A President for Life?

Today’s Lineup

Here’s what I’ve found interesting: an attack on presidential term limits, Trump’s abortion announcement doesn’t mean shit, the envoy courting the global far right, pro-Russia propaganda in the House, why the media normalizes Trump, facial recognition technology jeopardizes the right to protest, the government isn’t prepared for another insurrection, drone swarms, and a reminder that this isn’t the first time women’s sports has proven popular on television.

#1

Project 2025 reveals its goal: Trump as president for life (Lisa Needham, Public Notice)

Project 2025, the Republican plan to functionally annihilate not just the federal government but democracy as well if Trump wins in November, is an unceasing parade of horrors.

Banning the abortion pill nationwide? Check. Rolling back protections for LGBTQ people? Check. Deporting literally millions of undocumented immigrants? Check. But amid each objectively horrible aim is an even more more insidious one: abolishing the 22nd Amendment, which limits presidents to two terms. It’s an unvarnished, right-out-in-the-open plan to keep Trump in office well past 2028. 

It’s not as if this is genuinely unexpected. By July 2019, Trump had “joked” at least six times about being president for life. Floating that as a possibility, as Peter Tonguette did last week over at The American Conservative, is a great opportunity to show fealty to a candidate who values loyalty over all else. 

WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING: 

I believe we are fortunate that the former president and his supporters are being so explicit about their plans for a second Trump term. It would be easier to claim that people like me are being alarmist if they relied instead on dog whistles, winks, and nods. That said, I suspect this article is only the opening bid in this conversation. Are you willing to bet that this MAGA Supreme Court—one that has already demonstrated a willingness to work around the plain language of the 14th Amendment—wouldn’t figure out an innovative way to re-interpret the 22nd Amendment? I’m hoping our country doesn’t take that risk.

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#2

Trump’s Abortion Announcement: It doesn’t mean shit (Jessica Valenti, Abortion, Every Day)

The thing that’s most important to know is that this ‘announcement’ doesn’t mean shit—at least, not in terms of how dangerous another Trump presidency would be. Conservatives’ abortion plan for a second Trump administration has never been reliant on a national ban, because they know they might not be able to get the votes. Instead, the focus is on using control of the FDA and the DOJ to implement backdoor bans.

By replacing the head of the FDA, a Trump administration would rescind approval of mifepristone, one of the two medications used to end a pregnancy. With the DOJ, they’d ensure that the Comstock Act, the 19th century zombie law that makes it illegal to ship ‘obscene’ materials, would be used to stop the mailing of abortion medication or supplies. (That’s not a political prediction, by the way—it’s a plan conservatives have explicitly laid out in Project 2025.)

As Jonathan Mitchell, the architect of the Texas abortion ban and a powerful anti-choice activist, said in February, “We don’t need a federal ban when we have Comstock on the books…There’s a smorgasbord of options.”

WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING: 

When Donald Trump doesn’t claim credit for overturning Roe v. Wade, he tries to confuse voters about what his election would mean for reproductive healthcare rights. He seems to understand how politically toxic strict abortion bans have proven in the past two elections. Valenti explains why we shouldn’t fall for Trumpian misdirection. The substance of Trump’s position is not moderate—even if far too many reporters are falling for his rhetoric. We are fortunate that so many Republicans and forced-birth advocates are talking so much about using control of the FDA and resurrecting the 1873 Comstock Act to make a nationwide ban happen regardless of who controls Congress. Democrats must explain to voters how Trump can use Executive actions to make a ban happen. This needs to be a major focus of the campaign. The filibuster won’t save the blue states from a Trump Department of Justice enforcing the Comstock Act and a Trump Food and Drug Administration withdrawing its approval of abortion medication.  

#3

‘Building an authoritarian axis’: the Trump ‘envoy’ courting the global far right (Robert Tait, The Guardian)

For Donald Trump, he is “my envoy”, the man apparently anointed as the former US president’s roving ambassador while he plots a return to the White House.

To critics, he is seen as “an online pest” and “a national disgrace” – and most importantly, the dark embodiment of what foreign policy in a second Trump administration would look like.

Meet Richard Grenell, vocal tribune of Trump’s America First credo on the international stage and the man hotly tipped to become secretary of state if the presumed Republican nominee beats Joe Biden in November’s presidential election.

A senior executive in the rightwing Newsmax cable channel, Grenell, 57, has crafted a persona as the archetypal Trump man, keen and ever-ready to troll liberals, allies and foreign statesmen in public forums and social media.

WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING: 

As Robert Tait explains in this article, Richard Grenell is traveling the world and meddling in the nation’s foreign policy on Trump’s behalf. He is sowing confusion among U.S. diplomats. He is making our allies question our national commitments. He is empowering far-right politicians. And, as Joe Cirincione explains, “It looks as though Grenell is trying to build up a developing authoritarian network of rightwing leaders to form this authoritarian axis that Trump might govern by – ranging from Putin to [Viktor] Orbán [prime minister of Hungary] to Erdoğan. All these are anti-democratic forces and use the simple playbook of using democracy to overthrow democracy.” Yeah, I think that’s a result we should strive to avoid. 

#4

Top Republican warns pro-Russia messages are echoed ‘on the House floor’ (Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Abigail Hauslohner, The Washington Post)

Rep. Michael R. Turner (R-Ohio), who chairs the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Sunday that it was “absolutely true” that some Republican members of Congress were repeating Russian propaganda about the invasion of Ukraine instigated by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Turner did not specify which members he was referring to, but he said he agreed with House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), who said in an interview with Puck News last week that Russian propaganda had “infected a good chunk of my party’s base” and suggested that conservative media was to blame.

When asked on Sunday, Turner said he agreed with McCaul’s sentiments.

“We see directly coming from Russia attempts to mask communications that are anti-Ukraine and pro-Russia messages — some of which we even hear being uttered on the House floor,” Turner said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING: 

Yes, you read that correctly. The Republican Chairs of the House Intelligence and Foreign Affairs Committees are now on the record stating that some of their colleagues—and conservative media outlets—are pushing Russian propaganda. Um, it seems like this claim should be a bigger deal? Republican leaders should be asked to provide the American people with more details. Republicans opposing the Ukrainian aid bill’s passage should be asked to explain whether they are sharing Russian propaganda. We must not sweep this under the political rug. Also of note: the Washington Post’s Catherine Belton and Joseph Menn reveal in this story newly discovered Kremlin documents that explain how Russian trolls are seeking to influence Republican House members and right-wing media outlets. It’s working.

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#5

Why is the Press Making Trump Seem More Normal? (Dan Pfeiffer, The Message Box)

Yes, a presidential candidate [Donald Trump] just accused the sitting President of the United States of delivering the State of the Union address while high on cocaine. I’m guessing that unless you listened to the Friday episode of Pod Save America, most of you are learning this information for the first time. And it’s not because you aren’t avid consumers of news. It’s because the traditional political media decided to ignore this outlandish accusation from a clearly deranged and dishonest man (and the next potential President of the United States). The press is aware of the interview. Hewitt is not a MAGA content creator who operates in the dark corners of the internet. He is — bizarrely and unfortunately — a member of the Washington establishment in good standing. The reporters who cover Trump listened to the interview and many wrote stories about his comments on Israel and Gaza, but they made an editorial decision to bury Trump’s insane accusations.

Clearly, Donald Trump accusing Biden of being a cokehead is not the biggest issue in the election. But I think the incident reveals how the press’s coverage of Trump ends up advantaging him and making Biden’s road to reelection that much steeper.

WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING: 

So yeah, that happened. Why isn’t Trump’s outrageous claim a bigger story? Pfeiffer helpfully explains some of the dynamics at play. Trump’s constant outrageous statements and Bannonian ability to “flood the zone with shit” have created an environment where reporters downplay his insanity in misguided attempts to appear objective. This is one of the reasons I agree with Rachel Leingang’s recent Guardian analysis that calls on people to watch an entire Trump speech to understand what kind of president he would be in a potential second term. As Leingang writes, “Watching a Trump speech in full better shows what it’s like inside his head: a smorgasbord of falsehoods, personal and professional vendettas, frequent comparisons to other famous people, a couple of handfuls of simple policy ideas, and a lot of non sequiturs that veer into barely intelligible stories.” 

#6

The changing face of protest. Mass protests used to offer a degree of safety in numbers. Facial recognition technology changes the equation. (Darren Loucaides, Rest of World)

Authorities are often secretive about their use of facial recognition at protests. Often, the people arrested are not told whether the technology has played a role in their detention, even if they suspect it. Over six months, Rest of World spoke to researchers, activists, and people targeted by facial recognition systems around the world to track how this technology is upending protest as we know it. We found evidence of facial recognition tools being used at major protests worldwide, often in a way that clashes with civil liberties. The context may vary by location, but the overall outcome is shared: Facial recognition technology is making the act of protest riskier than ever, putting demonstrators at greater risk of persecution, exacerbating the targeting of minority groups, and changing the way people express dissent. 

Combined with a rise in authoritarianism in many countries, some activists and civil groups even fear that the increased use of facial recognition could mean an end to protest as we know it. “I don’t see [almost] any protest anywhere,” Shivangi Narayan, a sociologist in India who studies digital policing, told Rest of World. “Even a person like me who’s working on government surveillance and policing — I’m wary of who I’m talking to.”

Now, if she knows there will be CCTV surveillance at a particular location, Narayan avoids the area, or covers her face.

WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING: 

Polling data suggests that many people support law enforcement’s use of facial recognition technology. This article examines how quickly authorities use facial recognition for preventative detention or to disrupt protest movements. This story opens with a person detained by Russian police while entering the transit system to ensure she does not go to a protest. We also learn how governments are targeting minorities and trying to use emotion detection to determine whether a protest could turn violent. I suspect the bar on that determination will be quite low to allow the police to act quickly. Our political leaders should be doing more now to regulate facial recognition technology before it leads to law enforcement harassment here. Unfortunately, with a few state exceptions, governments in the United States have demonstrated an inability to address technology’s negative impacts on our society in a timely fashion.

#7

The Government Isn’t Ready for the Violence Trump Might Unleash (Juliette Kayyem, The Atlantic)

Trump could well prevail, polls suggest, but the former president is already making plans to undermine the result should he lose. In 2021, his refusal to admit defeat led to a bloody riot at the Capitol. As a candidate for reelection, Biden has every reason to warn voters about his Republican opponent’s dangerous assault on democratic norms. But as the president of the United States, Biden should also be pushing executive-branch agencies to protect the casting and counting of votes against violent interference and to ward off attempts to interfere with the certification of November’s outcome. He is obliged, in other words, to make sure that, regardless of whether he or Trump wins, the victor will be able to take office peacefully.

The January 6th Committee is best remembered for its damning account of what happened that day, and of the forces that led up to those events. But the committee’s report points to some of the preparations that urgently need to be made. The panel highlighted gaps among federal agencies in their protocols for sharing intelligence about extremism and other domestic threats to our democracy.

WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING: 

One of my pet peeves is our federal government’s repeated failure to enact fixes to critical problems uncovered after catastrophic events. A few of you know that I can talk for hours about our national inability to implement the Continuity of Government Commission’s recommendations after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. To this day, the United States would not be able to convene the House of Representatives for up to four months if there were a mass casualty event involving its members. (While it is possible to appoint replacement Senators, the Constitution currently only permits special elections to fill House vacancies.) There have been TWO (!) commission reports making recommendations to ensure the Continuity of Congress since September 11, 2001. (Here’s the most recent report, updated to address issues that arose during the pandemic and the 2020 election.) Anyway, let’s return to the subject at hand: since Donald Trump broke the tradition of peaceful transfers of power in 2021, we can no longer assume that these moments will pass without incident. Complacency is no longer an option. So, I would like to see the Biden Administration take public action to implement the recommendations to protect the electoral vote count and inauguration in 2025. The clock is ticking—and the danger is rising. Perhaps a sense of urgency is in order here?

#8

Drone Swarms Are About to Change the Balance of Military Power (Elliot Ackerman and James Stavridis, Wall Street Journal)

The Shahed-model drone that killed three U.S. service members at a remote base in Jordan on Jan. 28 cost around $20,000. It was part of a family of drones built by Shahed Aviation Industries Research Center, an Iranian company run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. A thousand miles away and three days later, on the night of Jan. 31 into the morning of Feb. 1, unmanned maritime drones deployed by Ukraine’s secretive Unit 13 sunk the $70 million Russian warship Ivanovets in the Black Sea. And for the past several months, Houthi proxies have shut down billions of dollars of trade through the Gulf of Aden through similarly inexpensive drone attacks on maritime shipping. Drones have become suddenly ubiquitous on the battlefield—but we are only at the dawn of this new age in warfare.

This would not be the first time that a low-cost technology and a new conception of warfare combined to supplant high-cost technologies based on old ways. History is littered with similar stories.

WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING: 

I recently finished reading Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2020 book, The Ministry for the Future. The novel takes place in the near future, as the world finally addresses the climate emergency after a series of mass casualty events. One of the book’s plot points examines how the innovative use of drones could put an end to carbon-intensive industries after governments prove too slow to address the challenge. As one example, the novel imagines how an organization could use swarms of drones to force numerous commercial and private airplanes to crash. After this Crash Day, people aren’t willing to purchase tickets to fly, and carbon-free transportation—like airships—becomes a necessity. Anyway, I think we are going to see drones used in remarkable and not-so-obvious ways over the next few years. Drone technology could transform warfare, especially if it could be connected to artificial intelligence. I am sure our military-industrial complex will not be thrilled to see some of their expensive items become obsolete as a result. 

#9

The check-in: It could have always been this way (Lindsay Gibbs, Power Plays)

As I wrote last year, the first NCAA women’s title game in 1982, which saw Louisiana Tech defeat Cheyney State, earned a “7.3 rating and 22 Nielsen share at noon on Sunday, March 28,” per Jack Bogaczyk of the Roanoke Times. For comparison, in 1983, CBS averaged a 7.2 rating for the NBA and a 5.2 rating for NCAA regular-season men’s games.

A staggering 11.84 million people tuned in for the 1983 championship game between USC and Louisiana Tech, according to Sports Media Watch. This was the national television debut of Cheryl Miller and the Women of Troy. In 1986, 11.22 million viewers tuned in to watch the final game of Miller’s college career, USC’s loss to Texas in the final. 

Yes, Clark and Angel Reese are magnetic, groundbreaking forces of nature on and off the court, but you cannot have the conversation about transcendent talents and personalities in women’s college basketball without Miller.

WHY I FIND IT INTERESTING: 

I am thrilled to see the increased interest in women’s sports over the past few years. The NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship Game on Sunday afternoon had a higher rating than the Men’s final on Monday night. We have witnessed record television ratings, paid attendances, and professional franchise values for women’s basketball, soccer, ice hockey, volleyball, and other sports. It is about time—but it didn’t have to take this long. I was glad to see Gibbs remind people that this is not the first time women’s sports generated higher ratings than men’s contests. But, as Gibbs explains, media executives and advertisers didn’t take advantage of the moment. I hope we don’t see the same mistake this time around.

Quick Pitches

• How to spot a manipulated image (Richard Gray, BBC)
  We all need to learn ways to identify misinformation.
• The urban legend that won’t die on this deadly Bay Area highway (Susana Guerrero, Madilynne Medina, SFGate)
  As someone who has traveled Niles Canyon Road, I can see how the ”ghost girl” urban legend could persist. Anyway, drive it with caution.
• People Are Confused Why “Jeff” Is On A List Of Nuclear Superpowers (James Felton, IFL Science)
  When a data mishap and an acronym may make you wonder why a friend has as many nuclear weapons as North Korea.
• A faster spinning Earth may cause timekeepers to subtract a second from world clocks (Seth Borenstein, Associated Press)At least this change shouldn’t be as annoying as springing forward each year.
• White House directs NASA to create time standard for the moon (Joey Roulette and Will Dunham, Reuters)Clocks move at a different rate on the moon because of the different gravitational forces. So this is something we do need to work out before we go there regularly.
• ‘Wi-Fi’ Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Means (Matt Novak, Gizmodo)
  When marketing wins in unexpected ways.

Post-Game Comments

Today’s Thought from my Readwise collection:

“To be clear, concluding in brief: there is enough for all. So there should be no more people living in poverty. And there should be no more billionaires. Enough should be a human right, a floor below which no one can fall; also a ceiling above which no one can rise. Enough is as good as a feast—or better. Arranging this situation is left as an exercise for the reader.”—Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future

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