Trust is breaking down
Core instruments of self-government are being disabled; pervasive inequality is driving a breakdown in trust; Trump emissaries are making costly mistakes; climate costs are rising.
The American People are accustomed to believing that, even when the other side is in charge, their democratic republic will remain a democratic republic, and abuses and errors can be reversed. We are accustomed to believing that there are guardians keeping watch—in the press, in sworn positions of public office, as independent watchdogs with legal oversight responsibilities—and when those fail, any individual can go to court to seek redress.
The least talked about of the five freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment is the right to redress. The text is clear, as we noted in yesterday’s piece on freedom of the press:
Congress shall make no law… abridging… the right of the people… to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
It is because the law governs all, including the most powerful, because the chief executive is but an administrator, whose every authority must be detailed in specific terms in written law, or in the Constitution itself, and because guardians are welcomed and protected, and we have an unalienable right to redress, that Americans trust that the republic will hold.
That trust has been breaking down across the political spectrum since the financial crash of 2008, for many reasons. The most salient manifestation of that breakdown seems to be a disregard among some political extremists for the rule of law itself, and that is driving a rapid acceleration in the overall breakdown in trust.
Today, we feature a few pieces, from contributors to The Navigator and from other authors, to illustrate the tensions of this historical moment.
All Rights & Liberties are at Risk
By Joseph Robertson, for Living Futures
Roughly 32% of eligible voters chose Donald Trump; 68% denied him their support. Only 22% of Americans voted for Trump. Nearly 80% of Americans have never voted for him to be President. Trump has nothing resembling a “sweeping mandate” to dismantle the government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Presidents are not kings. The President has no authority not granted specifically by law. He has no authority to make Elon Musk, the head of an informal advisory panel, into a shadow president with authority to unilaterally overrule Congress, the courts, or contract law, much less the Constitution.
The early days of Trump’s second term have given us dozens of examples of a President operating outside the law. The Constitution distributes power between the Congress, the Executive, the Judiciary, the States, the Press, and the People. The President owes genuine service and accountability to all of the others. Republican allies of the President need to act now, before checks and balances are eroded beyond repair.
Marco Rubio Is Walking into a Trap
By Mark Hertling, for The Bulwark
THE MEETING BETWEEN RUBIO AND LAVROV will not be one of equals. As a senator, Rubio was, until late in his tenure, a strong supporter of aid to Ukraine. But he now must represent a more transactional president whose skepticism of Ukraine and friendliness to Russia go back years. Lavrov represents a paranoid, aggressive, authoritarian regime that still sees itself as engaged in a long-term war against the United States and Europe. The hastily announced meeting being held in Saudi Arabia—an authoritarian Gulf Arab state—may have repercussions far from the war that is ostensibly being settled. The Trump administration and Ukraine must both be struck by the parallels to a previous Trump peace agreement in which another inexperienced secretary of state made a deal with a more seasoned enemy to end a war without any American allies in the room—Trump’s Doha Agreement with the Taliban.
Trump has claimed that the American withdrawal from Afghanistan—which his Doha Agreement guaranteed—inspired Putin to invade Ukraine. If that’s the case, he should consider what lessons others, like Xi Jinping, might take from an American abandonment of Ukraine.
Letter from an American - Feb 18, 2025
In a court filing last night, the Director of the Office of Administration in the Trump administration, Joshua Fisher, clarified the government position of billionaire Elon Musk. In a sworn declaration to the court, Fisher identified Musk as “a Senior Advisor to the President.” He explained: “In his role as a Senior Advisor to the President, Mr. Musk has no greater authority than other senior White House advisors. Like other senior White House advisors, Mr. Musk has no actual or formal authority to make government decisions himself. Mr. Musk can only advise the President and communicate the President’s directives.”
Fisher’s statement went on to say that Musk is neither an employee nor the service administrator—that is, the leader—of the Department of Government Efficiency.
The statement is in response to a lawsuit filed by 14 states—New Mexico, Arizona, Michigan, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington—contending that Musk’s role is unconstitutional because he has such sweeping power in his role at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency that the Constitution requires that his position be confirmed by the Senate.
Assam has an unequivocal right to climate justice
By Rituraj Phukan, for The Climate Value Exchange
In 2023, the “Gross Domestic Climate Risk” published by the Cross Dependency Initiative ranked nine Indian states including Assam among the top 50 regions globally at risk of damage to the built environment due to climate change hazards by 2050. Assam was ranked 28th in the list with a projected increase of over 330% in climate risk by 2050 in comparison to the year 1990.
Assam has consistently appeared on the top of states listed as most affected or vulnerable to climate change in India; the state was listed among the 8 most vulnerable states by the ‘Climate Vulnerability Assessment for Adaptation Planning in India Using a Common Framework.’ The national climate vulnerability assessment report from the Department of Science and Technology placed 60 percent of districts in Assam under the highly vulnerable category.
The breakdown in trust Americans are feeling, about each other, about political institutions, about the current administration, and about checks and balances and future opportunity, is one version of a sense, around the world, that justice is being delayed and denied, and major crises are being left unresolved, to the peril of all.
This crucial moment brings new levels of risk and fragility, as well as a common call to forge new, more cooperative ways forward. Americans are pushing back in the courts, and through mass protest, demanding checks on unaccountable executive action, and rediscovering the guardians they had taken for granted.
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