Dear Weekend Jolter,
The gravitational pull of President Trump’s daily agenda-setting is as inescapable as ever. Whether the issue is federal intervention in local law enforcement or his fight with the Fed, all Washington and its various organs can do is react. Trump’s GOP is truly the “sun party,” and everyone else is the moon reflecting its glare.
This being so, some legal and constitutional context for the latest battery of administration actions may be useful. After all, that’s kind of what we do here.
• On Trump’s part-time work as police commissioner: As we’ve previously explained, his intervention first in Los Angeles and more recently in D.C. has a legal basis. In the first case, the National Guard was called in to ensure federal immigration agents could carry out their duties and protect federal property amid unrest. In the second, setting aside the fact-checks on Trump’s statements about D.C. crime, the federal government has “plenary power” over the District, as Rich Lowry writes. But his latest threats to dispatch troops to cities like Chicago or Baltimore or New York are on much shakier ground. Here’s Rich:
The federal government has no special role in governing them, and politically hostile mayors would maintain full control of their police departments. . . . Unless similar unrest breaks out in Chicago or Baltimore, Trump is going to have to stretch for a legal justification for deploying the National Guard, and risk a high-profile legal reverse.
Resident Chicagoan Jeff Blehar adds, “Chicago is not, for better or worse, a ward of the federal government. Chicago is Illinois’s problem, not Trump’s. His private will to power cannot overcome the constitutional composition of our republic, which grants police powers to the states as opposed to the federal government.”
• On Trump’s attempt to fire Lisa Cook, a Federal Reserve Board governor: As Jim Geraghty writes, this is one for the courts, and Cook has already filed a lawsuit against the administration. The 1935 decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States allows Congress to restrict the removal of officials in independent agencies that are quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial except “for cause.” So, it comes down to what the meaning of “cause” is — and that question is surprisingly unsettled. (The reasoning of Humphrey’s has also been undercut in recent rulings.)
In this case, Cook was accused by a Trump housing appointee of wrongly claiming two residences as her primary residence. But she hasn’t yet been charged, let alone convicted, of a crime. So the administration will have to advance its case in court that even an accusation is sufficient cause in this context. As expected, Cook’s lawsuit argues that it is not, while calling the claims “unsubstantiated.”
Andy McCarthy thinks the administration is adhering to Congress’s rules, “regardless of whether [Trump’s] motives are pure.” But as NR’s editorial notes, ultimately, we’ll need to know more details about the mortgage fraud claims, before getting to whether the firing could be justified.
• On the executive order “stopping” flag-burning: In this case, the question is not Can Trump really do that? but rather Did Trump actually do that? And the answer is no.
Politically speaking, as with Trump’s responses to urban crime and illegal immigration and more, this was another attempt to bait Democrats into getting on the unpopular side of an 80/20 debate, as Andy McCarthy writes. But he also notes the Supreme Court has already held that criminalizing the flag’s desecration is unconstitutional. In fact, the executive order acknowledges that 1989 ruling — the order’s text specifically vows to prosecute “those who incite violence or otherwise violate our laws while desecrating this symbol of our country.” In other words, the order prioritizes prosecution for other crimes (as John Puri observes). Andy writes that the administration is trying to “have it both ways”:
The president is referring to the law of incitement, which is different from flag burning. Under Texas v. Johnson, flag burning, by itself, cannot be prosecutable as fighting words, a traditional exception to First Amendment free expression. . . .
On the other hand, if flag desecration were a part of a multi-faceted episode by which someone or some group of people incited lawless action, then the prosecution would be against incitement, not flag burning. The question for the court and jury would be whether the entire course of conduct amounted to an illegal summons to imminent lawless action. That is, the flag desecration, standing on its own, could not be prosecuted.
“By its own terms,” Charles C. W. Cooke writes, “Trump’s order is not, in fact, a wholesale rejection of Supreme Court precedent. His rhetoric, however, is clearly intended to make the public believe otherwise.” Which is . . . odd, to say the least. (Troublingly, the language of the order does raise the prospect of selective prosecution.)
We could go on. Trump’s push to end cashless bail? Andy weighs in here on the president’s odds of success. But we should leave it there — it’s Labor Day weekend, after all, and you’ve surely got places to be.
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Can Trump Really Do That? Tune in next week.
NAME. RANK. LINK.
EDITORIALS
ODNI was a bad idea from the outset: Slashing the Intelligence Office Workforce Is Just a Start
This is not a great look for the Trump administration: The Bolton Investigation Warrants Skepticism
ARTICLES
Mark Antonio Wright: The Nightmare in Minneapolis
Noah Rothman: The Myth That Democrats ‘Go High’ Is in Desperate Need of Busting
Noah Rothman: At Least You’re Not Ken Martin
Audrey Fahlberg & Jack Crowe: Trump Vows to Sue California over Newsom’s Redistricting Push
Jack Butler: Get Phones Out of the Classroom
Abigail Anthony: One Out of Five Faculty Jobs Still Require DEI Statements. Universities Just Don’t Call It ‘DEI’ Anymore
Jeffrey Blehar: Zohran Mamdani Does Not Know His Limitations
Guy Denton: Scenes from the Existential War for Humanity Outside Union Station
Neal Freeman: Social Security Is No Longer the Third Rail of American Politics
Fred Bauer: The False Promise of ‘Burn It All Down’
Kathryn Jean Lopez: Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce: An American Royal Celebrity Engagement
Kayla Bartsch: The Apotheosis of Taylor Swift
LIGHTS. CAMERA. REVIEW.
Armond White, on Darren Aronofsky’s latest: Caught Stealing Chases Ethnic Identity
“If there’s a Caillebotte show, absolutely run, don’t walk, to see it.” That’s Brian Allen’s advice, and he shows and tells us why: High on Caillebotte, Impressionist Master
THE EXCERPTS WILL NOT BE TELEVISED
Noah Rothman provides an update on the overwhelming bleakness in the land of the Democratic Party:
Nobody knows the Democratic Party’s mood like its national committee chairman. It’s bleak, and there’s little cause for optimism. Ken Martin cannot give his co-partisans any reason for optimism, so he opted instead to emphasize the bleak.
“Democrats, make no mistake, a storm is coming,” Martin said at the outset of the Democratic National Committee’s Minnesota summit on Monday. “In fact, it’s already here.” What we have today is “fascism dressed in a red tie.” . . .
The Democrats, therefore, need to fight fire with fire. “I’m sick and tired of this Democratic Party bringing a pencil to a knife fight,” Martin declared. “We cannot be the only party that plays by the rules anymore. We’ve got to stand up and fight.”
The DNC chair isn’t the first Democrat to pose as the fighting fighter who fights. The consultant class can read the polling of anxious Democrats as well as anyone, although the Democratic lawmakers who are being asked by constituents to take a bullet for the cause shouldn’t need a public opinion survey to understand their voters’ restlessness. Those Democrats, too, are offering their voters thin gruel: gratuitous profanity, all-caps social-media posts, and anguished self-pity masquerading as sorrow for the state of the country.
At least Democratic lawmakers have some power to alter their circumstances on the margins. For the most part, Ken Martin doesn’t. . . .
Martin, a glorified fundraiser, is languishing in the fundraising department. Recent financial disclosures revealed that Democrats had just $14 million on hand at the end of July, a fraction of the GOP’s $84 million. This week, we learned that the DNC “struck a handshake deal” with Kamala Harris’s campaign that would cover all its outstanding expenses from the 2024 campaign, allowing the former vice president “to claim she did not end the race in debt.” . . .
The Democratic Party’s problems run deeper than its operational headaches. In the 30 states that count voters by party affiliation, Democratic registration declined by 2.1 million since 2020 while the GOP gained 2.4 million new voters. Democratic stalwarts have tried to save face by claiming that these numbers don’t account for states that don’t register party affiliation — states like Texas — which might make up the difference. Democratic partisans should shudder when they hear their representatives pin their hopes on Texas to save them.
The party’s brand is still as damaged as it looked in November of last year, and the midterm election polling at this admittedly early hour does not suggest that a Democratic wave year is in the offing.
Mark Antonio Wright, on another horrible shooting, and what to make of it all:
It’s not truly accurate to say, as some have claimed, that the trend of mass shootings began with the terrible events at Columbine High School in 1999. . . . But it’s hard to argue that whatever force was unleashed by the two murderers at Columbine hasn’t accelerated and metastasized, here in America, into something that is the deranged and sinister shadow of American exceptionalism. For a generation, American kids have gone to school stalked by a peculiar social contagion — a disease that has been spread by the internet, especially social media and the darkest corners of the Web.
In the very worst places online — the kinds of places that attract the loneliest, most screwed-up kids — there is a horrifying tracking of new school murderers’ “scores.” The vast majority of these depressed and disaffected kids will never do anything to hurt their fellows. But a few will, and those few bring about immense suffering, inflicting it upon our most innocent.
In the coming days there will be an intense focus on the fact that the alleged shooter was transgender, that he had petitioned to legally change his name, and that he targeted Catholic schoolkids during the Sacrifice of the Mass. The murderer’s motive is important, supremely important — these kids died in the exercise of their Christian faith; they are martyrs, truly.
We will also hear about all about the politicians, political operatives, and partisan hacks with axes to grind that have said irresponsible things or advanced irresponsible policies in the orbit of this massacre, or will do so now. They should be held to account as appropriate.
The motive behind this incident does indeed matter — even if people say it doesn’t or shouldn’t — because there is a moral difference between a tragic accident that results in death, negligent manslaughter, a casualty of war, and premeditated homicide. But that need not mean that there is much difference to the families, in their heartbreak and grief. There will still be empty chairs at the dinner table regardless. As citizens, we should be careful to not make a fraught and disturbing moment worse through our words and actions. “Be better than the politicians and the terminally online” is a low bar but a necessary one.
What to do about it all? Perhaps better put: Is there anything to be done that would be efficacious, constitutional, and within the realm of political and social possibility?
Should we impose a social taboo — or even attempt a legal one — on speaking or printing the killers’ names, so as to not inspire copycats? Since such a taboo or ban would be ineffective at best in our internet age, should we instead prominently name, shame, and vilify the shooters for the murderers that they are? Your guess is as good as mine in what would be more effective or practicable.
As far as public policy goes, my own views in support of so-called red flag laws, when well-written enough in a way that provides sufficient due process, put me out of step with most of my colleagues at NR. Some of us, however, are more and more open to reversing the long-term American trend of de-institutionalization for the seriously mentally ill. Some of us would support a more liberal use of involuntary commitment when warranted. But no American — right or left, conservative or liberal — at this stage of our national life, should promise or anticipate the complete eradication of this scourge that is upon us. None of us should be naïve enough to think that our preferred policy suite would entirely “solve” this problem. . . . There is evil — an immense and powerful evil — afoot in our country, an evil that cannot fully be fought through competent statesmen and prudent public policy or through the best medical care.
In better news . . . Kayla Bartsch weighs in (how could she not?) on Taylor Swift and marriage:
The pop star’s recent engagement — accompanied with all the pomp and circumstance (and public ecstasy) of a royal wedding announcement — asserts marriage as the real endgame of romantic relationships. Taylor’s “yes” implicitly affirms for girls everywhere that it’s okay to want to get married; that it’s a “beautiful miracle, unbelievable,” instead of just acceptable.
Taylor’s engagement announcement already has 31 million likes on Instagram. Her post that announced the highlight of her career — buying back all the music she’s ever made — received fewer than 10 million. While Swift’s fans have cheered her on in every success, it’s apparent that this latest win has especially captured the hearts of Swifties and normies alike.
ICYMI, Jack Butler is on the common sense beat:
By making its public schools phone-free, Washington, D.C., has joined a nationwide, bipartisan education trend. Unlike many such trends, however, this is one we should embrace. It’s good for students. And it can help contribute to a society in which technology serves us, not the other way around.
One reason not to be skeptical of this particular countrywide schooling development is that it hasn’t come from nowhere. I was among the last cohort of students to have memories of a school environment in which phones were virtually absent. To be fair, that was largely a product of the fact that most phones students would have had access to were blessedly primitive. Oh, for the days when accidentally pressing the “internet” icon on your phone’s few-pixel screen was a frightening prospect, the inevitable prelude to a huge charge on the monthly bill. I couldn’t have used my phone for much back then, anyway, other than texting, and most of my friends would have been in school with me.
That all began to change with the debut, in June 2007 (just before my freshman year), of the iPhone. Soon, the magic of the market ensured that the simultaneously ingenious and insidious device and comparable smartphones proliferated, even among younger people. Ninety-five percent of teenagers now report having access to one, up from 75 percent in 2014–15, according to Pew.
Even older people, who experienced the smartphone revolution at a time when their habits were more settled, have been changed in its wake. Some effect on youth, whose still-developing brains are already more given to impulsive behavior without a constant source of stimulation accompanying them everywhere, is undeniable.
Maybe it is just a coincidence that the kids started to become increasingly not right around this time. Perhaps it is entirely correlation, with not an iota of causation, that depression and anxiety skyrocketed in the U.S. from 2010 to 2019, as did the suicide rate, while teens began to report a significantly greater degree of social isolation. It could well be completely unrelated that tests of their academic standing began to show worrying regression. But I doubt it.
CODA
Sticking with the English-rocker theme . . . I just stumbled across Robin Trower’s “Bridge of Sighs.” What a moody, textured, emotive song this is. For some reason, I had only been familiar with an obscure cover by Opeth, whose version never really struck me.
It makes me wonder what I’ve been missing, having never gotten into Procol Harum (of which Trower was a member). Am I missing something? Any Procol Harum fans out there? If you’ve got any song recs, please do send them my way at jberger@nationalreview.com.
Thanks for reading, and all that jazz.