NEW RISKSYes, America Is Europe’s Enemy Now | The Crisis of Democracy Is Here | Censored Science Can’t Save Lives, and more
· The New Meaning of “Munich”
· Yes, America Is Europe’s Enemy Now
· A Friday-Night Massacre at the Pentagon
· The Crisis of Democracy Is Here
· Trump Cuts Target Next Generation of Scientists and Public Health Leaders
· How the Trump Administration Could End a Century of American Scientific Dominance
· Censored Science Can’t Save Lives
· Should We Worry About DOGE Controlling the U.S. Payment System?
· Trump Begins Firings of FAA Air Traffic Control Staff Just Weeks After Fatal DC Plane Crash
· Social Security Head Steps Down Over DOGE Access of Recipient Information: AP Sources
The New Meaning of “Munich” (Michael Hirsh, Foreign Policy)
After J.D. Vance’s bizarre speech, a word synonymous with appeasement may now signal the voluntary surrender of global hegemony.
Yes, America Is Europe’s Enemy Now (Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy)
The Trump administration has gone way past revising the transatlantic alliance.
A Friday-Night Massacre at the Pentagon (Tom Nichols, The Atlantic)
Trump’s purge started with his firing of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top Navy officer, and the vice chief of the Air Force.
Trump and Hegseth have announced their intentions to fire several other senior officers—and perhaps even most ominously, including the head lawyers of each of the services. Now that Trump has captured the intelligence services, the Justice Department, and the FBI, the military is the last piece he needs to establish the foundations for authoritarian control of the U.S. government. None of this has anything to do with effectiveness, or “lethality,” or promoting “warfighters,” or any other buzzwords. It is praetorianism, plain and simple.
The Crisis of Democracy Is Here (Larry Diamond, Persuasion)
Less than a month into his second term as president, Donald Trump and his loyalists in government are already posing grave risks to the legal, constitutional, and normative foundations of American democracy. The threat Trump poses is much more severe than during his first term (which ended with him and his allies staging an insurrection to nullify the national election outcome and block the peaceful transfer of power). This time, there are no weighty figures in his administration willing to put the Constitution above personal loyalty to him. This time, Trump and his MAGA team have had four years to plan a more concerted assault on democratic checks and balances, and a revolutionary campaign to destroy many core institutions of the federal government. And this time, Trump and his loyalists have a long agenda of revenge against a wide range of actors who they believe have wronged them and who they now want to punish and subdue. (Cont.)
