Germany, the U.K, the Netherlands, and Finland for their refusal to let him annex an ally’s territory. So, he may simply try to impose tariffs without any authority. Cute.

 

The origins of an unbound presidency.

 

What is wrong with cute? Why should we care? Our duly elected president seems to genuinely believe in tariffs. It may be the one position he has consistently held throughout his decades as a public figure. And voters overwhelmingly chose him in 2024. Don’t they deserve to see their democratically selected policies enacted?

 

For decades now, there have been two unsatisfactory answers to these questions.

 

The first, supplied by progressives operating in the tradition of Woodrow Wilson, is that cute is fine. Wilson thought that “[t]he makers of the Constitution constructed the federal government upon a theory of checks and balances ... but no government can be successfully conducted upon so mechanical a theory.” Rather than think of the government as a machine, he preferred to think of it as a living being, and “[n]o living thing can have its organs offset against each other, as checks, and live.”

 

Wilson was motivated by an outsized view of his own intelligence. Five years before he ascended to the presidency, he wrote, “The President is at liberty, both in law and conscience, to be as big a man as he can. His capacity will set the limit.”

 

If this sounds familiar, recall that Trump recently told the New York Times that his power is limited only by “My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

 

But long before it captured Trump’s imagination, Wilson’s vision of an unbounded presidency stirred the imagination of the left. In an unprecedented exercise of power, Wilson issued more than 1,800 executive orders, nationalized railroads, and imposed price controls. He also segregated the federal labor force, suppressed free speech, and rounded up thousands of suspected socialists, but those achievements of the progressive era are less celebrated by today’s modern progressives.

 

The unbounded presidency also inspired Franklin D. Roosevelt to close banks, to confiscate gold, and to intern Japanese Americans via executive order. It gave President Barack Obama, frustrated by Congress’ opposition to his agenda, the courage to declare in 2014: “I’ve got a pen, and I’ve got a phone.” And it gave President Joe Biden the notion that he could cancel up to $430 billion in debt owed to the American taxpayers without bothering to seek Congress’ approval.

 

The Constitution, ineptly defended.

 

The great 19^th-century French economist Frédéric Bastiat once warned that “the worst thing that can happen to a good cause is, not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended.” Which brings us to the second answer to what’s wrong with cute.

 

Each time a Democrat asserted unbounded presidential or governmental power, there was almost always a Republican there to counter it. Obama’s 2014 pen remarks were especially successful in rousing Republican ire.

 

House Speaker John Boehner declared, “I would remind the president he also has a Constitution and an oath of office that he took” while Sen.Ted Cruz lectured: “‘I have a pen, and I have a phone,’ is not how laws are made under our Constitution. A strong president governs by consensus and persuasion, not with a pen and a phone. Americans deserve a President who will work in good faith with their elected representatives to follow the law of the land and to pass laws that reflect the will of the people.”

 

These are stirring statements. But the Constitution would not be so ineptly defended if Republicans could muster the courage to repeat them today to their own man.

 

To his credit, Cruz has often criticized the wisdom of Trump’s tariffs. But so far, he hasn’t brought himself to challenge the constitutionality of them.

 

His newfound reticence is nothing compared to House Speaker Mike Johnson, however. In January, Johnson declared: “I have no intention of getting in the way of President Turmp and his administration. … He has used the tariff power that he has under Article II very effectively.”

 

Huh? Which Article II power is he talking about? Does he think our keyboards lack a Ctrl-F?

 

A better defense.

 

It is clear now that many Republicans saw constitutional fealty as a nice talking point, a way to skewer Democrats for their unpatriotic rejection of the American founding.

 

But it appears that some Republicans’ own constitutionalism runs about as deep as Trump’s understanding of economics. They favor the Constitution when it thwarts the Democrats. They favor it because it is old and vaguely patriotic. Its antique and loopy cursive make for a beautiful backdrop for a speech. Like the flag itself, it’s the kind of thing you can hug (awkwardly). But it isn’t the kind of thing you think about.

 

But let’s think about it.

 

Few people thought as clearly or as thoroughly about the wisdom of constitutions as the late political economist James Buchanan. When talking about constitutions, the 1986 Nobel laureate liked to invoke Ulysses tying himself to the mast. Ulysses didn’t tie himself to the mast because he wanted to embarrass the Trojans. Nor did he do it because he wanted to inspire his men or remind them of their patriotic forefathers.

 

He did it for far more practical reasons. He knew that he would be tempted by the siren’s song. He knew he would go mad with lust, and he wanted to stop himself.

 

And so it is with political power. Government is not, as former Rep. Barney Frank once naively put it, “the things we choose to do together.” We do all sorts of things together. We start businesses together. We play softball together. We fish, and we pray, and we get drunk at concerts together. But none of those things is government.

 

When we form governments together, we assert the power to legitimately coerce our fellow citizens. No one can make you join the softball league. But government can make you pay your taxes, buy health insurance, or register for the draft. Try selling loose cigarettes on a Staten Island sidewalk and men with guns may stop you.

 

Frank had it exactly backward. Government isn’t what we choose to do together. It’s what we say you don’t have a choice in. Like paying your taxes!

 

Which brings us back to the Supreme Court’s decision. The framers understood that the power to tax is the power to destroy. And so they decided not to give that power to one man. After all, he might wake up one day and get offended by a TV commercial featuring a (more) popular Republican president. Or he might decide that a Swiss politician rubs him the wrong way. Those would be silly, arbitrary, and capricious reasons to coerce money from Americans.

 

So, the framers wisely gave the power to tax to our Congress, imperfect as it may be. They made it difficult for Congress to exercise this power—requiring legislation to pass both houses and constituting each house differently—because they wanted to ensure that this power wasn’t abused.

 

But the system works only if we take the Constitution and our commitment to republican government seriously. The Constitution is not, as progressives in the Wilsonian mold assert, an antiquated document. Nor is it, as some Republicans seem to think, a prop.

 

We may yet keep our republic if we can resist the urge to get cute.

No, Mr. President, the Supreme Court Was Not ‘Swayed by Foreign Interests’

By Jim Geraghty

Monday, February 23, 2026

 

“It’s my opinion that the [Supreme] Court has been swayed by foreign interests and a political movement that is far smaller than people would ever think,” President Trump fumed Friday, after the court, in a 6-3 decision, that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 does not authorize the President to impose tariffs.

 

Any other president accusing two-thirds of the Supreme Court – including two justices that he had appointed himself! – of being influenced by foreign interests would be a bombshell accusation, warranting a demand for incontrovertible evidence. But for Donald Trump, it was just another Friday. We’ve all gotten used it. We know it’s not normal, but it’s normal for him.

 

Trump’s claim that IEEPA gave him the power to impose or raise tariffs on any country to any level at any time for any reason was always a stretch, particularly considering the U.S. Constitution’s Article I, Section 8, the power to lay and collect taxes, duties, and tariffs is explicitly granted solely to Congress. My colleagues have dissected the decision in much greater detail.

 

I would only add that Trump destroyed whatever legitimate argument his administration had by exercising his powers in ludicrously capricious ways, announcing he increased tariffs on Canada because he didn’t like a television commercial and when he increased tariffs on Switzerland because he didn’t like the tone of the country’s president. We can debate what the Founding Fathers intended about the powers of the presidency, but they surely did not intend that. A lot of leaders might be tempted to exercise powers in arbitrary and capricious ways and some may do it, but Trump is unique in that he feels the need to publicly brag about doing it.

 

The oral arguments went badly for the administration; no one following the issue should have been that surprised that the Supreme Court ruled the way that it did.

 

And yet, it triggered a presidential meltdown at the White House, with the whole world watching. Besides the accusation of foreign influence, Trump raged that the Supreme Court majority is “just being fools and lapdogs for the RINOs and the radical left Democrats. And not that this should have anything at all to do with it, they’re very unpatriotic and disloyal to our Constitution.” Echoing his previous nonsense claims about his former vice president Mike Pence and the certification of the 2020 presidential election, he fumed, “they don’t want to do the right thing.”

 

In Trump’s mind, everyone who disagrees with him is always corrupt, driven by sinister motives, and likely part of some shadowy conspiracy. Everyone who agrees is always the best. Trump said, “I’d like to thank and congratulate Justices [Clarence] Thomas, [Samuel] Alito, and [Brett] Kavanaugh for their strength and wisdom and love of our country, which is right now very proud of those justices. When you read the dissenting opinions, there is no way that anyone can argue against them.” Actually, you can argue against them; that’s what the majority opinion does.

 

Trump even insisted that the court striking down the tariffs will not mean that they are no longer in effect.

 

“All of those tariffs remain. They all remain. I don’t know if you know that or not. They all remain. We’re still getting them and we will after the decision. I guess there’s nobody left to appeal to.” Indeed, Mr. President, that is why it is called the Supreme Court, not the Fairly High Court.

 

A normal president might heed the court’s decision and attempt to get Congress – with the House and Senate still controlled by Republicans! — to enact some of the tariffs he wants. Members of Congress might be surprisingly open to the notion of higher tariffs on imports from, say, China. Longtime allies like Canada or South Korea, probably not so much. Our Audrey Fahlberg reported that Congressional Repulblicans are not exactly itching to take on the issue of tariffs.

 

Either way, Trump apparently won’t even try to get Congress to enact his tariff agenda. Lacking authority under IEEPA, Trump is expected to try to reimpose them under a different provision of the law, Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. “Other alternatives will now be used to replace the ones that the court incorrectly rejected,” Trump said Friday. “We have alternatives, great alternatives.”

 

It’s all so predictable, and so tiresome. The president may have no shame, but the rest of us are embarrassed at the sight of country’s commander-in-chief throwing a tantrum on par with an angry toddler, furiously throwing out baseless accusations and whining about how unfair everything is when the judicial branch checks to see what the Constitution says and what the Founders intended. If you want to enact or raise tariffs on goods from other countries, make the case to the legislative branch.

The Best of America, on Ice

By Jeffrey Blehar

Sunday, February 22, 2026

 

I won’t pretend I’ve much been into the Olympics this year — it feels like I followed them intently during my childhood years, but checked out around the age of 18, and I wonder if that’s a natural development for many kids. But there was really no question that I’d be getting up this Sunday morning to watch the Americans compete against the Canadians in a gold medal hockey game. (Sorry, God! See you next week!)

 

Not because I hate the Canadians, mind you — it’s impossible to hate a nation so cuddly and harmless — but because I love the United States. Yes, I am wholly uncomplicated in my sports nationalism: Absent blatant bad sportsmanship, the United States morally deserves to win all contests at all times . . . and if we happen to lose that day, it’s only on the technicality of merit.

 

That’s probably why I have paid little attention to the middling exploits of Olympic skier and medalist Eileen Gu — born in California, attending Stanford University . . . and competing for the Chinese government. Gu has begun publicly complaining about the “vitriol” she is facing for taking advantage of American freedoms, training facilities, and educational opportunities her entire life as an American citizen, and then competing for a brutal and sinister authoritarian regime. But try to understand the world from her point of view: America is just a place to live; meanwhile that so-called “brutal and sinister authoritarian regime” is willing to pay her thereabouts of $5 million per year to sell her talents to the Chinese Communist Party. Come on, Eileen — isn’t the money good enough for you? Or do you miss your soul?

 

No, I’m far more cheered by examples like the remarkable performance of Alysa Liu, daughter of a Chinese refugee who fled to America post–Tiananmen Square. There was zero chance Liu would take China’s money — in fact, China sent spies after Arthur Liu and his daughter; the regime never tires of persecuting its enemies abroad. And though Liu would no doubt blanch to see her gold medal in women’s figure skating held up as a spiritual rebuke to Eileen Gu’s mercenary ways, that is how many people (myself included) regard it nonetheless.

 

Liu seems like quite the odd duck — with her racoon-striped hairstyle, a positively fascinating lip piercing, and youthfully left-coded views — and she’s frankly all the more American for it. I’ve seen fools on social media chiding conservatives for celebrating Liu’s gold medal, with words to the effect of “Don’t you know she’s a progressive? She probably hates your views!” So what? That’s politics. This is about competition and sport. Liu went out there and won gold for America — and looked utterly fabulous doing it in that gold sequined dress. That’s what matters to me.

 

Which brings us to today. It’s a good thing they scheduled the hockey championship game for the final day of the Olympics, because there would have been no point in staging any more events after already hitting peak drama. The U.S. hockey team went out onto the rink in the gold medal matchup against Team Canada and edged out a gutsy, brutally physical 2–1 overtime triumph against their rivals.

 

It was the first Olympic gold for U.S. men’s hockey since the “Miracle on Ice” of 1980, and while the Cold War overtones of Lake Placid’s Olympics can never be equalled, this very much had a “grudge-match” feel to it as well. (Thanks, Trump, I guess.) The U.S. played mostly on the defensive — sometimes brilliantly, like when they faced a 5-on-3 power play after temporarily losing players to penalties. Goalie Connor Hellebuyck spent three periods hunched over the net like Gandalf shouting “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!” at multiple balrog-like Canucks.

 

U.S. forward Jack Hughes had a substantial part of his smile knocked permanently out of his skull by a Canadian player’s high-stick to the face — and he was back on the ice within minutes. A 1–1 tie pushed us into overtime, where the game was finally won by Hughes, gashed-up grill and all, with a perfect shot into the net off an assist. Forty-six years after Lake Placid, the U.S. men’s team had done it again.

 

Watching them celebrate there on the rink made all sorts of authentically powerful emotions well up within me. I might not have cared too much about the Olympics until this point, but seeing the U.S. men’s team leap into one another’s arms (appropriately, to the guitar solo of Skynyrd’s “Free Bird”) made my heart swell in that natural patriotic fashion. Our boys did it.

 

And then my heart broke a little afterwards, when the U.S. players, draped in flags, grabbed departed fellow player Johnny Gaudreau’s jersey and held it aloft while skating silently around the rink. Gaudreau was killed along with his brother while cycling by a drunk driver two years ago, and was guaranteed a spot on the team — the jersey has traveled with them ever since, and Gaudreau’s entire family was in Milan to watch the team. A few moments later out came the two adorable little Gaudreau children — one of whom was born only after he died — as the whole team posed for a picture on the ice.

 

As he was waiting for the medal ceremony, Jack Hughes — down a few teeth but soon to be up one gold medal — immediately handed MVP credit to his goalie Hellebuyck and went on to focus on the only important points: (1) “I love the U.S.A.” (2) “The U.S.A. hockey brotherhood is so strong, and we’re so proud to win for our country.” (Hughes will likely never have to pay for drinks in any Michigan bar for the rest of his life.) On this day, we should return that pride: Our Olympians — their heart, their grit, their endless fight, and their superior achievement — have represented the best of America, once again.

Marco Rubio Has a ‘Rainy Day’ Account. What Does That Mean for 2028?

By David M. Drucker

Monday, February 23, 2026

 

Marco Rubio is vowing not to challenge Vice President J.D. Vance for the Republican nomination, a decision that appears to preclude the secretary of state from launching a 2028 White House bid. But many GOP insiders believe that commitment is less ironclad than it seems.

 

Stoking skepticism of Rubio’s denials has been his recent assertion of influence inside President Donald Trump’s Cabinet: torpedoing the Russia-friendly peace accord White House diplomatic envoy Steve Witkoff tried to force on Ukraine, running point on Venezuela following U.S. military action to facilitate the arrest of strongman Nicolás Maduro, and addressing European leaders at the Munich Security Conference. Also sparking speculation that Rubio is keeping his options open is the existence of a political nonprofit group founded and run by close political advisers.

 

America 2100 was founded in 2023, at the beginning of Rubio’s third term as a Florida senator, by Mike Needham, a top political counselor and his former chief of staff. The 501(c)4 organization’s slogan—“Ensuring the next century is an American century”—is similar to the secretary’s 2016 presidential campaign motto. Since circulating videos in the fall of 2024 to bolster the Trump-Vance campaign, America 2100 has gone dormant. Per its latest Internal Revenue Service filing, the group had banked just under $3 million, a paltry sum.

 

But that the group continues to exist has caught the attention of some veteran Republican operatives. America 2100 could function as an initial launchpad for a Rubio 2028 bid should circumstances change—for instance, in the event Vance doesn’t run for president. The organization might also offer a discreet way for GOP donors who hope the secretary changes his mind about seeking the White House to express support, as 501(c)4s do not have to disclose contributors. (America 2100 declined to comment.)

 

“This is like planning for a rainy day,” Republican consultant Jeff Burton told The Dispatch. “At this point it doesn’t appear likely that he would run against J.D. Vance. But a lot can happen in the next couple of years. Things change fast in politics and it’s always better to be prepared.”

 

“There’s going to be a large contingency of donors who prefer Rubio to Vance,” a longtime Republican strategist added, requesting anonymity to speak candidly. “That does not mean Rubio will run—but it does mean there will be a market for him to run whether he chooses to do so or not. And so it only makes sense there would exist a receptacle for people to go who just walk in the door.”

 

With Trump, 79, barred from reelection because of constitutional term limits, Vance’s and Rubio’s emergence as the leading Republicans to succeed him in 2028 reveals the extent to which the outgoing president has altered the GOP during his decade-plus atop the party.

 

For nearly three decades after Ronald Reagan’s presidency, traditional conservatives made up the majority of the Republican coalition. They were (and are) partial to small government, free markets and free trade, and a foreign policy that favored interconnected alliances led by Washington, with the GOP platform reflecting that agenda. Heading into the nation’s 61^st presidential election, conservative populists have firmly taken the reins of power from the Reaganites.

 

Big government industrial policy is in, as is skepticism of financial markets, international trade, and foreign policy that revolves around the post-World War II alliances the U.S. built and nurtured for so long. To varying degrees, Vance and Rubio reflect this newer, Trump-inflected populist GOP—and their domination of the 2028 discussion on the right suggests the previous version of the party isn’t returning anytime soon (although traditional conservatives remain as a robust minority).

 

“Rubio and Vance represent different shades of the post-Trump, populist domination of the Republican primary base,” Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C., said in an interview with The Dispatch. “The fact that they are the two people who are being talked about as the leading contenders demonstrates that … a return to pre-Trumpism is impossible.”

 

“The victory of Trump in 2016, and the victory of Trump in 2024, and the continued victories of Trumpist-style candidates in Republican primaries shows that Republican voters like a populist-infused Republican party,” added Olsen, who has closely studied populism’s rise inside the GOP. “There is still a significant minority that would prefer an unpopulist-infused Republican. They are overrepresented in the D.C. elites.”

 

Rubio, 54, says he is firmly behind Vance for 2028. “If J.D. Vance runs for president, he’s going to be our nominee, and I’ll be one of the first people to support him,” the secretary told Vanity Fair in an interview last year. Rubio is no doubt interested in mounting another White House bid, an effort that might be less taxing the second time around because his four children are now grown. But so far, Rubio is focusing on his job—doing and saying little to cast doubt on the sincerity of his endorsement of the vice president.

 

Indeed, to avoid uncertainty about his intentions, the secretary appears to be deliberately steering clear of domestic travel, other than to Florida to visit family (including trips to Gainesville, to watch his son play football for the University of Florida). Compare that to Mike Pompeo, Trump’s secretary of state during the final three years of his first presidency. Pompeo traveled extensively inside the U.S. during his tenure, while also hosting private dinners with business, media, and political leaders aimed at raising his national profile.

 

Meanwhile, Vance, 41, is full steam ahead. The vice president has spent the last year as Republican National Committee finance chairman, entrenching him in the national party apparatus. Vance is supported on the outside by a coalition of wealthy GOP donors and party operatives, known as Rockbridge Network—formed specifically to strengthen his White House prospects. And he regularly gasses up Air Force Two for trips abroad and to key swing states to promote Trump’s domestic and foreign policy agendas, all the while burnishing his image as the 45^th and 47^th president’s heir apparent.

 

Add to that Vance’s incredible popularity among Republican primary voters, the likelihood of receiving Trump’s endorsement should he run—and, according to some Republican insiders, the unlikelihood of facing meaningful competition in the primary—and the nomination would seem his for the taking. Still, when asked about his 2028 plans and a theoretical rivalry with Rubio, the vice president downplays both. “Marco is my closest friend in the administration, I think he’s doing a great job for the American people,” he told Fox News’ Martha MacCallum. “That’s what we’re focused on.”

 

“I think it’s so interesting,” Vance added in that interview. “The media wants to create this conflict, where there just isn’t any conflict.”

 

But it’s not just the media. Gaming out whether Rubio 2028 comes to fruition, or whether the GOP is more likely than not to nominate a Vance-Rubio ticket, is something of an obsession among Republicans inside the Beltway.

 

Many traditional conservatives inside the party regularly confide to The Dispatch that they prefer Rubio. To be sure, the secretary embraced Trump-styled domestic populism following his failed 2016 presidential campaign. But he has retained his penchant for internationalist foreign policy that projects American power and is friendlier to alliances, which is comforting to GOP Reaganites—especially if the alternative is Vance. Plus, they’re convinced Rubio is more appealing than the vice president with general election voters.

 

As for Rubio, he once reflected on what it takes to be successful in presidential politics in an interview with this reporter, explaining, essentially, that it all comes down to timing. And that might shed some light on his thinking vis-à-vis Vance.

 

“I’m not a surfer but I equate it a little bit to surfing,” the secretary said following Trump’s first term, in an interview for In Trump’s Shadow; The Battle for 2024 and the Future of the GOP about his political future. “You can have the best surfboard in the world; you could be the best surfer in the world. If there’s no waves, or if you don’t time the waves, you’re not going to surf. You don’t control that part of it.”

‘Hero’ Isn’t a Bygone Concept

By Samuel Kronen

Monday, February 23, 2026

 

This winter, HBO took us back to the world of Westeros with its new series, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. The show follows a humble everyman hedge knight and his weird little squire as they travel around the continent looking for people to save and end up getting caught up in all sorts of shenanigans and scenarios connected to the larger fate of the kingdom. The story is about how much good can be done with a strong will and heart, and it explores what it means to be a true hero in a broken and complex world.

 

Unlike Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is much more contained in its scope, lighter in spirit and tone. Taking place about 90 years before the events of Game of Thrones, we are introduced to a young man named Dunk, an orphan bastard from the slums of the capital who is raised and trained by a hedge knight. (In this world, hedge knights are roaming mercenaries.) When his father figure dies at the beginning of the story, Dunk takes up his master’s sword and hits the road as a traveling hedge knight to participate in a tourney under the false title Ser Duncan the Tall. Dunk is not very smart or talented, but he’s big and strong and truly wants to be and do good. On the road, Dunk meets a fellow traveler named Egg, a strange child with a bald head and a sharp tongue, and together they form a kind of odd couple dynamic. But Dunk is not a real knight, and Egg is not a peasant despite presenting as one, and their adventures have a huge impact on the later story of Game of Thrones.

 

The success of George R.R. Martin’s books and shows is a testament to the reality, complexity, and depth of his characters and stories, balancing human political drama with an air of prophecy and myth and magic. The Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, a proxy for the Western world and where most of the story takes place, are constantly devolving into chaos and warfare—and they were only able to be united by the judicious use of gigantic fire-breathing f–king dragons centuries prior by the ruling family, the blonde and purple-eyed Targaryens. In this world, seasons can last years, magic is real but obscure, whole empires have literally erupted in a flood of apocalyptic flame, and entire continents are left unexplored and filled with ungodly creatures like giant worms and monkeys and dinosaurs: People exist at the mercy of an unforgiving environment and its natural and unnatural forces.

 

Yet in a world of such instability and uncertainty, with pain and death waiting around every corner, people hold to the things that give life firmness: sacred duties and traditions, and the vows that transcend time.

 

In our own history, the notion of knighthood emerged from the broken feudal system of the Dark Ages, in which individuals with martial prowess were tasked with restoring law and order and keeping the peace in exchange for land and titles. Knights were meant to dole out justice and defend the vulnerable and innocent, taking sacred vows to be courageous, honorable, and humble. In practice, however, they were often marauding agents of chaos and wielders of brutal oppressive power: As the historian Barbara Tuchman has written, “by the 14th century, the violence and lawlessness of men of the sword had become a major agency of disorder.”

 

But just because knights didn’t always live up to the ideal doesn’t mean it was the wrong ideal. Being a hero and a knight is about more than noble titles and ceremonies. It’s about certain essential human qualities that anyone can access—loyalty, bravery, honor, inner power—to navigate suffering well and carry on despite adversity, qualities which imply a kind of purity and wholeness of being.

 

The modern imagination is fascinated with medieval history, knighthood, and heroism, with countless recent films and shows centering around these periods and themes. There is clearly some sort of unconscious longing at play, a yearning to connect with the values and beliefs that carried our ancestors through much harsher times. As the Gen Z writer Freya India has observed, what many young people seem to crave today is to be humbled and bound, to be tethered to something that lasts. And so while stories of knights and heroes may be antiquated on the surface, we can’t seem to totally shake off the ideas at their centers.

 

The mythic hero’s journey follows an unmistakable cycle. An individual is pulled from obscurity and away from home, their journeys and struggles bring about great inner change that culminates in a confrontation—with the darkness, the dragon, chaos—before returning home to renew the larger community and restore balance to the world. As Joseph Campbell put it in his classic Hero with a Thousand Faces, “A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: The hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”

 

What makes both a hero and an actualized human being is the ability to change reality by facing it. The hero absorbs the darkness, pain and death and time and evil and chaos and fear, and alchemizes it into a source of light and life and fire, standing for what is human against the alienation and adversity and absurdity of the natural universe.

 

This alchemizing is not easy: It demands wrestling with difficult realities, often represented in film and literature by the dragon, the monster, the darkness. The suffering built into facing reality is a call to heroic action; how one bears and uses that suffering is what makes a hero.

 

***

 

The ideal of an independent individual—relying on their own strength and savvy, committing and devoting themselves to higher principles, moving with purpose and despite pain—still resonates because it’s a profoundly human idea. The whole point of vows and oaths and promises is that they test your honor and faith, holding you to something against the chaos of reality.

 

The closest equivalent to modern knights in contemporary media and culture would be superheroes, cloaked in armor and cape, concealing their identities to stand for a larger ideal and risking life and limb to protect and serve. The best iteration of these themes is Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, which gives a more modern philosophical take on the Batman saga. In the films, Bruce Wayne is a tortured billionaire wrestling with the trauma of watching his parents’ murder as his city comes apart at the seams from crime and social decay.

 

Bruce leaves home to undertake a metaphorical hero’s journey, surveying the world’s criminal underbelly to understand the true nature of evil. He studies martial arts, joins a mercenary group of vigilante ninjas called the League of Shadows, learns to embrace his fears to use against his enemies—in his case a childhood terror of bats—and returns to Gotham transformed into a symbol of justice, a dark knight to be feared and lauded.

 

Justice to Batman is not about personal revenge and evening the scales, but defending the sanctity of human life no matter what. As an initiation into the League of Shadows, Bruce is asked to kill a captured criminal, but he refuses. “Compassion is a weakness your enemies will not share,” he is told. “That’s why it’s so important,” he says.

 

There’s something archetypal and human about putting on a mask to embody an ideal, and the concept of masking is a major touchstone of the trilogy. As Bruce tells the butler Alfred upon his return to Gotham, “People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy. I can’t do that as Bruce Wayne. As a man, I’m flesh and blood. I can be ignored, I can be destroyed. But as a symbol, I can be incorruptible. I can be everlasting.” As he later says when asked his true identity, “It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do, that defines me.” Bruce weaponizes his suffering, his fears and vulnerabilities and rage and personal darkness to spare others suffering and save the city—a true hero and a knight.

 

In the second and most successful installment of the trilogy, The Dark Knight, Batman faces an adversary of pure chaos and nihilism: the Joker. At one point, the Joker is killing innocents to force Batman to take off his mask/ When Bruce asks Alfred for advice, the butler tells him, “Endure, Master Wayne. Take it. They’ll hate you for it. But that’s the point of Batman. He can be the outcast. He can make the choice no one else can make: the right choice.”

 

In the final installment, The Dark Knight Rises, Batman is forced to return after a long time away, only to be physically bested and crippled by the villain Bane. Bruce has to embrace his fears once again and rise back to the surface. “Why do we fall?” an earlier phrase from his father rings out in his dreams. “So we can learn to pick ourselves up.” A hero keeps coming back, rises. And Bane’s plan is foiled by the knight.

 

***

 

In the novel A Game of Thrones, an old maester tells a young warrior that love is the death of duty.

 

What is honor compared to a woman’s love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms ... or the memory of a brother’s smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.

 

But maybe duty is the highest form of love. Maybe what it means to be a hero lies somewhere directly between our human brokenness and fallenness and our highest and noblest ideals. Maybe people need those ideals and values and archetypes and stories to pull them out of the earthly muck, and it is this constant rising that defines the human condition. Maybe it is only there, on the cutting edge of reality where life meets death, that one discovers the means within oneself to do what is necessary: the will to do and act and change. Because it is not who someone is underneath, but what they do, that defines them. Because it is the qualities a person embraces—dignity, honor, sacrifice, courage, humility—that, when the crucial moment comes, make someone who and what they are, that turns a messy human animal into a lasting ideal, a hero.

 

The heroic ideal reminds us of our potential for great heights and depths: There are potential and actual heroes all around us, in the small and quiet places. Young people, especially, who are so spiritually and morally exhausted by our digital hellscape, might benefit from hero stories; they might learn that it’s still possible to stand for something, to live and die for something, to become more than what you are by committing to an ideal. There’s a Hunter S. Thompson quote that we turn ourselves into beasts to avoid the pain of being a man. But maybe a related truth is that we turn ourselves into heroes to overcome that pain.

When Regimes Must Change

By John R. Bolton

Thursday, February 19, 2026

 

Regime change is somewhat back in favor in Washington, albeit in decidedly Trumpian ways. But what exactly should the phrase mean? When and under what circumstances is it advisable, and how is it best accomplished? Are free elections the only measure of success?

 

Let’s first clear the air of yesterday’s conventional wisdom, before Trump became America’s premier regime-change advocate. Opponents said it never works, citing failed efforts like the ones in Cuba (1961) and Venezuela (2019); or they came at some later (often quite distant) point to find the policy distasteful, as in Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Afghanistan (2001), and Iraq (2003). They didn’t mention successes in Germany (1945), Japan (1945), Grenada (1983), Panama (1989), or even, depending on your perspective, Afghanistan and Iraq. The Warsaw Pact’s collapse and the Soviet Union’s disintegration are also part of regime-change history, with mixed results.

 

It’s complicated. Regime change is not a philosophy; it’s a means available to achieve American national security objectives and, like any means, subject to cost-benefit analysis about both feasibility and chances of success. It doesn’t always succeed and doesn’t always fail.

 

When a country behaves in ways harmful to American interests, it is essentially axiomatic that we can either seek to change its behavior or, failing that, change its regime. In an overwhelming number of cases, especially with allies, we choose to induce behavioral change. Ironically, with allies, Trump has an urge for regime change, as with Canada and Greenland. He failed in the first case (if he was ever serious about the attempt). His callous ploy to annex Canada mortally wounded Pierre Poilievre’s candidacy for prime minister, dismaying Canadian and U.S. conservatives alike, and allowing Mark Carney, who’d been sworn in after Justin Trudeau resigned, to succeed Trudeau as the country’s elected leader. Trump is also failing in his threat to wrest Greenland from Denmark; Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, whose polling had been heading downward, has gotten a boost. Trump’s error in these instances was to even contemplate regime change when diplomacy would have sufficed (and still can).

 

Normal presidents focus on adversaries whose behavior is anathema to us and whose leaders are ideologically, religiously, or temperamentally impervious to diplomacy, untrustworthy, or just plain stupid. In some cases, as with the Soviet empire, regime change is a decidedly long-term project, while in others (Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran today) contemporary action is eminently possible. These are always issues of feasibility, advisability, and methods (invasion, economic coercion, subversion, etc.) on which reasonable people can disagree.

 

But if prudent political judgment counsels regime change, and the mechanics to achieve it seem realistic, decision-makers still must determine what exactly is the “regime” to be changed. Indeed, although conceptually separate, the extent of the change required is almost always inextricably linked operationally to the antecedent issue of feasibility. In well-planned regime-change efforts, all these questions have been thought through in advance. A good plan does not guarantee success, but it beats winging it.

 

There is no magic formula to decide how to change a regime, or what levels of government need to be changed. As Edmund Burke wrote, “Circumstances (which with some gentlemen pass for nothing) give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing colour and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.” Unfortunately, regarding today’s unfolding regime-change scenarios, we have a White House in which winging it is a way of life. Whether in Venezuela, Iran, or Cuba, strategic planning is noticeable by its absence.

 

***

 

In Venezuela, regime leader Nicolás Maduro was removed in a brilliantly conceived and executed military operation. But not only does the apparatus founded by his predecessor, Hugo Chávez, remain in power, its new top dog seems to have Trump’s affection. “She’s a terrific person,” said Trump of acting President Delcy Rodríguez, as much a Chavista as anyone in Venezuela. Trump’s rush to make money from Venezuela’s oil and the unfounded hope that future production there will depress near-term U.S. gasoline prices have produced optimism that we can do business with Caracas’s remaining drug-smuggling authoritarians.

 

So delighted with Rodríguez’s “cooperation” was the White House that Venezuela’s Central Bank recently received $300 million in proceeds from sales of Venezuelan oil previously held up by America’s blockade. These funds may not have gone into foreign bank accounts as in days of yore, but the reality is nearly as bad. Rodríguez, her brother Jorge (president of Venezuela’s National Assembly), and the thugs Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, whose power is backed by arms, can now pay salaries to the military, the colectivos (motorcycle gangs used to intimidate civilians), and the civilian bureaucracy of the Chavista state. So doing allows them to bolster their political positions, buy more time for maneuvering to avoid Washington’s “oversight,” and wait for Trump’s short attention span to turn elsewhere.

 

Meanwhile, Trump is disparaging the opposition, which won the 2024 presidential election and which the United States recognizes as the legitimate government. In almost all the skills necessary to run a government, the opposition is fully capable. Starting at least from the failed coup in 2019, both the opposition and Washington did extensive planning for the day after. Venezuela has educated, experienced businesspeople who can run the civilian agencies and negotiate seriously for a brighter oil-sector future.

 

There is no immediate need for presidential elections. Edmundo González, the legitimate president, could be sworn in immediately. This is precisely what happened in 1989 in Panama after the United States overthrew Manuel Noriega. The 1988 presidential election winner, Guillermo Endara, was sworn in almost immediately and commenced governing, including establishing control over Panama’s military and police. While Venezuela’s National Assembly is almost completely illegitimate and corrupted (as is the judiciary) because of Maduro’s repeated efforts to frustrate the popular will, it does not require fixing immediately. When the new government gains its footing, new elections for the assembly would be ensured.

 

Given the successful U.S. capture of Maduro, and the substantial military force assembled near Venezuela, Washington and the opposition could have brought down the entire Chávez-Maduro regime. Indeed, the U.S. military’s stellar tactical performance highlights the utter lack of strategic thinking so necessary for successful regime change. Most of the force remains in place and can still act, although time is likely on the side of Maduro’s remaining subordinates. Administration officials have claimed that the opposition could not have brought the military (and implicitly the colectivos) sufficiently under control to keep order. This view is wrong in multiple respects. It certainly is not the opposition’s view, and was not their view in 2019.

 

Trump cited Iraq as an example of regime change that went too far, particularly in disbanding the army, and de-Baathification more broadly. At least in hindsight, few now dispute that too much of Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi state was dismantled, but it is hardly a sensible reaction to conclude that only the topmost leader needs removing. One can debate the correct level at which Maduro’s regime needs to be politically decapitated, but it is plainly more than just Maduro alone. We can leave the precise judgment largely in the hands of those most knowledgeable, namely the opposition. Certainly the cabinet and high-ranking officials must go, including roughly 2,000 flag-rank military officers who are living off the state oil company and drug money.

 

The military is the main bone of contention. Trump says the opposition would lose control of the military and risk civil war, but this assessment of the military is simply incorrect. The opposition believes that enlisted personnel and many officers are substantially sympathetic to their cause. The rank and file know both who is corrupt and that their families and friends must endure the desperate straits of Venezuela’s economy. The opposition can exploit weak links in the chain of command and determine who would come to their side, assuming of course that Washington would bother to coordinate strategically with them. Certainly, after nearly 30 years of authoritarian rule, there can be no assurances of avoiding bloodshed and the settling of scores. But the risk is worth taking. The opposition thought so in 2019 and believes that again today. They may be wrong, and if they are, they will bear the brunt of the regime’s undoubtedly brutal reprisals. I would bet on the opposition, not the spotty intelligence and second-guessers in Washington.

 

Regime-change failure could also occur in Cuba, with one major difference. The large (numbering 2.5 million or more) Cuban-American community has been thinking about a post-Castro regime since the first refugees began arriving in America after the fall of Fulgencio Batista in 1959. All of these efforts at advance planning for the day after, considered and debated at length, enhance the prospects for rapid progress once the current regime collapses. Moreover, Cuba’s long-emphasized proximity to Florida (“just 90 miles away,” we said worriedly during the Cold War) means an extraordinary opportunity for interaction with island residents, which would be immediate and inevitable. Millions of tourists (count me in) would want to visit Havana and help the domestic economy. Especially with Secretary of State Marco Rubio doing overwatch, not even the current administration can botch regime change in Cuba.

 

***

 

Iran’s ayatollahs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the real center of power, present the big test. When demonstrations recently erupted, Trump urged the people, “keep protesting  —  take over your institutions!!! . . . help is on its way. miga!!!” He added later, “It’s time to look for new leadership in Iran.” I only wish I and others had brought Trump to this point in his first term, but better late than never — if he really means it. The regime’s brutality needs no further proof, especially given its long-standing efforts to acquire nuclear weapons and its role as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. The massacres in January of tens of thousands of demonstrating civilians underscore the point. A regime prepared to treat its own countrymen so inhumanely has no inhibitions about incinerating either the Little Satan (Israel) or the Great Satan (America) with nuclear weapons, or committing further barbarities against foreign civilians, directly or through surrogates like Hamas and Hezbollah.

 

The ayatollahs and the IRGC will not go quietly or bloodlessly even in the best circumstances. Nonetheless, the regime has not been this weak since it seized power in 1979. Economic despair, discontent among the youth, women’s rejection of the ayatollahs’ claims to speak God’s will, and intensifying ethnic tensions are all at work. This is the moment for Washington to work with the opposition and for Trump to vindicate the red line he drew by telling Tehran to stop the killing. Striking key instruments of state power like air defenses, IRGC headquarters and bases, the Basij militia (Iran’s version of the colectivos), the nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and naval assets in the Gulf would reduce both the regime’s capacity for domestic repression and its threats externally.

 

Iran presents a case in which it is nearly inconceivable that a successor regime could be worse than the incumbent. Today, the IRGC wields power, economically as well as militarily, with the ayatollahs providing religious and ideological camouflage. Whether now, or when the ailing 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dies, the opposition must try to split off defectors within the IRGC leadership and that of the conventional military, and even some of the ayatollahs, to join their side. Amnesty should be given to those who do. As in Venezuela, rank-and-file personnel see clearly the economic devastation the regime has wrought, including desperately low water supplies countrywide.

 

Iran’s near-term successor regime would likely be some form of military government, hopefully one that recognizes its main job as preparing for Iran’s people to choose how to be governed, and for the regular military then to return to its barracks. The IRGC and Basij must be disbanded and the ayatollahs confined to their religious duties. Diaspora Iranians have many competing day-after plans, but diverting their attention now to considering the future leadership is a mistake: it’s the surest way to splinter even further an opposition already sharply divided, as with many exile populations, into factions competing to govern Iran once the ayatollahs fall. American help can provide the opposition with resources like communications capabilities, dollars, and, if they want them, weapons. There need be no U.S. boots on the ground. This is the time for Washington to act, although whether the White House has thought through assistance packages is anyone’s guess.

 

Regime change is not necessarily quick and easy, but neither is it impossible nor always doomed to failure. I do not know whether Trump has seriously considered any of this. Presumably someone in his administration is doing so, untouched, we can hope, by the misconception that there is no American interest in seeing friendly regimes around the world.