Consider the phrasing. The liberals are in an “existential dilemma,” “badly outnumbered,” struggling to “safeguard institutions or protest their decline.” That isn’t legal analysis; it’s therapy. The Court becomes a microcosm of the left’s post-Trump neurosis—a place where losing is permanent, and the only question is how nobly one processes it.

The framing turns jurisprudence into politics by other means. Daniel Epps of Washington University likens the liberals’ situation to war: “If you’re outgunned, do you try diplomacy or appeasement, or make a noble charge and get blown away?” The metaphor gives away the game. These justices aren’t portrayed as interpreters of law but as combatants. “Good faith” becomes a battlefield virtue, and “appeasement” the sin of moderation.

The vocabulary of power replaces the language of law. Kagan must figure out how to “exert influence.” Jackson wants to “win cases.” Victories are “rare,” not because precedent or text forecloses them, but because the scoreboard reads 6-3. When the Times praises Kagan for “protecting the power of federal agencies,” it accidentally states the ideology outright: the administrative state, not the Constitution, is the thing being defended.

Even empathy gets politicized. Sotomayor “focuses on the impact on real people”—as if her colleagues deal with imaginary ones. The implication is moral superiority through sentiment, not reasoning. “Real people” means favored constituencies; “rule of law” is what those constituencies need protection from.

And when Jackson “aims at the right side of the Court,” dissent becomes ordnance. The journalist’s verbs—aimed, warned, accused—recast argument as attack. That may thrill progressive readers but it corrodes the very idea that law is a discipline of persuasion.

Perhaps the most revealing line comes near the end, from Professor Leah Litman: “What are you preserving capital and goodwill for at this point?” In any healthy institution, the answer would be obvious—goodwill is the oxygen that keeps it legitimate. To treat collegiality as weakness is to admit that one no longer believes in the Court as a court at all.

That is the quiet tragedy running through the piece. The Times isn’t covering judges; it’s eulogizing faith in judging itself. The liberal bloc has come to see restraint as complicity and persuasion as futility. Their sympathizers in the press can only translate that despair into the language of noble suffering.

If the Court is now a “sealed world,” as Kantor writes, it’s because the country’s most influential narrators no longer speak in constitutional terms. They speak the dialect of loss—one that confuses moral emotion with legal reasoning, and therapy with truth.

The President attempted to federalize Guard units to stabilize unrest in Portland. Oregon sued. That’s a legitimate conflict for a court to hear. But Immergut went further. She barred the deployment of any Guard troops to Oregon—including those from California or other states—on the theory that the executive might use them to “circumvent” her order. That step crossed the boundary between adjudication and policymaking. Judges are supposed to interpret law, not anticipate future maneuvers or supervise the conduct of government as if they sit atop a standing committee of oversight.

Article III’s “case or controversy” requirement is more than a formality. It’s the architecture of judicial restraint. A court’s authority exists only so long as there is a live dispute anchored to facts and parties. Once a judge begins issuing prophylactic commands to prevent possible scenarios, she is no longer applying the law—she is writing it.

This tendency has spread through the lower courts like ivy on old stone. A single district judge now feels empowered to block entire national policies, halt regulations, or freeze presidential orders affecting millions of citizens who were never before the court. Each time this happens, the line between the judiciary and the political branches fades a little more. What was once a constitutional separation becomes a jurisdictional blur.

Defenders of these rulings insist that judges must act to preserve the rule of law against executive excess. That argument misses the deeper principle. The rule of law depends on boundaries—on each branch knowing where its power ends. When courts abandon those limits, the Constitution becomes elastic to every passing impulse.

Immergut’s ruling reveals a broader pathology in the modern judiciary: the belief that moral confidence equals legal authority. It is a short step from interpreting the law to enforcing one’s own vision of justice, and an even shorter step from restraint to command. The robe begins to function as a second presidency.

What remains of “case or controversy” when judges legislate from the bench, issue injunctions that reach beyond the parties, and shape policy through decree? The answer is a hollow formality. A phrase drained of substance, invoked only when convenient.

The founders built the judiciary as a check, not a competitor. It was meant to guard the limits of power, not to exercise it. Each time a judge like Immergut steps outside the record to manage national affairs, the line between judgment and governance erodes. And once that line is gone, every courtroom becomes a potential command post.

Nicholas Roske didn’t just show up at Brett Kavanaugh’s house upset about a ruling. He flew across the country from California with a Glock, ammunition, zip ties, a crowbar, duct tape, a tactical vest, and a plan—to assassinate a sitting Supreme Court justice and change the balance of the Court for decades to come. He was stopped only because he called 911 on himself after spotting federal marshals. Prosecutors called it terrorism. They asked for thirty years. Judge Deborah Boardman gave him eight.

The judge didn’t just show leniency; she wrapped it in a moral narrative. During sentencing, Boardman called the crime “absolutely reprehensible,” yet spent a striking amount of time discussing Roske’s gender identity—referring to him as “Sophie” and describing him as a “transgender woman.” She voiced concern about how he would be treated in custody, whether he’d be housed in a male facility, and whether he’d receive “gender-affirming care.” Those considerations became part of the sentencing calculus. She acknowledged the gravity of the act, then balanced it against the “unique circumstances” of his identity and “sincere remorse.”

That is not neutrality. That’s cultural capture. When a judge absorbs the ideological premise that identity confers moral credit, the scales of justice no longer weigh conduct—they weigh narrative. Roske’s self-description, not his intent, became the dominant variable. The court’s compassion was calibrated through a political lens: not “What must we do to deter the next would-be assassin?” but “How will this sentence affect a defendant who identifies as transgender?”

In a saner era, that question wouldn’t even appear. The public interest in deterring attacks on judges would outweigh every personal detail. But modern institutional culture has been re-coded. Identity now functions as a form of insulation. Certain categories—transgender, activist, mentally distressed—automatically trigger the empathy script, softening the moral frame and lowering the expected penalty. Once that script is internalized, it operates without conscious bias. No lobbying required. The ideology lives inside the decision-maker.

Boardman called Roske “an atypical defendant in an atypical case.” That phrase became the bridge between accountability and absolution. The media followed suit, recycling his chosen name, highlighting his mental-health struggles, and treating his gender identity as central context. The headlines didn’t lead with “Man Sentenced for Attempted Assassination of Supreme Court Justice.” They led with “Transgender Defendant Gets Eight Years.” That pivot is the capture mechanism in action—the reframing of a constitutional threat into a therapeutic story about personal struggle.

There’s nothing wrong with compassion in ordinary cases. But this was not ordinary. This was a man who mapped out a hit on a justice of the United States Supreme Court because he didn’t like where the law was heading. That’s the definition of political violence. When a federal judge responds to that by foregrounding gender identity, she isn’t being kind; she’s signaling that ideology can still purchase leniency even at the edge of treason.

The deeper danger isn’t one light sentence—it’s the precedent that moralized identity now competes with the rule of law. The same establishment that preaches about “protecting democracy” just discounted the most literal attack on it. Equal justice cannot survive double standards this visible. If a conservative man in a red hat had plotted to kill Justice Sotomayor, there would be no talk of “atypical defendants,” no anxiety about facility placement, no eight-year cap. The difference isn’t the facts—it’s the narrative ecosystem surrounding them.

The Department of Justice has vowed to appeal, and it should. But even if the term is lengthened, the cultural signal remains: when identity politics enters the courtroom, justice becomes contingent. This was not mercy—it was moral favoritism dressed up as empathy. Every time the bench allows ideology to override deterrence, it invites the next fanatic to test the system’s softness.

The judiciary was designed to be insulated from passion. But when the passion of the age—its hierarchies of identity and grievance—seeps into the bloodstream of sentencing, the law itself bends. The Republic cannot afford that kind of compassion.

Start with rational ignorance. Most families don’t track medical guild bulletins, school-board subcommittees, or agency guidance letters. The expected payoff to vigilant monitoring is low, the time cost is high. Meanwhile, a small set of activists, nonprofits, medical guild leaders, and allied bureaucrats have a great deal at stake. They coordinate, write model language, and push administrative levers that ordinary voters never see. They do this across domains: clinics and standards bodies, education departments, civil-rights offices, athletic associations, and prison administrators. Early wins came in venues with low salience and high discretion, where a memo, a standards revision, or a consent form template could drive practice before anyone noticed.

Add rent-seeking. Once providers discover a durable revenue stream in pediatric transition services, and once nonprofits discover that grantmaking and consulting fees align with a growing line of work, they use political means to secure and defend those gains. That looks like lobbying for broad “best practices” language, erecting liability tripwires for dissenters, and locking in coverage mandates. Every rule that narrows parental visibility or reduces second-opinion friction acts as a moat. Every speech code that chills disagreement inside hospitals and schools protects the regime by making critique costly.

Layer in regulatory capture. Standards bodies dominated by a subset of guild insiders can blur the line between evidence review and advocacy. Agencies read those standards and treat them as neutral expertise. Courts then defer to the agency’s reliance on “expert consensus.” The result is a policy pipeline in which the same small network selects the evidence, defines the standard, compels adoption, and punishes deviation. Teachers’ unions and school administrators contribute another flank by embedding directives into staff handbooks and training modules. Athletic associations translate it into eligibility policies. Corrections departments write cell-placement rules. The machine extends well beyond clinics.

This is how concentrated benefits beat diffuse costs. Each incremental change is small, procedural, and framed as compassionate. Parents assume it’s a niche matter. Legislators prioritize budget fights. Journalists follow louder stories. But cumulative policy accretion transforms the baseline: school secrecy policies, puberty blocker pathways, surgical referral tracks, compelled speech in professional settings, and eligibility rules that reset competitive categories.

Then salience spikes. As soon as families encounter the concrete reality—an unexpected school form, a clinic referral without robust gatekeeping, a daughter’s lost roster spot, a gag-like policy on pronouns—the costs stop being diffuse. The public learns what changed, and preference falsification breaks. People who kept quiet now speak plainly. Politicians who shrugged now see a wedge issue. The backlash is not mysterious; it is what public choice predicts once the mass of inattentive voters becomes attentive and the distribution of costs becomes visible.

Who are the players? Activist NGOs that supply model policies and staff trainings. Philanthropic foundations that fund the NGO ecosystem and underwrite media framing. Medical guild officials who chair committees and turn contested claims into “standards.” Hospital systems that build service lines and compliance workflows. Teachers’ unions and school leadership groups that transform guidance into operational policy. Agency lawyers who cut rules through guidance rather than statutes. Litigation shops that threaten suit to deter local pushback. Each actor behaves rationally given its incentives. Together they produce policy far from democratic scrutiny.

The same logic explains the battlefield expansion. Sports, prisons, shelters, and foster care are not random add-ons; they are strategic venues where a handful of decision-makers can impose a policy that then becomes fact on the ground. Once installed, the policy gains defenders with a stake in its continuity: administrators who don’t want to admit error, consultants whose income depends on the framework, journalists invested in the narrative they sold, and professionals who fear reputational punishment for dissent.

What to do with this diagnosis? First, change the incentive structure around information. Sunshine provisions, public dashboards for school and clinic policies, and mandatory plain-language notices to parents raise salience early. Second, re-open the rulescape to broad participation. Require formal rulemaking, with cost disclosures and evidentiary statements, instead of guidance memos that smuggle in mandates. Third, counter capture by diversifying standards inputs and banning conflict-laden authorship on panels that later bind practice. Fourth, narrow liability shields that convert contested science into strict professional orthodoxy. Fifth, restore standing for parents to challenge secrecy and compelled-speech policies. The point is not to swap one orthodoxy for another; it is to prevent small coalitions from converting private gains into public rules without a fight.

Finally, keep the public-choice lens. This is not a story about sudden moral awakenings or mass hysteria. It is a story about institutional plumbing, incentive structures, and the predictable arc of concentrated interests. Early victories came from low-salience venues. Visibility reset the game. Durable reform will come from raising the cost of stealth, lowering the barriers to participation, and breaking the feedback loops that reward capture.

If citizens absorb nothing else, absorb this: special interests rarely need to persuade a nation to win; they need to master a handful of chokepoints and keep the rest of us busy until it’s too late to notice.

Not Madness, But Moral Evil

It’s tempting for some to explain away atrocities like this as the work of a lone madman or a failure of our political discourse. Indeed, whenever heinous acts occur, people search for psychological explanations – was the shooter mentally ill, brainwashed, or simply misguided? But wanting to see your enemy dead is not a mental illness; it’s not a glitch in logic or a lapse in reasoning – it is a failure of morality and decency. It is, in a word, evil. Those who commit premeditated political violence often know exactly what they are doing. However twisted their justifications, such attackers often make a cold calculation that murdering an opponent will serve their cause. The absence of insanity does not make their act any less heinous – if anything, it underscores the moral void at the heart of their decision.

Consider the context: Charlie Kirk was targeted while speaking – engaging in a civil debate, taking questions from a student moments before the shot rang out. His killer (who remains at large as of this writing) didn’t lash out in a sudden incoherent frenzy; he or she struck with purpose, to silence and destroy. This was political assassination, and history has taught us that assassins are not always “insane” outliers. John Wilkes Booth was not clinically mad when he shot President Lincoln – he was a man driven by a perverse but calculated agenda. The same can be said of many terrorists and extremists. They are often frighteningly lucid in their goals, yet utterly devoid of the moral compass that restrains the rest of us. The core principle violated here is moral law – the age-old understanding that no grievance justifies cold-blooded murder.

When someone imagines that killing their political opposition is a legitimate path to change, it is not a sign of clever strategy or passionate conviction gone awry – it is the mark of evil creeping into their heart. It reflects a conscience so corroded by hatred that it no longer registers the humanity of the “enemy.” To willfully shed innocent blood is to cross a line into darkness that no amount of ideological fervor can excuse. We can debate policies and worldviews vigorously; we can even question each other’s judgment or sanity in the heat of argument. But the moment one side picks up a weapon to literally eliminate the other, reason has given way to moral depravity. We should be clear: the only “victory” a political murderer wins is the revelation of his own evil.

The Real Battle Between Good and Evil

Some might dismiss talk of “good vs. evil” as melodramatic, a relic of comic books or Sunday sermons. But the battle between good and evil is very real – and it’s not a mythic duel between a haloed angel and a horned demon in some distant realm. It is right here, between us and them, between everyday people who choose to build and those who choose to destroy. The tragic death of Charlie Kirk forces us to see this reality in stark terms. Kirk stood for engaging young Americans in debate, for building an organization and a movement to advocate his vision of America. By all accounts, he was a builder: he devoted his adult life to rallying students, opening chapters, and sparking conversations about conservative ideas on campuses nationwide. You could disagree with his views, but you couldn’t deny that he was creating something – a network, a platform, a community of thinkers.

His killer, on the other hand, chose the path of the destroyer. Instead of countering Kirk’s arguments with better arguments, this person tried to cancel them with a bullet. It was the ultimate act of destruction – not just of a person, but of the very principles of free expression and human life. This is how evil operates. It does not debate honorably or create alternatives; it seeks to dismantle, deface, and obliterate whatever (and whoever) stands in its way. We see this pattern in many forms around us. It’s visible in the online mobs that would rather deplatform and vilify those they disagree with than engage in dialogue. It’s visible in the rise of political violence noted by observers – a troubling trend of people convinced that eliminating opponents is a shortcut to achieving their aims. From the firebombing of events to the assaults on public officials’ homes, these acts are all born of the same destructive impulse: an impulse that says if you don’t like what someone stands for, scorch the earth beneath them.

Good and evil do exist, and they often manifest through actions and choices. The good are those who, despite disagreements, honor the dignity of their opponents and seek to persuade or coexist peacefully. The evil are those who surrender to hatred and believe the ends justify any means – even murder. We must acknowledge that a toxic mindset has been spreading in our society, one which glorifies the destruction of the “other side” as a virtue. This mindset is the breeding ground of evil.

Builders vs. Destroyers, Thinkers vs. Indoctrinators

Charlie Kirk’s murder highlights a deeper cultural struggle. It is a struggle between the builders and the destroyers, the thinkers and the indoctrinators. Builders are people who cherish institutions like open debate, family, faith, and education – and who work to strengthen them or create new ones. Destroyers are those who only find purpose in tearing down, negating, and uprooting. Likewise, thinkers seek truth through inquiry and reason, while indoctrinators impose narratives and refuse to tolerate dissent. Kirk prided himself on being a thinker who invited challenge – his campus tour was literally called the “Prove Me Wrong” tour, encouraging students to debate him. Love him or hate him, he put his ideas on the line in the arena of reason. That is what a thinker does.

Yet, all around, we see the rise of indoctrinators who do not want a debate at all. At Utah Valley University, before Kirk even arrived, nearly 1,000 people signed a petition urging the administration to bar him from speaking. Think about that: rather than rebutting his views or simply ignoring him, these signatories wanted to prevent him from uttering a single word on campus. This is the indoctrinator’s impulse – to shield people from hearing contrary opinions, to enforce a single orthodoxy. Tragically, one person (or a small group) took that impulse to the extreme by attempting to silence Kirk permanently with violence. When indoctrination festers, destruction is often not far behind. A society that teaches its youth to shut up or shut down those who think differently is sowing the seeds for more fanatics who eventually decide to “shut down” a human being with a gun.

This problem extends beyond one campus. A growing number of Americans feel that our educational and cultural institutions are drifting away from open inquiry toward one-sided ideological training. In a recent Gallup survey, *41% of Americans who lacked confidence in higher education said colleges are “too liberal,” trying to “indoctrinate” or “brainwash” students, rather than teaching them to think for themselves.” That perception reflects a real experience: many have watched universities and media marginalize voices that don’t fit a certain narrative. Indoctrination is the enemy of independent thought, and by extension, the enemy of truth. When people are steeped in propaganda – taught to see those who disagree as not just wrong but evil – it becomes easier to justify doing anything against the “enemy.” This is how a young radical can march onto a campus with a firearm believing he’s doing something justified. He has been fed on indoctrination and hatred rather than education and empathy.

By contrast, the “thinkers” in our society – whether conservative, liberal, or otherwise – approach disagreements as an opportunity to learn or persuade, not to annihilate. They build bridges or at least respectful boundaries. Charlie Kirk often said he relished the tough questions from left-leaning students; he built an entire movement around energizing young thinkers on the right. His response to hostility was to show up again and keep talking. That is the builder’s mindset. Now, it falls to the rest of us to continue building on his legacy: to keep engaging, keep thinking, and refuse to meet destruction with more destruction.

Assault on the Foundations of Decency

Evil doesn’t only strike individuals; it also sets its sights on the pillars of a decent society. At every turn, the forces of destruction today seem intent on dismantling our most foundational institutions – from the nuclear family to houses of worship. These institutions are where values are taught and character is formed. It is no surprise that those who wish to create a moral wasteland find it necessary to attack the family unit, the church, the synagogue, and any other source of independent moral authority. In fact, many voices openly argue that we should abolish or “transform” the traditional family structure altogether. In their vision of a utopia, the family – that age-old source of love, discipline, and identity – is an obstacle to be removed. Likewise, religion and faith communities are derided as archaic “superstitions” or oppressive institutions. For over a century, extreme left ideologies have critiqued religion, family, and even the nation-state as forms of oppression and alienation, seeking to erode them to make way for a new order.

Why do they target these things? Because family and faith are two of the greatest bulwarks against evil. A strong family instills empathy, responsibility, and a sense of right and wrong. A vibrant synagogue or church community binds people to a higher law of love and justice. These are precisely the qualities that restrain a person from embracing violence and malice. Destroyers know that to create an atmosphere where evil can flourish, these sources of goodness must be weakened or torn down. It is an age-old strategy. Totalitarian regimes from Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union understood that loyalty to family and God competes with loyalty to the regime – so they attempted to fracture family bonds and suppress religious practice. In our own society, the trend is less overtly governmental and more cultural: a ceaseless drumbeat in certain academic and media circles that traditional morals are backward, that parents who inculcate values in their children are “indoctrinating” them (what an irony, given the real indoctrinators!), and that people of faith are bigots or fools.

Yet, as we see the fruit of a culture unmoored from these institutions, we should shudder. When family and faith crumble, what fills the void? We are witnessing the answer: ideological extremism, loneliness, nihilism, and an anger untethered from compassion. A person who has no loving family, no community of virtue, and no sense of accountability to a higher power can far more easily fall prey to the darkest impulses. They have stripped away the things that make us most decent, most moral, and most good, and in that vacuum, evil finds room to breed. The shooter in Utah may have acted alone, but in a broader sense he was empowered by an environment that has steadily chipped away at the shared values and institutions that once gave adversaries a common moral ground. When we remove God, conscience, and community from the picture, we shouldn’t be surprised if some individuals start to act as if anything goes.

The Absence of God: Defining True Evil

At its core, evil is the absence of God – the absence of Good itself. Philosophers and theologians have long noted that evil isn’t a substantive force like electricity or matter; it’s more like a dark void where light has been extinguished. Just as cold is the absence of heat and darkness the absence of light, “evil is the absence of good, or better, evil is the absence of God.” When a person allows hatred to expel every last remnant of compassion, when they banish empathy, love, and truth from their soul, they create a godless vacuum – and that is where evil thrives. In theological terms, they have shut out the divine spark present in every human heart. In plain terms, they have killed their own conscience.

Think of the moment that the gunman raised his weapon and drew a bead on Charlie Kirk, a fellow human being with a wife, with children, with hopes and dreams. To squeeze that trigger required the shooter to extinguish any sense of Kirk’s humanity in his mind. It required a belief, however fleeting, that killing was not only acceptable but perhaps even necessary. This mental state is nothing less than a spiritual blackout – the absence of God within. No sane moral code, whether rooted in religion or humanism, would ever condone such an act. Thus the shooter had to cast aside all that is good and holy, silencing any inner voice that whispered “this is wrong.” In that inner silence, evil shouted. It is a chilling thing to recognize: at the heart of evil lies emptiness, a void where empathy and divinity should reside.

We must recognize this for what it is. If we chalk up this killing purely to mental illness or political fervor, we might miss the more profound lesson. The absence of God – of goodness, of moral restraint – is evil. When individuals or societies drift from the values of compassion, respect for life, and love of neighbor, they drift toward moral abyss. This tragedy in Utah is a glaring reminder of that truth. The shooter’s grievance (whatever it was) is irrelevant compared to the moral chasm that allowed him to believe murder was an option. In that chasm, there was no light of conscience, no warmth of human fellow-feeling – only cold darkness. That is why we say unabashedly: this was evil. It was not a mere miscalculation; it was not a momentary insanity. It was the work of darkness, the kind of darkness that we, as thinking and believing people, must work diligently to drive out of our society.

Rest in Peace, Charlie Kirk. 1993-2025.

Emergencies are not a vibe. They are moments when ordinary governance cannot secure life, liberty, or the continued functioning of the Republic. In those moments the Constitution does not invite the president to hold a seminar. It binds him to act within law to restore order and protect the nation he swore to serve.

Two current fronts make the case with unusual clarity: federal intervention in Washington, D.C., and the national emergency at the southern border.

The Seat of Government is Not Optional

The federal government has a non-delegable interest in keeping its capital open, safe, and governable. Congress wrote that reality into the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, which preserves presidential authority to direct the Mayor to provide Metropolitan Police Department services “for Federal purposes” when “special conditions of an emergency nature” exist. President Trump invoked that statute, delegated operational direction to the Attorney General, and ordered MPD support for protecting federal property and maintaining conditions necessary for the Federal Government to function.

The action is explicitly time-limited. Under the Home Rule Act, federal control expires after thirty days unless Congress extends it. That alone distinguishes this from open-ended federalization and makes it a textbook case of emergency power that is bounded, reviewable, and tied to an identifiable federal interest rather than a roving police power.

Critics point to falling citywide crime rates and accuse the White House of theater. The reply is legal and practical. First, the trigger here is not a comparative trend line but the president’s determination that emergency conditions affecting federal purposes exist. Second, the urgency is not abstract. The order mobilizes the D.C. National Guard and reassigns local police to protect federal workers, buildings, and operations that have been strained by personnel shortages and recurring security incidents. Whether some categories of crime are down does not change the federal duty to secure national institutions in real time.

This is what a limiting principle looks like. A specific statute. A specific place. A specific public purpose. A strict clock. The alternative is for the president to watch the capital wobble and pretend his oath does not travel the short distance from the White House to the Capitol.

Borders Are Not Metaphors

The Constitution charges the political branches with maintaining the nation’s territorial integrity. On January 20, 2025, the president declared a national emergency at the southern border, invoking the National Emergencies Act and Title 10 authorities to recall Ready Reserve forces and to permit military construction support for the response. Those tools make sense when civilian capacity is overwhelmed by organized transnational crime, mass unlawful crossings, and fentanyl trafficking that is killing Americans. This is not a free-floating appeal to necessity. It is a finding under a statute Congress enacted, with citations to specific provisions and a notice published in the Federal Register.

Here again the structure matters. The proclamation does not create criminal law by executive pen. It marshals existing military support authorities to backstop DHS where ordinary resources have failed to produce operational control. In constitutional terms, this is the executive executing. When the prior administration allowed a breakdown in enforcement, it did not repeal the Take Care Clause. The duty survived, and it now demands action calibrated to restore order quickly enough to save lives at the line and in the communities downstream.

The Philosophical Core: Power as Fiduciary Duty

Emergency power in our system is not a license to rule. It is fiduciary authority exercised for a limited end under law when delay costs lives. The president is not free to ignore emergencies that threaten the security of the federal government’s seat or the sovereignty of its borders. To do so would be to breach the oath. If one believes Biden-era policy produced dereliction at the border and if one believes the District’s governance allowed a security deficit around federal operations, then a refusal to use lawful emergency tools would be the radical act. Their use is the constitutional norm in abnormal times.

Anticipating the Standard Objections

Objection: This is federal overreach into local policing.
Answer: Congress built an emergency override into the Home Rule Act precisely because the District is not a state and the federal interest in its continuous operation is unique. The order directs MPD services “for Federal purposes” and sunsets absent congressional approval. That is a narrow, temporary intervention keyed to federal needs, not a general revocation of home rule.

Objection: The border emergency is policy preference dressed up as crisis.
Answer: Congress supplied a process and standards in the National Emergencies Act. The January proclamation identifies concrete threats, invokes enumerated Title 10 authorities, and posts formal notice. Courts remain open to test the fit and to police abuses. The presence of judicial review and statutory predicates is the opposite of autocracy.

Objection: Emergencies become permanent.
Answer: Permanence is a political failure, not a structural inevitability. The D.C. action has a hard thirty-day fuse. Border authorities must be justified and renewed against a public record, and Congress retains the power to terminate national emergencies by joint resolution. If opponents dislike the policy, their remedy is legislative and electoral, not rhetorical despair.

The Predictable Consequence of Prior Choices

None of this should surprise anyone who watched the last several years. A city that tolerates persistent disorder around federal sites invites federal intervention the moment a president is willing to bear the costs and accept the accountability. An administration that treats border enforcement as optional cedes both the moral ground and the legal high ground to its successor. The trajectory is as old as republican government. Dereliction by one set of officials compels diligence by the next.

The Standard to Hold

These two uses of emergency power meet the bar that should guide citizens and courts alike: a clear legal hook, a concrete public safety or sovereignty threat, tight tailoring to the problem, and structures that force reconsideration rather than open-ended drift. Lives are at stake in D.C. and at the border. The president’s oath runs to those lives first and last. In a constitutional order dedicated to the rule of law, that is not an indulgence. It is the job.

This is a narrower claim than it sounds. I am not saying only weak people harbor prejudice, or that private bias disappears in good times. I am saying that public, programmatic antisemitism becomes central to a regime’s story or a brand’s identity when those actors feel insecure about their staying power. Those who can deliver do not need it. Those who cannot, reach for it because it is cheap, legible, and fast.

Losing, in this sense, is larger than battlefield defeat or a crash in GDP. It includes status loss, stalled reforms, humiliations that make a community feel smaller than it remembers being, and elite fracture that turns governance into a knife fight. A government can expand its borders and still feel brittle at the center. A celebrity can add followers and still sense that relevance has started to drain away. The operative variable is perceived insecurity. Once leaders doubt their ability to hold what they have, old stories become useful again because old stories travel without effort.

The mechanism is familiar. First, blame moves from complex causes to a conscious enemy. If outcomes are bad, someone must have arranged them. Second, resentment is converted into cohesion. Factions that will never agree on policy can agree on a target. Third, repression receives a moral frame. Confiscations, purges, and exclusions are rebranded as defense. Finally, spectacle substitutes for competence. It is easier to fill a square with anger than to balance a budget or win a war.

History supplies variations that fit the pattern without requiring a single ideology. England’s expulsion of the Jews in 1290 and Spain’s decree in 1492 were not mere spasms of hatred; they rode alongside fiscal strain, identity anxiety, and the grinding work of state building. Scapegoating financed the crown and simplified fractured politics into a single explanation the public could hold in its hands. After the First World War, Germany’s humiliation and hyperinflation demanded a totalizing culprit that could hold together a project otherwise riven by fear of internal rot. The grievance was not garnish. It was the engine. Late Stalinism shows a victorious superpower insisting on internal enemies to manage paranoia and keep a brittle elite aligned. Campaigns against so-called cosmopolitans and the Doctors’ Plot were theater designed to buy time. In the modern Middle East, after 1948 and 1967, regimes that could not deliver prosperity or freedom poured resources into propaganda that redirected attention from domestic capacity to the supposed omnipotence of Jews. Ideologies differ. Insecurity rhymes.

This brings us to the American puzzle. The United States is not in freefall by any normal measure. So why is antisemitism louder in public talk and more available in the feed. The answer is that the argument tracks legitimacy insecurity rather than material collapse. A country can post decent top line numbers while trust in institutions, experts, media, higher education, and elections erodes. That gap between capacity and confidence is fertile ground for scapegoats because it invites simple stories that appear to resolve a complicated mood.

Relative status loss matters even when aggregates look fine. Legacy media has watched independents take audience and cultural authority. Tenured faculty has met donors and legislators who no longer defer. Party establishments face insurgents who do not wait their turn. People who feel themselves slipping reach for grand theories that explain the slide and recruit others to feel it with them. Realignment creates entrepreneurs who need glue that costs nothing and moves quickly. Scapegoats provide exactly that.

External conflict accelerates the dynamic. A war elsewhere can be imported into domestic culture with remarkable speed because the attention economy rewards maximal outrage and favors tropes that are already legible. Old lies become new content. The result is not a referendum on national prosperity. It is a referendum on whether leaders and would-be leaders believe they can persuade without a conspiracy.

There is also a micro version that now scales. Watch public figures when their graphs flatten. When bookings slow, when search interest drifts down, when brand deals get quiet, some creators discover that old conspiracies produce new engagement. They pivot from general anti-elite talk to Jewish-coded claims about finance, media, and loyalty. In the short run the numbers jump because a narrower, angrier slice of the audience is highly active and highly online. In the long run the brand corrodes. Invitations shrink. Partnerships dry up. Mainstream legitimacy goes soft. You can test this rather than intuit it. Time-stamp the stall. Quote the inflection point. Track the audience shift and how other platforms respond. Then compare to peers who faced the same headwinds without reaching for the oldest story in politics. The difference is not fate. It is choice.

Obvious objections deserve clear answers. Powerful empires have used antisemitism, which seems to cut against the thesis. Power on paper is not the same as confidence in practice; expansion can conceal weak coalitions and fiscal stress that make scapegoats attractive. Nazi Germany looked like a winner for a time. The grievance narrative preceded victory and never relaxed; early successes were monetized into a project that required an existential enemy and used theft as policy. Democracies have antisemites. The question is whether institutions marginalize them or launder them into the mainstream. When laundering occurs, it usually tracks decay, shock, or elite fracture rather than healthy confidence.

Set the boundaries clearly. This is an argument about instrumental, public antisemitism used to manufacture cohesion or attention when legitimacy is fragile. It is not a claim about every prejudice in every heart. It is not a purely economic thesis, because status loss and humiliation often do the work that prices and wages cannot. It is not confined to one ideology. The extremes recognize a bargain when they see one, and insecure actors will always reach for low-cost tools.

If the frame is right, it makes predictions that can be checked. After national shocks, you should expect an uptick in mainstream antisemitic rhetoric and not only on fringe forums. Regimes that struggle to deliver growth and social peace will push more of it through schools and state media. When institutions recover performance legitimacy, conspiracy talk retreats to the margins even if private bias remains. The signal tracks confidence more reliably than it tracks party labels.

The practical payoff is simple. Treat public antisemitism as an early warning siren. When it moves to center stage in a country’s politics or begins to recur in the output of voices that once kept it at a distance, it is time to lower your estimate of the competence and staying power of the people sounding it. They are telling you they cannot explain or fix the world on the merits. They are telling you that theater is doing work that policy should be doing.

So watch for it. In institutions, listen for leaders who trade difficult tradeoffs for villains that arrive on cue. In media, notice whether gatekeepers reward accountability or nourish conspiracy for the clicks. In your own circles, decide when someone has stopped doing the hard work and started selling the easy lie.

The remedy is not a new speech code. The remedy is results, responsibility, and a public that insists on real explanations for real problems. Winners solve. Losers scapegoat.

The Enduring Importance of Manufacturing for Americans

Economists often speak of a post-industrial society, but manufacturing still matters enormously in America – not only for GDP, but for innovation and livelihoods. The manufacturing sector remains a cornerstone of the economy, accounting for about 12% of U.S. gross domestic product and employing roughly 12 million workers (about 9% of the workforce). Crucially, it also contributes about 60% of U.S. R&D, underpinning the nation’s technological leadership. These broad statistics, however, mask an even deeper truth: manufacturing jobs have an outsized impact on communities. Each factory job often supports many other local jobs – by one rule of thumb, every steel mill position sustained about four additional jobs in the surrounding economy.2 When a plant closes, the effect isn’t a contained layoff; it’s a local depression. Small businesses, from diners to hardware stores, lose customers. City budgets shrivel as the tax base erodes, forcing cuts to schools and services. In this way, a single factory closure can trigger a domino effect of decline.

Perhaps most importantly, manufacturing historically provided accessible, decent-paying work for Americans without college degrees. Even today, the majority of U.S. manufacturing workers have no education beyond high school.3 For generations, a high school graduate could walk into an assembly plant or steel mill and earn a solid, family-supporting wage – the kind of opportunity that is vanishing in our new service-driven economy. As one Youngstown resident recalled, the typical life path in that community was straightforward: finish high school, serve your country, then come home and get a job at the mill.4 That reliable path to the middle class has closed off for many. Yes, America’s economy has evolved, and new jobs have appeared – but a service-sector or retail job usually cannot match the pay, benefits, and long-term stability that manufacturing once provided. The decline of these jobs has thus torn a hole in the fabric of working-class America.

Who Really Benefits When We Outsource?

Proponents of unfettered globalization insist that outsourcing production to the lowest international bidder benefits everyone in the long run. It’s true that there are broad economic gains: U.S. corporations enjoy lower labor costs and higher profits, and consumers get a flood of cheaper imported goods. For instance, one analysis found that China’s integration into the world trading system has lowered U.S. consumer prices by roughly 1–1.5%, saving the average American household up to $850 a year in cheaper goods.5 From the vantage point of aggregate GDP or the stock market, outsourcing can indeed look like a winning formula.

But these aggregate benefits conceal a massive redistribution of costs and pain. The gains have been concentrated – accruing largely to multinational shareholders and to upper-income consumers – while the losses are localized and often permanent. When a factory moves to China or India, American workers lose their jobs and often their sense of purpose. The typical displaced factory worker in the Midwest doesn’t suddenly land a lucrative tech job or start a successful new business thanks to cheaper imported TVs and T-shirts. More commonly, they face long bouts of unemployment or take a big pay cut in whatever service job they can find – if they find one at all. Even years after offshoring-driven layoffs, research shows many affected workers never fully recover their prior income levels.6 Meanwhile, new jobs that do arise domestically tend to be lower paying, with shakier benefits and less security than the manufacturing jobs that vanished. As one detailed study concluded, even a decade after the early-2000s import surge from China (“the China Shock”), the impacted U.S. regions saw no easy adjustment. Workers who lost industrial jobs often ended up in worse-paying work or dropped out of the labor force; their communities struggled to replace the economic base that had been lost.7

So who really benefits from chasing the lowest wages globally? Primarily, those at the top: the owners of capital and the professional elites. They enjoy higher returns and cheaper inputs. The broader American middle gets a mixed bag – yes, slightly cheaper consumer goods, but at the cost of diminished earning opportunities and hollowed-out hometowns for many. Even other countries’ workers may not truly “win” in the long run, as the global race-to-the-bottom pushes factories from one low-wage locale to the next (China itself has started losing factories to places like Vietnam as labor costs rise). What’s left behind in the American context are shuttered factories and broken promises.

There’s also a moral question: What obligations do a nation and its businesses have to their own people? In the mid-20th century, major U.S. employers often saw themselves as having some duty to provide stable careers for American workers. That ethos has been replaced by a fixation on quarterly earnings and cost-cutting. Corporate executives scour the globe for the cheapest labor and laxest regulations, and government policy has largely encouraged this, treating workers as an afterthought. As one laid-off Midwestern steelworker bitterly observed, companies that he and his co-workers had devoted their lives to “[were] letting the people of America down”. Those workers felt betrayed – and not without reason. Decades of offshoring and plant closures have eroded the implicit social contract that if you work hard and are loyal to your employer, you can earn a decent living. Instead, many loyal blue-collar workers have been cast aside as “economically expendable” in the relentless pursuit of efficiency. Decisions by corporate and political leaders to prioritize stock prices and GDP growth above all else have, in aggregate, sacrificed the well-being of entire communities. We have to ask: is a marginal bump in profit or a slight drop in consumer prices worth the devastation of an American town? For too long, the prevailing philosophy answered “yes.”

The Cultural and Social Costs of Deindustrialization

The damage from outsourcing and deindustrialization in the U.S. is not merely economic; it is social, cultural, and generational. A manufacturing plant is more than just a workplace – it is often a source of community identity and pride. When that plant shuts its doors, the effects ripple outward in ways that are hard to quantify but painfully real. Sociologists and local leaders in the Rust Belt have catalogued the social costs in affected towns: rising unemployment and poverty, population loss as young people flee, and an increase in a host of social ills – substance abuse, family breakdown, and even suicide and crime rates tend to climb in the wake of mass layoffs. In places like Ohio, Michigan, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania, the decline of manufacturing has coincided with an opioid addiction crisis and a surge in “deaths of despair” among working-class Americans. This is not a simple coincidence. A seminal study by economists found that regions hit hardest by import competition from China experienced significantly higher rates of drug overdoses and other mortality as the local economic malaise set in.8 In those same trade-ravaged communities, children were more likely to grow up in poverty and in single-parent households, as the stress of job losses strained families to the breaking point. In short, when we talk about outsourcing’s winners and losers, we’re talking about much more than spreadsheets – we’re talking about the shredding of the social fabric in countless American towns.

Culture, in the anthropological sense, also suffers. In many once-prosperous factory cities, the closing of the mills or factories meant the loss of a shared way of life. Take again the example of Youngstown: for generations, the rhythms of daily life – the whistle of the mill signaling lunchtime, the glow of the furnaces in the night sky – defined the community’s identity. Multiple generations of the same family might have worked on the factory floor; neighborhoods were built around the plant; local charities, sports leagues, even churches thrived with support from blue-collar paychecks. When that economic base collapses, the sense of purpose and cohesion can collapse with it. The community’s “sense of competence,” as one report put it, is deeply undermined, creating a cycle of struggle and failure that is difficult to escape. Pride in one’s work and town gives way to despair and disillusionment. Indeed, many deindustrialized communities develop a kind of collective trauma – visible in everything from the dilapidated Main Streets to the cynical, angry turn in local politics.

And speaking of politics: the cultural fallout from outsourcing has arguably reshaped our national politics in the 21st century. Voters in the hardest-hit manufacturing regions have swung towards anti-establishment, nationalist candidates who promise to bring back jobs and restore lost dignity. Political analysts have noted that areas most exposed to the China trade shock disproportionately shifted toward the populist right in recent elections.9 It’s not hard to understand why. People who feel abandoned by bipartisan elites’ embrace of free trade and globalization are demanding a change of course, even flirting with “somewhat nativist” ideas in hopes of reclaiming a semblance of the stability that was lost. In this way, the outsourcing frenzy didn’t just impoverish some communities – it also frayed the cultural and political unity of the nation, pitting the “left-behind” heartland against the cosmopolitan coastal centers that benefited more from globalization. The social contract has not only been broken; the resulting distrust and division are a wound we are still struggling to heal.

The “GDP at All Costs” Mantra – And Its Blind Spots

Why did the United States, especially its leaders on the right, allow things to reach this point? A big part of the answer lies in an economic ideology that took hold in the late 20th century – one that treats GDP growth as the ultimate goal, trumping all other considerations. For decades, Republicans and mainstream conservatives (joined often by pro-business Democrats) have extolled the virtues of unfettered markets, free trade, and relentless efficiency. In this view, often inspired by classical economists like Adam Smith, commerce is an absolute good: voluntary trade is “always advantageous,” as Smith wrote.10 By this logic, opening our markets and chasing global supply chains would increase overall wealth – and indeed, U.S. GDP and corporate profits did rise dramatically in the era of globalization. Defenders of this approach argue that cheaper imports and higher efficiency benefit everyone by making the economic pie larger. Any job losses or local hardships, they said, would be temporary – creative destruction at work – as the economy shifted workers into newer, better opportunities.

For a while, this “rising tide lifts all boats” narrative held sway in Washington. The American right especially embraced it as doctrine: being “pro-growth” and “pro-free trade” became synonymous with patriotism and progress. Skeptics who worried about factory closures or trade deficits were dismissed as protectionist or short-sighted. During the 1980s and 1990s, the U.S. forged trade deals and admitted China into the World Trade Organization, pursuing a vision of a liberalized global economy. The guiding star was always GDP – if the aggregate economy expanded, it was assumed Americans as a whole must be better off.

In hindsight, that philosophy was myopic. It failed to account for distribution and for the lived experience of millions. Yes, GDP grew – but who reaped the gains? Since the 1970s, U.S. productivity and GDP have risen far faster than median wages or family incomes, indicating that growth has not translated into broad-based prosperity. The “GDP first” mantra also ignored what the numbers do not measure. A spreadsheet will show the efficiency gained by outsourcing, but not the despair of a 50-year-old machinist in Ohio who can’t find work after his plant moved overseas. It will show an uptick in corporate earnings, but not the blighted homes and broken communities left behind. In short, what gets measured (profits, output, stock prices) crowded out what truly matters (people, communities, the dignity of work).

Many conservative thinkers and economists persisted in arguing that factory job losses were simply a natural evolution from manufacturing to services – essentially saying to the Rust Belt, “This is fine. Adapt.” They leaned on the concept of creative destruction: the idea that the old must give way to more productive new industries. But in case after case, the promised new opportunities never fully materialized for displaced workers. You can’t tell a former assembly-line worker in Michigan to just become a software engineer or a biotech researcher; the economy doesn’t work like that in practice, especially without significant support and retraining that have been lacking. As one analysis bluntly noted, deindustrialization in America has not reliably generated good new jobs to replace those lost – instead, it has often just created low-pay service jobs or no jobs at all. The blind pursuit of GDP growth glossed over these hard truths.

It’s worth noting that even some of the economic arguments for unrestrained outsourcing have started to crumble. For years, conventional wisdom held that automation (robots, technology) was responsible for most manufacturing job losses, not trade. Indeed, one often-cited study attributed as much as 88% of factory job decline in the 2000s to productivity gains from automation, and only around 13% to import competition.11 If that were true, outsourcing wasn’t really the issue – technology was. But more recent research paints a far more nuanced picture. Analysts have pointed out that the 88% figure is likely an overestimate, skewed by how productivity is measured in certain industries. In fact, sectors like electronics showed enormous productivity on paper largely due to improvements in product quality (e.g. faster computers), not because factories became super-automated. Meanwhile, peer-reviewed studies of the 2000s trade shock with China have found very real and sizable employment impacts from imports, including 2 million or more U.S. jobs lost.12 And tellingly, Germany – a nation with high wages and lots of automation – lost only about 5% of its manufacturing jobs from 1997 to 2013, while the U.S. lost 31% in that period. The difference? Germany maintained a trade surplus and kept industrial policies that supported its manufacturers. This comparison undercuts the idea that job loss was inevitable or solely due to robots – policy choices and trade decisions clearly mattered. Unfortunately, in the U.S., the dominant policy for too long was to prioritize abstract economic growth and let the chips fall where they may for workers.

The American right, in particular, needs to reckon with how its free-market absolutism and GDP-focused mindset have betrayed its own constituents. After all, conservatives traditionally speak of patriotism, national strength, and “leaving no one behind.” Yet under the spell of neoliberal economics, many on the right turned a blind eye as American factory towns were hollowed out. So long as the stock market was up and GDP ticking higher, the human costs were rationalized as “market forces” or even shrugged off as the fault of workers being “unskilled” or unwilling to move. This approach has proven shortsighted and politically self-destructive. Those left-behind voters have understandably rebelled, demanding that their leaders put American workers first for a change – even if that means questioning free trade dogmas.

Rebuilding an Economy That Puts Citizens First

If there is a silver lining to this painful story, it’s that the conversation is finally changing. Across the political spectrum – and especially in what some call a new pro-worker right – there is a growing recognition that GDP growth alone cannot be the sole compass for policy. An economy is not truly successful if it is booming on paper but leaving large swaths of its people in despair. The measure of a nation’s economic health must include the well-being of its working class and the vitality of its communities. In practical terms, that means rethinking policies that treat labor as just another cost input and recognizing that offshoring everything to save a buck can inflict greater costs down the line. It means considering targeted industrial policies to revitalize manufacturing in the U.S., whether through smarter trade deals, incentives for domestic production, or investment in workforce training for the kinds of modern factory jobs that can sustain a family.

Critics will argue that this sounds like nostalgia or protectionism. But wanting a solid manufacturing base is not about turning back the clock so much as maintaining balance and resilience. The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the dangers of over-reliance on foreign supply chains for essential goods. There is a strategic case, as well as a moral one, for rebuilding capacity at home. More profoundly, providing meaningful work for citizens is part of the social contract. A republic that doesn’t offer broad-based economic opportunity risks decay of its democratic foundations. Look again at those Rust Belt communities: their economic void fueled social troubles and extremist politics – outcomes that affect us all, not just those who lost jobs. In that sense, outsourcing American jobs to the lowest bidder wasn’t just an economic choice; it was a social experiment with disastrous results for our cohesion and civic trust.

Engaging with the critics of this view, one must acknowledge that globalization and technology are complex forces. We cannot (and should not) bring back every lost factory or seal ourselves off from the world. But the pendulum swung too far toward an idealized global market at the expense of our neighbors. Course correction is possible. We can aim for trade that is fair – that doesn’t ask American workers to compete against exploitative wages or nonexistent environmental standards abroad. We can prioritize “smart growth” over raw GDP – growth that comes from innovation and productivity gains at home, not just shifting work to cheaper locales. And we can invest in our own people, so that when new technologies do displace old jobs, workers are prepared and supported to move into the next opportunity, rather than left to fend for themselves.

Ultimately, this is about what kind of country we want to be. Are we just an economy, or are we a nation with a shared destiny? If we are the latter, then we owe some loyalty to our fellow citizens who build and sustain that nation through their labor. For years, those ordinary Americans were told that their jobs were simply the cost of doing business in a global era – that their pain was inevitable and even worth it for the greater good (defined in terms of GDP). That was a lie, or at best a gross half-truth. The greater good cannot be measured solely in dollars. It must be measured in the dignity of work, the strength of families, and the health of communities. By that measure, we have paid dearly for the gospel of outsourcing at all costs.

It’s time to remember that economic policy is not a game of abstract numbers – it’s a covenant with the citizens of the nation. The USA may never again dominate global manufacturing as it did in 1950, and indeed not every low-skill factory job can or should be saved. But abandoning an entire class of jobs and the people who relied on them was a choice – one that we can choose not to repeat going forward. As we strive to restore a sense of ordered liberty in our society, we must balance the freedom of the marketplace with the duty we have to one another. The true measure of our economy’s success should be its ability to provide fulfilling, productive livelihoods for the many, not just endless wealth accumulation for the few. In a more perfect America, no hardworking citizen will be treated as a disposable line item. Achieving that ideal will require challenging the old GDP-at-all-costs mantra and remembering that an economy exists to serve the people – not the other way around.

In Trump v. Boyle, the Court issued a short emergency stay. Nothing unusual there—except for one line:

“Although our interim orders are not conclusive as to the merits, they inform how a court should exercise its equitable discretion in like cases.”

This single sentence might be the most consequential clarification of vertical precedent in a decade. With it, the Court has effectively announced a new rule: when we speak, even in shadow, we expect to be obeyed. And that’s exactly how it should be.

The Rise of Shadow Precedent

Critics will whine that this development bypasses “normal process.” They’ll complain about transparency, about full briefing, about merit resolution. But they miss the deeper issue. The real problem for the federal judiciary isn’t that the Supreme Court is doing too much from the shadow docket—it’s that lower courts have spent the last decade treating Supreme Court emergency orders like voicemails: heard, maybe noted, but often disregarded.

Interim orders, particularly stays, have always carried implicit force. What Boyle does is make that explicit. Lower courts now have to conform their discretionary rulings—especially in equity, injunctions, and removals—to the logic and direction of the Supreme Court’s emergency decisions. That isn’t a power grab. That’s order.

Restoring Judicial Discipline

The Constitution creates “inferior courts” beneath one Supreme Court. The Article III judiciary is not a patchwork of independent legal fiefdoms—it is a chain of command. The erosion of that command structure in recent years has come in part from appellate courts refusing to treat stays and interim orders as binding precedent. That attitude has encouraged a new species of legal obstinance: district judges issuing nationwide injunctions, openly flouting stays, or acting as if Supreme Court orders on Friday have no bearing on what they do Monday.

In a healthy system, that should never happen. What Boyle and Wilcox suggest is that the Justices—finally—intend to reassert control over their own branch.

This is not “shadow docket abuse.” It’s judicial accountability.

A Welcome Message to the Bureaucracy

There’s another upside. By clarifying that interim orders constrain equitable discretion, the Court is sending a message not just to lower judges, but to the administrative state itself. If the President cannot remove independent agency heads without cause (or can, subject to a stay), the legality of that action can’t depend on some trial court’s idiosyncratic sense of fairness. There must be predictability. A system in which lower courts vary wildly in how they treat the same removal question isn't a legal system at all. It’s a coin toss.

What the Court is doing is building institutional coherence—a necessary precondition for both executive power and judicial legitimacy.

Conclusion: Real Precedent, Even in Shadow

The term “shadow precedent” will be used by critics as an epithet. But it shouldn’t be. It’s a sign of maturity—a system recognizing that law is not just written in grand majority opinions, but also in how authority is exercised in real time. The Court is now reclaiming that authority and expecting compliance from those below it.

About time.

That may be emotionally resonant. It’s also intellectually lazy.

What few bother to ask is the more foundational question: Why does Iran want the bomb at all? Not in a moral sense, but in a geopolitical one. What is the strategic utility of a nuclear weapon for a regime like the Islamic Republic of Iran?

The answer has nothing to do with launching a mushroom cloud and everything to do with building a shield.

Power, Not Detonation

A nuclear weapon isn't primarily a weapon of war—it's a weapon of immunity. The moment Iran becomes a nuclear power, it can act across the region with impunity. It will not have to fire a single warhead to alter the global balance of power. It only has to possess one.

Iran already funds and arms proxy militias in Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen, and Iraq. It sponsors terrorism around the globe, threatens international shipping lanes, and foments chaos far beyond its borders. All of this has occurred without a nuclear umbrella. Imagine what Tehran would feel empowered to do with one.

American influence in the Middle East—already on shaky ground—would collapse. The U.S. would find itself unable to deter or retaliate meaningfully against Iran’s proxies for fear of triggering nuclear escalation. Sanctions? Toothless. Airstrikes? Unthinkable. The cost-benefit calculus would shift entirely in Iran’s favor.

This is not theoretical. It’s what nuclear deterrence has always been about: removing the risk of consequences. That’s why North Korea, despite being a weak and starving country, remains functionally untouchable. And it’s why Iran wants the bomb.

This Isn’t About Israel

Too often, Americans treat the Iran question as if it only matters to Tel Aviv. That’s a mistake. American troops are still stationed in Iraq and Syria. American ships still patrol the Gulf. The global economy still hinges on stability in the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran isn’t building a bomb to launch it at Jerusalem. It’s building a bomb so it can tighten its grip on Iraq, strengthen Hezbollah in Lebanon, turn the Houthis into a permanent threat to global shipping, and undermine Western-aligned governments across the region—all without fear of retaliation.

If you're an American policymaker, the primary concern isn't what Iran might do with a bomb. It’s what we can no longer do if they get one.

Why This Matters Now

Too many analysts still talk about Iran’s nuclear ambitions as if they’re a slow-motion crisis. But the timeline is tightening. Enrichment is accelerating. Western deterrence is deteriorating. And the region is more combustible than ever.

A nuclear Iran doesn’t bring war—it ends accountability.

And when the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism is free from accountability, it's not just Israel that should worry. It’s all of us.

Throughout modern history, nations and peoples have been held accountable for the decisions of their leaders and the outcomes of their collective choices. The principle of national responsibility suggests that while external forces and injustices may shape a people’s circumstances, ultimately their fate is also determined by their own actions, strategies, and leadership. Palestinians should be no exception to this rule. To insist otherwise is to apply a paternalistic double standard that implicitly diminishes Palestinian agency. It is indeed paradoxical – even patronizing – to champion Palestinian rights to self-determination on one hand, yet on the other hand to deny that their leaders’ decisions and popular choices play any role in their destiny. As one scholar observed, the prevalent attitude among some Western intellectuals amounts to a “soft bigotry of low expectations” that “absolves Palestinians, Palestinian leaders, [and] Palestinian organizations of all agency”insidehighered.com. In other words, by expecting nothing of Palestinians – not even basic prudence or condemnation of violence – this mindset inadvertently treats them as incapable of moral or political responsibility. Such a view is not a form of respect or solidarity; it is a form of condescension masquerading as empathy. True respect for the Palestinian people means acknowledging their capacity to make choices – including grave mistakes – and holding their national movement to the same standards of accountability that would apply to any other people. This does not mean ignoring the profound power imbalances at play, nor excusing external injustices they have endured. It means rejecting the notion that Palestinians are uniquely passive in their own story. Only by recognizing Palestinians as agents of their own fate – not perpetual children of circumstance – can we have an honest conversation about their past and future.

Lost Opportunities: A History of Rejected Offers and Self-Defeating Choices

History provides stark examples in which Palestinian leaders, pursuing maximalist goals or short-term passions, rejected viable opportunities for statehood and peace – often to the lasting detriment of their people. These moments illustrate that Palestinian destiny has been shaped not only by external actors but also by the choices of Palestinian leadership.

• 1947 – The UN Partition Plan: In November 1947, the United Nations proposed a partition of British-ruled Palestine into two independent states, one Jewish and one Arab. The Jewish leadership accepted the plan despite its compromises, effectively agreeing to the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state alongside Israel. The Palestinian Arab leadership, however, flatly refused. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini – then the foremost Palestinian political figure – rejected the UN partition plan outright, foreclosing the two-state solution at its inception (besacenter.org). This fateful “no” led directly to war. When the State of Israel declared independence in 1948, Arab armies and Palestinian irregulars launched a catastrophic conflict that resulted in Israel’s survival and the disintegration of Palestinian society. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians became refugees in what they call the Nakba (catastrophe). One can only speculate how different history might have been had the Palestinian leadership accepted the partition in 1947. What is clear is that a Palestinian state could have existed alongside Israel from the very beginning – encompassing a territory far larger than any subsequently offered – but this opportunity was squandered by the Palestinian leadership’s decision to reject compromise (besacenter.org). That choice, made in the name of absolute justice (or absolute victory), proved calamitous for ordinary Palestinians. It was an early instance of a pattern: “never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity,” as one observer famously put it (besacenter.org).
  

• Camp David 2000 – Arafat’s Rejection: Fast-forward half a century to another pivotal juncture. After decades of conflict, the Oslo Accords of the 1990s raised hopes for a two-state solution. By July 2000, U.S. President Bill Clinton convened Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at Camp David to negotiate final-status peace. The talks produced what Clinton and Barak described as an unprecedented offer: a Palestinian state in Gaza and the vast majority of the West Bank, a capital in East Jerusalem, and a land-link between Gaza and the West Bank – with Israel withdrawing from settlements and territory to make it possible. The proposal fell short of 100% of the Palestinian demands (notably on the “right of return” of refugees and full sovereignty over Jerusalem’s Old City), yet it far exceeded any prior Israeli position. Arafat, however, summarily rejected these far-reaching concessions and never offered a counterproposal (besacenter.org). Clinton later recounted that Arafat seemed unwilling to accept “yes” for an answer. In the aftermath, rather than continuing negotiations, the Palestinian side – dominated by Arafat’s Fatah faction – resorted to violence. Within months of the failed summit, the Second Intifada erupted. This uprising – which Arafat himself called the al-Aqsa Intifada – was marked by suicide bombings and terror attacks that killed over 1,000 Israelis (mostly civilians) and thousands of Palestinians, devastating the very infrastructure of Palestinian society (besacenter.org). By the time the bloodshed subsided, the Palestinian economy and governance were in ruins, Israeli politics had shifted rightward, and the prospects of peace had dimmed. It is hard to imagine a more tragic example of self-defeating leadership: the chance for a negotiated state was lost, and Palestinians paid a grave price in lives and livelihoods. Arafat’s refusal at Camp David – like the Mufti’s in 1947 – reinforced a narrative of Palestinian rejectionism that has haunted the peace process ever since.
  

• 2005–2007 – Gaza: Withdrawal and Civil War: Another key moment came in 2005, though it was not a formal peace offer but a unilateral opportunity. That year, Israel withdrew all its forces and settlements from the Gaza Strip in a policy known as “disengagement.” The move, led by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, was controversial within Israel; its aim was to reduce conflict and perhaps create conditions for renewed diplomacy. To Palestinians in Gaza, it presented a sudden test of governance: for the first time, they could govern a territory free of any Israeli civilian presence. The world watched to see if Gaza’s rulers would use this opening to build a peaceful model of statehood – investing in schools, infrastructure, and economic development – or if Gaza would become, instead, a launching pad for continued war. Unfortunately, the latter outcome prevailed. Almost immediately after Israel’s pullout, Palestinian militant groups (chiefly Hamas) intensified rocket and mortar attacks against Israeli towns across the border (besacenter.org). The militant factions vied with the Palestinian Authority for control, and by June 2007, the rivalry exploded into a brief civil war in Gaza. Hamas – an Islamist movement refusing to recognize Israel – violently ousted the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority and seized power in the Gaza Strip. From that point on, Hamas made Gaza a forward base for armed struggle: Iran-backed militias amassed weapons and fired thousands of rockets into Israel (over tens of thousands of rockets and mortars since 2007). Israel, in turn, imposed a blockade on Gaza and waged repeated military campaigns to suppress the rocket fire. The people of Gaza have since endured severe hardship under blockade, periodic wars, and repressive Hamas rule. Yet all of this was not inevitable. It originated in a series of Palestinian choices: the choice by militants to answer Israel’s withdrawal with violence rather than diplomacy, and the choice by Gazan voters in 2006 to elect Hamas (which won a surprise victory in that year’s legislative elections), followed by Hamas’s decision to stage a coup rather than share power. One cannot blame ordinary Gazans for yearning to be free of occupation – indeed, Israel did remove its occupation in Gaza – but holding power entails responsibility. The tragic fate of Gaza since 2005 illustrates how Palestinians’ own political decisions (in this case, embracing an extremist faction) directly molded their destiny, for worse. As Israel’s President Isaac Herzog bluntly remarked years later, after yet another Hamas onslaught: “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible… They could’ve risen up, they could have fought against that evil regime” (washingtonpost.com). Herzog’s words were controversial, but they underscore a hard truth: the empowerment of Hamas was a decision from within Palestinian society, and its consequences have been borne by that society in spades.
  

• 2008 – Abbas Walks Away from Peace (Again): Despite the bloody setbacks of the early 2000s, another window for peace opened before the decade closed. In 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert privately presented Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas with a comprehensive peace proposal. By many accounts, Olmert’s offer was even more generous than the Clinton Parameters of 2000: reports indicate it included nearly 95% of the West Bank plus land swaps for the remainder, all of Gaza, a shared arrangement for Jerusalem, and an international mechanism for refugees. It was, in Olmert’s words, a “painful” concession package for Israel – perhaps the most far-reaching offer ever put to a Palestinian leader. President Abbas, however, could not bring himself to sign. He hesitated and ultimately declined the offer, saying “the gaps were too wide.” Years later, Abbas candidly admitted what had long been reported: “I did not agree… I rejected it out of hand,” he said of Olmert’s 2008 mapcfr.org. In a 2015 television interview, Abbas confirmed that he walked away without even making a counterproposal – a decision strikingly reminiscent of Arafat’s stance in 2000 (cfr.org). Abbas’s defenders argue that Olmert was a lame-duck Prime Minister facing corruption charges, so the timing was ill-starred. Yet by refusing to formally accept or negotiate the plan, the Palestinian leadership once again missed a historic chance to secure statehood. Within months, Olmert was out of office, a hardline Israeli government took over, and the diplomatic horizon dimmed for over a decade. The pattern repeated: the Palestinian side shrank from compromise, and the window closed. Ordinary Palestinians in the West Bank, much like their brethren in Gaza, continued to live under a status quo of occupation and political stagnation – a status quo that their own leaders, by rejecting possible agreements, helped perpetuate.
  

• “A Thousand No’s” – Ongoing Rejectionism: The above are just a few key examples in a long history of decisions that have negatively impacted the Palestinian people. One could add others: the Arab League’s infamous “Three No’s” at Khartoum after 1967 (no peace, no negotiation, no recognition of Israel), which the Palestinian leadership endorsed; the support Yasser Arafat gave to Saddam Hussein in 1990–91 (alienating Gulf Arab states and leading to the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian workers from Kuwait); the consistent rejection by Hamas and some in the PLO of any normalization steps, even those that might improve Palestinian economic conditions. As recently as 2020, when the United States unveiled a new peace initiative (nicknamed the “Deal of the Century”), the Palestinian Authority rejected it sight unseen. President Abbas declared “a thousand times no, no, no to the Deal of the Century,” boycotting negotiations entirely (besacenter.org). It was a symbolic reprise of past attitudes, even if the plan itself was flawed and one-sided in Palestinian eyes. The cumulative effect of these choices has been to prolong the conflict and deepen Palestinian suffering. To acknowledge this is not to deny Israel’s role in the conflict or the many grievances Palestinians have. Rather, it is to state an uncomfortable but necessary fact: time and again, Palestinian leaders have made fateful choices that squandered opportunities for peace and statehood. Each such choice has contributed to a cycle of violence and loss that continues to this day.

Holding Palestinians responsible for these decisions is not “victim-blaming”; it is recognizing them as actors in history, not just passive subjects. Indeed, many voices within the Palestinian community and the broader Arab world have lamented these mistakes. Arab states like Egypt, Jordan, and the Gulf countries, which once toed a hardline in lockstep with the Palestinian leadership, have increasingly pursued their own peace or normalization with Israel in recent years – a sign of growing disillusionment with perpetual rejectionism. As one analysis noted, even traditional benefactors have tired of underwriting intransigence: Arab state donors have curtailed funding to the Palestinian Authority, frustrated that Palestinian leaders seem unwilling to take the hard steps for peace while continuing to depend on foreign aidbesacenter.org. All this suggests that the exemption of Palestinians from expectations of pragmatism is wearing thin. History’s verdict is harsh but clear: refusing responsibility for one’s choices does not make problems go away – it often makes them worse.

Western Narratives of Perpetual Victimhood

Despite this track record, a significant strand of Western opinion – particularly in activist and academic circles – has coalesced around a narrative that casts Palestinians solely as victims, with little or no agency in determining their plight. In this view, Palestinians are seen almost as objects of history, buffeted by colonialism, orientalism, Zionism, and imperial machinations, but never as subjects who make consequential choices of their own. All responsibility for the conflict is placed on Israel (or sometimes broadly on “the West”), while Palestinian actions are explained away as an inevitable reaction to oppression. This narrative has become dominant in many progressive activist movements and university campuses across the United States and Europe, to the point that it is often treated as orthodoxy in those spaces.

The contours of this worldview are familiar: it frames the conflict in a simple oppressor–oppressed binary. Israel is depicted as a foreign colonizer with overwhelming power, and Palestinians as indigenous, brown-skinned victims with essentially no power. Within such a moral framework, holding Palestinians accountable can seem heretical – almost akin to blaming a victim of abuse for their suffering. Thus, no matter what actions Palestinian factions take – be it launching rockets at civilians or walking away from negotiation tables – the reflex in these circles is to contextualize or excuse it as “resistance” or the understandable desperation of the powerless. Any scrutiny of Palestinian decision-making is quickly deflected with, “But what about Israel’s actions…?” or accusations that raising such points is parroting pro-Israel talking points. Over time, this has led to what some analysts call the “Palestine exception” in political discourse: the normal standards of critique applied to other movements or governments are suspended when it comes to Palestinians, out of a misplaced notion that expecting accountability from them is unfair (insidehighered.com).

Concrete examples of this narrative abound. Perhaps most striking was the reaction of some Western activist groups and student organizations to the Hamas terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023, in which Hamas massacred some 1,200 Israelis (mostly civilians) in southern Israel. While the world recoiled in horror at the brutality of the massacre – comparable in scale (relative to Israel’s population) to the 9/11 attacks in the United States – a number of pro-Palestinian voices in the West pointedly refused to condemn Hamas. Instead, they justified or rationalized the atrocity as the product of Israeli policies. On American college campuses, rallies and statements often pivoted immediately to the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza (who indeed would soon face a harsh Israeli military response), making no allowance for the sheer inhumanity of what Hamas had done. At Harvard University, for instance, a coalition of 34 student organizations infamously released an open letter as the attacks were unfolding, declaring that they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence” (reuters.com). The letter went so far as to say “the apartheid regime is the only one to blame” for the carnage, effectively absolving Hamas gunmen of any agency or guilt (reuters.com). This statement – asserting that Israel was solely to blame for its own civilians being slaughtered – encapsulates the most extreme form of the perpetual victimhood narrative. In the uproar that followed, many observers pointed out how morally skewed and dehumanizing such a stance was: it denied Palestinians even the dignity of moral choice, implying they are but reflexive instruments of historical forces. Prominent Harvard alumni and even the university’s leadership distanced themselves from the student letter, illustrating that this narrative, while loud, does not go unchallenged (reuters.com). Nonetheless, the fact that dozens of elite university groups and many activist circles found this reasoning acceptable speaks volumes about the intellectual climate.

Similarly, some activist organizations openly celebrated or excused Hamas’s actions under the banner of “resistance.” National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) – one of the largest pro-Palestinian student networks in the U.S. – lauded the October 7 attacks as “a historic win for Palestinian resistance,” framing the mass murder of civilians as a military victory to be cheered (adl.org). The same statement from SJP called for “armed confrontation with the oppressors” going forward (adl.org). These are not the words of fringe extremists; they represent a network present on countless campuses, influencing thousands of students. Such rhetoric demonstrates how the narrative of victimhood can mutate into explicit glorification of violence, so long as that violence is perpetrated by Palestinians. In this moral inversion, terror is tolerable when it’s the weapon of the ostensibly oppressed, and outrage is reserved not for the dead innocents but for the “context” that drove the perpetrators. Western activists who accept this framework have in some cases literally parroted Hamas propaganda points, describing atrocities as “legitimate resistance” or comparing them to anti-colonial uprisings of the past.

It is crucial to note that this narrative is not universally accepted in the West – far from it. It thrives in specific milieus: segments of academia, far-left activist movements, certain media and cultural circles. There is also a mirror-image narrative on the far-right that entirely demonizes Palestinians; that, however, is a different phenomenon, and it is not the dominant one among those who identify as pro-Palestinian advocates. The focus here is on how well-meaning progressive spaces have often slid into a form of patronizing one-sidedness. Even respected human rights organizations and scholars, in their earnest desire to highlight Israeli violations, sometimes omit or minimize any discussion of Palestinian militancy or political failures, as if mentioning these would weaken the case against Israel. The result is a profoundly skewed history and discourse. As Miriam Elman, a professor and director of an academic network against campus antisemitism, observed about many faculty statements on the conflict: “Where is the responsibility of Hamas? …There’s no mention of the unjustifiable and indiscriminate rocket attacks – how about one line to refer to that?” (insidehighered.com). The refusal to include even a token acknowledgment of Palestinian wrongdoing, she argues, treats Palestinians as if they have no moral agency – as if violence is simply expected of them and thus not worth commenting on (insidehighered.com). This, indeed, is the “soft bigotry of low expectations.”

The danger of the perpetual-victim narrative is not only that it falsifies history, but also that it can embolden the most extreme elements on the Palestinian side while undermining moderates. If Western activists signal that no matter what Palestinian hardliners do – even commit egregious atrocities – they will still be seen as blameless victims, it removes any incentive for introspection or change. Why should a Hamas leader feel pressure to moderate when student groups at Harvard or advocates in London will rationalize their most barbaric deeds as “necessary resistance”? Why should the Palestinian Authority reform corruption or hold elections when the international chorus will blame all Palestinian woes on Israel regardless? By denying Palestinians accountability, the West does not help them – it infantilizes them and gives cover to their worst leaders. It also tars legitimate Palestinian aspirations with the stain of extremism, making it easier for opponents of Palestinian statehood to claim that “the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to reject peace,” and that they are unwilling to live alongside Jews. In short, the narrative of perpetual victimhood has been a rhetorical boon for both the uncompromising militants on one side and the cynical hardliners on the other – while ordinary Palestinians and Israelis alike remain caught in a conflict without end.

When Narratives Fuel Violence: Antisemitism and Extremism in the West

Ideas have consequences. The portrayal of Palestinians as having no responsibility for their actions – as pure victims who must be avenged or defended at all costs – has increasingly migrated from campuses and Twitter feeds into the real world, sometimes with violent results. In recent years, Western countries have witnessed a disturbing spike in antisemitic incidents and attacks explicitly tied to anger over the Israel–Palestine conflict. Many of these incidents are fueled by individuals who have imbibed the narrative that Palestinians are under genocidal assault and that any measures taken “in solidarity” with them are justified. When people come to believe that Palestinians are not merely a wronged people but the ultimate righteous victims, they may also come to believe that their perceived oppressors (usually meaning Jews and Israelis, or those who support Israel) are ultimate villains deserving of punishment. The result is a frightening convergence of ideological fanaticism and age-old antisemitism, cloaked in the language of political activism.

Several recent events in the United States illustrate this dynamic with chilling clarity. In Boulder, Colorado, on June 1, 2025, a man launched a firebomb attack on a group of Jewish and pro-Israel demonstrators who were gathering to call for the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas. According to authorities, the assailant – a 45-year-old named Mohamed Soliman – showed up at the peaceful rally armed with a makeshift flamethrower (a commercial weed sprayer filled with gasoline) and Molotov cocktail incendiaries (abcnews.go.com). He proceeded to douse the area in flames, shouting “Free Palestine!” as he tried to set people on fire (abcnews.go.com). Twelve people were injured in this horrific attack, which could easily have turned into a mass-casualty bombing. Law enforcement later revealed that Soliman had entered the U.S. from the Middle East and was motivated by extreme anti-Zionist views; he allegedly told investigators he “wanted to kill all Zionist people and wished they were all dead.” While he claimed he was targeting “Zionists, not the Jewish community,” the distinction is meaningless to the victims lying in the hospital. The Boulder flamethrower attack was widely condemned as an act of domestic terrorism. It did not occur in a vacuum: as ABC News reported, this was just one of many incidents amid a “dramatic increase in antisemitic and Islamophobic hate crimes across the nation” coinciding with the Israel-Hamas war’s spillover effects. In fact, less than two weeks prior, in Washington D.C., a gunman had opened fire outside a Jewish site while also yelling “Free Palestine,” killing two people in an episode that likewise appeared motivated by anti-Jewish hatred linked to Middle East events (abcnews.go.com). These attacks show how the fervor of the “Palestine” cause, when coupled with an absolutist victim-oppressor narrative, can tip over into lethal antisemitism. The attackers convinced themselves that violent retribution against random Jews or Israel-supporters in America was a justifiable – even noble – act in defense of Palestinians.

Another startling example took place in Pennsylvania in April 2025, when the official residence of Governor Josh Shapiro was firebombed. Governor Shapiro, notably, is Jewish and had been outspoken in condemning antisemitism and supporting Israel’s right to defend itself. In the early hours of April 10, a man later identified as 38-year-old Cody Balmer breached the security perimeter of the governor’s mansion in Harrisburg. He hurled Molotov cocktails into the residence, breaking windows and igniting a fire in the dining room and other areas (penncapital-star.com). Shapiro and his family, who had been asleep after celebrating the Passover Seder that evening, narrowly escaped after security officers evacuated them as the fire spread (penncapital-star.com). After his arrest, Balmer’s motives became shockingly clear. In a 911 call he made shortly after the arson, Balmer ranted that Governor Shapiro “needed to know” that Balmer “will not take part in [Shapiro’s] plans for what he wants to do to the Palestinian people.” He accused Shapiro of having his “friends” killed and said “our people have been put through too much by that monster,” referring to the governor. In other words, Balmer had apparently absorbed a conspiratorial belief that the Jewish governor was somehow orchestrating harm against Palestinians – a belief likely nurtured by extreme propaganda and narratives painting any Jewish leader supporting Israel as a genocidal enemy. Investigators later confirmed that Balmer’s attack was politically and antisemitically motivated: he was charged with terrorism and attempted murder, and evidence showed he had been consuming content about Palestine and saw Shapiro as a legitimate target due to the governor’s pro-Israel stance. Local Muslim organizations immediately condemned the arson (rightly noting that violence is not an acceptable form of protest), but they also expressed concern that Balmer’s twisted justification – tying a local Jewish official to the far-away conflict – could stoke Islamophobic backlash (penncapital-star.compenncapital-star.com). Governor Shapiro himself was careful in his public comments, but he did acknowledge the attack as part of a rising tide of hate tied to the conflict. The fire at Shapiro’s mansion thus stands as another grim testament to how the narrative of Palestinian victimhood, taken to an irrational extreme, can literalize into anti-Jewish violence on American soil. Balmer acted as if he were a combatant in the Middle East, striking a blow against an enemy of “his people,” when in reality he was nearly murdering an American family in their home because of a delusional narrative.

Beyond these headline-grabbing cases, the environment on many university campuses in the West has deteriorated, with pro-Palestinian activism at times crossing the line into outright antisemitic harassment. In theory, campus activism for Palestinian rights is focused on criticizing Israeli policies, which is legitimate in itself. In practice, however, the perpetual victim narrative and the intense emotions around the Gaza conflict have led to situations where Jewish students and those even perceived as pro-Israel have been intimidated, excluded, or even threatened under the guise of “anti-Zionism.” A dramatic incident occurred at Cooper Union, a college in New York City, in October 2023. During a tense protest following the start of the Israel–Hamas war, a group of Jewish students had to barricade themselves inside the school library for their own safety as an angry pro-Palestinian rally swirled around them. According to a lawsuit later filed, demonstrators stormed past security, pounding on the library’s doors and windows, chanting hateful slogans and waving signs with antisemitic messages (reuters.com). The trapped Jewish students feared for their lives as the mob outside shouted and beat on the glass for about 20 minutes. Shockingly, campus administrators allegedly did nothing to intervene during this ordeal, and even instructed police who arrived not to confront the protesters, effectively leaving the students unprotected (reuters.com). Video of the incident, which circulated widely, showed scenes eerily reminiscent of anti-Jewish pogroms of earlier eras – an impression not lost on a federal judge who later heard the case. “These events took place in 2023 – not 1943,” Judge John Cronan wrote, admonishing the college for failing its duty. In allowing a physically threatening mob action specifically targeting Jewish students, the judge noted, Cooper Union had arguably violated civil rights law by fostering a hostile environment. The Cooper Union incident is not isolated. According to reports, numerous U.S. campuses saw an uptick in antisemitic incidents after October 2023 – swastikas painted in dorms, Jewish students excluded from student government votes on Israel-related resolutions, verbal harassment and even assaults. The Anti-Defamation League documented hundreds of antisemitic incidents on college campuses in the months that followed. In some cases, rallies ostensibly for Palestinian human rights have featured chants like “Intifada, Intifada!” (invoking uprising) or slogans such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” – a call that pointedly implies the elimination of Israel. Many Jewish students hear these as calls for violence against Jews or the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state, and thus as fundamentally antisemitic. Pro-Palestinian activists often counter that they only oppose Zionism, not Jews, but the events at places like Cooper Union show how thin that line can become when passions run high. The narrative that Palestinians are complete victims and Israelis (or “Zionists”) are complete villains can easily morph into seeing all Jews as complicit in Palestinian suffering, thereby making any Jew a potential target for anger. This is textbook antisemitism, repackaged in political terms.

It is important to stress that not all supporters of the Palestinian cause condone such harassment or violence. Some pro-Palestinian groups in the West have explicitly condemned antisemitism and drawn lines against targeting Jewish people or glorifying terror. However, the broader climate created by absolving Palestinians of responsibility has undeniably emboldened those who are not only willing to act out violently, but who are actively looking for any excuse to do so. When activists chant “by any means necessary” in support of Palestine, there are always a few who will take it literally. And when moral guardians in media and academia fail to clearly denounce the murder of civilians or the harassment of Jewish neighbors – preferring instead to speak only of colonialism and resistance – it creates a permissive atmosphere for extremism. Each of the incidents above – from Colorado to Pennsylvania to New York – was fueled by the belief that attacking Jews or “Zionists” in the diaspora is somehow a righteous extension of the Palestinian struggle. This twisted idea does not emerge in a vacuum; it feeds on the rhetoric and narratives circulating in our society. As much as advocates of the perpetual-victim paradigm may deplore antisemitic violence, they must reckon with how their one-sided storytelling can serve as an accelerant for such hate. When you tell people day after day that Palestinians are facing genocide and that Israel (sometimes broadened to “the Jews”) is a monstrous, singular evil, eventually some people will feel justified to take drastic action against that perceived evil. In this sense, the narrative of Palestinian non-responsibility isn’t just an abstract intellectual position – it has real and dangerous fallout in pluralistic societies far from the Middle East.

Conclusion: Restoring Agency, Embracing Accountability

The central argument of this essay has been that Palestinians should not be regarded as an exception to the principle of national responsibility. They are not uniquely incapable of shaping their destiny, nor exempt from the cause-and-effect of political choices. Insisting otherwise – however sympathetic the intention – has proven harmful both to Palestinians themselves and to the broader global discourse surrounding their cause. It has encouraged Palestinian leaders to evade accountability, nurtured false hope that absolving one side entirely will bring justice, and fueled extremist currents that express solidarity through hatred. Reversing this dynamic requires a fundamental shift: a willingness by all parties, including Palestinians and their supporters, to reclaim Palestinian agency in both past and future.

What would a shift toward responsibility look like in practice? First and foremost, it would mean telling a more honest story of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict – one that acknowledges tragedy and injustice without erasing the moral agency of Palestinians. This entails educating about the missed opportunities and self-sabotaging decisions discussed earlier, not to assign blame for its own sake, but to learn lessons and avoid repeating them. For Palestinian society, embracing responsibility might involve openly grappling with questions like: Why have we not achieved statehood yet? Could different choices have led to a better outcome? How can we empower leaders who prioritize our children’s future over absolutist slogans? These are hard questions that have often been drowned out by the simpler chorus of victimhood. A new narrative would invite Palestinians to see themselves as protagonists with the power to change course, rather than as permanent pawns of others’ actions.

Within the Palestinian territories, a shift in responsibility could manifest as a push for better governance and reconciliation. It would mean holding leaders accountable for corruption and authoritarianism in the Palestinian Authority and Hamas-controlled Gaza. It might involve renewing democratic processes (stalled for far too long – the last Palestinian elections were in 2006) so that a new generation of leadership can emerge with a mandate to pursue diplomatic solutions and internal reforms. It could also mean a frank internal dialogue about the tactics of resistance: questioning whether armed struggle and maximalist rhetoric have yielded anything except devastation, and whether nonviolent strategies and compromise might better serve the cause of statehood in the long run. Crucially, embracing agency does not require renouncing the pursuit of Palestinian national aspirations – on the contrary, it means pursuing them more effectively, by making wiser choices. It means realizing that saying “no” to every proposal, or expecting the world to deliver one’s demands on a silver platter, has not worked and will not work. A people that owns its mistakes is a people that can also own its future.

For Israel and supporters of Israel, encouraging Palestinian responsibility would likewise be a positive step. It would involve tempering triumphalist narratives and recognizing that a sustainable peace necessitates a empowered Palestinian partner who can deliver on commitments. It means not undermining moderate Palestinian voices or foreclosing horizons through endless settlement expansion. It also means crediting the Palestinian public with the ability to make pragmatic choices if given a real chance. In the long run, Israel’s interest lies in a stable, self-governing Palestinian neighbor – and that can only emerge if Palestinians have the freedom and incentive to take responsibility for building their own state rather than perpetually deflecting blame. International actors, too, should recalibrate their approach: aid and diplomatic support can be tied to benchmarks in governance and peacemaking, rather than treated as entitlements regardless of action. Western activists and media can contribute by adopting a more nuanced narrative – one that centers Palestinian dignity not by infantalizing them, but by treating them as fully human actors, capable of both good and bad, wisdom and error. Respect for Palestinians means expecting from them what we would expect from any people: a commitment to strive for peace, a willingness to compromise for the sake of their children’s future, and a rejection of ideologies that glorify endless war.

In Western public life, a shift in narrative would also help reduce the kind of polarization and radicalism that has recently spilled into violence. If activists and opinion leaders presented a more balanced picture – acknowledging Palestinian suffering and the agency Palestinian leaders have in addressing it – it would undercut the absolutist worldview that fuels antisemitic rage. It is possible to fervently support Palestinian rights while also condemning Palestinian terror; to advocate for an end to occupation while also demanding that Palestinian factions choose diplomacy over violence. Indeed, such a principled, two-sided stance is not only possible but necessary if advocacy is to lead to solutions rather than endless strife. We have seen how one-sided solidarity that ignores one group’s flaws does not actually produce peace or justice; it produces backlash, entrenchment, and sometimes innocent people getting hurt in far-off places (whether a Jewish student in New York or a Jewish governor in Pennsylvania). A more responsible dialogue, by contrast, could open space for healing and mutual recognition – the very ingredients that have been missing for so long.

In reaffirming the central argument, we return to a simple truth: Palestinians are a people like any other, and thus neither angels nor demons, but humans with agency. They are capable of making choices that affect their collective fate. They have done so throughout history – for good or ill – and will continue to do so. Treating them as perpetual victims does not liberate them; it chains them to a narrative of helplessness. Moreover, it distorts the moral logic by which we judge all human conduct, breeding cynicism and extremism. Conversely, holding Palestinians to normal standards of responsibility is not an act of hostility – it is an act of respect. It affirms that they have the power to shape their destiny, and thus the power to change it for the better. As the old saying (often attributed to Abba Eban) goes, the Palestinians “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” Perhaps the time has come for them to seize an opportunity – an opportunity to reclaim ownership of their cause and write a new chapter in their history. That will require courage, self-reflection, and yes, a willingness to accept less than the perfect justice they were promised by past ideologues. But other nations have done this and found that imperfect peace was better than endless perfect war. Palestinians are no different in their capacity for such bravery.

The world, especially the West, can help by no longer indulging the narrative that they are different – that they bear no responsibility for what befalls them. Instead, the world should encourage and empower Palestinians to take the difficult, but ultimately rewarding, path of accountability and compromise. Only by doing so can the cycle of victimhood be broken. Only by embracing responsibility can the Palestinian people become true masters of their own fate, rather than pawns in a story written by others. The road ahead, as always, will be hard. But a future of dignity and statehood will be forged by agents, not victims. The Palestinian people deserve to be seen – and to see themselves – as authors of their destiny, no longer exceptions to history’s lessons, but full participants in history’s making.

But while the tariffs failed the legal test, the instinct that gave rise to them was not without merit. For decades, the U.S. has tolerated an uneven trade landscape in which American goods face punishing tariffs abroad while imports flow freely into our markets. Domestic workers, manufacturers, and entire industries have long suffered under the weight of lopsided trade arrangements that favor multinational efficiency over national resilience. Trump’s move, while legally flawed, forced a conversation that America has long avoided.

From a constitutional perspective, this case reaffirms the structural importance of the separation of powers. Congress, not the President, is vested with the authority to regulate commerce with foreign nations. Emergency statutes like IEEPA are meant to be exceptions, not gateways to unchecked executive action. Courts have long been reluctant to police the line between politics and policy in matters of trade. But when statutory limits are clear, they must be enforced. Otherwise, we risk transforming emergency powers into a permanent workaround for legislative gridlock.

That said, the backlash to these tariffs must not obscure the real issue: American trade policy has grown complacent. China imposes tariffs of 25 percent or higher on key American goods. European and developing markets often weaponize regulatory regimes to shut out U.S. products. Meanwhile, calls for "free trade" in Washington too often ignore the actual asymmetry in global markets. There is nothing free about a system that enables our competitors to wall off their markets while we keep ours wide open.

President Trump’s approach—unilateral, sweeping, and grounded in emergency law—was the wrong way to address this imbalance. But doing nothing is not a viable alternative. The United States needs a comprehensive, forward-looking trade strategy that levels the playing field, protects American industry, and reflects the interests of our workers, not just the preferences of multinational firms.

The court's ruling should serve not only as a constitutional check on presidential overreach but as an invitation for Congress to reassert its rightful role in crafting trade policy. It’s time for lawmakers to confront the hard truth: the global trade system, as currently structured, is not working for the American people. If Congress won’t act, presidents will keep pushing the limits of executive power to fill the void.

And when that happens, courts will be forced to clean up the mess.

The facts are straightforward and undisputed. Liam Morrison, a middle school student in Massachusetts, wore a shirt bearing a simple and biologically rooted assertion. It was neither vulgar nor threatening. He was removed from class, and his expression was deemed to have violated the school’s policy against speech that “targets” protected groups. The litigation that followed challenged this rationale on First Amendment grounds.

The Doctrinal Context

Since Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), it has been well established that students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” But Tinker also permits restrictions when speech materially and substantially disrupts the work and discipline of the school. Courts have since struggled to define the contours of this disruption standard, particularly when the claimed harm is not disorder but offense.

In declining to revisit these boundaries in Morrison, the Court leaves intact a lower court’s reasoning that may permit suppression of student speech based solely on perceived emotional harm, even where there is no evidence of actual disruption. This outcome invites ambiguity regarding the extent to which schools may enforce ideological conformity under the guise of maintaining order.

Cultural Orthodoxy and Constitutional Minimalism

There is a deeper concern at play. The refusal to review this case signals, whether intentionally or not, a toleration of viewpoint discrimination within state institutions. The student’s expression was not inflammatory by any traditional legal standard. That it was nonetheless deemed punishable suggests a shifting paradigm, in which prevailing cultural norms—particularly those surrounding gender ideology—acquire quasi-official status in public education.

While the Court’s role is not to resolve every cultural conflict, its silence in the face of emerging patterns of censorship leaves lower courts, school administrators, and families without clear guidance. In moments of moral and cultural contestation, constitutional interpretation does not occur in a vacuum. The doctrines of neutrality and equal protection for speech require careful stewardship, particularly when expressive rights come into tension with evolving institutional norms.

A Moment Not Seized

To be clear, denying certiorari does not imply endorsement. The Court declines hundreds of petitions each year for reasons unrelated to merit. But in this instance, the underlying issues are neither isolated nor minor. They touch on the scope of the First Amendment in a rapidly changing public square, and on whether students may express traditional or dissenting views in a respectful manner without sanction.

This case was not about whether the student was right. It was about whether he had the right. The jurisprudential opportunity here was not to weigh in on gender, but to reassert that civil liberties are not contingent on alignment with dominant cultural narratives.

In the absence of such reaffirmation, the risk is not merely confusion. It is erosion. When public institutions adopt ideological boundaries for permissible expression, they cease to function as neutral forums. Over time, the constitutional protections that once served as guardrails for pluralism may instead become instruments for gatekeeping.

The Court may well take up a similar case in the near future. If it does, it will face a question that transcends this particular controversy: Will the First Amendment continue to protect unpopular truths as rigorously as it protects popular ones?

That, increasingly, is the constitutional question at the heart of the culture war.

They were shot at close range by Elias Rodriguez, a man with a history of pro-Palestinian activism, who shouted “Free, free Palestine” as he was arrested. His manifesto, which went live shortly after the killings, encouraged others to “bring the war home.” The FBI has labeled the act what it plainly is: targeted, ideologically driven terrorism.

There is no ambiguity here. These were not military officials. They were not combatants. They were murdered because they were visibly Jewish, and because they worked for the Israeli government. And this act did not emerge in a vacuum. It emerged from a climate that has grown increasingly comfortable with antisemitic suggestion, rationalization, and innuendo—across the political spectrum.

Some of that climate, disturbingly, now emanates from certain corners of the right.

It often comes dressed in “anti-globalist” rhetoric, or buried in coded language about loyalty or identity. Sometimes it surfaces as trolling. Sometimes it hides behind claims of irony, or dissident posturing—even under the guise of “just asking questions.” But the core impulse is the same. It looks for a group to blame, often one with names that sound foreign, histories that feel complicated, or institutions that evoke success.

Let me be direct. If you are smuggling antisemitic conspiracies into your “based” content, you’re not part of the conservative movement. You are not an heir to the American tradition. And you are not building anything worth defending.

You are a saboteur. You are riding a movement built by better men than you—men who believed in order, liberty, tradition, and truth—and you are turning it into a pipeline for resentment and rot.

This isn’t just about moral boundaries; it’s about strategic clarity. Antisemitism is not only evil—it’s fundamentally anti-conservative. It undermines everything the movement is supposed to stand for.

A real conservative doesn’t scapegoat groups; he demands accountability from individuals. A real conservative believes in moral law, not mob logic. A real conservative understands that when someone thrives within a merit-based system—when a family flourishes over generations—it isn’t evidence of conspiracy. It’s evidence that the system, at least in part, worked.

You can’t say you’re defending Western civilization while sneering at one of the oldest, most deeply embedded civilizational identities in it. You can’t claim to champion the Judeo-Christian tradition while spreading hatred for Jews. And you can’t carry the banner of America First if what you really mean is “America for me and the people I like.”

President Trump’s record on these matters is clear. He was the most pro-Israel president in American history. He moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem. He brokered the Abraham Accords. He has never equivocated about America’s commitment to our ally or to the Jewish people. If you say you support Trump, but you’re also playing footsie with antisemitism, you’re not honoring his legacy; you’re betraying it.

The path ahead for the right is one that must be morally confident, culturally serious, and spiritually grounded. The road to national renewal will be walked by people who love this country enough to tell the truth, even when it means confronting people on their own side. This is one of those times.

What happened in Washington wasn’t just a tragedy. It was a test. A test of what we’re willing to tolerate, who we’re willing to platform, and what kind of movement we are building. There is no version of victory that includes the people who cheer this on, or excuse it, or share space with it out of cowardice or convenience.

Antisemitism is not just a sickness of the left. It is a temptation on the right as well—and one that must be called out, quarantined, and expelled. Because once it gets in, it spreads. It darkens everything. And it ends, as it always has, in blood.

This isn’t about protecting one group; it’s about protecting the soul of the movement.

If we’re serious about saving the country, this is a line we must not cross.

“[T]he applicants have not asserted that there are any significant legislative votes scheduled in the upcoming weeks; [or] that there are any upcoming votes in which Libby’s participation would impact the outcome…”

Let that sink in. According to Justice Jackson, the absence of a state representative from her elected seat—due to political censure—may not constitute an urgent constitutional harm unless her vote would change the result of a roll call.

This isn’t just an offhand procedural quibble. It’s a window into an increasingly common yet deeply corrosive line of judicial reasoning: that political participation is only meaningful if it’s outcome-determinative. That unless someone’s vote changes the score, it isn’t worth defending.

This logic is not only wrong. It is profoundly anti-democratic.

Voting Isn’t a Numbers Game—It’s a Constitutional Right

Representative Laurel Libby, a sitting member of the Maine House of Representatives, was suspended from voting by her colleagues following a censure. She challenged that sanction in federal court, arguing it violated both her First Amendment rights and the rights of her constituents to legislative representation.

Whether she’s right on the merits is a question that will work its way through the appellate courts. But the idea that her exclusion is not urgent because her vote may not be decisive is a betrayal of the very structure of representative government.

A vote isn’t meaningful only when it tips the scale. A legislative seat is not a lever; it is a voice. To suggest otherwise is to reduce democratic participation to the bluntest form of majoritarian calculus.

Imagine This Applied Elsewhere

Would we say a juror’s exclusion from a trial is harmless unless it leads to a hung jury? Would we say a plaintiff has no standing unless their injury changed the outcome of an election or trial? Of course not.

The Constitution does not say, “No state shall deprive any person of the right to vote unless that vote doesn’t matter.” It protects the structure of representation, not just the outcomes it produces.

This is the same logic that allowed the Court in Rucho v. Common Cause (2019) to declare political gerrymandering a nonjusticiable issue, even while admitting it distorts democracy. If the Court is unwilling to protect the process itself, it is surrendering the field to those who manipulate it with impunity.

A Court That Knows Better

What makes Justice Jackson’s logic here especially frustrating is that the Court has often—and correctly—recognized that procedural rights are rights in themselves. In Powell v. McCormack (1969), the Court held that Congress could not exclude a duly elected representative from taking their seat. The injury was not dependent on whether Powell would change any votes; it was the exclusion itself that mattered.

In election law, First Amendment law, and voting rights jurisprudence, courts routinely protect procedural fairness as an independent constitutional value. To now suggest that a representative’s absence is only urgent if it affects the vote tally reflects either inconsistency or a creeping cynicism about democratic legitimacy.

What's Really Being Said

Let’s be clear: what this reasoning implies is that minority voices don’t count. That unless you control the outcome, your participation is expendable. That silencing a representative is fine so long as the majority still has the numbers to pass its agenda.

That’s not democratic theory. It’s soft authoritarianism wrapped in procedural restraint.

A Shrinking View of Harm

This line of thinking aligns with the Court’s recent pattern of raising the bar for what counts as “irreparable harm” in emergency relief. But it goes further toward a jurisprudence that doesn’t just narrow access to remedies, but narrows the definition of harm itself. And in doing so, it risks rendering certain rights practically unenforceable.

If a state can suspend a duly elected official from voting and the federal courts say, “Come back when your absence changes a vote,” we have ceased to be serious about the right to representation.

Democracy does not depend on outcomes. It depends on process. And when the process itself is denied, the harm is real—regardless of what the vote count says.

Arnold’s central claim is that the administration’s aggressive tactics risk undercutting long-term reform. The better approach, she says, is to work patiently and legally, avoiding overreach, building coalitions with moderate faculty and trustees, and winning change through careful adherence to law and process.

In theory, this sounds wise. In reality, it amounts to unilateral disarmament.

The institutions she’s asking us to gently reform have made clear they have no interest in reforming themselves. Universities didn’t slide into this ideological monoculture by accident. They built it. They reinforced it. And they fought tooth and nail to protect it—whether by embedding DEI statements into faculty hiring, shielding antisemitic protests behind “free expression,” or allowing campus radicals to shout down dissenting voices with administrative impunity.

Arnold warns that if we act too fast or too forcefully, we might alienate moderates. But those moderates already had their moment. For years, centrist faculty and legacy donors stayed silent, even as “diversity” bureaucracies metastasized and students were told that their skin color determined their value. Now that real consequences are finally being imposed, we’re told to slow down—for the sake of institutions that never once hit the brakes while consolidating power.

One example she raises is the administration’s now-infamous letter to Harvard, which threatened to withhold funding unless the university reformed its governance structure and admissions policies. Arnold views this as reckless and legally vulnerable. And she’s right that its rollout was imperfect. But that’s not a reason to retreat. It’s a reason to sharpen. Harvard, and universities like it, receive billions in public funding while operating with the ideological homogeneity of a political party. At some point, the public has a right to ask: what exactly are we subsidizing?

The deeper problem with Arnold’s approach is that it misunderstands the nature of the opposition. Elite universities are not ideologically agnostic institutions that have simply drifted too far left. They are entrenched political actors. They wield credentials as weapons, enforce conformity through policy, and use public resources to shape private belief. You don’t persuade institutions like that with process memos. You challenge them with leverage—and you don’t apologize for doing so.

To be clear: reform must be lawful. But lawful doesn’t mean slow. It doesn’t mean gentle. And it certainly doesn’t mean waiting for internal actors to save the system from itself. The modern university is too complex, too distributed, and too captured for that. As Arnold herself notes, DEI ideology has infected everything from faculty search committees to grant-making criteria. When you inject politics into the bloodstream, you can’t complain that the treatment isn’t surgical.

Arnold’s concern for overreach is real. And she’s right that some valuable programs—like research into cancer detection or AI innovation—may get caught in the net if oversight is clumsy. But that’s not an argument against acting. It’s an argument for acting smartly. We can protect vital research while cutting off public funding for ideological patronage. What we cannot do is pretend we have time to untangle the threads slowly while the garment is still being woven.

She ends on a note of caution: if conservatives overplay their hand, the Left may respond by slamming the door shut through legislation, ensuring that no future administration can use federal leverage to demand reform. That’s possible. But it’s not a reason to hesitate. It’s a reason to get as much done as possible now. The threat isn’t that we’ll go too far. It’s that we won’t go far enough before the window closes.

Arnold believes in reform. So do I. Where we differ is on whether it’s still possible to win this battle without fighting it. I don’t believe it is. The institutions won’t change unless they’re made to. That doesn’t mean chaos. It means resolve. It means using every legal tool available—firmly, intelligently, and unapologetically.

Neetu Arnold has earned her place as a thoughtful reformer. But the time for slow fixes has passed. We’ve spent years diagnosing the disease. The only thing left now is the cure.

This emerging paradox—procedural protections that dilute individual constitutional rights—deserves urgent scrutiny, particularly as federal courts increasingly treat unverified classes as legally operative in the context of deportation, detention, and national security policy. The result is a system in which individuals may be functionally bound by litigation they never joined, represented by counsel they never chose, and deprived of the opportunity to assert claims or defenses unique to their circumstances. In the push to deliver uniform remedies, the judicial system may be sacrificing the very individual autonomy and adversarial protections that due process guarantees.

I. The Rise of Rule 23 in Constitutional and Immigration Litigation

Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides the framework for certifying class actions in federal court. It was crafted to promote efficiency and fairness in cases involving numerous similarly situated plaintiffs—most commonly in the context of consumer, antitrust, and securities law. Over time, however, it has migrated into more constitutionally fraught territory: conditions of confinement, voting rights, public benefits, and now, the enforcement of immigration laws under wartime authority.

The recent wave of litigation challenging deportations of Venezuelan nationals under the AEA is illustrative. Plaintiffs have alleged that the executive branch is invoking national security powers to fast-track removals without individualized hearings, in violation of the Fifth Amendment. To counteract systemic harms, advocates have sought class-wide relief, arguing that common questions of law and fact justify a collective challenge. Some district courts have agreed—certifying or provisionally recognizing classes encompassing all similarly situated noncitizens subject to expedited removal under the Act.

II. The Constitutional Deficiency of Non-Opt-Out Classes

Many of these cases proceed under Rule 23(b)(2), which authorizes class actions for declaratory or injunctive relief and—critically—does not require opt-out rights for absent members. This alone raises significant constitutional concerns. In Phillips Petroleum Co. v. Shutts, the Supreme Court held that due process requires notice and an opportunity to opt out in (b)(3) money damages classes. Yet for classes involving liberty, bodily autonomy, or immigration status—arguably more fundamental interests than money—the procedural protections are weaker.

This contradiction is no minor technicality. Immigrants subject to removal under a class-wide order may never have received formal notice, may disagree with the litigation strategy of named plaintiffs, or may have unique facts supporting asylum, CAT relief, or other defenses. Binding such individuals to a single remedy—crafted for the average class member—may result in the extinguishment of viable constitutional claims without their meaningful participation. And courts often defer to government characterizations of national security or group affiliation in certifying such classes, compounding the risk of overreach.

III. The Problem of the Putative Class

The situation is even more troubling at the putative class stage—before the court has certified anything. In many recent cases, courts and litigants alike begin treating the group of proposed plaintiffs as a legally relevant entity, even before Rule 23 analysis is completed. Government agencies have delayed or stayed individual adjudications on the ground that class-wide relief is pending. Meanwhile, individuals are effectively blocked from pursuing independent legal strategies, trapped in procedural limbo. They are treated like class members for practical purposes—but without the rights or protections of actual class certification.

This de facto coercion violates basic tenets of procedural due process. As the Court held in Hansberry v. Lee, a person cannot be bound by a judgment in a class action unless they were adequately represented and had a meaningful opportunity to be heard. Neither is assured during the putative stage. Worse, when national security or removal policy is at issue, courts may be reluctant to scrutinize the adequacy of representation, deferring instead to the urgency of government interests.

IV. A Structural Problem in Search of a Remedy

The use of class actions in this context is not per se unconstitutional. Indeed, there are many instances—particularly involving structural injunctions or detention conditions—where class certification has served justice. But the reflexive use of Rule 23(b)(2) without opt-out rights, in cases where individual liberty is on the line, creates unacceptable tension with constitutional norms. The stakes are highest in immigration enforcement, where the government's interest in uniformity and expediency must be balanced against each person’s right to be heard.

Courts should revisit the constitutional foundations of Rule 23 in this space. At minimum, they should require individualized notice and the opportunity to opt out in (b)(2) classes where fundamental rights are implicated. Congress, too, should consider legislative reform clarifying that no person may be bound by a class-wide judgment absent clear and voluntary consent. If due process is to mean anything, it must protect individuals not only from the state, but from well-intentioned procedural shortcuts that obscure their voice in the system.

At issue is whether the Biden administration can deport a small group of detainees—176 by Homeland Security’s estimate—under the Alien Enemies Act. Some are allegedly affiliated with foreign terrorist organizations. The district court refused to certify the class. But the Supreme Court, in a surprising administrative move, stepped in last week to temporarily bar removals anyway.

Now the SG is politely but firmly asking the Court to reconsider. She’s right to do so.

First, the procedural posture here is not murky. It’s a mess. The plaintiffs are not a certified class. Their theories of harm vary wildly. The lower court explicitly denied class certification, finding that their claims lacked the cohesion required by Rule 23. In other words: no class, no classwide relief.

Second, the equities have shifted. The longer this stay remains in place, the more it creates a practical Catch-22. Homeland Security cannot remove the detainees, but it also cannot release them. The result? A limbo detention regime that serves neither justice nor public safety. This is the predictable and predicted outcome when courts preemptively halt lawful executive functions without full briefing or a factual record.

The irony here is that many of the same voices who decried the “shadow docket” just a few terms ago are now urging the Court to keep the lights off and the injunctions flowing. But as the SG points out, this is no longer about preserving the status quo. It’s about entrenching a legal fiction that harms the very balance of powers the Court is supposed to protect.

The administration isn’t asking for a blank check. It’s asking to carry out lawful removals under long-standing statutory authority, now backed by the latest district court order denying class status. If individual plaintiffs have credible claims of unlawful detention or removal, they can pursue them individually, just like everyone else.

This Court has often spoken of judicial modesty. It should practice some here. Let the executive execute. The rule of law depends on it.

In plain English, this means the U.S. government will no longer pay more for the exact same medications than any other country in the world. And if that sounds like common sense, it’s because it is. For too long, American taxpayers have played the role of financial backstop for the entire global pharmaceutical market—paying five, even ten times more for the same drugs manufactured in the same labs by the same companies.

This isn’t just a healthcare issue. It’s a matter of economic sovereignty and market discipline.

Pharmaceutical companies and their lobbyists are already flooding the airwaves and op-ed pages with dire warnings. They’ll tell you this is price control, that it’s anti-innovation, that it will devastate R&D investment and leave us without new treatments and cures.

But here’s the truth: this isn’t price control—it’s the largest buyer in the global marketplace finally acting like one.

In any properly functioning market, when a buyer represents a significant share of demand, they negotiate. They demand better prices. They use their market power for the good of their stakeholders. For decades, the U.S. government—despite being the world’s largest pharmaceutical buyer—simply refused to do this. That wasn’t capitalism. That was cowardice, bought and paid for by the pharmaceutical lobby.

The Most Favored Nation policy corrects this failure. It isn’t about punishing pharmaceutical companies. It’s about forcing them to compete on a level playing field—one where the American consumer is no longer treated as an open wallet to be emptied at will.

And what about the inevitable scare tactic? The one that claims this will kill innovation?

Let’s be clear. Pharmaceutical companies have not been spending their inflated profits solely on R&D. Look at the balance sheets. Those billions have gone into stock buybacks, executive compensation, and aggressive marketing campaigns—not into the lab. When you remove the guaranteed profit margins, you don’t destroy innovation. You reignite it.

Competition, not complacency, drives discovery. Fresh off the teat of inflated U.S. revenues, pharma companies will be forced to do what every company in every competitive industry does: find new ways to create value. Bring new, effective products to market. Solve real problems. That’s how they’ll generate revenue in a marketplace that finally demands it.

This policy doesn’t kill the golden goose. It stops the goose from being grotesquely overfed while delivering smaller and smaller eggs.

And let’s not ignore the geopolitical dimension. For decades, other nations—many of them wealthy, industrialized countries—have freeloaded off the American taxpayer. They imposed strict price controls at home knowing full well that U.S. consumers would make up the difference. That is not a free market. That’s a global wealth transfer, engineered by multinational corporations and enabled by weak political leadership.

Trump’s order changes that dynamic overnight.

For the first time in decades, American consumers will pay fair prices for their medications, and U.S. taxpayers will no longer be forced to subsidize the healthcare costs of the rest of the world. This is not a retreat from free markets. It’s the most powerful expression of free market principles we’ve seen applied to the pharmaceutical industry in our lifetime.

If you believe in the power of markets, this is the reform you should be cheering. Because this time, the invisible hand just got a lot stronger.

That same spirit is under threat today, and the fight to preserve it has reached the highest court in the land. Just weeks ago, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Mahmoud v. Taylor, a case that will decide whether parents have the right to opt their children out of classroom instruction that conflicts with their moral and religious beliefs. At issue is whether public schools can require children to participate in lessons featuring LGBTQ+ themes without even offering parents the chance to say, “This isn’t right for our family.”

Supporters of the school district’s policy call this a matter of inclusion and tolerance. But inclusion for whom? And tolerance for what? These are questions that mothers and fathers—not government institutions—have a fundamental right to answer for their children. The district argues that allowing parents to opt out would create a discriminatory environment, assuming without debate that the state’s ideological framework is both correct and compulsory.

The Supreme Court made its view clear nearly a century ago in Pierce v. Society of Sisters, declaring that “the child is not the mere creature of the state.” Yet today, we’re once again asking whether parents should have any meaningful say in the most personal and formative parts of their children’s upbringing. If the Court rules against parental opt-out, it will mark a new low point in the state’s encroachment on family life.

If we want to truly honor mothers, we must defend their irreplaceable role as the first and most enduring teachers of their children. That means standing firm against institutions that believe they are entitled to replace parental wisdom with ideological programming.

Today, I remember my mom, Debi—not for her compliance, but for her courage to live and raise her children according to her own convictions. That is what every mother deserves the freedom to do. And that is a freedom worth fighting for, long after the flowers have faded and the brunch reservations are forgotten.