Killing Democracy—And Not Bothering to Hide It
The assault is happening in plain sight, from the Epstein case to Texas reapportionment to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
We talk a lot about failing institutions. But you know what matters more? People. Because people create new institutions, like the Washington Litigation Group, a new legal nonprofit designed to fight the Trump administration in court:
The new group aims to bring appellate expertise to the very beginning of a client’s case, an approach that its founders say will improve the odds of making a successful argument before the Supreme Court.
It’s a game plan straight out of the Big Law playbook. But when many large firms receded from this type of work to avoid drawing Mr. Trump’s wrath, it created a void.
As one of the first institutions founded in opposition to Trumpism, we at The Bulwark welcome new members to the extended family. In troubled times, it’s inspiring to see people uniting to do what’s right, whether filing a lawsuit or becoming Bulwark+ members. Happy Monday.
Democracy Dies in Daylight
by William Kristol
In the last few days, it seems as if we’ve reached a new stage in the attempted authoritarian takeover of American democracy. It’s not just that the multi-faceted assault on the truth, on the rule of law, on a free society has picked up steam—though it has. It’s that the assault, from our own government, now proceeds so openly and unashamedly.
Once, if there were bad economic statistics, the president and his supporters tried to spin them. Now the president and his supporters simply deny them. And those who produced them are punished. And so President Trump fires, with no pretense of real cause or justification, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a career civil servant who has supervised a host of other career civil servants in producing these statistics, as they have for decades. And he brazenly lies in accusing her and a host of other civil servants of “rigging” their findings.
This is part of a broader pattern of the transformation of government information into pure propaganda. Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard—using the resources of the federal agencies they direct—have taken the lead in this. But they are only the tip of the Trump spear.
Once, if a president or his subordinates wanted to cover up a problem, even a crime, they made labored efforts at obfuscation and concealment. Coverups were, as the term implies, pursued under the cover of darkness. That’s why the Washington Post, with the experience of Watergate in mind, came up at the beginning of Trump’s first term with the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” But that slogan applies to a different era.
Now Ghislaine Maxwell, one of two organizers of a massive and horrendous child sex trafficking ring of which Donald Trump appears to have had considerable contemporaneous knowledge, meets with the deputy attorney general of the United States—who had previously been Trump’s private lawyer—and the White House openly embraces it. A week later, contrary to the normal rules for a prisoner convicted of her crimes, Maxwell is transferred to a minimum security “Club Fed” facility. This was presumably as a down payment on not spilling the beans about Trump, and perhaps as an interim step on the way to a pardon. This coverup is happening in broad daylight.
Once, state legislators redistricted congressional seats every ten years, after the constitutionally mandated census. These reapportionments were often accompanied by gerrymandering. But, with a notable exception, the partisan power grabs were at least adjacent to a regular and lawful process. They were at least somewhat constrained by calendars and custom.
Now the governor of Texas has decided, at the public urging of the president of the United States, to have his state legislature carry out a gerrymander mid-decade, so as to try to preserve a Republican majority in the House of Representatives for the final two years of Trump’s term. And it seems other red states will follow.
There is no pretense here other than a grab for power. It is the unconstrained use of the instrumentalities of government, state and federal, to hold on to control of the House.
The New York Times quotes “one person close to the president” as summing up the approach of the Trump White House as “maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time.” It’s important to add that it’s not just maximum warfare by one party against the other. It’s warfare by the government of the United States against the justice system, against the presentation of true facts, against free and fair elections. It’s maximum warfare against the norms and institutions of a liberal democracy and republican self-government.
It was one hundred and eleven years ago—at the beginning of August 1914—that a long-established and seemingly solid international order came crashing down. Now at the beginning of August 2025, it seems as if the authoritarian assault on the long-established and seemingly solid institutions of American democracy has reached a critical point. The nations of Europe had the excuse that they did not know and could not see that they were careening into an abyss. We have no such excuse. Today, in the United States of America, liberal democracy is being killed not in darkness but in broad daylight.
Run, Andy, Run!... for Senate
by Mike Murphy
Kentucky’s two-term Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear is seriously exploring a possible 2028 race for president after his term ends in 2027.
That would be a mistake. In the modern Democratic primary electorate, a white male candidate with a moderate record would face an uphill battle.
So, what is an ambitious, talented Democratic governor with a long record of winning races in ruby-red Kentucky to do? Simple: Run for retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell’s open seat. Beshear could win and become a national hero to Democrats hoping to seize control of the Senate next year.
Beshear’s fellow Democratic governor, Roy Cooper of North Carolina, took that path last week, jumping into the race for retiring GOP Sen. Thom Tillis’s now-open seat. As a well-liked, moderate Democrat, Cooper is such a strong Senate contender that even Donald Trump became an overnight Mr. Chicken, quickly squelching his higher-office-craving daughter-in-law Lara’s plans to run for the seat herself as the Republican nominee. Trump could smell an embarrassing North Carolina loss coming all the way down in Mar-a-Lago. And nothing gives the POTUS the heebie-jeebies more than the specter of a Trump giving a concession speech.
While the Democrats look, at least historically, likely to do well in the House elections next year, until recently their chances in the 2026 Senate contests have looked dim.
Why? A tough map full of safe GOP seats and a few shaky Democratic incumbents. To win control, the Democrats need to defend all their seats and pick up four Republican-held ones. The pickings looked impossibly slim, but for a recently unlucky party, the Democrats have caught a few good breaks in recent weeks.
Before Tillis’s retirement announcement and Cooper’s decision to jump into the race, giving Democrats a real shot to win North Carolina. Plus, Republicans were still recovering from Georgia’s popular Republican Governor Brian Kemp’s decision in May to pass on what most handicappers thought would be a victorious run for Georgia’s Democratic-held Senate seat, leaving the GOP nomination open to a bunch of second-tier contenders, each of whom carry a few tons of the GOP’s au courant tinfoil hat baggage. So give incumbent Democratic Sen. John Ossoff a decent edge to hold on.
What else is in play? Wily Maine survivor Susan Collins is up for reelection. Her races are often tight and never certain. Other GOP incumbents who hold advantages but are not home free include Joni Ernst in Iowa and John Cornyn in Texas, who faces a tough primary against the state’s lightning-rod attorney general, Ken Paxton, who would be a far less attractive general-election candidate.
Finally, there are the metal-bending states of Michigan and Ohio, both likely to feel the worst effects of Trump’s painful tariff policy next year on manufacturing and automotive jobs. Michigan is an open seat and Ohio freshman Sen. Jon Husted could provide a longshot opportunity for Democrats if the state’s voters feel enough economic pain next year. Finally, quirky Alaska politics can fuel upsets, and if she runs, former Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola could be a formidable challenger to incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan.
And then there’s Kentucky. McConnell’s seat has been rated 100 percent safe Republican. But Beshear, who has beaten GOP candidates three times in statewide elections (for attorney general in 2015 and for governor twice after that), would instantly make Kentucky a real contest.
If next year does become a historically typical "wave” election fueled by midterm frustrations, high Trump negatives, and voter anger about the economy and prices, Beshear could be the real Democratic hero of the moment, achieving the magical fourth win that would give Democrats majority control of the Senate and change everything. And doing it by winning Mitch McConnell’s old seat! Ah the irony.
Still, there are no guarantees. Other Democratic governors from red states, like Evan Bayh of Indiana and Phil Bresdesan of Tennessee, have run for Senate and flamed out. In state races, Democratic gubernatorial candidates can create their own independent images. In a Senate contest, moderate Democratic candidates find themselves awkwardly trapped defending Bernie Sanders and AOC. But in plenty of Senate-flipping midterm elections (like 1986, 1994, 2006, and 2014) strong Senate candidates with local muscle can ride the wave to victory.
Finally, Govs. Beshear and Cooper becoming the Democratic comeback story of the 2026 Senate would send a national message from the Democrats as well: Forget Mayor Mamdani in New York City, the big news is that moderate Democrats can compete and win red states.
So what will it be, Gov. Beshear? A pie-in-the-sky presidential primary race in two years? Or step up and join Gov. Cooper in putting a previously safe GOP Senate seat into play during the most critical Senate elections our country has faced in a long time? The choice is easy: File and run.
Mike Murphy is a longtime Republican strategist and campaign manager and co-director of the Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California.
AROUND THE BULWARK
What’s Behind Trump’s New (Old) Physical-Fitness Test? He misrepresented the history of the gym-class test. I know because I served on the council that helped modernize it, writes GEN. MARK HERTLING.
How Kash Patel Was Duped… Trump’s lickspittle FBI director fell for obviously fake Russian documents. CATHY YOUNG on Wizard Kash’s “smoking gun.”
Fight Everywhere or Lose Everything! DAVID PEPPER joins JOHN AVLON on How to Fix It to talk about everything from gerrymandering and Trump’s push for new maps in Texas to how everyday citizens can fight back by running for local office, registering voters, and holding the corrupt accountable.
Trump Smashed an Obama Legacy Item… Harming many and pleasing few. Not even industry lobbyists are rushing to praise it, reports JONATHAN COHN in The Breakdown.
Quick Hits
BUREAU OF LYING STATISTICS: There’s an old saying: There’s lies, damned lies, and statistics. That old saying appears now to be government policy. After Friday’s abysmal jobs report, Donald Trump fired the head of the agency that collects and publishes employment numbers and other macroeconomic data. Erika McEnarfer is out as commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics; Deputy Commissioner William Wiatrowski is in. A full-time replacement, Trump said Sunday, would be announced in “three-to-four” days.
In his Truth Social screed demanding that the wrecker and saboteur McEnarfer be removed, Trump claimed that the jobs numbers were “faked.” He elaborated on Sunday.
“The numbers were ridiculous, what she announced. But that was just one negative number. All of the numbers seem to be great,” said Trump. “So it’s a scam, in my opinion. In my opinion, it’s just additional scam.”
Of course, Trump expressed no suspicions when using previous jobs reports from the McEnarfer-led BLS to attack Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on numerous occasions.
How replacing McEnarfer will change the jobs numbers in a direction Trump likes is unclear. Wiatrowski isn’t a Trump appointee. Whoever comes next will surely be a closer ally. And he or she will feel intense pressure. But putting together the monthly reports is also not the act of a single person, but dozens.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by about 1.5 percent immediately after the jobs report came out Friday morning. The S&P 500 fell by slightly more, and the Nasdaq was down about 2.3 percent. We’ll see how the markets react this morning. If anything, though, it seems like they’re failing to appreciate the consequences of Trump monkeying with the government’s ability to collect and publish honest economic information. For that matter, so is Trump.
STILL IN GAZA, OUT OF IDEAS: It’s not uncommon for presidents to turn to foreign policy in their second terms both because they have (relatively) little power domestically and they know their actions on the world stage will shape their legacy. Donald Trump doesn’t have to worry about the former. But he clearly cares about the latter—and is making a strong attempt to be regarded as a global peacemaker.1
Trump’s latest attempt to solve the world’s hardest problem is a radical departure from past diplomacy: Instead of trying something new, the administration is trying nothing new. Per the New York Times:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Mr. Trump are said to be working on a new proposal that would involve presenting Hamas with an ultimatum, according to reports in the Israeli news media that were confirmed on Sunday by a person familiar with the matter. . . . Under the terms of the ultimatum, Hamas would have to release the remaining hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and agree to terms to end the war that include the group’s disarmament. Otherwise, the Israeli military would continue its campaign.
The reason the war in Gaza drags on is that the decision-makers on both sides want to keep it going. Netanyahu has no plan for a post-war Gaza and fears that after the war his government will fall, which could result in an official inquiry into his leadership before, during, and after the October 7th attacks, and also his incarceration on corruption charges. Hamas, if it hopes to retain any kind of future, has to try to force Israel to withdraw from Gaza and give Hamas room to reconstitute before it returns the remaining hostages.
In Trump’s latest formulation, either Hamas continues to face systematic dismantling by Israel (with many Gazan civilians immiserated, injured, and killed along the way) or Hamas continues to face systematic dismantling by Israel and gives up the hostages and agrees to disarm. It’s not hard to see why Netanyahu wants to prolong the war. It is hard to see why Trump does.
THIS STATE AIN’T BIG ENOUGH FOR ALL OF US: As Bill mentioned above, Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott, acting on Donald Trump’s instruction, called a special session of the state’s legislature last month to redraw Texas’s congressional map in the hope of gaining five more seats for Republicans. The maps were presented last week, and on Sunday, in a bid to prevent them from passing, Texas House Democrats left the state to deny the chamber a quorum.
As the Wall Street Journal points out, Texas Democrats have tried this tactic before—and failed.
Texas Democrats have resorted to quorum-breaks before in an effort to kill bills, most recently in 2021, when they staged a 38-day standoff against a bill to tighten election procedures across the state. House Democrats then walked out ahead of a voting deadline at the end of the state’s regular legislative session and fled the state as a 30-day special session began, waiting it out in Washington, D.C. But Abbott, who has the sole power to call special sessions, immediately began a second one, and Democrats eventually returned.
National Democrats privately say they expect a similar outcome this go around. But if there’s a reason to be slightly optimistic, it’s that even Texas Republicans aren’t entirely thrilled about the new maps. Abbott was reticent at first to call the special session in the first place—though predictably he gave in quickly to Trump’s demands. The big losers here are the Republicans in the Texas congressional delegation, who currently find themselves safely ensconced in seats designed to be easy for them to win, but who in new districts could face tough primaries (including possibly against each other) and more competitive general elections—though maybe not competitive enough to lose.
Cheap Shots
If you haven’t read it yet, read Gen. Mark Hertling’s excellent article on the major conflicts around the world and why creating peace is a lot more difficult than buying an apartment building.
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Would you fire your doctor for telling you your red blood cell count was too low? And if you did fire your doctor, would you then expect your health to improve? We are being asked by our dear leader to believe that it would, but his justifications for this nonsense are the usual anemic claptrap, and the blue-blooded sycophants he trots out to try to make it seem otherwise only make my blood boil.
So, the way I see it with Ghislane Maxwell, we have a president convicted of improper sexual activity (Trump) mollycoddling a convicted sex criminal (Maxwell), who procured young women (many of them children) for a dead convicted sex criminal (Epstein), in order to keep her and her family from producing "the receipts" on the connections/joint activities of the president (Trump), and perhaps others, to the press. How can anyone in the USA not grasp this basic pattern?