u/iamthegodemperor

Summary: MattY explains why the narrative "moderates vs left" is unhelpful.

A Graham Platner and a Troy Jackson are from different factions.

Platner is from the insurgent left. They tend to follow Bernie Sanders, campaign against Democrats and tend to rely on their personal charisma.

Jackson is part of the progressive establishment. These are more conventional, play by party rules, politicians (who in turn are more deferential to interest groups)

Yglesias goes on to describe how these factions do and don't get along, how the insurgent left can be more ideologically flexible at times and the dangers they pose:

He also explains why moderates are better served thinking in these terms:

Somewhat curiously at the end, MattY floats possibility that while insurgents can be dangerous, the ability to say no to progressive interest groups may be valuable.

Quotes:

>Part of what’s frustrating to moderates right now is that the drama over the Insurgent Left has managed to largely erase the existence of the Progressive Establishment, creating a sense that party leadership, incumbent officeholders, and the Democratic Party status quo are all aligned around moderation.

>....The surprisingly sweeping nature of the Biden policy agenda reflected the circumstances of the pandemic and the ideas of the Progressive Establishment. The agenda came from the progressive think tanks and the progressive advocacy infrastructure and was driven by the insertion into key roles of personnel who believed that being responsive to progressive advocacy infrastructure was the most important thing.

>It’s not, of course, that the Progressive Establishment got its way on every single issue. But I do think that with Biden’s domestic policy, the question was always whether ideas emanating from the Progressive Establishment would be adopted.

>The Biden administration undertook no significant moderate or reformist initiatives of any kind. There was no equivalent to Bill Clinton’s welfare reform or Barack Obama’s push for performance pay for K-12 teachers.

>The Progressive Establishment, to be fair, did the work. They did the organizing, built the media infrastructure, persuaded elites, and basically called the tune. It’s embarrassing for them that it didn’t work well, but objective observers of the scene should acknowledge that this is what happened. The Insurgent Left augurs a new approach to Israel, involves running some perhaps-unwise electoral risks (there’s way more downside to Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan than to less-edgy Peggy Flanagan in bluer Minnesota), and threatens to make life uncomfortable for incumbents. But it’s an insurgency against a set of party leaders who already embraced the bulk of the progressive agenda in large part because (except on Israel) the donors party leaders listen to are very progressive.

>Conversely, I think moderates are excessively focused on complaining about the insurgents.

>It’s true that as a matter of causation, a big reason that Democrats have moved so far left over the past 10 or 15 years is the activity of the Insurgent Left. But in terms of what specifically is happening, the story is that party leaders keep ceding more and more decision-making to the Progressive Establishment, not that insurgents have won all the primaries and taken over. If people who want Democrats to be more willing to say “no” to the groups want to win the argument, we need to make the right argument. The Progressive Establishment dominates the legislatures of almost every blue state. Someone like Abigail Spanberger who’s trying to chart a prudent course for Virginia and keeps clashing with progressives in the legislature as a result isn’t battling with a small band of insurgent leftists; she’s dealing with mainstream progressive advocacy infrastructure.

MattY argues that online rhetoric blaming old people for hoarding power & wealth is mistaken and diverts attention from necessary policy fixes. Housing scarcity is not the result of older people holding office. Social Security & Medicare have funding problems because the electorate at every age is averse to making cuts in entitlement spending. The problem with Congress isn't the age of its members, but their lack of competitive election rivals. Housing shortages don't exist because of old people, but because of mistaken economic beliefs ( ex hatred of developers, forms of NIMBYism)

Quotes:

>The implication is that we live in a gerontocracy — a society where American seniors are not only clogging community meetings with their unreasonable opposition to new development but also hoarding power and opportunity in every profession and at the highest levels of government.

>There are, of course, some valid concerns about the fiscal consequences of population aging and some very real cases of elected officials who have overstayed their welcome. It’s also just true that, from the C-suite to the legal profession to academia, there are more old people hanging on longer than ever.

>It’s hard not to sympathize with ambitious young elected officials tired of waiting for plum congressional seats to open up or academics angry that it’s so hard to get on the tenure track these days. But it’s worth reflecting that the primary reason you see older people hanging on to prominent roles these days is entirely benign — Americans are living longer.

.....

>hese are real problems, and you can lay them at the feet of the elderly in the sense that the relevant policies were mostly put in place in the 1970s and the 1980s when today’s old people were around and today’s young people weren’t. But if you look at the various state-level YIMBY success stories in recent years, it’s not as if they were achieved by somehow disempowering old people.

Indeed, America’s oldest state, Maine, passed sweeping housing measures last year that have the state now exceeding its annual housing production goals. The second-oldest state, New Hampshire, also passed sweeping reforms.

But, of course, the battle for housing abundance is not yet won. People have widespread erroneous opinions about the relevant economic issues, and there is widespread irrational dislike of developers

......

>Similarly, a very real problem in Congress is that the vast majority of members do not face competitive general elections. This allows infirm members to linger in office longer than they should. This is bad. But the badness is not unique to age. Democratic House nominee Darializa Avila Chevalier seems like a crazy person and is all but guaranteed to prevail in her general election due to the low levels of electoral competition, but she’s definitely young.

>The tendency for political power to be controlled by low-turnout primaries, in other words, is worth fixing. It would address some legitimate concerns about “gerontocracy” while also addressing a bunch of legitimate concerns that have nothing whatsoever to do with age.

>Meanwhile, though America’s frustrated young academics yearning for greater upward mobility cut a wide swath in the discourse thanks to their strong verbal skills and abundant free time, I’m not persuaded that this is a legitimate social problem. The fundamental reason that it’s hard to get a job as a historian is that there is not a lot of demand for the services of historians. This is aggravating for the specific people involved, but there are lots of fields where the number of people who would like to do the job exceeds the number of positions actually available. And there’s plenty of the opposite:

>America really could use more good K-12 teachers. We could use more people with the kind of progressive values prevalent in academia working as police officers. We could use more research scientists.

>For better or worse, in life, you need to find something to do that is useful to other people. Looking at declining demand for certain categories of academic work and pronouncing it gerontocracy is unhelpful.

.....

>For starters, the simple fact of the matter is that the political durability of Social Security and Medicare is not a question of older people exerting raw electoral power.

>These programs are broadly popular with all age groups in the electorate.

>Voters are also just fairly change-averse. If you proposed creating new programs on the scale of Social Security or Medicare, voters would be alarmed by the vast new spending. But these have existed for a long time and have grown slowly, so instead, the idea of cutting them alarms people.

>Logically, though, if the problem is that people are living longer, then a big part of the solution should be to ask people to work longer.

>I used to worry a lot about this idea because the prospect of compelling nice-but-frail old people into the labor market feels ghoulish. But understanding that “gerontocracy” is just downstream of the reality that people are living more years in perfectly good health changes the picture.

>People are staying on longer as CEOs and members of Congress and professors because they are remaining sharp and healthy for longer. It’s true that not every job is as glamorous or status-rich as those positions. But that’s life.

>Now, what’s true is that despite improved health, there are still many Americans in their late 60s who are genuinely infirm and unable to work.

>An unfortunate reality of American life is that our disability income support programs are rather threadbare and poorly designed. What we ought to do is fix this, rather than use untargeted assistance to the elderly as a very expensive substitute. Help those in need, but acknowledge that we can ask more of able-bodied older Americans, whose physical and mental health is better than it’s ever been.

Slate draws attention to SES caused loneliness. Poorer people more likely not to have professional networks, college friends & time. Work itself is also more likely to be gig work or otherwise not involving team of coworkers. Argues "male loneliness" frame both missed poor women & creates a culture of blaming men.

>Across all these studies, there is one group that is drastically lonelier than everyone else. The people who are not getting their share of social connection in America are those who aren’t getting their share of a lot: poor people. Those who struggle to afford essentials are also more likely to struggle with feelings of isolation.

>When viewed from this angle, loneliness in the U.S. seems less like something people impose on themselves through poor psychosocial maintenance—an inherent premise of blaming gender—and more like something society imposes on people. There isn’t really a male loneliness crisis. But there is, as I learned poring over studies, speaking to experts and to low-income people, a loneliness trap. And since anyone’s luck can go sideways, we’re all at risk of getting stuck in it.

......

Socioeconomic status is a consistent predictor of loneliness. According to the KFF study, adults in households making less than $40,000 in annual income are about three times as likely to report frequent loneliness as those in households making more than $90,000. In the Harvard survey, 29 percent of those earning less than $30,000 felt lonely, compared to 19 percent of those earning $50,000 and up. In the American Perspectives Survey, 1 in 5 U.S. adults without a college education said they had no close friends—about double the rate of those with at least a bachelor’s. In the American Time Use Survey, people making $25,000 a year or less spent almost six and a half hours alone in an average day, about 90 minutes more than those in the $25,000-to-$50,000 bracket and three hours more than those making $100,000 or more. The poorest group also had the sharpest increase since 2010, when they spent about four hours alone each day.

This trend extends outside the U.S.; in a University of Oxford study of 20 European countries, 49 percent of low-income individuals felt lonely, versus 15 percent of high earners.

..... Low-paying fields have changed. Many workers now have tenuous if any ties to others doing the same job.

In decades past, low-wage positions weren’t like this. “If you were a working-class person in the ’70s, you probably saw the same people every day at work,” said Arran Davis, a researcher at Oxford who studies social interaction and public health. “Maybe you went to one of these working men’s clubs or the same bar after work and you had a fairly large social network.” There was also a sense of pride and belonging in being part of a large, public-facing company, like one of the Big Three auto manufacturers, he adds.

Low-paid tasks, like security and cleaning, are now increasingly subcontracted, leaving the people who do them outsiders at the places where they go to work. The people who monitor entrances or vacuum carpets at night are most likely not employed directly by the company and are not invited to the holiday party.

... Even if they aren’t technically alone, “there’s something that they feel is, like, lacking in their social lives,” said Davis.

It could be several things. Poor people have lower “self-reported social capital,” or internal feelings about their value in a social network, Davis says. They may also develop low expectations of other poor people, as “being poor creates friction between relationships.” Poor people lean on friends for problems rich people either don’t have, like needing a small loan or an emergency place to stay, or solve with money, like childcare and transportation. This can wear down friendships and make people skeptical of new acquaintances.

And the stress of poverty can sap the mental energy required to invest and really connect with someone. “I think being social is like exercising. It has a little bit of a cost,” said Davis. “If you’re feeling tired and you’re feeling a bit shit, you probably don’t want to exercise, and you don’t want to be social.” And if you fall out of your routine, exercising becomes harder.

Money also makes people more likely to feel ready for a relationship; in a 2025 study of single Americans from age 25 to 35, higher income levels were tied to one’s desire to begin a relationship, self-reported relationship readiness, and—after a six-month follow-up—the odds of being in a relationship. And the inverse was true. Low-income people felt less ready and were more likely to stay single. This applied to both men and women. The confidence of the economically comfortable is not misplaced; polls also show that financial stability is a highly attractive quality in a potential partner.

An obvious challenge of dating when poor is that it’s another dreaded social situation that ends with a tab.

Posted this article because it

(a) encapsulates the ongoing crisis in West Bank towns, where settlers have established numerous illegal (per Israeli law) outposts, which they use to harass/drive away Palestinians and are becoming resistant to IDF attempts to control them. Notably in this town, where it has taken days for Israeli soldiers to try to remove settlers from Palestinian land and even homes.

(b) isn't likely to be outdated in 5 minutes. (c) illustrates the degree to which this situation is becoming internationalized in a way Israel historically used to avoid.

Additional links:

• What the Hell is Going on in the West Bank? This Haaretz Podcast discusses the larger problem in terms of the government's revolutionary approach to ending Oslo framework and breakdown in accountability.

• Is The West Bank About to Explode Israeli Policy Forum discussion w/Michael Milshtein on govt changes to WB policy. It was made before these specific events, but can be a good in depth primer.

>The Palestinian-American owner of a house besieged by extremist Israeli settlers in the West Bank returned to the home in Qusra on Monday, raising an American flag, as he called for the US embassy to offer him protection.

>Louai Abu Ridi owns one of the three houses in Qusra, near Nablus, which settlers began surrounding more than a week ago in an apparent effort to force the residents to flee, trapping residents inside, and generating condemnation around the world.

>His brother, Qusai Abu Ridi, is stuck inside the house and has been relaying the situation of residents to the outside world.

>Accompanied by several journalists, Louai waited 100 meters (328 feet) from his home’s entrance for around half an hour before a military vehicle escorted the group through his large concrete gate.

>The Palestinian-American began construction on the house three years ago on land owned by his grandparents and farmed by his family for generations. He said he wanted his daughters to have a home in Qusra so they could connect to their roots. When Louai landed in Israel, he told reporters, “I’ve been watching this live for many days and now this is the second week I can’t sleep,” adding: “I can’t let the settlers steal my house while I was watching.”

>Abu Ridi said he was hoping to stay in the house on Monday night, and that he was “terrified for my brother and his son. Fearing for his safety. Now I’m going to fear for my own safety.”

>And I’m not sure how the struggle is going to be for me to get there. And if I get there, are they going to allow me to go in and out freely in my own house? I’ll find out today,” he continued.

..... >The Israel Defense Forces last week removed the settlers’ illegal outpost, which they had initially constructed outside the house. But the settlers themselves have frequently returned to the area. So far, one settler has been detained, and there have been no arrests.

>For the past two days, soldiers have been stationed at the entrances to the homes, according to footage and residents who spoke with The Times of Israel.

>Soldiers have also remained inside one of the besieged homes for the past five days, all in an effort to prevent the reestablishment of the outpost.

>However, the Palestinian residents have been told by the IDF that they are still prohibited from leaving their homes.

>Settlers were also filmed roaming around the area of the homes on Monday, with several of them seen speaking with the soldiers outside one of the houses for several minutes, even though the area has been declared a closed military zone and Israelis are prohibited from entering it.

>United Nations representatives arrived at the homes Sunday, bringing residents food and water, according to videos and accounts from the homeowners who spoke with The Times of Israel.

>The homeowners also said the UN representatives brought a water tanker with them, but that security forces did not allow it to remain at the site. The IDF said Monday they had determined that the tanker was not necessary, as the water line to the houses — which settlers had damaged, according to the residents — had been repaired.

>US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has offered unusually strong criticism over the incident in recent days.

>“Actions by those who carried out this horrific act of terror meant to intimidate and harass this family are disgusting,” he wrote on X on Thursday.

Summary: Chris Fenton, a former media executive argues that China is viewed more favorably than the US not only because of recent events, but because of long standing Chinese leverage over TV & film industries.

Fenton argues that deference to PRC interests means that global consumers mainly only see positive portrayals of China, in contrast to more varied portrayals of the US. And this translates into long standing cultural stereotypes.

Selected Quotes Below:

>The single most influential reason China looks better to the world than the United States is that Western media, Hollywood, journalists, multinational corporations, sports leagues, politicians, and cultural institutions have been systematically unable, or unwilling, to portray China in any meaningfully negative light. Beijing made the rules clear: Criticize us, depict our system honestly, or even hint at Taiwan’s separate status, and you lose access to the world’s largest consumer market. The penalty for disobedience is banishment.

>We complied. The result is a global information environment in which America’s flaws are dissected in real time while China’s are airbrushed out of existence.

>I know this dynamic from the inside. For 17 years I served as president of a studio’s motion picture division, pioneering the opening of China’s market to Hollywood.

.........

>A perfect illustration of how sustained cultural portrayals lock in generational perceptions sits right in front of us with Russia. Ask the average Generation X American – those who came of age in the 1970s, 1980s, and early 1990s – what image flashes when they hear “Russia” or “Moscow,” and the answers are remarkably consistent even in 2026: cold and gray streets, KGB spies in trench coats, miserable citizens standing in bread lines, heavy drinkers, drab fashion, concrete apartment blocks, and an atmosphere of perpetual suspicion and scarcity. Why does that stereotype still dominate? Because for decades Western media, news, entertainment, and popular culture were completely free to portray the Soviet Union and later Russia exactly that way – accurately – without any market punishment or corporate self-censorship.

..............

>Now fast-forward one generation and reverse the dynamic. When I ask my own 19-year-old kids what they think of China, their answers are just as consistent – and almost the photographic opposite. They describe blue skies, gleaming high-speed rail and infrastructure, best-in-class malls, shiny tall skyscrapers, world-leading GDP growth, happy people, polished influencers, and a place that somehow has no crime. That is all they have seen. It is the only China that Western news, entertainment, social media, and corporate imagery have been allowed to show them for most of their lives. There was never a sustained cultural library of the harder realities – surveillance, demographic pressure, political control, or the costs of rapid development – because Beijing’s market leverage made those portrayals commercially radioactive. The information environment they grew up in simply did not permit the equivalent of a “Rocky IV” or a “Gorky Park” for China.

Summary: guest essay, "not particularly respectable" trans-lesbian (their words) references greater public skepticism regarding questions of trans-policy with awareness that Americans respond favorably to questions about civil liberties (e.g. workplace discrimination). They argue that trans-people and allies need to be comfortable being in coalition with people that don't agree with their beliefs.

This is relevant to this sub because it touches on the problems with activist politics and a few of the alienating tendencies of progressives/left:

Key Quote:

>It’s the solicitousness of respectability politics without any of the practical upside. We might call this degenerated form of respectability politics “respect me!” politics instead.

>Anyone who has spent time in progressive or leftist circles is immediately familiar with this dynamic: an unyielding commitment to rhetorical hostility coupled with a demand for affection from the very people they’re attacking. There seems to be a belief that respect, affinity, or solidarity can be enforced through disciplinary measures like shaming, belittling, and ostracism.

>While, mercifully, this rhetorical strategy seems to be on the decline on the broader left (perhaps best exemplified by Zohran Mamdani’s refrain that we need to “[go] from lecturing to listening”), it remains alarmingly pervasive on trans issues. This was particularly evident in the online reaction to The Argument’s February poll.

>The survey simply reported the dire facts about public opinion on trans issues, yet it resulted in a wave of backlash in which commenters accused Lakshya Jain, The Argument’s director of political data, of “preemptive surrender” and “suggesting Dems abandon trans rights.” One of the top Twitter responses captured the anti-democratic implications succinctly: “fuck whatever a poll says.”

>Whenever I make the case to other trans people that we need to stop making demands on cis people’s feelings, beliefs, and speech — and instead appeal to common principles like liberty and equality — I am met with choruses asking me, incredulously, “Where’s your self-respect?” This further complicates the picture; it seems that self-respect is curiously tied up in the active antagonism of the majority.

Summary: Former patrons Russian & Iran continue to lose control over south Caucauses. While recent Armenian election continues increasing realignment with the West, Trump administration needs to do diplomatic work to facilitate Armenian constituonal reform necessary to formally end conflict between it and Azerbaijan, cementing together American influence in a region that was friendlier to its adversaries.

Russia’s bid to reassert its grip on the South Caucasus is failing—and the reverberations extend well beyond Moscow. Iran has all but lost its northern flank to a US-Turkey-Azerbaijan axis, and it has no answer. Even as they remain targets of Iranian attacks, the Arab Gulf states are increasingly eyeing the Trans-Caspian region as a lever of counter-pressure against the Islamic Republic. What was once a Russian and Iranian sphere of influence is fast becoming a corridor for their rivals. 

The Ukrainian strike on an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea on July 31 expanded Kyiv’s campaign beyond the battlefield by targeting the logistics underpinning the Russia-Iran partnership. By projecting force into the Caspian basin, Ukraine challenged what Moscow and Tehran regarded as a secure corridor for military cargo and dual-use goods. 

More broadly, the incident underscored the growing convergence of the European and Middle Eastern theaters, as Iran’s support for Russia made it a more direct target of Ukrainian retaliation. The strike also raised the prospect that the Caspian Sea could become another contested arena linking the Ukraine War with the broader regional struggle involving Iran. 

The Iranian regime’s information operations project an image of triumph—having nominally “survived” its confrontation with the United States and Israel—but the strategic picture tells a different story. Russia, badly weakened by the war, can no longer anchor the northern buffer Iran once relied upon, leaving the Islamic Republic’s northern flank dangerously exposed. To its south, hostility with the Gulf Arab states has reached unprecedented intensity, especially after the collapse of the June 17 Memorandum of Understanding, when Washington resumed airstrikes on Iran following Tehran’s July 8 attack on three tankers. 

Since then, the United States has launched multiple rounds of strikes on Iran, steadily expanding its target set from military facilities to bridges, airports, and electrical infrastructure. Tehran has responded by widening the conflict itself—striking a power and desalination facility in Kuwait and hitting a military base in Jordan on July 17 that killed three US service members. 

Iran’s Houthi proxies also fired missiles at Saudi Arabia on July 13 and launched its own ballistic missile at a US military base on July 17. The deteriorating security situation has drawn nuclear-armed Pakistan more directly into the crisis: Islamabad has warned Tehran that any further attacks on Saudi territory—whether by Iran or the Houthis—would trigger Pakistan’s obligations under the mutual defense pact it signed with Riyadh in 2025. 

Adding to the tensions, Reuters reported on July 17 that Pakistan and Kuwait are discussing a broader defense partnership that could include troop deployments, fighter aircraft, and air defense cooperation in exchange for expanded energy ties and investment. 

Confident messaging aside, Iran is being squeezed from every direction—and the outcome of Armenia’s June 7 national election is one more piece of that deteriorating picture. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s victory in the elections represents a clear popular rejection of his Kremlin-aligned opponents—and a significant failure for Moscow’s effort to install friendlier leadership in Yerevan. It is also, by extension, a defeat for Tehran, whose regional partnerships have relied heavily on the same axis of resistance to Western and Turkish influence that Pashinyan’s electorate just repudiated. 

However, the election is a beginning, not an endpoint. What comes next will determine whether Armenia’s gradual westward drift becomes irreversible. It will also shape whether a durable peace with Azerbaijan finally takes hold. Just as importantly, it will test whether the United States can translate this moment into lasting influence in a region that Russia has long considered its backyard and that Iran has long counted on as a strategic landbridge. Washington and its Gulf allies should pay close attention and actively encourage Yerevan to move forward. 

Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party won roughly 49.8 percent of the vote, securing 64 seats in the new 105-seat National Assembly. While it retained its governing majority, Civil Contract lost seven of the 71 seats it previously held. The opposition immediately rejected the results, began mobilizing its supporters, and filed a legal challenge, which Armenia’s Constitutional Court rejected on July 4, upholding the results. 

The process has unfolded against a delicate diplomatic backdrop. On July 6, Pashinyan made his first foreign trip since the election, traveling to Russia to meet Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. Mishustin signaled that Moscow is watching the new government closely—a pointed reminder of the stakes given the campaign’s pro-Western tilt. The Kremlin will likely continue seeking ways to exacerbate any divisions among the Armenian electorate, with efforts focused on stopping any attempts to amend the country’s constitution. 

With its electoral proxies defeated, Russia’s next objective is to prevent Pashinyan from pushing through a constitutional amendment, which is needed for finalizing the 2025 peace agreement with Azerbaijan. Here, the arithmetic gets complicated. Civil Contract fell short of the two-thirds supermajority required for constitutional changes. That gap really matters. The preamble to the current Armenian constitution references the country’s 1991 Declaration of Independence, issued when the USSR collapsed and Armenia and Azerbaijan, along with other states in the South Caucasus and Eurasia, became independent.   

The preamble includes language about the reunification of Armenia with “Nagorno-Karabakh.” This is the Russian place name. This territory was internationally recognized as belonging to Azerbaijan, as stated in 1993 UN Security Council resolutions 822, 853, 874, and 884, and has become the focal point of a bitter dispute between the two countries, one that stands to be resolved now, provided they can move forward with a peace agreement.

The main issue with the Armenian constitution, as it currently stands, is that any agreement signed by Pashinyan’s government may not bind future governments if they choose to reinterpret the constitutional provisions and once again make territorial claims on Karabakh. Without revisions to the constitution, the agreement will be just a temporary arrangement, and not the basis of permanent peace.

With a strong popular mandate behind him, Pashinyan has the political standing to present a constitutional referendum as a national endorsement of peace—if he can secure the votes.

Six seats short of a supermajority, Pashinyan’s most viable route is not to seek wholesale cooperation from the opposition, which is almost certainly out of reach. Instead, he is likely to work on building a narrow, issue-specific coalition around the provisions tied to the peace agreement. By framing the amendments as technical prerequisites for international normalization rather than partisan concessions, he lowers the political cost of supporting or at least abstaining for pragmatic opposition deputies. Even a handful of defections from non-aligned blocs could bridge the gap. 

This is where Washington comes in. The Trump administration could provide critical diplomatic cover, using its relationships with both Yerevan and Baku to reinforce the logic of constitutional adjustment as part of the broader settlement linked to the “Trump Route” connectivity framework. Supporting Armenia’s constitutional process isn’t just good regional diplomacy—it directly serves US strategic interests at a moment when both Russia and Iran are comparatively constrained in the South Caucasus. Anchoring peace, infrastructure development, and institutional reform within a Western-backed regional order would entrench American influence in ways that will outlast any single administration. 

The opportunities are real: a resolution to one of the post-Soviet world’s most intractable frozen conflicts, a more prosperous and stable Armenia, and proof that unresolved Soviet-era disputes can be settled rather than inherited indefinitely. Moscow is already working to prevent it all. Tehran is watching nervously. The question is whether Washington will work just as hard to make it happen. 

Brookings Fellow & ex-US assistant secretary of state for democracy, human & labor rights, under Joe Biden, Dafna Rand examines the US relationship to security partners in 4 in theaters: Afghanistan (pre 2020 Doha) Yemen, Ukraine & Gaza.

She asks why the US falls short in its ability to influence partners in operational design, conduct and decision to cease fire.

The report is based on 30 interviews with officials and govt reports. She finds that as wars persist US public support declines, as does US leverage. Persistence also tends to expose greater divergence between US and partners. US leverage is also found to be inefficiently used.

The report recommends:

(1) US needs to exercise maximum leverage at outset of the war to force its partners to agree on war goals, plan & termination. (This may include US military planners creating a war plan )

(2) US needs to expect decline in political support, which means it must exercise consistent pressure on US partners & disciplined messaging. (Reduce possibility partners hear only what they like)

(3) US needs to more aggressively use diplomacy to constrain partners and negotiate with adversaries.

PS While we may have views on how individual conflicts should be handled (ex. more support for Ukraine or Israel) that diverge from the author, it's important to ask how US capability can be improved.

The author also has a Foreign Affairs piece on this topic.

This has some good and somewhat frank back and forth between frictions between two US allies. The summary mentions F-35s, but discussion goes beyond that into sensitivities about the Aegean/Cyprus, the degree to which Erdogan is motivated by Islamism & Syria. Ambassador Jeffrey provides the Turkish point of view, filtered by US interests.

Some take aways:

• Turkey has become more indispensable to NATO and is important for both fighting Russia & Iran

• Israel would want to retain presence in Hermon, withdraw elsewhere in Syria.

• Jeffrey believes if Turkey gets rid of S-400s, it will have proven trustworthiness of F-35 sale

• Jeffrey is not worried about Turkey or Israel "screwing up" Syria, given US investment. But is worried about Israel not being careful about Turkish sensitivity about Aegean in pursuing partnerships with Greece.

•Jeffrey does not think Islamism really shapes Turkey; it is useful for Erdogan, but the population has only become less religious.

*BONUS ; Middle East Institute did a more Turkey centered podcast that focuses more on Turkey/NATO relations. It provides more detail about the difficulty of completing F-35 sales (including how Turkey can't just get rid of the S-400s), how the NATO summit went & how the two wars are connected. *

The recent NATO summit in Ankara raised the already high temperatures between Israel and Turkey, two major regional powers. President Trump says he's considering selling U.S. F-35 stealth fighters to Turkey despite the opposition of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Meanwhile, Israel and Turkey remain at loggerheads over Turkey's support for the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas even as Israel and Turkey compete for influence in Syria and the Eastern Mediterranean. As Netanyahu and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan jockey for favor with President Trump and face rising criticism from Congress, are two key American allies headed for a collision?

Host David Makovsky discusses the increasingly tense Israeli-Turkish relationship with Tamir Hayman, a former head of Israel's military intelligence service, and James Jeffrey, a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey.

Tamir Hayman, a major general in the reserves of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), is executive director of the Institute for National Security Studies, a think tank in Tel Aviv, Israel. He served as chief of the IDF's Intelligence Directorate from 2018-21.

James F. Jeffrey is a distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute and a former U.S. ambassador to both Turkey and Iraq. He served as U.S. special envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS in the first Trump administration and as a deputy national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration.

Thorsten Benner, a German political scientist & think tank leader points out that Europe is vulnerable to weaponization of trade by China, which is positioned well to undercut industries & to leverage European dependencies on Chinese components.

Benner argues that ideally a US-EU approach would be best-----intransigence from the Trump administration require independent action now. These would take a few forms : adoption of protections on "import surges" across many sectors, use of the EU anti-coercion tool, strategic thinking about Chinese dependencies & expansion of trade with free market friends.

Argument that recent agreements between India & Japan signal development of a security & economic partnership in the face of uncertainty about America & Chinese aggression

>Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on July 2 produced a long list of agreements spanning artificial intelligence, batteries, critical minerals, defense manufacturing, energy resilience and financial cooperation.

>While the agreements made headlines, the larger message was the Indo-Pacific’s shifting geostrategic framework. Set against the backdrop of evolving China-Japan dynamics since Takaichi took office, her meeting with Modi underscored that the India-Japan convergence is both structural and strategic.

..........

>The Takaichi-Modi meeting could thus mark the start of a wider shift toward technology-defense-industrial systems integration across the larger Indo-Pacific economies seeking a hedge against the rival US-China axes. Takaichi’s interpretation of Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) strategy reflects this shift. Under Takaichi, economic security has become FOIP’s defining characteristic.

>Strategic industries now occupy a central place in Japan’s strategic thinking, alongside maritime security. FOIP has consequently evolved from a framework for preserving regional order into one for managing strategic vulnerability at a time when economic interdependence itself has become a source of geopolitical risk.

The Solomon Islands in the southwest Pacific recently emerged from weeks of parliamentary turmoil and a leadership shake-up resulting in a new government.

The new prime minister, Matthew Wale, who had led the opposition since 2019, is delivering a foreign relations reset with Australia and New Zealand, both long-term regional partners and U.S. allies. He has less than two years to make a mark with his foreign policy and development vision before the next national election in 2028.

“Fellow Solomon Islanders, change is coming,” Wale declared May 15 after assuming leadership of the island chain of more than 800,000 people. “The government that I lead will do its utmost to serve. Please help keep us accountable and responsible,” he told fellow citizens.

Wale gained the premiership following a no confidence vote in parliament prompted by the defection of ministers from the previous coalition government, led by Jeremiah Manele and the Ownership, Unity and Responsibility (OUR) Party since 2024.

Wale’s ascent marks a major shift from the state being a geopolitical flashpoint between the U.S. and China just four years ago. Manele continued much of the “look north” agenda of his predecessor, Manasseh Sogavare, who oversaw the country’s decision in 2019 to normalize relations with China at Taiwan’s expense and who in 2022 signed an extensive security pact with Beijing that aroused major concerns in Canberra, Wellington, and as far away as Washington.

For his part, Wale, who became opposition leader in 2019, has been a consistent critic of the country’s growing ties with Beijing.

Wale sent a clear signal when he made his first official overseas visit as prime minister to Australia, where he initiated talks aimed at achieving a new strategic treaty less than three weeks after taking office. “Today we’ve committed to elevate our bilateral relationship at the request of the Solomon Islands,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told a joint Canberra press conference June 3. “This will be agreed in a new comprehensive treaty underpinned by mutual trust, respect and open dialogue.” The agreement will include enhanced security and law enforcement cooperation, as well as economic, humanitarian and development assistance.

In response, Wale told the Australian media that “the resilience of our relationship, I think, is self-evident. It lies in our people to people contacts and, of course, in our institutional relations over so many years, perhaps even more than a century. And it is not easy to break that kind of depth and the strength of such a relationship.”

The solidarity follows Wale’s pledge last month to review the controversial security agreement with China, which provided the possibility for Chinese security forces to be used against internal social disorder.

The Pacific Islands, which consist of 22 countries and territories with a total population of 14.3 million people and which stretch from Papua New Guinea in the west to French Polynesia to the east, have been regarded by Beijing as strategically important for expanding its economic and political influence under the banner of South-South cooperation, extending its maritime and security presence in the region, and reducing Taiwan’s diplomatic presence and influence there.

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Invalid email Enter your email Enter your email Subscribe The prospect of China’s security penetration so far south galvanized a rapid response from Australia and the U.S. The Biden administration sought to rectify decades of neglect in the South Pacific by reopening shuttered embassies, providing more economic and development assistance to the islands, and engaging in greater dialogue with the region. Summits in 2022 and 2023 with Pacific leaders were hosted in Washington, where major new economic and aid programs were announced. Washington’s renewed attention also carried an ideological dimension by stressing, rhetorically at least, a mutual commitment to democratic principles and to “a free and open region where individuals live in open societies [and] rules are reached transparently and applied fairly.”

Yet U.S. momentum in the region faltered last year as President Donald Trump, in his second term, abruptly slashed USAID programs and withdrew from multilateral organizations and the Paris climate agreement. The imposition of steep trade tariffs on Pacific Island developing countries, described as “disconnected with both reality and common sense” by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), delivered a shock to the region, which already faces major national human and economic development challenges that are further jeopardized by the impacts of climate change, such as sea level rise, and natural disasters, such as typhoons.

Wale’s domestic objectives also include reducing corruption. He has voiced criticism for years about the connivance between political elites and foreign extractive investors in the logging industry, which has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue every year. It is an issue that has also triggered long-term grievances among ordinary Solomon Islanders, of whom 31% live in poverty. And vociferous civil society opposition to perceptions of undue foreign influence on political leaders was a factor in violent protests in the Chinatown area of the capital, Honiara, in November 2021. The unrest was a catalyst for the security agreement the following year.

At the same time, established economic and trade ties with China, estimated to be worth US$3.5 billion since 2019, are unlikely to weaken. But the new prime minister, who also visited New Zealand in June, has framed his strengthening of bilateral ties with Australia as motivated in part by shared values and aspirations as representative democracies.

Australia also provides 34% of all overseas development finance (ODF) to the Solomon Islands, followed by China at 19%, according to the Sydney-based Lowy Institute for International Policy. And across the entire region, Australia contributed the largest portion, about 43%, of all ODF in 2023, with 10% contributed by New Zealand and 1% by the United States.

Last year, China tried to capitalize on perceptions of U.S. withdrawal from the region, hosting a summit with Pacific Island foreign ministers in May to showcase enhanced regional cooperation and climate assistance projects. Yet the magnitude of ODF it provides to the Pacific has diminished over the past two decades, from an average of $440 million in 2008-2019 to about $250 million in 2024, according to the Lowy Institute. The trend parallels China’s continuing decline in its rate of GDP growth from 14.1%percent in 2007 to 5% in 2024, with forecasts of a possible contraction to 3-4% in coming years.

This year, however, has seen the U.S. move to re-engage in the region. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau hosted an investment summit with Pacific Island leaders in Hawaii in February and visited Samoa, Tonga and Fiji to promote private-sector-led economic and development partnerships. And in May, the U.S. and Solomon Islands signed a new joint investment incentive agreement. However, “even factoring in ramped up U.S. engagement in recent years, the U.S. remains far behind other countries in terms of what it contributes to the region, according to CSIS.

On the security front, Pacific leaders remain focused on their own identified security agenda and threats that range from climate change to transnational crime. Nevertheless, Wale reportedly proposed developing a Pacific-led regional security treaty during his visit to Canberra. The suggestion comes at a time when China’s expenditure on defense is on the rise, reaching an estimated $275 billion this year, with an increased tempo of naval operations in the region.

Wale’s proposal demonstrates that future strategic initiatives in the region may be driven as much by the Pacific Island states as larger powers. In so doing, Pacific leaders will prioritize international partners that walk the talk of consistent, long-term, trust-based and mutually beneficial relations.

This podcast does a great job explaining the close US relationship to compact of free association states, the immense physical distances covered by these islands, Chinese intent to use local economic need & corruption to build influence and eventually a base as well as the necessity of thinking about the economics to overcome the tyranny of distance.

>this episode, Mike is joined by Ambassador Laura Stone, who most recently served as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of the Marshall Islands and previously held senior leadership roles at the U.S. Department of State, including Deputy Assistant Secretary for China and Mongolia. They discuss the role that the Marshall Islands and the broader Pacific Islands play in U.S. engagement with the Indo-Pacific, how they factor into U.S.–China strategic competition, and how the United States can work more effectively with its allies and partners to strengthen its approach to the region.

In light of recent events (including the self immolation of a Tibetan man near the UN), it's worth revisiting this CFR explainer. In a nutshell, the new law pushes Xi thought about aggressive assimilation into law, mandatory education in Mandarin, liability for institutions that fail to teach love of China, CCP & Chinese people. It may possibly be used to justify relocations and targeting of overseas Chinese.

A more recent backgrounder from CNN here

Taipei Times article

On March 12, China’s legislature adopted the Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress (Chinese; English translation), a sweeping new statute that codifies Beijing’s approach toward China’s 56 officially recognized ethnic groups. Substantively, the law enshrines a decades-long shift towards aggressive assimilationist policies. Structurally, it reflects a deepening merger of Party ideology and state law that is becoming increasingly prevalent under Xi Jinping.

This new law is the culmination of a policy trajectory that has been building for over a decade, dating back to the 2014 Central Ethnic Work Conference. Under Xi, Beijing is steering away from the post-1949 legal framework of nominal ethnic autonomy (albeit under tight Party control) imported from the Soviet Union. In its place, officials have steadily been pivoting towards what scholars have termed “second-generation ethnic policies”—an aggressive assimilationist approach that emphasizes a common Chinese national identity over accommodation of ethnic differences. Provincial and municipal authorities across China have enacted a wave of local “ethnic unity and progress” regulations in recent years, such as those in Xinjiang (2015) or Inner Mongolia (2021). The new national legislation elevates this approach to the level of a national statute governing all of China.

The new law’s core concept is captured in the term zhulao (铸牢) – to “forge” or “cast” metal – and its instruction that “forging the communal consciousness of the Chinese nation” is core to the Party’s ethnic policies. As James Leibold has pointed out, this phrasing reflects a hardening of Beijing’s political line under Xi Jinping – explicitly written into the Party’s Charter at the 19th Party Congress in 2017 – aimed at “melting” subnational and ethnic identities into a shared collective one.

This is a sharp departure from the framework of the 1984 Regional Ethnic Autonomy Law, which explicitly provided for education in minority languages and warned against majoritarian (i.e., Han) chauvinism in an effort to reset ethnic relations in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. In contrast, the new 2026 law has no such warning, mandates pre-school education in Mandarin, directs government authorities and private firms to “give prominence” to the display of Chinese characters over minority languages in public settings, and instructs them to promote the “forging of national identity” as a component of all official work on families and family education.

Naturally, Beijing’s assimilationist pivot risks worsening ethnic tensions in China. Efforts to roll out similar policies in Inner Mongolia back in 2020 (including ramping up Chinese-medium instruction in elementary schools) generated widespread citizen protests and boycotts, followed by a purge of ethnic Mongolian Party and government officials viewed as insufficiently committed to Beijing’s new line.

Apart from its substance, the new ethnic unity law is also notable for its structure. As the legal scholar Changhao Wei has observed, two features of the text are highly unusual. It opens with a narrative preamble—a device used in only three other PRC statutes in over four decades. And core chapters are organized around political slogans directly lifted from Xi Jinping’s ethnic work doctrine, rather than the functional legal categories that are standard in Chinese legislation.

This parallels a broader trend: the steady blurring of the boundary between Party regulations and state law. As political scientist Holly Snape has documented, Beijing is steadily constructing a comprehensive network of Party regulations that increasingly reaches beyond the Party itself to regulate state and society. On the one hand, this process has involved the importation of quasi-legal mechanisms within the Party’s own regulatory system, such as the introduction of filing and review mechanisms to verify whether regulations issued by lower-level Party organs are compliant with Xi’s personal political doctrine. But on the other, it is leading Party ideological practices to steadily “seep into state law.” And the newly issued ethnic unity law is a clear example of that latter trend, with the top leader’s specific ideological formulations being used as the statute’s organizing skeleton. Taken together, both the substance and structure of the new ethnic unity law point in the same direction. China’s reform-era legal institutions and practices – the framework of nominal ethnic autonomy, and the conventions that maintained some degree of separation between Party and state – are steadily eroding as the country moves yet deeper into the counter-reform era.

Jerusalem Demsas' mini essay that accompanies her discussion w/Matt Yglesias.

I was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, but when I travel around the world, I don’t have to tell people I’m an American.

It’s not just that I “pass” as American, it’s that I am American. Like millions before me, I went through an assimilation process that included public K-12 schools, cross-cultural friendships, and workplace norms and expectations.

Assimilation has become more controversial. It implies that to become an American, you have to change yourself. It’s also difficult to promote assimilating into a culture you think is fundamentally rotten.

“Assimilation has fallen into disrepute,” begins a 1997 academic article in The International Migration Review. And the left in particular, which is the strongest pro-immigration constituency in America, has had to reconcile its pro-immigration views with arguments that America is, at its core, structurally bigoted, built for the purpose of preserving slavery, and imbued with institutions that are oppositional to social progress.

From 2016 to 2020, the share of Democrats saying that it’s important to share American customs and traditions fell from 79% to 59%.1 Anecdotally, the melting pot metaphor has been abandoned in favor of “salad bowl,” “mosaic,” and “kaleidoscope.”

In 1991, New Deal liberal Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. warned that new ideas were taking root that rejected America as a nation of individuals from all nations melting into a new nationality. Rather, these ideas recast America as a nation of groups that “threatens to become a counter-revolution against the original theory of America as ‘one people’, a common culture, a single nation.”

The result is pieces like this recent one by The Washington Post columnist Shadi Hamid, who argued that “Muslims shouldn’t have to assimilate to belong.”

Hamid was responding to a bigoted tweet from Rep. Andy Ogles, who wrote that Muslims don’t belong in American society and that pluralism is a lie.

Read distraction-free on Substack The Argument Podcast Why the left is wrong about assimilation Do immigrants need to assimilate to belong? Jerusalem Demsas Jul 02, 2026 ∙ Paid

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Immigrants, by definition, are not ashamed to become “more American.” (Christina House/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images) Iwas born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, but when I travel around the world, I don’t have to tell people I’m an American.

It’s not just that I “pass” as American, it’s that I am American. Like millions before me, I went through an assimilation process that included public K-12 schools, cross-cultural friendships, and workplace norms and expectations.

Assimilation has become more controversial. It implies that to become an American, you have to change yourself. It’s also difficult to promote assimilating into a culture you think is fundamentally rotten.

“Assimilation has fallen into disrepute,” begins a 1997 academic article in The International Migration Review. And the left in particular, which is the strongest pro-immigration constituency in America, has had to reconcile its pro-immigration views with arguments that America is, at its core, structurally bigoted, built for the purpose of preserving slavery, and imbued with institutions that are oppositional to social progress.

From 2016 to 2020, the share of Democrats saying that it’s important to share American customs and traditions fell from 79% to 59%.1 Anecdotally, the melting pot metaphor has been abandoned in favor of “salad bowl,” “mosaic,” and “kaleidoscope.”

In 1991, New Deal liberal Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. warned that new ideas were taking root that rejected America as a nation of individuals from all nations melting into a new nationality. Rather, these ideas recast America as a nation of groups that “threatens to become a counter-revolution against the original theory of America as ‘one people’, a common culture, a single nation.”

The result is pieces like this recent one by The Washington Post columnist Shadi Hamid, who argued that “Muslims shouldn’t have to assimilate to belong.”

Hamid was responding to a bigoted tweet from Rep. Andy Ogles, who wrote that Muslims don’t belong in American society and that pluralism is a lie.

Of course, Muslims do belong, and pluralism is self-evidently all around us.

But promoting assimilation is both necessary for a healthy pro-immigration politics and good on its own terms. Being an American is great, people who come here largely think so, and we should help them achieve the ideal of American identity (just as they help us).

In 2014, just 39% of immigrants agreed that “there are some things about America today that make me feel ashamed,” versus 69% of native-born Americans. Immigrants and their children also express more trust in all three branches of government than native-born Americans.

Anti-assimilation advocates tend to ignore that immigrants largely self-select for liking America. Many grew up on our books, movies, and music, and they arrived wanting to fit in.

They may keep their faith and remain culturally or socially distinctive in some ways, but most people don’t want a stranger clocking them on the street as different. Many immigrants report having an easier time assimilating here than in more homogenous countries. America lets you fade into the background and do your own thing.

And immigrants are often clear-eyed about what the alternatives presented by other countries actually are: The U.S. ranks first globally in the share of foreign-born adults who say their local area is a good place for immigrants to live (96%).

We’ve been doing a great job of assimilating for over 100 years. In Streets of Gold, economists Leah Boustan and Ran Abramitzky went through millions of census records and found that the children of immigrants climb the income ladder today at roughly the same rate as those who entered through Ellis Island at the turn of the last century, with Mexican immigrants among the fastest assimilators. It’s just not common for a kid to arrive here not knowing any English and still have that issue by the time they reach adulthood. Nearly 98% of immigrants who arrive before age 5 know English.

Hamid closed his column by arguing that America was founded on the idea that citizens never have to converge on foundational questions. I think this is partly true. You’ll find wildly different visions of the good life in this country.

But there are better and worse ideas that we should try to select for and inculcate in both native-born and foreign-born Americans. I don’t want a wave of authoritarian-minded newcomers trying to install a dictatorship. The real question of assimilation has little to do with what you eat or how you pray. It’s really about whether you can get on board with liberal democracy and basic equality.

People imagine that assimilation has to be a sort of violent process that seeks to strip people of their cultural garments, religion, and language. But most assimilation comes through second-generation kids telling their parents not to microwave fish in the company kitchen.

The best definition of assimilation that I’ve seen comes from 1921: “a process of interpenetration and fusion in which persons and groups acquire the memories, sentiments, and attitudes of other persons or groups, and, by sharing their experience and history, are incorporated with them in a common cultural life.”

At some level, it probably seems a bit condescending to teach someone how to be a “good American,” but I think most people would actually appreciate knowing the rules. A pluralistic, diverse country benefits from more explicit rules about common standards of behavior because everyone is coming from a different standpoint about what is reasonable.

Before my first solo trip to Germany, my dad warned me not to take long showers. I reluctantly took a quick one, and the next morning, my host thanked me for not being like those wasteful Americans. I was glad my father cared enough to tell me. I didn’t want to come off as rude or ignorant.

My co-host Matt Yglesias agrees on the merits of assimilation and wants to push it further: He thinks progressives treat ethnic conflict as a uniquely American problem, although in reality, it’s simply an unfortunate feature of the human condition. They have let America become defined by its worst chapters, and, in that process, are ceding the ideas of patriotism to the right — a problem I’ve written about previously.

But the progressive story is an American one. It’s the abolitionists, the suffragists, and the civil rights movement. When liberals invite immigrants into this country, we’re not inviting them into a world of slavery and exclusion. We’re inviting them into the part that fought it.

Brookings assigns scores to state readiness to adopt EVs based on presence or absence of 13 indicators. (incentives, grid upgrades, direct sale from manufacturer, rebates, govt fleet use etc)

Unsurprisingly, states with higher scores also have higher EV adoption.

The interactive scorecard map allows you to look at how states fare on one or all indicators.

This post summarizes the Slaughter decision, granting POTUS ability to fire heads of independent agencies & opinions of Justices. Gorsuch in particular, demonstrates the mixed feelings regarding the decision----i.e. while they might find unitary executive to be correct that should also exist in the context of a strong Congress. Given the century of precedent and lawmaking that took this for granted, Slaughter will leave unprecedented power in the hands of the Executive, which Congress cannot easily reclaim.

Before the selected passages: this decision and the ruling maintaining the Fed is covered by recent Advisory Opinions, where French & Isgur consider how the Court is forced to confront the real stakes of simply following "dorm room originalism" & whether there is consistency in how stare decisis is being invoked.

>The Supreme Court on Monday gave President Donald Trump sweeping new authority over approximately two dozen multi-member agencies that Congress intended to be independent. By a vote of 6-3, the justices struck down a federal law that bars the president from firing members of the Federal Trade Commission except in cases of “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” That law, a majority of the justices ruled, violates the constitutional separation of powers between the three branches of government. And in reaching that decision, the court overruled its 91-year-old decision in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, which had upheld the law at the center of the dispute.

>More broadly, Monday’s decision was a major victory for proponents of the “unitary executive” theory – the idea that the president should have complete control over the executive branch. Under this theory, the president should be able to fire any member of the executive branch, and laws – like the one that the court struck down – that restrict his ability to do so violate the separation of powers.

......

> a 16-page solo concurrence, Justice Neil Gorsuch praised the court for, in his view, “tak[ing] a notable step back toward the Constitution.” But he stated that this step was not “enough on its own.” Rather, given the agencies’ “enormous legislative and judicial powers,” “the only sure path is to finish the the journey we start today and restore legislative and judicial powers to where they belong: in Congress and the courts.”

>In her dissent, Sotomayor stressed that Congress established multi-member agencies like the FTC “to address complex problems while enjoying some independence from Presidential removal and thus absolute partisan control.” In holding that the president can remove Slaughter and other FTC commissioners for any reason, she argued, the majority “gives the President a power unknown even to the English Crown against which the Founders revolted, elevating him above his once-coequal branches by transforming a duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed into a license to act in defiance of those very laws.”

>Monday’s decision, Sotomayor contended, “reshapes our Government. Dozens of independent commissions are now likely to become purely executive agencies, shifting tremendous power over broad swaths of American life into the President’s hands”