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Inside the arguments that pushed the Court to confront the limits of executive authority. Illustration: Daybreak. © Getty Images. Credit: Bloomberg. November 5th  wasn’t supposed to be a remarkable day at the Supreme Court. But the justices’ questions made it one. What began as a routine fight over trade law quickly turned into something else: a rare, cross-ideological pushback against presidential power. The tariff cases before the Court— Trump v. V.O.S. Selections  and Learning Resources v. Trump —arrived looking like technical disputes over the meaning of an old statute. They didn’t appear likely to scramble the Court’s usual ideological lines. But under the legal jargon lay an important question for the nation: can the president use a national-security law to claim a tariff power that Congress never explicitly delegated? The administration said yes. The International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, it argued, lets presidents “ regulate importation ,” and tariffs were simply another way to do that. However, the Court didn’t seem convinced. Not the liberal justices. Not the conservatives. And not even the justices appointed by the president whose policy was on the line. For a moment, there was doubt that the executive branch had the authority it claimed.  The story of these tariffs didn’t begin in the courtroom. It began in January, almost the moment President Trump stepped back through the doors of the White House. Within weeks, he declared a national emergency and immediately announced tariffs on China, Canada, and Mexico, the start of a sweeping campaign to impose duties on nearly 30 percent of all U.S. imports.  By April, the tariff list had grown to  more than 100 countries . To justify this sweeping tariff campaign, Trump cited the IEEPA. The 1977 statute  was enacted during the Cold War to help presidents restrict trade with hostile nations during emergencies by freezing assets, issuing embargoes, and cutting off transactions. No president had ever used it to impose tariffs. Trump became the first. His administration argued that the law’s authorization to  “regulate the importation”  of foreign property was enough to justify steep duties on dozens of countries and baseline tariffs on all of them. The administration insisted their actions were required to confront what they described as “unusual and extraordinary threats.”  They cited everything from fentanyl trafficking to national-security risks in the industrial base. Importantly, IEEPA never uses the words “tariff,” “tax,” “duty,” or “impost.”  Every other law that lets a president impose duties does so explicitly, and with limits. This one doesn’t. “Tariffs are taxes,”  Neal Katyal, an American lawyer for the small businesses challenging the tariffs, told the Court. And the Constitution puts the taxing power in Congress’s hands for a reason. The Federal Circuit agreed with Katyal. In August, by a 7-to-4 vote , it held that IEEPA did not authorize the “tariffs of the magnitude”  Trump announced. If Congress wanted to hand the president the power to decide the country’s entire tariff system—to set and reset duties on any product, from any country, in any amount—it would have just said so. As the courts scrutinized the limits of constitutional powers, billions flowed in under these emergency tariffs. By the fall, the Treasury had warned that a loss at the Supreme Court could force the government to return  “tens of billions of dollars”  in duties collected this year alone: a figure that could balloon to $1 trillion  if the Court waited until summer to rule. All the while, importers reported widespread disruption—from refund liabilities to  “innovation shocks”  in tech sectors. The CTA and CoC warned that the policy could cost 141,000 jobs  due to reduced exports and likely retaliation. But at the Supreme Court, those downstream effects were background noise. The justices kept re turning to a far more enduring question, one that hovered above the economic fallout: If tariffs function as taxes, who is constitutionally empowered to impose them? Congress? Or a president asserting emergency powers with no historical precedent? That was the real fight on November 5th: not over trade policy, but over who gets to wield the power drafted in the Constitution. It is this question that muddled the typical party lines, as both conservative and liberal justices questioned whether the IEEPA could sustain tariffs of the scope Trump had imposed. Their concerns clustered around three themes: the meaning of “regulate importation,”  the constitutional status of tariffs as taxes, and whether the case triggered the major questions doctrine. On the statutory question, Solicitor General D. John Sauer relied heavily on a simple premise: IEEPA’s instruction to  “regulate importation”  plainly embraces tariffs, which he called among “the most traditional and direct methods of regulating importation.” However, the bench was unconvinced. Chief Justice John Roberts pressed Sauer on why the major questions doctrine should not apply when the government was now claiming authority to impose tariffs on “any product from any country, in any amount, for any length of time” —all under a statute that had never been read that way. On the Republican side, Justice Neil Gorsuch pushed the delegation issue even further by warning the tariff case may set a precedent as “a one-way ratchet  toward the gradual but continual accretion of power in the executive branch and away from the people’s elected representatives.” Most directly, Gorsuch pressed Sauer with hypotheticals about Congress “ abdicating all  responsibility to regulate foreign commerce—or for that matter, declare war—to the president,” and forced him to retreat from his initial claim that such delegations would be effectively “unreviewable. ”  Gorsuch’s questioning of the long-term consequences of broad emergency delegations revealed a rare moment of bipartisan judicial skepticism. The conservatives on the Court did not rally around presidential power; the liberals did not need to stretc h to find limits. Instead, across the bench, the justices kept circling back to the same concern: whether a broad reading of “regulate importation” would let the president do what only Congress is supposed to do: raise revenue from the American public through tariffs, without a clear grant of authority.  Seen in that light, the skepticism on the bench wasn’t simply bipartisan. It was constitutional. The justices were probing a fear as old as the republic itself, one Madison captured plainly: government would not rely on virtue or goodwill, but on the predictable friction produced when each branch guarded its own authority. “ Ambition  must be made to counteract ambition” was less a hope than a structural expectation. But this ambition depended on a second assumption: that institutional ambition would be stronger than partisan ambition. However, in today’s political culture, that assumption no longer holds. Political scientists describe the transformation as a shift from the separation of powers  to the separation of parties . Partisan incentives now run so deep that they often override constitutional duties. Congress routinely delegates broad authority to the executive when the president is politically aligned with the majority. This is precisely why the tariff cases stand out. On November 5th, the questions from the bench did not map onto familiar ideological cleavages. Instead, they reflected the justices’ recognition that allowing a president to infer sweeping tariff authority from a national-security statute would reshape the balance of power between Congress and the executive in unprecedented ways. Whether this marks a genuine rebalancing or merely an episodic return to constitutional first principles remains uncertain. But it revealed something rare in contemporary American governance: a branch openly defending the boundaries of its authority. Moments like this can be easy to overanalyze. A single morning of sharp questioning does not undo decades of partisan drift. But in constitutional politics, the early signs of stress often matter as much as the fractures themselves. Scholars disagree on when a constitutional crisis truly begins. Some look for overt confrontation, such as presidents actively defying an unambiguous court order or refusing to comply with congressional oversight. Others focus on quieter failures: a legislature too passive to protect its own authority or the erosion of norms of institutional forbearance that once restrained the use of lawful power.  If those are the metrics, the tariff case is not an indicator of a constitutional crisis. But it sits uncomfortably close to the fault line. If the Court invalidates the tariffs, it will reaffirm a basic constitutional premise: that raising revenue is a legislative act, not something the executive can argue into existence through an emergency declaration. If it upholds them, the presidency gains another powerful political tool, one that future administrations, of either party, may find hard to resist. At a time when partisan identity often overwhelms institutional identity, the Court’s skepticism showed that constitutional incentives are not entirely extinct. The justices did not behave as political surrogates. They behaved, as Madison imagined, in defense of the structural boundaries that give each branch its purpose. The Nov. 5th discussion will not, by itself, restore Congress’s ambition or reverse decades of norm erosion. But it does suggest that the constitutional system retains some capacity for self-correction, even if that capacity appears only intermittently. And in a moment when American governance often feels like it is eroding from its constitutional foundations, watching the Court reassert the logic of checks and balances was a reminder of what the system was built to do.

Trump’s dehumanizing attack on Somalis is a warning about who this country is willing to cast out of “We the People.” President Trump showing reporters a sheet of paper with a photo of Representative Ilhan Omar. (Credit: The New York Times )  Earlier this week, the president of the United States sat at the head of a Cabinet table and called people like me–Somali Americans, a small, visible, overwhelmingly lawful community living in places like   Minneapolis, Columbus, Seattle,  and even   Fargo –“ garbage .” Our country, he said, “ stinks. ” We “ contribute nothing. ” We “ do nothing but complain .” When he finished, his vice president, J.D. Vance,   banged  the table in encouragement. When a president looks into the cameras and calls an entire community of citizens “garbage,” the question is no longer whether he means it. Of course he does. The question is whether everyone else–courts, universities, city councils, business leaders, voters–is prepared to live with it. For years, Americans have argued about whether this kind of rhetoric is just Trump being Trump or something darker. At a certain point, the argument becomes an evasion. A president who divides the country into “real” Americans and internal enemies; who treats loyalty to himself as more important than the law; who turns public contempt for a targeted group into a recurring spectacle–that is no mystery. We have a word for that style of politics: fascism. By fascism, I mean a politics organized around the boundary between “the people” and their enemies, in which legal constraints vanish when they stand in the way, and in which public cruelty toward the despised becomes a kind of founding ritual. That is what we are watching. The “garbage” remark fits the pattern perfectly. It draws a bright line between the “we” the president claims to represent and the “they” he blames for the country’s problems. It casts a set of citizens as pollutants, not neighbors. It tells his audience that the real issue is not prices or wages or housing, but the presence of people whose mere existence on American soil is an affront. This picture bears no resemblance to the actual Somali presence in the United States. Most of us are not recent border crossers. We came as refugees, as children, as family reunification cases. Over time, we did what this country says it wants immigrants to do. We became   permanent residents and citizens , with some of the   highest naturalization rates of any refugee group . Our names are on voter rolls, property records, and business licenses. Our labor shows up in warehouses and factories, in nursing homes and hospitals, in taxis and trucking routes. We pay state and federal taxes that help fund the very Cabinet agencies now being repurposed to target our neighborhoods. If this story sounds familiar, it should. Every large immigrant wave in American history has heard some version of “you do not belong.” Irish Catholics were depicted as   papist infiltrators  in 19th‑century cartoons. German immigrants were labeled “ enemy aliens ” during World War I; thousands were forced to register, lost their jobs, or were interned and had property seized. Japanese Americans, two‑thirds of them citizens, were   locked in camps  during World War II under Executive Order 9066, while wartime posters and editorials rendered them as vermin and saboteurs to be trapped and contained. Each time, the country later admitted it had gone too far. Those episodes unfolded under different ideologies–some fascist, some not–but they all followed the same script: pick an internal minority, convince the majority that it is a threat, loosen the usual rules in the name of safety, and count on respectable people to tell themselves it is temporary and not really their concern. What is different now is that none of this can be written off as ignorance. The history is in our textbooks. The photographs of the camps and registration centers are in our museums. We know how dehumanizing language has been used before, and who paid the price. And still, with that knowledge, we are watching a president talk about a Black Muslim community in language that comes straight out of that playbook. For Somalis, the message is unmistakable. It does not matter whether you are a citizen, a green‑card holder, a DACA recipient, or a refugee whose paperwork has been scrutinized for years. When the president calls your community "garbage," he is telling you that your rights are contingent–that your safety depends not on the Constitution, but on his mood and the calculations of people around him. You can see that in what is happening beneath the rhetoric. In the weeks prior to the "garbage" remark, the administration moved to end   Temporary Protected Status  for Somali nationals, pushed the   refugee‑admissions ceiling  toward its lowest levels in modern history, and revived a   nineteen‑country travel ban  that includes Somalia. In Minnesota, home to one of the largest Somali communities in the country,roughly a hundred agents have been sent into the Twin Cities for an immigration operation  aimed at Somali neighborhoods.   Unmarked vehicles idle near Somali malls. Business owners report that customers are staying home.  Parents keep their children inside—not because of crime, but because they do not know when a sweep will come down their block. When a president calls a group "garbage," it changes how people with badges and guns think about who it is permissible to frighten, and what level of aggression the public will tolerate. Why Somalis? Partly because we are numerically small and visually obvious. Our clothing, our accents, our mosques make us easy to single out. Our communities are concentrated in a handful of states that have already become symbols in the country's culture wars. For a president who has not delivered on basic economic promises, there is a certain convenience in pointing at a Black Muslim community in Minnesota and saying: that is the problem. That, too, is a well‑worn move. When wages stagnate and costs rise, it is easier to blame immigrants for fraud than to explain why prices are still high. It is easier to mock hijabs than to discuss why health care remains unaffordable. It is easier to rage about a Somali mall than to admit that tariffs and chaotic governance are hurting farmers and small businesses. Somalis will endure this moment. Many of our elders survived state collapse, warlords, civil war in Somalia, famine, and years in refugee camps. They did not cross deserts and oceans just to be undone by one man's insults at a Cabinet table. They will keep working, praying, opening businesses, and raising children. They will keep sending money home through fragile   remittance channels  to keep relatives alive in a country still struggling with   violence and drought . They are not going anywhere. The more interesting question is what everyone else will do. Fascism does not succeed because one man talks like a fascist. It succeeds when enough people decide that talk like that is the acceptable price of doing business. It succeeds when universities decide that issuing a statement will only inflame donors, when city councils decide that immigration raids are someone else’s jurisdiction, when corporate leaders decide that criticizing a president who calls citizens "garbage" is not worth the risk to share price. It succeeds when neighbors who know better stay quiet at work so as not to start an argument. There is nothing especially complicated about the moral test here. You do not need a degree in political science to know that calling an entire community "garbage" is wrong. You do not need to share Ilhan Omar’s politics, or mine, or support any particular immigration bill, to insist that dignified treatment in this country should not be conditional on how one is portrayed in a president’s outbursts. If the United States is serious about the story it tells itself–that people can come from anywhere and become American–then that principle has to hold when it is hardest to defend: when the people in question are Black, Muslim, visibly foreign, and politically unpopular. Either the promise covers us, too, or it was never a promise at all. Trump’s words this week were disgusting. More importantly, they were clarifying. They tell us exactly how he understands power: not as a responsibility to protect all citizens, but as the right to decide which citizens are worth protecting at all. That is a fascist instinct. We can name it. We can refuse to normalize it. Or we can get used to it. Somalis are already doing our part: studying, working, voting, paying taxes, taking care of our families here and abroad. The burden now shifts to everyone who claims to care about democracy, pluralism, and the rule of law. You do not have to like us to say that we are not garbage. You only have to insist that in this country, no president gets to decide which human beings are disposable. That is the test in front of us. It is as large as our future as a republic.

We should dare to know the values that define us. Credit: Jasper Langley-Hawthorne   “Who are you? What are you? Where do you belong?... You belong with the legions of toil, with all that is low, and vulgar, and unbeautiful. You belong with the oxen and the drudges, in dirty surroundings among smells and stenches…and yet you dare to open the books, to listen to beautiful music, to learn to love beautiful paintings, to speak good English…Who are you?” - Jack London   It is a true and regrettable assertion that 2025 has been characterized by acts of vicious political violence. Commentators and columnists have   opined  on the root cause of such antisocial behavior: negative partisanship,   irony-poisoning , even justified resentment. I think Mike Cosper, writing for The Dispatch , has it right, or at least presents a prognosis which encapsulates many of the aforementioned catalysts for violent action. Cosper argues that secular, liberal modernity has ‘unbundled’ certain questions which make up our identity— “Am I a Christian? What do I want to be when I grow up? Where will I live?” —that were previously defined by birth or cultural tradition. The modern individual must now decide for themselves what religion to subscribe to, what career to choose, and where they want to reside while participating in both. This has undoubtedly enhanced the liberty of choice which people in the West enjoy, and opened the doors for greater success and the realization of the good life. Yet, this unbundling also places the burden of answering existential questions upon us , by no means an easy undertaking. Should these questions go unanswered, purposelessness and lack of community can drive people into the embrace of conspiracy theories, political radicalization, and unreality. The transience of contemporary employment, the decline in religious faith, and the turgid slew of life-hacks, quack philosophies, and commodified ideologies on social media all seem to reduce the world to a heap of broken images. A church, employer, or local community connects us with something greater than ourselves. If I lack any of these grounding ties, or actively despise those which I am tethered to, the draw of poisonous online communities and fringe ideologies expands tenfold.   I argue in this article that a liberal arts education  in the United States can  and should  act as one means to answering our previously bundled questions of identity. My work is not the first to raise this   claim . This is also not the first Forum  article lauding the   boons  of the liberal arts, nor do I hope it will be the last. Consider it a stump speech for the ever-ongoing reappraisal of the meaning of higher education, or an annual inoculation against the apathy that creeps into our attachment to a style of learning that is easy to take for granted. Writing in The Forum , Henry Long   defined  the liberal arts as being “concerned with knowledge insofar as it is intrinsically valuable.” Articles in the New York Times  describe them as “ a model of teaching  derived from the ancient Greeks,” and key to “initiating students into   a culture of rational reflection  on how to live.” These interpretations capture many of the hallmarks of a liberal arts education: a pursuit of truth divested from commercial or pragmatic considerations; the use of the Socratic method and lively engagement with competing ideas; the study of humanity’s various schemes of morality and politics ranging from the hills of the Peloponnese to the streets of Philadelphia. However, I submit that another crucial facet of the liberal arts is their incorporation of students into a tradition of study . As one sits down to begin their first slog through the Nicomachean Ethics , one can imagine that a student quite similar to themselves (somewhat sleep-deprived and over-caffeinated) sat down to the same exercise five, ten, or even fifty years ago. The liberal arts grant a measure of appreciation for the warp and weft of the intellectual cloth from which Western civilization was tailored.  That civilization is now more polarized, lonely, unhappy, and overwrought than ever. As Cosper puts it, “ lots of lonely people are gathering online in an environment of poisonous political rhetoric, dying to give themselves away to something.” The modern, secular, liberal American is presented with a smorgasbord of lifestyles, moral principles, and ultimate values by which to define themselves. As religious affiliation, civic association, and face-to-face interaction decline, these values are increasingly propagated through the internet. Consider the TikTok-driven   tradwife  trend,   hustle culture , or   #VanLife . There are also far fewer innocuous  spaces accessible to individuals starved for meaning. Instances of left-wing, right-wing, and indiscriminate violence now   feed on one another  through insidious online forums where inhumanity becomes synonymous with social clout. I maintain that the liberal arts offer an alternative path to defining one’s identity insofar as they teach three principles : moral intuition, connection to tradition, and respect for institutions. First, on moral intuition. The liberal arts acquaint students with the breadth and diversity of human endeavors: the natural sciences, social sciences, religion, arts, philosophy. Enshrined in this approach are competing schematics for what one ought to value and what warrants sustained attention, time, or money. Do students sympathize with Cicero that morality and practicality are one and the same? Perhaps—or perhaps not. Maybe they are more persuaded by Plato’s defense of justice in The   Republic , or Isaiah Berlin’s staunch support of pluralism. Perhaps the student disagrees with every moral sensibility they are exposed to in college. The fact remains that they approach genuine answers to those questions which define the course of their life. I call this moral intuition  as students may not find definite conclusions to all the questions of their human identity over the course of only four years. But, they will hoist upon their shoulders a patchwork shroud of possible answers to guide them over the course of their life. The same cannot be said for time spent grinding CAD and SolidWorks certificates, or asking 4chan or Usenet groups to define eudaimonia . Second, on connection to tradition. Part of the ‘unbundling’ described above is the profound transformation which institutions of Western society have undertaken over the course of the last few decades. Work has been redefined by the internet and artificial intelligence, the sexual revolution has upended traditional notions of relationships, and religious affiliation is in free fall. The liberal arts present a lifeline to a rich heritage of intellectual thought which retains its usefulness regardless of technological or cultural shifts. This heritage can provide a grounding to one’s economic, social, and political life that they might heretofore have been missing. The Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment, Romanticism and Empiricism, the Modern and Post-modern: these are cornerstones of civilization which allow us a better sense of the grand building as a whole. My argument here brings the liberal arts closer to what is commonly described as a ‘great books’ curriculum of the kind taught at St. John’s College. While I think the liberal arts is more expansive than a mere great books program, the great books are a salient example of the kind of touchstone of tradition for which I am advocating. Arguments against the Great Books and any kind of Western canon typically stem from claims amounting to white-washing or Eurocentrism. I find these contentions demonstrably unconvincing. First, studying the ‘Western’ tradition in no way precludes one from studying works from other continents and cultures. The great thing about liberal arts education is that its breadth allows for plenty of student-specific examination of other works. Indeed, reckoning with the worldviews of cultures quite different to one’s own no doubt improves one’s moral intuition. Second, and more importantly, students in the United States inhabit a world fashioned by the ideas resplendent in the Western canon. It is foolhardy to suggest that one should not study and take seriously the judgements and values which formed the Constitution under which we live and the economic structure we interact with on a daily basis.          Third, on respect for institutions.   By learning the intellectual tradition described above, students of the liberal arts gain insight into the ideas which have shaped our political, economic, and social systems. With this understanding, hopefully, comes a measure of respect. Having read Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws , the Declaration of Independence, and a few of the Federalist Papers allows one to see the institution of the U.S government and its constituent branches as more  than a tool of the opposing party to debase the country, stamp down the marginalized, or perpetuate a sex trafficking ring. A different portrait ought to be painted instead, that of the United States as a flawed yet aspirational and revolutionary political ideal. As Jonah Goldberg   writes , “The remarkable thing about America—and Western civilization generally—is not that we had slavery, but that we ended it.” Institutions are also well-positioned to shape the values of individuals which comprise them, for better and for worse. Knowing which groups to take part in is vital to the development of personal identity. We may not have a choice in our membership in certain institutions, like the U.S. government or one’s family, but having insight into the principles which compose those institutions can help us manage our forced responsibilities. This insight is critical for those institutions which we join voluntarily, such as workplaces, volunteer organizations, and universities. It is within my power to choose whether I work at Palantir or the ACLU. The liberal arts allow me to critically consider the values which I hold in relation to the values of those institutions, and whether joining one would be favorable or inimical to my principles. The virtue of a democracy is defined by the virtue of its institutions and the citizens that comprise them. No democracy survives when its citizens pursue ends indifferent or antithetical to the survival of their constitution. Political violence is contrary to the fundamental principles which hold our nation together, and poses an existential threat to the American experiment. The moral intuition, connection to tradition, and respect for institutions which the study of the liberal arts confers are thus beneficial in two respects. They are, on the one hand, a powerful tool of the individual to interrogate their goals in life. On the other, these three values are critical components of virtuous citizenship. Despite this, it seems a common thread of the last decade that the liberal arts, and humanities more generally, are ‘under threat,’ and that their worth must be consistently proven to the public and the elite alike. Equally, data shows  that younger generations value democracy less than their predecessors. Hence why I call this a ‘stump speech’; it is simply another pitched battle on a long and arduous political campaign. I believe that it is a campaign aimed squarely at the pursuit of the good life.We all want to know who we are and what we stand for. Sempre aude . Dare to know.

What the mailroom reveals about the culture of consumption on campus. Scenes from the CMC mailroom “Has Amazon come yet?”  This is the first thing we ask when we come into the mailroom to start a shift. There is a lot to love about the job—our bosses Shannon, Tati, and Peter, great coworkers, chatting with students, and occasionally getting a live unboxing of a care package from home. But every mailroom worker knows the dread that follows the sound of wheels coming down the hallway—the signal that the delivery driver has arrived, towing carts stacked high with brown boxes and blue-and-white plastic. In the last week of October, the mailroom received 1,888 packages. In the month of September, we sorted 6,125 packages into the lockers. This isn’t including letter mail, perishable items, or boxes that are sorted behind the counter. We have been on shifts where we have received over 300 packages in one hour. We won’t, but we could , recite memorized names and box numbers of our most frequent orderers. A shocking number of students receive packages daily or even multiple times a day. Consumerism is not a problem unique to CMC, or even to college campuses, but talk to our local delivery drivers—and we have—and they’ll tell you that we order more than nearby colleges with over ten times  our student population.  The purpose of this article isn’t to shame anyone for their spending habits, nor to complain about having to do our job: it’s to acknowledge the broader issue of consumerism that has quietly taken over our campus, and to consider what that says about us. Because while those of us who work in the mailroom joke about it, consumerism at CMC is  a problem.  Online shopping has become a pastime. With the advent of Amazon, targeted Instagram ads, and TikTok Shop (the list goes on), buying has never been easier. Purchases happen with a few easy clicks and deliver a dopamine rush. When packages arrive after two whole days (courtesy of Jeff Bezos), much of the time the customer doesn’t even remember what they ordered. Some boxes sit unclaimed for days or weeks, forcing us to pull them from the lockers despite countless reminder emails. The thrill of an impulsive purchase fades, but the waste persists.  Even if the two of us didn’t avidly read Bardia’s (the Vice President of Student Activities) event informs, we still would know when there is a big party coming up. As Monte Carlo neared, we received an influx of packages—from Shein, Princess Polly, and Revolve—each wrapped in multiple layers of plastic and containing outfits that will likely be worn just once. Many CMCers purchase multiple sizes, styles, and colors with the intent of keeping their favorite and returning the rest, only to have them sit untouched for the rest of the semester. A themed event means a corresponding outfit, and this seems to give us permission to fulfill our deep-set desires to acquire something new.  And it isn’t just event-shopping. “One-click” order culture has bled into every part of our routines. Instead of asking a friend to borrow something, driving five minutes to Target, or walking to the convenience store down the street, we press a button and it magically appears.  Maybe the real question isn’t how much we consume, but why we consume to excess . The mailroom tells us something not just about our habits, but about our culture. It’s a culture of convenience and instant gratification—of “I want it now” and “I can afford not to think about why.” There is a privilege in this, the kind we are rarely willing to acknowledge. Being able to impulse-order a new outfit, or replace a phone charger that you definitely already have somewhere but have misplaced, is a luxury. And that luxury depends on invisible labor. Every box passes through dozens of hands before it reaches us, and when it finally does, we get annoyed at how long it takes for it to be sorted into a locker. Some even go so far as to lie, claiming that their non-urgent package is medication, so that we prioritize getting it to them faster (yes, this does  actually happen). In the mailroom, we are constantly surrounded by the physical evidence of consumption, and it’s impossible not to see how individual convenience turns into collective excess.  None of this is to say that we, the authors of this article, are perfect exceptions. Our Amazon carts are often full of items we definitely don’t need, and, at the very least, the two of us rely on the convenience of the mailroom for our monthly order of Nespresso pods. The problem isn’t ignorance. Most of us acknowledge that fast fashion is wasteful and that plastic packaging is terrible for the planet. But knowing better rarely motivates change. The system is designed to make consumption feel frictionless. And we’ve decided to tell ourselves that it’s “not that bad” because we checked Depop first, or because we didn’t have time to go to the store. Behind every “harmless” order, every new clothing item we don’t need, every time we order new notebooks or detergent instead of walking to the Huntley Bookstore to buy some, there’s a system being fed and feeding us in return. So while we laugh when we go to the mailroom and four lockers pop open at the scanning of our QR code, we are consuming without thinking , and it shows.  Next time the Amazon driver makes a delivery, we hope it’s a bit lighter. Not just because we want a slower shift, but because we’ve all decided to slow down a bit ourselves and to resist a system that turns every whim into waste. Ask yourself: Do I need this? Could I borrow it? Could I go buy it locally and talk to a real human being in the process? Could I go without it? A little less clicking. A little more thinking. And if not for the environment, or your wallet, then maybe for the mailroom workers who know your box number by heart.

Legacy is a more complicated process than its critics admit. University of Washington graduating class, Seattle, 1898 Credit: Wikimedia A liberal arts college with hardly over a thousand students and a billion dollar endowment, one-fifth of Claremont McKenna’s student body was drawn from  the top 1% in 2017. This was not my reality. Neither of my parents completed high school—how could I have ended up in Claremont? After a low-income upbringing, I owe my presence here to the Questbridge scholarship program for underprivileged students. Programs like this are made possible  in part by the boons of legacy admissions.  In the way the story is usually told, I should be just the type of student to be celebrating the law  signed last fall by Governor Newsom prohibiting admissions preferences for the children of alumni (“legacy”) in college admissions. Instead, I wonder if the law is a step too far. I have consistently noticed that the paramount issue for first generation college students, particularly outside of tight-knit CMC, is a lack of community. We are too easily swept away by impersonal systems with which we are uniquely unfamiliar compared to our more privileged peers. Legacy students, who typically perform no worse academically than other students, and even perform better at institutions such as Princeton  are key aspects of building just the sort of strong collegiate community that acts as a safety net for underprivileged students.  Attending one of the most expensive institutions in the nation is an opportunity made available for low-income students only through the generosity of donors. Legacy admissions is part of the relationship that makes such resource-intensive mobility broadly viable. The presence of legacy admissions signals to would-be donors that they’d be investing in a community, not merely a teaching or research institution, and thus incentivizes gift-giving.  Further, legacy preferences emphasize that alumni investment is a two-way street. University education in the Anglosphere has always maintained a fundamental element of communitarian society building. In contrast, the German model puts research and publication above all. Our education model recognizes that we are interconnected beings in a social fabric, not atomized individuals. The strength of American civil society has always been grounded in our institutions of higher education, beginning with the Puritans who built more colleges in their ramshackle colonies than old England had until the 19th-century. These colleges have always been more than academic institutions. They provide training in the mores of professional environments, access to career networks, and bestow other benefits buttressed by a strong campus community. This acculturation into professional norms does as much for low-income students such as myself as the academic instruction. The networks colleges build have been directly correlated  with successful economic mobility. The presence of legacy admits bolsters the networks necessary to turn promising but disadvantaged admits into long-term successes.  Evidence suggests that the degree to which legacy admissions benefits donor families is often overstated. It builds community to encourage donations, but, in Claremont at least, it does not lead to the admission of students otherwise not admitted. Legacy admits have been below 10% of Claremont McKenna’s incoming classes in the years  immediately prior to the prohibition of legacy admissions. They comprise a mere 3%  of the students in my year, the class of 2028. While the precise details of the admissions processes of the Claremont Colleges remain generally under wraps, most reports describing the mechanics of admissions at institutions across the nation indicate that legacy status is only factored in when deciding between multiple  candidates judged as worthy of admission. This does not give candidates that would be otherwise unqualified a free pass, but merely acts as a marginal factor in the decision making process. By all accounts, legacy functions as a tiebreaker between equally qualified applicants, not a pole to vault weak applicants ahead of their peers. Pitzer and Scripps, with their much smaller endowments, have little choice but to be need-aware if they want to have the funds to meet the needs of the lower-income students they admit. Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, and Pomona are all able to be need-blind and meet 100% of students' financial aid needs. These colleges have these funds in part because of their longstanding histories of admitting students from legacy backgrounds. Pomona voluntarily ended legacy admission in 2017, while Claremont McKenna and Harvey Mudd were forced to terminate the practice under the new law. Legacy admissions were part and parcel of their wider donation-seeking strategies.  The Supreme Court’s Students for Fair Admissions decision against affirmative action preserves the ability to recognize race in college admissions as a part of wider life experience. California can hopefully reach a similar legal equilibrium with legacy, as opposed to prohibiting institutions from considering pre-existing campus community connections whatsoever. Retaining legacy admissions as part of a wider holistic approach may open doors for students from underprivileged backgrounds.  The author met with CMC alumnus Desmond Mantle (‘23, Stanford Law School ‘26) to learn the background of college associational rights for this article. This article was published in conjunction with the Claremont Independent .

In a time of crisis, class politics won against a system built to suppress it. Credit: Pari Dukovic for The New York Times Donald Trump’s 2024 victory was historically unprecedented: he became the first convicted felon , the second former president  to return to office as a non-incumbent, and the oldest candidate  ever elected to the office of the president of the United States. In the year since defeating former Vice President Harris, Trump and the MAGA movement have advanced the perception of a grand mandate, enabling a despotic agenda that has produced more executive orders in its first hundred  days than any president since Franklin D. Roosevelt. Among these  are orders to punish  states that do not cooperate with ICE, create new “ domestic terrorist ” designations for the political opposition, and condition federal grants  on ideological alignment. How did we get here, and where do we go next? To begin, despite Trump’s projection of executive power, his election does not represent a rightward shift, nor a mandate for the MAGA agenda. To see this, one must look past Harris’s defeat and instead examine Trump’s ambivalent victory among total eligible voters. Donald Trump won  3 million more votes than he did in 2020, amounting to an equivalent share of the eligible voting population (32%). At the same time, Harris’s share of eligible voters dropped 3.5 points from Biden’s 2020 campaign (31.1%). The swing in the popular vote can largely be accounted for by a decrease in turnout in the bluest counties of blue states. In these 20 counties, Harris trailed Biden’s vote count by 2.9 million—a margin greater than her total popular vote deficit to Trump across the country—while Trump improved his vote total by only 150,000 votes out of 25.6 million registered voters. Credit: Michael Podhorzer / Weekend Reading As shown above, Trump’s gains  were largely the product of Democratic voter erosion: Harris underperformed relative to Biden in deep-blue counties, while Trump’s gains were minimal. Hopefully, this lets us do away with the notion that Trump’s 2024 victory was the result of an ideological shift in the American people, an endorsement of the MAGA agenda, or a mandate for authoritarianism. Instead, it’s part of a larger trend . The House, the Senate, or the executive has flipped in nine of the past 10 electoral cycles. This volatility is unprecedented  in the broader history of American politics. It speaks to Americans’ invariable disapproval of the governing party and to a failure of both parties to capture the political imagination of the electorate. The story of each election is not which platform excites, but which disappoints the least. It is a politics that rewards whichever platform most effectively stokes fear by proclaiming the failure of the status quo, all the while maintaining it. Americans are tired of parties which they perceive as not being substantively different—a political system in which ambivalence supplants vigor, and neither party tangibly forwards the aims of the working-class majority of our country.  Anecdotally, this makes sense . It is not as though, especially among blue state urban voters, support for ICE paramilitary deployments has risen substantially over the past four years. Instead, these voters likely saw their vote as inconsequential in the electoral college’s calculus and—fatigued by a third straight election spent resisting MAGA—decided to stay home. In battleground states, the swing—which can be accounted for by Kamala’s vote share falling, not Trump’s rising—was even less, at only 2.2 points, as compared to 4.4 points in the rest of the country.  We are not only, as Scott Sloop recently claimed  in the Forum , facing a crisis within the Democratic Party. Instead, America confronts an entire political system in crisis. And this has created openings for young leaders promising change. Enter Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s democratic socialist mayor-elect, who won in an election featuring the highest turnout  in over fifty years. If you open social media and search “Mamdani” or “New York,” you’ll find endless videos of young people celebrating a platform that is certainly firebrand, but also compassionate and inclusive. Though a member  of the Democratic Socialists of America, Mamdani’s platform is not   actually  “socialist.” He advocates  raising taxes on million-dollar earners and corporations, strengthening tenant protections through rent freezes, and expanding public services such as childcare and fare-free public transit.  In practice, though, his "democratic socialism" functions as part of a moral vocabulary for pursuing redistribution within existing institutions—a liberal reformist expansion of social programs rather than an upheaval of the city’s capitalist infrastructure.  This modest departure from the mainstream drew fierce resistance from New York’s Democratic establishment. After being decidingly defeated in the primary elections, Andrew Cuomo turned coat, re-emerging with a staunchly alarmist platform featuring Islamophobic  and escalatory anti-leftist  rhetoric. According to a poll  of likely New York City voters, Cuomo supporters ranked crime as their top concern, followed by immigration and Israel—a triad of issues lifted from a MAGA “culture war” agenda in which identity politics fracture class solidarity. Cuomo’s aggression against Mamdani highlighted the stark difference in content and character of two platforms that, just months ago, were competing for the Democratic nomination. For many young voters like myself, it was disorienting to watch a disgraced Democratic behemoth claw at a young, popular, and evidently decent candidate. We celebrate Mamdani’s victory and hope that Cuomo swiftly exits the public sphere.  It is easy to disregard Cuomo as a fringe grifter. But his campaign offers a glimpse into the machinery of both parties, which, beholden to their campaign financiers , represent the interests of the billionaire class. Andrew Cuomo and his family have been, for years, in close concert with the Democratic top brass:   he received an endorsement  from former President Clinton, for whom he served as Housing and Urban Development Secretary ; he chaired the 2016 New York delegation to the Democratic National Convention ;  his father Mario served three terms as governor of New York; his similarly disgraced brother Chris  hosted “Cuomo Prime Time” on CNN.   The Cuomos aren’t rogue actors. They’re emblematic of the establishment networks that shape both major parties. Culture-war scapegoats distract from shared donor loyalties, all while these establishment figures uphold the status quo—continuously advancing the wealth and prosperity of the billionaire class. It should not come as a shock that Cuomo accepted donations from Republican and Democratic billionaires , nor that Trump endorsed  Cuomo and threatened federal action against a Mamdani-led New York City. Nor will it be surprising if, come future elections, we find establishment Democratic politicians aligning themselves with Republican interests against democratic socialists. This is what makes Zohran Mamdani’s victory historic. He has loosened, if only slightly, the grip the billionaire class has on mainstream politics and political thought. The preceding essay  on Mamdani’s victory by upperclassman Scott Sloop is emblematic of this grip, framing Mamdani as part of the broader “far-left” shift alongside national Democrats like Harris and Gavin Newsom, collapsing starkly different political traditions into a single undifferentiated bloc. Yet Newsom and Harris belong to the same Democratic establishment that has presided over decades of political stagnation. Newsom championed Proposition 50 , a gerrymandering measure designed to consolidate party control, while Harris, in her 2024 campaign, echoed former president Biden in calling for stricter border security , stronger policing , and a continuation of American military funding to arm Israel’s genocide in Gaza . They sustain the economic order in the name of stability, pointing to the failures of the Republican Party while engaging with the same culture war that diverts attention from class politics and harms the constituents that they claim to represent. This rhetoric subordinates democratic socialist platforms beneath a Democratic party that, in Bernie Sanders’s words in a recent New York Times interview , “isn’t much of a party at all.” By alienating working-class Republican voters and empowering MAGA’s “culture war” theatrics, the party fortifies the billionaire class— the “people on the top”  it claims to want to restrain.  Sloop’s claim that the expansion of “far-left” ideology will strengthen resistance from the Republican party platform is well-founded, though too narrow in its scope and fatalistic in its prescription. The more profound crisis, as the electoral volatility of the past two decades shows, is not polarization but stagnation. Americans are not shifting left or right—they are shifting away from platforms they no longer believe uphold their material interests. Just as there is no mandate for Trumpism, there is no requirement that the Democratic Party continue to move rightward to survive. If Democrats cannot put forward a platform that reinvigorates the political spirit of the working class, they will preside over a victorious flipping election before the next defeating flipping election, as Trumpism erodes what little liberal social freedoms they have claimed over the past twenty years.  Nevertheless, Mayor-elect Mamdani has clearly tapped into the seething apathy of Americans, especially young Americans, and channeled it toward an agenda that extends the Overton window of American politics to again include the working class within its aims. Now, the fight to reclaim our politics from billionaire interests will not be easy. After all, Cuomo broke fundraising records , revealing just how deeply entrenched the system is and how formidable the fight may be against a politician without Cuomo’s tarnished reputation. Yet, Mamdani’s victory proves that it is  possible to win. Will the next Democratic candidate be a figure cast in Mamdani’s mold? Perhaps not. But the very fact that a platform serving the social good has won in the financial capital of America is a win—for all  Americans.

The shutdown reflects not just a procedural failure, but a shift in how political loyalty is defined. Credit: Wikimedia Commons Another government shutdown. At this point, no one in Washington can pretend to be surprised. Senate leaders floated  a three-bill “minibus” as a gesture of progress, while House leadership insisted on holding out for leverage that would signal ideological purity to their base. Senators huddle in closed-door lunches. Leaders argue over whether the stopgap should expire in December or stretch into January. It all feels familiar. And that familiarity is exactly what makes it deeply unsettling. The American system wasn’t designed to avoid conflict. Instead, the founders assumed division was a part of democracy—not a failure of it—and designed our governing institutions to refine disagreement into deliberation. Yet the current shutdown reflects a shift in political incentives. Today, unyielding opposition  is rewarded over negotiation. To understand how we arrived at this political moment, it’s worth returning to the debates that shaped the republic’s structure. James Madison argued in   Federalist No. 10  that factions are an inevitable part of human nature. The question was not how to eliminate disagreement, but how to channel it. Madison believed that a large republic with many competing interests would force negotiation; no single group would be strong enough to rule unchecked. As he wrote in   Federalist No. 55 , “had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.” In other words, increasing civic participation does not guarantee sound judgment. The founders saw the need to slow down the decision-making process to allow competing arguments to be heard and evaluated. The Senate was meant to embody that principle. It was designed to cool the passions of the moment, ensuring that decisions were shaped by reason rather than pressure or impulse.  The Anti-Federalists took a slightly different tack. They warned that a national legislature might become too distant and insulated from the people it sought to serve. Representation, they urged, only works when there is genuine proximity between the people and those who speak for them. While such debates took place almost 250 years ago, their importance has not faded. In one way, The Federalists and Anti-Federalists were not arguing against each other so much as agreeing : they were warning about different ways in which the same system might break. The Federalists hoped that well-designed institutions would restrain power; the Anti-Federalists believed that accountability would check institutions. The possibilities they warned about converge today, not because one faction has seized control, but because factions have learned to use the system’s own rules to block compromise and avoid resolution altogether. One mechanism in particular makes the current stalemate possible: the Senate filibuster. The filibuster was not a safeguard envisioned by the framers; it emerged—almost accidentally—in 1806, when the Senate removed a rule allowing a majority to end debate. Over time, the filibuster became  a defining feature of Senate procedure. What began as a way to ensure extended debate has evolved into a tool that allows a determined minority to halt legislation entirely. Since passing funding bills in the Senate requires 60 votes to advance, a unified bloc of just 41 senators can block progress entirely, using the filibuster to turn a shutdown into a stage for signaling ideological loyalty rather than working toward agreement. Bo th parties know the filibuster is what makes shutdowns possible, but neither is willing to get rid of it. During the latest shutdown, President Trump publicly urged Senate Republicans to   “terminate the filibuster”  so they could reopen the government on their own terms. Yet GOP leadership rejected the idea, arguing that doing so would simply hand the same power to Democrats the next time the chamber flips. Democrats understand this as well. Keeping the 60-vote threshold preserves their ability to block legislation when they are in the minority. In this sense, the filibuster functions less as a tool of deliberation and more as a form of political insurance. Each party wants to protect it to preserve its future capacity to obstruct. The unfortunate result is a Senate that no longer mediates factional conflict but intensifies it. The Senate, once imagined as the cooling chamber of democratic passions, now amplifies stalemate by granting outsized power to the minority. The structure that was meant to refine disagreement ends up freezing it in place. This shutdown is an outcome of a system that makes obstruction easy to execute and difficult to reverse. This   week’s  developments make the dynamic even clearer. After more than a month of stalled negotiations, Senate leaders agreed to a short-term deal to reopen the government through January 30. It restores pay to federal workers and resumes basic services, but it does little to settle the dispute that triggered the shutdown. As Senator Dick Durbin put it , “The government shutting down seemed to be an opportunity to lead us to better policy. It didn’t work.” The shutdown lifts, but the stalemate remains. And that impasse points to an issue that’s deeper than congressional rules.  The problem isn’t only procedural. It’s cultural. We are living in a moment of deep polarization, where political ideology has become closely tied to personal identity. When party affiliation becomes a marker of who you are rather than what you believe, representatives are expected to defend their side rather than negotiate across differences. In that environment, compromise doesn’t look like governance. It looks like disloyalty. The founders believed that institutional structures could channel ambition toward the common good, but those structures assumed a shared civic identity amongst the people. Government shutdowns are often described as failures of negotiation, failures of strategy, failures of leadership. But they also mark the quiet erosion of something harder to measure: a shared understanding of what it means to govern together. The Constitution still stands, and the chambers still open each day. The votes, even when they lead to nothing substantive, are still cast. But the underlying principle of self-governance depends on more than procedures. It requires trust, patience, and a willingness to share responsibility. The founders feared many things: tyranny, disorder, the volatility of public opinion. But they also feared that the republic might one day lose the spirit of energetic deliberation—that the government would not be overthrown but gradually slowed, stalled, and neutered.

Even during periods of instability, normalization still carries strategic upside. Credit : The Jerusalem Post On November 6, 2025, Kazakhstan  became the first Central Asian state to formally join the Abraham Accords. The Accords  were initiated in 2020 as a U.S.-mediated initiative to open diplomatic channels and build cooperation between Israel and Arab governments. This development forces a reconsideration of what normalization now means. Normalization refers to the formal establishment of diplomatic, economic, and political cooperation between Israel and other states. Until now, this process has largely played out within the Middle East. The Accords originated with Arab governments re-calibrating their interests in a shifting regional environment, and many analysts interpreted that early pattern as evidence that normalization would remain confined to that geographic sphere. Kazakhstan’s accession disrupts that assumption. It signals that normalization is now expanding into political and strategic contexts beyond the Middle East.  Kazakhstan is a predominantly Muslim, post-Soviet state that maintains complex relations with Russia, China, and the West . The Kazakh government’s decision to join the Accords occurred amid a period of heightened regional instability, underscoring the broader diplomatic significance of this moment. Many expected normalization to slow during periods of regional conflict. However, Kazakhstan’s decision indicates that the Accords continue to offer strategic value, even under these conditions. Kazakhstan has also been attempting to diversify its partnerships beyond Russia and China, and entering the Accords provides an opportunity to expand economic and strategic options. This development also demonstrates that the Accords are not simply bilateral agreements between Israel and individual states, but instead represent a structured network for economic cooperation, technology partnerships, and security coordination. Kazakhstan had already maintained diplomatic relations with Israel prior to the agreement. Joining the Accords places these ties within a formal, institutionalized framework that may increase predictability, deepen cooperation, and signal diplomatic alignment within the U.S.-supported framework. It also confirms that U.S. mediation  remains central to the Accords’ continued expansion. For decades, many believed that states would not formalize cooperation with Israel until progress was made on the Palestinian question. Arab governments historically treated diplomatic recognition as leverage in negotiations with Israel, suggesting that normalization and the Palestinian question were tied together. Kazakhstan itself has previously affirmed support for Palestinian statehood in United Nations forums , which makes this moment even more significant. Kazakhstan’s decision shows that a state outside the Arab world is calculating the benefits of normalization on the basis of its own strategic interests rather than waiting for a broader political breakthrough. Kazakhstan’s entry also opens up the possibility of the Accords evolving to link Israel to wider Eurasian economic networks. The nation holds large reserves of critical minerals —including the world’s largest chromite ore reserves—and is currently the top global supplier of uranium. It sits on emerging trade routes like the Middle Corridor , which connects China and Europe through the Caspian basin. These factors suggest that future cooperation may extend to incorporate technology supply chains and strategic infrastructure. Kazakhstan’s entry confirms the Accords’s viability as a diplomatic tool. Although it is unclear which country may join next, Kazakhstan’s accession signals that the Accords continue to operate effectively and remain accessible to future partners.

Japan now has its first woman prime minister, and the old boys' club couldn't be more pleased. Credit: Wikimedia Commons When the ruling Liberal Democratic Party elevated Sanae Takaichi to its presidency on October 6, global headlines celebrated a historic moment for gender representation. The New York Times called it a "landmark." CNN described it as "breaking barriers." What these reports glossed over is that Takaichi rejects  same-sex marriage, dual surnames for married couples, and female ascendancy to the Chrysanthemum Throne. She opposes laws that would let married women keep their surnames despite using her  maiden name professionally. Her femininity doesn’t do anything to challenge Japan’s political order. It makes it unassailable. During her campaign, Takaichi promised " Nordic levels " of female representation in cabinet: between 36% and 61%. But her 19-person cabinet in fact has only two women. That’s 10.5% female representation, the same ratio as her predecessor’s cabinet. When pressed , she blamed a shortage of qualified women, though Japan allows non-politicians to head ministries. And yet her deception is working. Her approval rating has climbed  to 64.4%, compared to Kishida's 55.7%, though her policies remain similar to his. The real story is what her gender helps obscure. The LDP's dilapidated coalition with Komeito, a Buddhist-aligned party that moderated nationalist impulses, has buckled . Its replacement, the Japan Innovation Party, shares the LDP's hawkish foreign policy and disdain for progressive reform. Komeito historically curbed constitutional revision and subsequent military expansion; the Japan Innovation Party has no such qualms . After years of corruption scandals and voter apathy, particularly among young voters convinced  Japanese democracy is pure theater, the LDP needed to project renewal without actual change. Takaichi's gender creates the appearance of disruption to the status quo even as her politics guarantee continuity. The United States has long wanted Japan to rearm and to strengthen its role along the first island chain as a counterweight to China’s expanding presence, but Japanese leaders who tried found themselves in an awkward position. When Shinzo Abe pursued constitutional revision and a more assertive security posture, his efforts aligned with American strategic goals. But they unsettled U.S. officials wary of Abe’s nationalist rhetoric and historical revisionism . During the Trump years, the U.S. Embassy and State Department had to calibrate their language to affirm alliance solidarity while distancing Washington from Abe's domestic agenda. What makes Takaichi valuable is that her position as Japan's first female leader softens the ideological edge of policies once viewed as provocative. With a strengthening of relations, both leaders get what they want: Trump secured an anti-China ally that’s rapidly militarizing and investing massively in American infrastructure; Takaichi, whose coalition is two votes short of a majority, gained the American endorsement necessary to bolster her domestic legitimacy. If the G-7 celebrates her "modern leadership," they're endorsing illiberalism made palatable. Unlike Orbán or Meloni, who attack liberal institutions openly, Takaichi makes  ethnic homogeneity, gender traditionalism, and nationalist mythology appear compatible with democracy. Her success demonstrates that democracies can exclude minorities, constrain women, and cultivate nationalist identity without triggering the kinds of alarm bells which populist movements set off. Because Japan's strategic value to Washington is immense, her government will enjoy immunity from the scrutiny other illiberal democracies face. There's a pattern here: identity representation now functions as insulation for conservative governance. A woman leads while women's representation stalls. A coalition shifts right while claiming democratic renewal. Militarization proceeds under the banner of feminist achievement. The old boys' club has learned that the most effective defense isn't keeping women out but letting one woman in, making sure she governs like her predecessors, and then pointing to her presence as proof the system has evolved. If Western democracies celebrate Takaichi’s ascension as progress, they're validating a model where symbolic firsts substitute for substantive change. Other conservative movements are paying attention. Takaichi looks like the future while governing from the past. We risk applauding while the walls close in.

What Zohran Mamdani’s Tuesday mayoral win means for the Democratic Party and national politics.  Credit: Wikimedia Commons I don’t live in New York City, nor have I ever been there. But, for the past several weeks, New York City’s mayoral election dominated my social media feeds, conversations, and even class discussions. I became invested in the election, not because I’m particularly invested in New York, but because the race will meaningfully shape national politics for the next several years.  It’s been one year since Kamala Harris lost. Democrats are still in shambles. Since President Trump took office in January, they have done a pathetic job building a coherent opposition to a president with approval ratings  in the high thirties. Even Democrats hate Democrats, with polls  showing just over a quarter of them are “proud” of their party.  Amid the rubble, however, many Democrats agree that they need to ditch 2010s culture war politics and refocus on the economic issues impacting the working class. “If we’re the party of opportunity, that’s going to give you a real shot at the American dream…then people will say ‘that’s the party I want in there,’” Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) told  the New York Times last month.  I agree with Sen. Gallego. But, Democrats don’t just need a revitalized platform with a reorganized coalition around it. They need a charismatic leader capable of convincing voters that Democrats are the party of prosperity.  In a vacuum of Democratic leadership, Zohran Mamdani is filling that role. His campaign was unquestionably impressive. He breezed  past his well-funded and well-known primary opponent, mobilized thousands of unpaid volunteers, accumulated viral moments in debates, and advertised almost exclusively through social media. All this while dozens of billionaires poured money  into portraying him as an ignorant terrorist-sympathizer. Mr. Mamdani’s campaign also fits Sen. Gallego’s vision, focusing primarily on economic issues. He famously promised  free bus fares, rent freezes, ultra low-cost city-owned grocery stores, and free childcare.  Mr. Mamdani’s success has made him a figurehead of Democratic politics. But that’s a problem for a party Americans already view as too extreme . Republicans are using his newfound prominence to advance the idea that all Democrats are radical leftists, and that voters must elect Republicans to stop them. “Mamdani's extreme agenda is the future of the Democrat Party—but we will never allow it to be the future of America,” said  House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA). Regardless, Democratic 2028 hopefuls took note of Mr. Madami’s success. “ Mamdani has demonstrated a real ability on the ground to put together a coalition of working-class New Yorkers that is strongest to lead the pack,” said  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes (D-NY), a potential 2028 presidential candidate.  His win confirms a message Democrats—such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom —have promoted in the aftermath of the 2024 presidential election: Democrats need a leader who will shake up the system. Someone exciting, audacious, and willing to disrupt the status quo. Democrats need their own Donald Trump. Mr. Mamdani's colorful style and firebrand socialist platform capitalized on untapped grievances in the Democratic base and beyond, drawing record voter turnout from people typically unengaged in politics. If anything, he is the Sarah Palin of a potential left-wing Democratic revival; a ‘maverick’ using unconventional methods to expose the true appetite within his party.  Far-left Democrats eyeing the 2028 nomination will likely emulate Mr. Mamdani’s mayoral campaign. If these hopefuls gain early momentum, Democratic donors who have lost faith in “traditional” candidates will fund these campaigns, primary voters will turn out for them, and one of them might just win the nomination.  This is exactly what Republicans want.  Republicans know their best hope in 2028 is against a Mamdani-esq candidate. When asked about the 2028 presidential election, Ben Shapiro, a conservative commentator, relished the prospect of a far-left Democratic nominee. “Kamala [Harris] might not go away, she's talking about running again, which, ‘God willing’, I will donate to that primary campaign,” Shapiro said , before making similarly excited remarks about Newsom and AOC—who, like Harris and Mamdani, have a far-left reputation.* Mr. Shapiro neglected to mention the slate of moderate Democratic governors who may run, such as Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Gretchan Whitmer of Michigan, or Andy Beshear of Kentucky. As governors in “red” or “purple” states, these leaders have shown their ability to unite moderates, progressives, and even some conservatives, making them a much larger threat to Republicans than their far-left counterparts.  Tuesday’s election results  prove moderates’ viability. In Virginia, Abigail Spanberger, who gained a reputation in Congress for her moderate voting record  and bipartisanship , beat her Republican challenger by 15 percentage-points to flip the state’s governorship. Mr. Mamdani only beat  his challenger, former Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo, by roughly 9 points. When Cuomo’s votes are combined with the Republican candidate, that margin shrinks to 2 points; if there were only two candidates, Mr. Mamdani would have barely won in one of America’s most progressive cities.  Political pundits are already speculating  that Mr. Mamdani’s victory sets Democrats up to nominate a left-wing ‘maverick’ in 2028. But when Democrats assume that Mr. Mamdani’s success in New York will translate to the national electorate, they ignore how the majority of Americans perceive the far-left. If Democratic primary voters choose a Mamdani-like candidate in 2028, they will hand Republicans a major advantage.  * My description of Ms. Harris’s reputation as “far-left” is based on her record as a senator  and opinion polling  showing voters think she is more extreme than President Trump: “ 47 percent of likely voters viewed Ms. Harris as too liberal, compared with 32 percent who saw Mr. Trump as too conservative .” Correction: A previous version of this article suggested that Mr. Mamdani would be eligible to run for president in 2028. He would not be; the Constitution requires that the U.S. president be a natural born citizen.

A “no” is a vote for democracy when no one seems willing to defend it. Credit: Gabe Khuly On August 21, 2025, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed the so-called “ Election Rigging Response Act .” The amendment gives California voters the opportunity to vote on Proposition 50 and decide whether to repeal the maps that were created by California’s independent redistricting committee , instituting new, partisan maps gerrymandered to eliminate five Republican seats. This was passed in response to Texas redistricting its maps  to give Republicans five more seats in that state at the request of President Trump. California’s independent redistricting committee was established  by Prop 11 in 2008. It was initially limited to drawing maps for state legislative districts, but, in 2010, its authority expanded to include congressional maps. The commission consists of 14 members: five Democrats, five Republicans, and four Independents, each thoroughly vetted. The map-drawing process takes place over the course of a year. During this time, the commission holds public meetings, allowing locals to offer their input. This ensures that the maps that are drawn sort people into communities which share common characteristics and interests. In contrast to the open, transparent, and lengthy process of the independent commission, the maps put forth by Prop 50 were hastily drawn behind closed doors by state legislators. While consultation with average citizens is central to the independent commission’s process, none of that was present with the creation of Prop 50’s maps.  Prop 50 stands as a symbol of all that currently ails the Democratic Party. For the last 10 years, Democrats have decried Donald Trump as a threat to democracy, even calling him a fascist . It’s ironic that after a decade of stressing the importance of maintaining our democracy against those that would destroy it, Democrats have decided to turn their back on democratic principles as well. And while they may try to defend themselves against the charge of hypocrisy by claiming  that this is a temporary move that will expire at the next census, the truth is: one cannot protect democracy in a way that blatantly undermines it. Authoritarians have long used “temporary” measures to gradually expand their power while dissolving constraints. If Democrats fail to regain the White House in 2028, a similar ballot proposition will be put forth, no doubt. To be clear, partisan gerrymandering—no matter where or by whom it is done—is abhorrent, undemocratic, and flies in the face of the principles of self-government. However, repulsive actions by one state do not give license to another to commit the same evils in the other direction. Most of us were told growing up that “two wrongs don’t make a right.” Prop 50 would not only silence the voices of a great many people in this state; it would incite other states to horribly gerrymander their  maps. The problem with fighting fire with fire is that you burn the house down. The moment you begin to erode democracy, the die is cast. Rather than respond to Texas by stooping to their level, Democrats should show that they are different from Republicans. When they instead use the same tricks, Democrats validate the views of voters who see the parties as equally repugnant. Americans chose to bring back Trump because they didn’t like the direction the country was heading under Joe Biden. If Democrats want to defeat Republicans, they should make changes to their policies and messaging that address the dissatisfaction so many voters felt in 2024.  Now, Proponents of Prop 50 claim that it is  democratic, because Californians are voting on it. But it is not democratic to strip away the rights of others. The people of Shasta County, for instance, should not be lumped into the same district as those from Marin County—and separated from their neighbors in Tehama County—simply because the people of Sacramento want to stack and pack them into districts that share no common interests or needs. Alexis de Tocqueville warned of the “tyranny of the majority,” whereby a majority of the populace uses its electoral potency to suppress the voices of the minority. Such tyranny will be unleashed if Prop 50 passes. Gerrymandering dilutes democracy. It is a reversal of the democratic proposition: rather than allowing the voters to choose their representatives, gerrymandering allows the representatives to choose their voters. It cements the entrenched political order and stifles true opposition. In extreme cases, gerrymandered maps can lead  to a party winning a majority of seats with a minority of votes. By minimizing the degree to which an individual’s vote impacts the electoral results, gerrymandering neuters democracy. A California Republican has just as much right to be heard and to have a say in his government as any California Democrat. Yes, there are more Democrats than Republicans in this state. But Republican voters are Californians just the same. Newsom and the state legislators were elected by the people of California; their responsibility is to the people of California, not to the Democratic Party.  In Crisis of the House Divided , Professor Harry Jaffa described Abraham Lincoln’s objection to Stephen Douglas’ position on slavery. Douglas believed in “popular sovereignty,” the notion that individual states could decide whether or not they would allow slavery. Jaffa, articulating Lincoln’s view, wrote: To justify despotism was of necessity to condemn self-government, and to justify self-government was of necessity to condemn despotism. A popular sovereignty which could, even in theory, issue in the despotic rule of one man by another was a living lie…and to embalm such a lie in the heart of a great act of national legislation…would be a calamity for human freedom. To say that fair representation can be taken away by a ballot measure is to say that democracy itself  can be taken away by a ballot measure. I would hope that no Democrat—indeed, no American—would ever want to follow that logic to its natural end. In our day, as in Lincoln’s, it is important to maintain that the “will of the people” cannot be invoked to justify the denial of rights. Finally, it is quite ironic that a party that proclaims “ No Kings ” would aim to consolidate power in a way that is not representative of their constituents. To that, I say that “No Kings” should include Gavin Newsom. America is unique in the strength of her democratic institutions; we have known no other form of government as long as we have been a nation. Times of crisis have historically proven to be ripe ground for would-be dictators to seize power, but what has kept America strong and free from the temptations of authoritarianism is her eternal commitment to “We, the People” and to the protection of our rights. The challenges we face cannot be solved by silencing our political opponents and granting increased power to the government, but only by We, the People. Vote for democracy; vote no on Prop 50.

Be for something—not just against Trumpism. Credit: Zohran Mamdani's Instagram Page Establishment Democrats have failed New York City. A study by Columbia University and the organization Robin Hood found that 25% of New Yorkers live in poverty , compared to a national rate of 13%. 15%  of New Yorkers cannot “see a medical professional due to cost,” 12% often run “out of money between paychecks,” and 4% have “to stay in a shelter or other place not meant for regular housing.”  The Democratic establishment faces a crisis of confidence. At the time of writing, the RealClearPolitics Poll Average shows  that only 34.1% of Americans approve of the Democratic Party, compared to the 59.6% who disapprove. Left-leaning people have become disaffected  with the Party, in part because of its apparent ineptitude in the wake of Trump’s extremism. Establishment Democrats vaguely lament Trump’s attacks on democracy while refusing to lay out an economic agenda that would make the lives of working people easier.  This widespread economic hardship and political disaffection enabled Zohran Mamdani’s rise. Mamdani, who is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, is running on a platform that is laser-focused on economic issues. He promises  to fight to freeze rent, provide universal childcare, make public buses free, increase the minimum wage to $30 by 2030, and much more—all of which would make life significantly more   affordable  for working-class New Yorkers. Let’s look at the two largest expenses working class New Yorkers face—rent and childcare—and see how Mamdani would combat them.  First, a rent freeze would deliver real relief to the working class. The Adams Administration has increased  the rent of New York’s nearly one million rent-stabilized tenants by 12.6%. Freezing the rent is expected to save  New Yorkers between $2.44 billion and $6.84 billion over the next four years. If Mamdani became mayor, he would likely freeze the rent by appointing progressives to The New York City Rent Guidelines Board.  Second, Mamdani wants  to provide free childcare “for every New Yorker aged 6 weeks to 5 years, ensuring high quality programming for all families.” NYC Childcare is currently far too expensive, typically costing over  $20,000 annually per child. The office of New York City Comptroller Brad Lander reports , “ Using the conventional federal affordability benchmark of seven percent of family income for child care, a family would need to earn $334,000 to afford the cost of care for a two year old in New York City.” Making childcare free in NYC would increase  the ability of parents to participate in the workplace and would increase disposable incomes. To pay for this and other programs, Mamdani advocates  raising New York’s corporate tax rate to 11.5% and increasing the income tax on the wealthiest 1% of New Yorkers. Raising taxes would require support from the New York State Legislature and the New York Governor, but could be made possible if a movement developed to pressure—and primary—establishment candidates.  Unlike the Democratic establishment, Mamdani has created a coherent message centered on delivering gains to working people. It’s a message that gives people something to vote for —rather than merely suggesting they vote against  Trumpism—and it delivered Mamdani a crushing  12 point win over establishment candidate Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary.  Mamdani has a proud history of fighting for the working class. After graduating from Bowdoin College, he helped people avoid eviction as a foreclosure prevention counselor . This experience showed him that the housing system values  corporate profits over the public good, and it inspired him to run for New York Assemblymember. Since winning his Assembly seat, Mamdani has worked both inside and outside the electoral process to effect change. Inside the legislature, he has supported a range of progressive proposals and helped secure funding for a free bus route pilot program . Outside the system, he participated  in a 15-day hunger strike with taxi drivers, which ultimately won the drivers debt relief. Mamdani has proven his commitment to creating a more equitable society.    Nevertheless, establishment candidates are hoping to topple Mamdani in the general election, and they are each uniquely odious. Despite being soundly rejected by Democratic Primary votes, Cuomo is running as an Independent in the general election. Among his list of offenses, Cuomo joined the defense team  of war criminal  Benjamin Netenyahu in his International Criminal Court case, is accused of sexually assaulting  13 women, and obscured  how many New Yorkers died of COVID-19 in nursing homes. Moreover, Cuomo is Trump’s preferred candidate and is supported  by Trump donors. Trump has discussed the race privately  with Cuomo and has attempted  to get  other establishment candidates to drop out of the race.   Then there’s Republican Curtis Sliwa, founder of the vigilante group The Guardian Angels. He’s known for pulling elaborate stunts  like faking his own kidnapping . Live  on Sean Hannity’s show, Sliwa watched as his Guardian Angels roughed up a man for supposedly being a migrant. It was later revealed  that the man was not a migrant and that Sliwa only believed he was because he was speaking Spanish.  Cuomo and Sliwa offer nothing exciting to voters and have instead spent much of their energies insinuating that Mamdani is antisemetic. In doing so, both establishment candidates demonstrate that they are out of touch with their voters. Data for Progress conducted  a poll of 2025 Democratic primary voters in New York City. They found that 78% of primary voters believe that “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people living in Gaza.” Mamdani shares the opinion of voters and experts and supports  a durable ceasefire to achieve an “end to the genocide [and] unimpeded access to humanitarian aid.” While Mamdani’s plans to lower costs and stand up to corporations were the primary reasons people voted for him, 62% of his primary voters told Data for Progress  that “his support for Palestinian rights” “was important to me, and swayed how I voted.”  Mamdani provides a blueprint for the Democratic Party. He fights for the working class and believes in the inherent dignity of all people. I’m ecstatic that he will be the next mayor of New York City. However, it’s important to not engage in hero worship. Mamdani is a figurehead of the movement, but the force behind it is the advocates dedicated to justice. It’s up to us to elect more progressives and work outside of the electoral process by creating institutions like labor and tenants unions. As Mamdani himself will tell you , “It is our responsibility to build power everywhere…Because there are so many incredible things that a mayor can do, and there are even more things that the people of this city can do.”