FirstPunch

Following President Trump's aggressive and adversarial performance at last week's G-7 summit and Merkel's subsequent observation that the EU can no longer count on the U.S. as a reliable ally, we need to confront the fact that America First is much more than just a catchy campaign slogan or a clever euphemism for Trump's unreflective and swaggering alpha male approach to politics. It is a dangerous, narcissist's game where win-win negotiations are not an option, all other nations are viewed as either useful pawns or deadly adversaries, and strength is not achieved through building a robust community of mutually supportive allies but by being the biggest, baddest lone wolf on the block. Despite the claim that a win would usher in a New American Century, the only winner will be American authoritarianism and the ultimate loser will be the American people. As a zero-sum game, the rules of America First are simple; erect tariffs to eliminate US trade deficits wi...

The chaos this administration has sown since inauguration has effectively begun to achieve its primary goal--the dismantling of the administrative state. This is not being done as one would suspect by passing laws or taking advantage of a shock event like a terrorist attack, but by simply weakening of our trust in our traditional institutions, including the presidency. All of our formerly beloved institutions now look weak and incompetent as they fumble their responses to Trump's unpredictable behavior. Through all the noise, we are overlooking what will be left behind in the Administrative State's wake that fearful, stability-loving Americans will frantically scramble to embrace when their security is threatened--a justice system built on a resuscitated war on drugs, militarized law and order policing, voter suppression, and maximum sentencing; a national security apparatus focused more on deportation, blocking immigration, and stoking fear than preventing terrorism; inv...

Since the 80s I've been closely following the rise of the Christian Worldview as formally articulated by influential fundamentalist organizations like Focus on the Family as a potent neurolinguistic construct that now frames the perspective of a large segment of the US population. This is in contrast to the fundamentalism which has been widespread since the country's inception, but disjointed and disorganized. Of particular interest is it's effective politicization and weaponization by the religious activists that have heavily influenced the Republican Party since Reagan. While the influence of this political Christian Worldview has slowly waxed since that time, my concern is that it has accelerated alarmingly over the last couple of years with the rise of Dominionist leaders at all levels of government who can effectively focus and harness it to force legislative and systemic change and the stoking of fear (most notably by this President) that this worldview is und...

We don't vote our self interests, we vote our values. That is why social issues consistently outweigh economic ones in our political process. Red state America votes according to a predominantly white Christian worldview that values the reimposition of 1950s cultural norms over their own economic security. This powerful intellectual framework, which has been politically weaponized over the past forty years, combined with gerrymandering and voter suppression, is why this minority group will likely dominate the progressive majority at the ballot box for the foreseeable future. Blue America has nothing comparable...yet. However, true political power doesn't lie solely in voting any more (if it ever did). It lies in influencing legislation, which has become largely detached from the democratic process (i.e. An overwhelming majority loudly objected to the AHCA, but it passed a majority in the House as it serves the economic interests of their benefactors). Legislation is large...

To topple a three-legged stool, you don't need to saw off an entire leg. Just cut through it enough to compromise its integrity and the stool will collapse. It won't be immediate, but will inevitably happen as soon as enough pressure is put on the seat. The subsequent crash, however, will be instantaneous. We tend to think that our three branches of government and their system of checks and balances are as strong as the legs of a solidly built stool and will forever uphold our democracy--that it would require a catastrophic failure of one or more branches of government through a coup or massive terrorist attack on the capitol to destroy the whole system. But in fact that system is extraordinarily fragile. A few small and perhaps, under this president, inevitable cuts can be made which would precipitate a slow coup and cast us into an authoritarian distopia. First, the judiciary, perhaps the most vulnerable yet critical of the three branches with regard to enunciating ...