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In 2018, high-speed passenger trains branded as Brightline started running along the formerly freight-only Florida East Coast Railway. Initial service from Miami to West Palm Beach was extended to Orlando in 2023. Unfortunately, the southern end of the line is in the spotlight because of collisions with pedestrians and motor vehicles.

The safety concerns have received extensive coverage in the Miami Herald, Orlando Sentinel, The Atlantic and on local television and radio stations.

To South Floridians, the furor may be novel. But nationally the debate over how to prevent these incidents has been going on for decades.

Most of the risks of railroading fall on pedestrians and motorists. Over the past decade, an average of 900 pedestrians lost their lives each year in the U.S., and another 150 motor vehicle occupants died in collisions at highway-rail grade crossings.

I’m an economist who has studied transportation safety for 40 years. My research has analyzed why motor vehicle risks have fallen substantially, while there has been hardly any progress for pedestrians.

Reducing motor vehicle crashes

In 1966, 1,700 motor vehicle occupants died at railroad crossings. Nowadays, that number is typically less than 150. Over the same period, the number of vehicles on the road has tripled. By these measures, the risk has fallen by an amazing 97%.

What happened?

In part, the risk fell due to better vehicle technology and reduced drunken driving, which have improved overall highway safety.

The rest was due to actions taken starting in the early 1970s in reaction to the high number of deaths. Notably, the responsibility for deciding on safety features at crossings was taken away from the railroads and given to state and local highway authorities.

A design standards handbook and risk analysis tools were developed by the U.S. Department of Transportation. The analysis tools produce a priority listing of the riskiest crossings. The handbook describes the options that engineers can use to reduce risks, such as installing flashing warning lights and barriers across the road. It also suggests when to consider closing or consolidating dangerous crossings. Federal money supplemented spending by railroads and state and local governments to pay for these improvements.

A public information campaign educating drivers about the risks at crossings was established in Idaho in 1972 under the name Operation Lifesaver. By 1986, the program had spread to every state.

Railways closed many unprofitable lines after they were allowed to do so by the Staggers Rail Act of 1980. The reduced number of railroad miles and crossings also dropped the associated risk.

Stagnant risks to pedestrians

A similar analysis of pedestrian deaths is complicated. Pedestrian deaths occur all along the railroad and not just at crossings. Sadly, some deaths are intentional. Federal railroad officials had stopped requiring that suicides be reported in the mid-1950s and resumed doing so only in 2011.

In 1966, there were 730 nonintentional pedestrian deaths. Today, that number is roughly the same. It’s worth noting, however, that the U.S. population is 70% higher than it was in the 1960s, so the risk per person is lower.

Federal data from the past decade shows that about a quarter of the 900 annual pedestrian deaths were ruled by a coroner or medical examiner to be intentional. Coroners often lack sufficient evidence to definitively rule a suicide, so the actual proportion of pedestrians with suicidal intent is likely much higher. My own research in the Chicago area found that about half were confirmed or likely suicides.

Getting to the root cause

While the risk is down, the reduction is nowhere near as large as that of motor vehicles at crossings.

In the past decade the U.S. Department of Transportation has funded development of handbooks on the design of pedestrian crossings and interventions to mitigate risks at places away from crossings.

The latter handbook emphasizes that successful countermeasures need to be tailored to the reasons people are on the tracks in the first place. And, of course, there are many reasons.

Fencing may seem like an obvious countermeasure, but a fence does not prevent access at crossings and stations. Moreover, fences also tend to be destroyed where it is onerous to detour to a formal crossing rather than take a shortcut.

In fact, fencing can be counterproductive if it screens the railroad from public view and encourages nefarious activities, including theft, drug dealing and loitering.

Tackling intentional deaths has been challenging. Countermeasures have focused on signage providing information on mental health services and training rail workers to recognize people displaying symptoms of distress and then intervening or calling for help.

At times, tackling the root of the problem may involve land use and zoning at a local level. For example, a city might decide not to allow a convenience store to be located on the opposite side of the tracks from the population it serves. Or a city or school district might relocate transit or school bus stops to avoid the temptation to take a shortcut.

Florida railroads

South Florida faces several challenges. The primary challenge is its flat land. No hills means there is no natural grade separation between the railroad and intersecting roads and footpaths.

Elevating the railroad would be expensive and would cut communities in two. The effects of such severance should not be underestimated. In fact, the trend in recent times has been to rejoin urban neighborhoods that were bisected by interstate highway construction in the 1960s.

Another challenge comes, ironically, from the original vision behind rail travel in Florida. Standard Oil magnate Henry Flagler developed and built the Florida East Coast Railway in hopes of spurring coastal development. These days, dense communities surround the line, with housing, schools, stores and restaurants scattered on both sides of the tracks.

Development also made it less safe for motor vehicles. Main roads, such as U.S. Route 1 and Dixie Highway, were built parallel to the tracks. Over time, as these roads have become wider and busier, the cross streets have a smaller distance between the railroad and the main road. The space for vehicles waiting to turn onto the main road is limited, and the lights and gates at the railroad crossing must be coordinated with the traffic signals on the main road. This is a major challenge to the state, county and municipal traffic engineers who have inherited these complicated intersections.

It is tempting to suggest that many of these crossings should be consolidated into fewer, well-designed crossings. But this could result in unintended consequences for pedestrians. When too few crossings are available, pedestrians are more likely to take unauthorized shortcuts. Any consolidation of road crossings must be accompanied by alternative ways for pedestrians to cross the tracks safely.

It is important to keep looking for solutions to pedestrian and vehicle safety issues so that South Florida communities can be safer while enjoying the benefits that rail offers, such as reducing the number of trucks on the roads and offering an alternative to passengers who wish to avoid flying or driving on congested Interstate 95.

If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (988) or Crisis Text Line (text “HELLO” to 741741) for immediate support.

I was a volunteer member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine oversight committee as the 2022 “Strategies for Deterring Trespassing on Rail Transit and Commuter Rail Rights-of-Way” handbook was developed. As such we could comment on drafts but were not the authors of the report.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Donald Trump has flagged Venezuelan drug trafficking as a key reason for the U.S. military operation on Jan. 3, 2026, that captured President Nicolás Maduro and whisked him to New York to face federal drug charges.

Trump has described Maduro as “the kingpin of a vast criminal network responsible for trafficking colossal amounts of deadly and illicit drugs into the United States.”

In 2025, the administration presented the U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean and repeated strikes on alleged drug trafficking vessels off Venezuela’s coast as necessary to counter the flow of cocaine into the United States.

But as an international relations scholar focused on Latin America, I know that when assessed against hard data on cocaine production and transit, the U.S. pretense for military action against Venezuela falters.

Venezuela has never been a major cocaine producer. That distinction belongs overwhelmingly to Colombia, which accounts for the vast majority of coca cultivation and cocaine processing in the Western Hemisphere.

That means the arrest of Maduro and subsequent U.S. attempts to control Venezuela’s government are unlikely to stem the influx of cocaine into the U.S.

Justifying intervention

While Venezuela’s geography and governance gaps make it a transit country for Colombian products, most U.S. cocaine originates and flows through corridors north and west of Venezuela. This contradicts the claim that Caracas was the central hub of cocaine trafficking into the United States.

Moreover, the opioid overdose crisis in the U.S. today is overwhelmingly driven by synthetic drugs such as fentanyl, which have supply chains rooted in Mexico and Asia, not Venezuela.

So why did Washington elevate Venezuela’s role in narcotics?

The answer, I believe, lies less in illicit markets than in power. By conflating criminal networks with government authority, an act amplified through legal designations and indictments, the Trump administration could justify military intervention without explicit congressional authorization.

Once Maduro was removed, the substance beneath the rhetoric became clearer. The U.S. has not turned power over to an opposition democratic coalition. Instead, it facilitated the swearing-in of Vice President Delcy Rodríguez as interim president, a figure deeply tied to the existing regime and whose network includes people long accused by U.S. authorities of illegal activities.

The release of political prisoners by the interim government and U.S. moves to reopen Venezuela’s oil sector to American interests underscore that what unfolded was not purely a counternarcotics mission but a reconfiguration of governance in Caracas.

Pretext for military action

The role of the Cartel de los Soles – or Cartel of the Suns – in this narrative deserves particular scrutiny. Originally a label for alleged trafficking networks within Venezuela’s security forces, U.S. legal indictments and terrorist designations expanded that concept. That amplified the narrative that Maduro was at the head of a transnational criminal enterprise.

In fact, the Cartel de los Soles is not a structured cartel at all. Yet the narrative of Maduro as head of a narco-terrorist empire was politically and legally potent. It provided a pretext for military action, creating a justification that could be sold domestically and internationally as an effort to defend U.S. citizens from an external criminal threat.

But the U.S. attack in Venezuela was not, in substance, a counternarcotics mission. It was a strategic economic and geopolitical operation framed in the language of law enforcement.

Two days after the Venezuela attack, the Justice Department retreated from its November 2025 claim that Maduro was the head of Cartel de los Soles, underscoring that the link between drug enforcement and regime removal was more instrumental than evidentiary.

Rodríguez said just days after the U.S. attack, “Drug trafficking and human rights were the excuse; the real motive was oil.”

No meaningful reduction

While the U.S. operation in Venezuela undoubtedly disrupted the trafficking networks that operated under Maduro’s umbrella, at least temporarily, the action cannot be convincingly framed as a drug supply intervention.

The reality of drug trafficking itself underscores this point.

Cocaine production and distribution networks are dynamic. When one route is disrupted, traffickers invariably find alternative pathways.

Routes that once used Venezuelan territory have likely rerouted rather than collapsed. This has historically characterized drug flow in Latin America in response to pressure from law enforcement.

Even if Venezuelan transit networks are briefly destabilized, there is no evidence that U.S. intervention will lead to a meaningful reduction in the volume of illegal drugs flowing into the United States. The most significant drivers of U.S. drug problems, including Mexico-based distribution systems and the surge of synthetic opioids, operate largely outside Venezuela.

The U.S. operation may benefit Venezuela politically by toppling a long-standing authoritarian figure. That opens the possibility of political change.

But if the lens through which policymakers view these events is drug policy, they are misreading both the evidence and the incentives. The action was centered on energy and strategic realignment, with counternarcotics rhetoric serving as a justification rather than a driver of the U.S. attack.

And while trafficking networks adapt and survive, these shifts will not reduce the flow of drugs into the United States, which has long been shaped by factors far beyond Venezuela’s borders.

Eduardo Gamarra does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Each year on the holiday that bears his name, Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered for his immense contributions to the struggle for racial equality. What is less often remembered but equally important is that King saw the fight for racial equality as deeply intertwined with economic justice.

To address inequality – and out of growing concern for how automation might displace workers – King became an early advocate for universal basic income. Under universal basic income, the government provides direct cash payments to all citizens to help them afford life’s expenses.

In recent years, more than a dozen U.S. cities have run universal basic income programs, often smaller or pilot programs that have offered guaranteed basic incomes to select groups of needy residents. As political scientists, we have followed these experiments closely.

One of us recently co-authored a study which found that universal basic income is generally popular. In two out of three surveys analyzed, majorities of white Americans supported a universal basic income proposal. Support is particularly high among those with low incomes.

King’s intuition was that white people with lower incomes would support this type of policy because they could also benefit from it. In 1967, King argued, “It seems to me that the Civil Rights Movement must now begin to organize for the guaranteed annual income … which I believe will go a long, long way toward dealing with the Negro’s economic problem and the economic problem with many other poor people confronting our nation.”

But there is one notable group that does not support universal basic income: those with higher levels of racial resentment. Racial resentment is a scale that social scientists have used to describe and measure anti-Black prejudice since the 1980s.

Notably, in our research, whites with higher levels of racial resentment and higher incomes are especially inclined to oppose universal basic income. As King well knew, this segment of Americans can create powerful opposition.

Economic self-interest can trump resentment

At the same time, the results of the study also suggest that coalition building is possible, even among the racially resentful.

Economic status matters. Racially resentful whites with lower incomes tend to be supportive of universal basic income. In short, self-interest seems to trump racial resentment. This is consistent with King’s idea of how an economic coalition could be built and pave the way toward racial progress.

Income is not the only thing that shapes attitudes, however. Some of the strongest supporters of universal basic income are those who have higher incomes but low levels of racial resentment. This suggests an opportunity to build coalitions across economic lines, something King believed was necessary. “The rich must not ignore the poor,” he argued in his Nobel Peace Prize lecture, “because both rich and poor are tied in a single garment of destiny.” Our data shows that this is possible.

This approach to coalition building is also suggested by our earlier research. Using American National Election Studies surveys from 2004-2016, we found that for white Americans, racial resentment predicted lower support for social welfare policies. But we also found that economic position mattered, too.

Economic need can unite white Americans in support of more generous welfare policies, including among some who are racially prejudiced. At a minimum, this suggests that racial resentment does not necessarily prevent white Americans from supporting policies that would also benefit Black Americans.

Building lasting coalitions

During his career as an activist in the 1950s and 1960s, King struggled with building long-term, multiracial coalitions. He understood that many forms of racial prejudice could undermine his work. He therefore sought strategies that could forge alliances across lines of difference. He helped build coalitions of poor and working-class Americans, including those who are white. He was not so naive as to think that shared economic progress would eliminate racial prejudice, but he saw it as a place to start.

Currently, the nation faces an affordability crisis, and artificial intelligence poses new threats to jobs. These factors have increased calls for universal basic income.

Racial prejudice continues to fuel opposition to universal basic income, as well as other forms of social welfare. But our research suggests that this is not insurmountable.

As King knew, progress toward economic equality is not inevitable. But, as his legacy reminds us, progress does remain possible through organizing around shared interests.

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

For Detroit homeowners over 65 who overwhelmingly live on fixed incomes, unexpected costs – increases in grocery prices, rising health care premiums or an emergency repair – heighten their risk of financial instability and can even lead to them falling into poverty.

I am a policy researcher at Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan. Our initiative uses action-based research, an approach that seeks to understand real-world problems and inform policy changes that could make life work better for people with low incomes. The center recently examined data from the 2023 American Community Survey to explore how low-income seniors in Detroit are affected by declining housing values and high housing costs compared to seniors across Michigan.

Federal, state and local programs to help seniors with these costs are already strained. As the population of older adults in metro Detroit continues to grow, demand for support services, such as caregiving and healthy meal programs, will likely increase.

Housing cost burdens are more acute for Detroit seniors

The poverty rate of senior-headed households in Detroit is nearly twice as high as the rate statewide.

Detroit seniors, both owners and renters, are more likely to be housing cost-burdened than Michigan seniors overall, with 45% paying more than 30% of their income on housing costs compared to 31% of seniors statewide. This is partially driven by lower median incomes in the city compared to the state.

Even when we focus on the seniors who would be considered the most financially stable, those who own their homes free and clear, the proportion burdened by housing costs is twice as high as the state: 32% versus 16%.

Detroit seniors pay more for property taxes and utilities

Lower incomes aren’t the only thing driving the higher housing cost burden. Detroit seniors pay more for all homeownership costs, including utilities – not only as a proportion of home values and income, but also in terms of real costs.

Detroiters face higher rates for auto insurance, and they pay more for utilities, compared to others in the state, adding to a situation where many residents, especially seniors on fixed incomes, struggle to make ends meet.

While the cost of living in urban areas is often higher compared to suburban and rural places, my analysis found that comparative costs for insurance, water, electricity and gas are lower in cities such as Milwaukee and Pittsburgh, which points to systemic issues that might be unique to Detroit.

Insurance and property taxes are also higher for seniors in Detroit compared to seniors across the state, especially relative to median home values. Detroit seniors pay the same or slightly more for these essentials despite living in homes that are worth less, based on the analysis.

The median house value for senior property owners in Detroit is $65,000, compared to $170,000 for seniors in Michigan.

High property taxes and insurance rates drive costs

Detroit lost over half a million residents between 1980 and 2020, causing an oversupply of single-family housing stock and a steady drop in home prices.

As residents left and businesses followed, the property tax base eroded. To generate the same revenue as cities with a richer tax base, Detroit levies property taxes at relatively high rates. Detroiters face a property tax rate close to 3%, significantly higher than the national average of 1.38%.

The housing market in Detroit has seen such large declines in property values that a disconnect has emerged. The replacement cost of a home, which is the actual expense required to reconstruct the dwelling, is often substantially higher than its current market value. This makes the cost of homeowner’s insurance disproportionately expensive relative to the market value of a home in Detroit.

A property’s condition and the condition of neighboring properties also raises the cost of homeowner’s insurance because insurance premiums are primarily influenced by the risk associated with insuring a property. Poor property and neighborhood conditions limit the availability of homeowner’s insurance, driving those who want homeowner’s insurance to purchase costly policies from insurers of last resort, or companies that provide coverage to people who cannot obtain it through other means due to high insurance risks.

The high cost drives many Detroit residents to forgo homeowner’s insurance. According to my analysis, almost 35% of Detroit seniors do not insure their homes, putting their main financial asset at risk.

Big utility bills

Utility bills in Detroit are higher compared to those statewide for two reasons: higher use and higher rates. The housing stock in Detroit is significantly older, with 88% of Detroit seniors living in houses built before 1960, compared to 34% of seniors in the rest of the state. These older homes use more energy because they often lack modern insulation and have single-paned windows, outdated appliances, older plumbing fixtures and poor seals around windows and doors.

Detroiters and others in Michigan served by DTE Energy, a utility provider, pay gas and electricity rates that are higher than others in the state. Detroiters also pay more for utilities due to a 5% “utility users tax” added to their gas and electricity bills. This surcharge isn’t new. It stems from legislation originally passed in the 1970s, and the funds collected flow to the Public Lighting Authority, which is responsible for improving and maintaining street lights in the city, and to the Detroit Police Department.

In the wake of Detroit’s bankruptcy filing in 2013, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department carried out widespread shut-offs. From 2014 to 2020, the shut-offs affected as many as 141,000 Detroit residents, mostly those with low incomes. The crisis garnered national and international attention.

The initial crisis has passed, yet the cost of water continues to increase across the entire state, with those in the metro Detroit area served by the Great Lakes Water Authority seeing substantially higher rate increases than the state overall to cover deferred maintenance and infrastructure costs.

Costs are compounded by social isolation

Costs stemming from isolation and disability exacerbate the financial strain Detroit seniors already face.

Several factors contribute to older adults living alone, including increased life expectancy for women as well as children and family members moving farther away from each other. Older adults living alone are also more likely to be poorer than older adults who are a part of a larger household.

This issue is more pronounced in Detroit, where 54.7% of seniors live alone compared to the 43.2% statewide average. Living alone increases the risk of social isolation, which is linked to poorer health outcomes. Detroit seniors also have higher rates of disability than other seniors in the state of Michigan, which can lead to higher health care costs, decreased mobility and increased social isolation.

Less funding could create more hardship

Historically the demand for support outstrips the available resources, with only a small proportion of eligible households receiving energy assistance. And now, programs that help vulnerable seniors with the costs of utilities are at risk of funding cuts.

Detroit Water and Sewerage Department’s Lifeline Plan, launched in 2022, ran out of state and federal money in October 2025.

Meanwhile, the entire staff that administers the federal Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP, was cut in April 2025. While the program is funded in the continuing resolution passed on Nov. 12, 2025, it is zeroed out in the president’s fiscal year 2026 proposed budget.

Even before funding uncertainties emerged, Detroit seniors who own their homes faced institutional barriers accessing property tax relief, putting many at risk of tax foreclosure. Additionally, Detroiters struggle to keep up with home repair costs, heightened by the needs of older homes and because the home repair assistance system is fragmented and difficult to access.

Without these programs, Detroit seniors will be left without an essential lifeline.

Amanda Nothaft does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Despite public support in the U.S. for deposing Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, President Donald Trump is unlikely to find that level of support for fighting an actual war in that country.

Even as Trump tries to work through Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s vice president and now the acting leader of the country, to manage Venezuela, there are echoes of President George W. Bush in Iraq with Trump saying that the United States will “run” Venezuela and “nurse it back to health” with Venezuelan oil wealth. None of that – which requires a lot of control by Washington and a major presence on the ground – can or will happen without a significant commitment of U.S. military forces, however, which Trump hasn’t ruled out.

“We’re not afraid of boots on the ground,” Trump said.

Yet U.S. citizens have been and remain deeply skeptical of military action in Venezuela. From Lyndon Johnson to George W. Bush, history shows that leaders often pay a high political price – and costs to their legacy, too – when wars they start or expand become unpopular.

As an expert on U.S. foreign policy and regime change wars, my research shows that every major U.S. war since 1900 – especially those that involved regime change – was buoyed at its outset by a big story with a grand purpose or objective. This helped galvanize national support to bear the costs of these wars.

During the Cold War, a story about the dangers of Soviet power to American democracy and the need to combat the spread of communism brought strong public support, at least initially, for wars in Korea and Vietnam, along with smaller operations in the Caribbean and Latin America.

In the 2000s and 2010s, the dominant narrative about preventing another Sept. 11 and quelling global terrorism generated strong initial public support for wars in Iraq – 70% in 2003 – and Afghanistan, 88% in 2001.

A big problem Trump now faces is that no similar story exists for Venezuela.

What national interest?

The administration’s justifications for war cover a hodgepodge of reasons, such as stopping drugs that flow almost exclusively to Europe, not the U.S.; seizing oil fields that benefit U.S. corporations but not the wider public; and somehow curtailing China’s efforts to build roads and bridges in Latin America.

All these are unrelated to any story-driven sense of collective mission or purpose. Unlike Korea or Afghanistan at the start, Americans don’t know what war in Venezuela will bring them and whether it is worth the costs.

This lack of a holistic story or broad rationale shows up in the polls. In November, only 15% of Americans saw Venezuela as a national emergency. A plurality, 45%, opposed an overthrow of Maduro. After Maduro was removed in early January 2026, Americans’ opposition to force in Venezuela grew to 52%. No rally around the flag here.

Americans also worry about where things are heading in Venezuela, with 72% saying Trump has not clearly explained plans going forward. Few want the mantle of regime change, either. Nine in 10 say Venezuelans, not the United States, should choose their next government. And more than 60% oppose additional force against Venezuela or other Latin American countries.

Only 43% of Republicans want the United States to dominate the Western Hemisphere, indicating Trump’s foreign policy vision isn’t even popular in his own party.

Overall, these numbers stand in sharp contrast to past U.S. wars bolstered by big stories, where there was generally a deep, bipartisan consensus behind using force.

For the moment, 89% of Republicans support removing Maduro. But 87% of Democrats and 58% of independents are opposed.

Reflecting the national skepticism – and in a rebuke of Trump – the U.S. Senate advanced a measure to final vote requiring Trump to get congressional approval before taking further military action in Venezuela. Five Senate Republicans joined all Democratic senators in voting for the measure.

All told, the U.S. political system is flashing red when it comes to war in Venezuela.

Hubris can turn deadly

Research shows that U.S. regime change wars almost never go as planned. Yet, the hubris of U.S. leaders sometimes causes them to ignore this fact, which can result in deadly trouble. In Iraq, influential Vice President Dick Cheney told one interviewer, “We’ll be greeted as liberators.” We weren’t, and U.S. forces got bogged down in a bloody insurgency war.

Experts say the same trouble could come in Venezuela.

What might stop the United States from rolling into a deeper war that’s not in line with how the public views U.S. interests? My research shows that the answer lies with U.S. leaders taking steps to back away from owning what comes next in Venezuela.

This turns a lot on presidential rhetoric. When leaders make robust commitments to action, it often boxes them in politically later on to follow through, even if they don’t want to do so. Their words create what political scientists call “audience costs,” which are domestic political setbacks, or punishment, that leaders will face if they fail to follow through on what they promised to do.

Audience costs can even form in a case like Venezuela, because despite limited public support for force, the media along with proponents of war inside and outside government often pick up on a president’s words and produce a churning conversation. That conversation is visible now in the news cycle, with leading Republicans and other prominent voices calling for more robust action. It’s the “you broke it, you fix it” discussion.

This churn raises questions about the president’s credibility that sometimes makes leaders feel boxed in to act, even when public support is questionable.

As a presidential candidate in 2008, Barack Obama promised to devote greater attention and resources to the war in Afghanistan. When he got in office, Obama’s words came back to bite him. Political pressure generated by his campaign pledge made it almost impossible for Obama to avoid surging troops into Afghanistan at a much higher level than what he intended.

While presidents should always strive to keep the public informed of the direction policy is headed, research shows that leaders can avoid the trap of audience costs by remaining relatively vague and noncommittal, which the public now prefers, about future military actions.

On Venezuela, Trump has done some of this vague language work already by sidestepping specifics about when and if force will be used again, and by also downplaying talk of U.S.-led democracy promotion. If he stops talking about “running” Venezuela and adopts the more measured language used by advisers such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who says the goal is to “move (Venezuela) in a certain direction” but not run the country, Trump could take another step away from being boxed in to do more militarily.

Events on the ground in Venezuela might also factor into future U.S. policy. Obama would not have faced the political pressure for the surge that he did when coming to office if the Afghan war had been going in a more positive direction.

Venezuela is close to economic collapse, according to some experts, due to Caracas’ inability to reap the profits of selling oil abroad. If that happens, political chaos could follow and leave Trump, like Obama in Afghanistan, feeling lots of pressure to act militarily, especially if Trump is still saying he “runs” Venezuela.

Again, Americans don’t want that, which means taking steps, such as loosening the current oil embargo, to alleviate economic pain in Venezuela might make sense for Trump. Otherwise, if American troops are sent in by Trump and deaths mount, even a president deemed virtually untouchable by scandal and failure could find himself finally paying a political price for his decisions.

Charles Walldorf is affiliated with Defense Priorities.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

In December 2025, President Donald Trump filed a US$10 billion lawsuit against the BBC in a federal court in Florida. It was only the latest in a long series of high-dollar legal challenges Trump has brought against prominent media organizations, including ABC, CBS, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, among others.

Trump has won some sizable settlements in cases legal scholars had dismissed as largely lacking in merit. But as media scholars, we believe prevailing in court is not necessarily his primary goal. Instead, Trump appears to use lawsuits as a strategic weapon designed to silence his enemies and critics – who sometimes seem to be one and the same in his eyes.

Trump has always been litigious. Over the course of his life, he has been involved in more than 4,000 lawsuits. Many of these involved Trump suing for defamation over perceived threats to his reputation. Relatively few, however, have been successful, if success is defined as prevailing in courts of law.

But using litigation as a tool for intimidation can produce other results that can count as victory. We are concerned that the president may be using the courts as a tool not to correct the record but to muzzle potential watchdogs and deprive the public of the facts they need to hold him accountable.

Winning major settlements

Trump claims the BBC attempted to interfere with the 2024 election by misrepresenting statements he’d made. As with Trump’s other defamation suits, the odds appear long against the president winning his case against the British broadcaster in court.

Just after Trump’s election in 2024, ABC, whose parent company is Disney, promised to make a $15 million contribution to the Trump presidential library to settle a defamation suit many experts said had dubious merit.

CBS and its parent company Paramount Global settled an arguably weaker defamation suit involving editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris that Trump said was done “to make her look better.” Paramount contributed $16 million to Trump’s presidential library and his legal fees in order, the company said, to avoid the “uncertainty and distraction” of litigation. That same month, the Federal Communications Commission approved the $8 billion acquisition of Paramount by Skydance Media.

Those two defamation suits were filed while Trump was still a presidential candidate. Weeks after winning reelection, Trump sued The Des Moines Register for publishing a preelection poll that suggested he might lose the swing state of Iowa. Instead, he carried the state by 13 percentage points.

Trump could have just gloated over his victory, as President Harry Truman did when he famously posed holding the Chicago Tribune’s “Dewey Beats Truman” headline the day after his reelection. Instead, Trump went to court, accusing The Des Moines Register and its pollster, J. Ann Selzer, of violating Iowa’s consumer protection laws by fraudulently deceiving consumers and campaign donors.

Even if Trump loses this suit, he has inflicted expensive litigation costs on a news organization.

The considerable costs of defense

From the 1960s until the late 1990s, leading media outlets, rich from advertising dollars, could afford to hire lawyers to defend against governmental overreach and protect their role in the U.S.’s democratic order. Those fights led to Supreme Court decisions shielding media outlets from most libel complaints and government censorship prior to publication.

But the rise of the internet and then social media led to the collapse of the economic model supporting traditional news production. As audiences and advertisers have fled traditional media outlets, including newspapers and broadcasters, the money to hire lawyers to defend against expensive defamation suits or fight for access to government information is much harder to find.

If even media giants such as ABC and CBS are settling rather than fighting, what local news editor is going to assign a story that might trigger a presidential lawsuit? That’s why Trump’s suit against The Des Moines Register is such an ominous development.

Giving up without a fight

What’s disheartening about the media giants’ capitulation is that they are at risk of squandering the protections afforded by the Constitution and the courts.

In medieval England, criticizing the king or peers of the realm was a crime. But early in U.S. history, attempts to enforce seditious libel laws by the British government and later by President John Adams and the Federalist-controlled Congress generated public outcry and rebuke. This was based in part on the understanding that in a democracy the people must be free to criticize those who govern them, a principle enshrined in the First Amendment.

The Supreme Court ratified this understanding of press freedom in its 1964 decision New York Times v. Sullivan. In a resounding victory for free expression, the justices held that government officials cannot prevail in defamation cases unless there is clear and convincing proof that their critics knowingly or recklessly disregarded the truth. Careless errors are not enough.

Under these protections, even Trump’s case against the BBC – where the network has admitted an ethical lapse – is not a certain winner, especially since the contested content didn’t air in Florida, where the lawsuit was filed.

Although Trump claims the BBC’s misleading edits implied that he directly incited protesters to storm the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the network can argue in court that the inaccuracy is only technical, given that Trump truly did give a firebrand speech that was widely criticized as at least indirectly leading to the violence that followed . If the edited version of Trump’s speech is not appreciably more harmful to Trump’s reputation than his actual speech, Trump’s defamation claim would likely fail.

Trump is the first U.S. president to use the weight of his office to extract private settlements from news outlets tasked with holding him accountable. Ostensibly, these suits are to recover monetary damages for harm to his reputation, but they are part of a broader attack on what Trump perceives as hostile media coverage.

New limits from states

Some of Trump’s targets are fighting back.

One is the Pulitzer Prize Board, the defendant in yet another Trump defamation suit – in this case, over the awards the board gave for reporting on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

In December 2025, the Pulitzer Prize Board asked the judge in the case to force the president to hand over tax and medical records to prove that he had suffered the financial and emotional harm he is claiming.

Another key development: Most states have enacted anti-SLAPP laws. SLAPP stands for “strategic lawsuits against public participation,” referring to cases filed to intimidate and discourage public criticism. Thirty-eight states, plus the District of Columbia, now have anti-SLAPP laws in place. It’s probably not a coincidence that Trump filed the latest iteration of his suit against The Des Moines Register on June 30, which happened to be one day before Iowa’s anti-SLAPP law took effect.

These state laws allow targets of SLAPPs to get early resolutions of meritless suits and can force people found to have filed such suits to pick up their targets’ legal bills.

Without such tools protecting First Amendment rights – and media organizations taking steps themselves to defend such rights – dissent might be characterized as a “deceptive trade practice,” and speech is no longer truly free.

Lyrissa Barnett Lidsky is affiliated with the Florida First Amendment Foundation.

Kathy Kiely does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

On Jan. 7, 2026, President Donald Trump declared that he would officially pull the United States out of the world’s most important global treaty for combating climate change. He said it was because the treaty ran “contrary to the interests of the United States.”

His order didn’t say which U.S. interests he had in mind.

Americans had just seen a year of widespread flooding from extreme weather across the U.S. Deadly wildfires had burned thousands of homes in the nation’s second-largest metro area, and 2025 had been the second- or third-hottest year globally on record. Insurers are no longer willing to insure homes in many areas of the country because of the rising risks, and they are raising prices in many others.

For decades, evidence has shown that increasing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, largely from burning fossil fuels, are raising global temperatures and influencing sea level rise, storms and wildfires.

The climate treaty – the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – was created to bring the world together to find ways to lower those risks.

Trump’s order to now pull the U.S. out of that treaty adds to a growing list of moves by the admnistration to dismantle U.S. efforts to combat climate change, despite the risks. Many of those moves, and there have been dozens, have flown under the public radar.

Why this climate treaty matters

A year into the second Trump administration, you might wonder: What’s the big deal with the U.S. leaving the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change now?

After all, the Trump administration has been ignoring the UNFCCC since taking office in January. The administration moved to stop collecting and reporting corporate greenhouse gas emissions data required under the treaty. It canceled U.S. scientists’ involvement in international research. One of Trump’s first acts of his second term was to start the process of pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement. Trump made similar moves in his first term, but the U.S. returned to the Paris agreement after he left office.

This action is different. It vacates an actual treaty that was ratified by the U.S. Senate in October 1992 and signed by President George H.W. Bush.

America’s ratification that year broke a logjam of inaction by nations that had signed the agreement but were wary about actually ratifying it as a legal document. Once the U.S. ratified it, other countries followed, and the treaty entered into force on March 21, 1994.

The U.S. was a global leader on climate change for years. Not anymore.

Chipping away at climate policy

With the flurry of headlines about the U.S. intervention in Venezuela, renewed threats to seize Greenland, persistent high prices, immigration arrests, ICE and Border Patrol shootings, the Epstein files and the fight over ending health care subsidies, important news from other critical areas that affect public welfare has been overlooked for months.

Two climate-related decisions did dominate a few news cycles in 2025. The Environmental Protection Agency announced its intention to rescind its 2009 Endangerment Finding, a legal determination that certain greenhouse gas emissions endanger the public health and welfare that became the foundation of federal climate laws. There are indications that the move to rescind the finding could be finalized soon – the EPA sent its final draft rule to the White House for review in early January 2026. And the Department of Energy released a misinformed climate assessment authored by five handpicked climate skeptics.

Both moves drew condemnation from scientists, but that news was quickly overwhelmed by concern about a government shutdown and continuing science funding cuts and layoffs.

This chipping away at climate policy continued to accelerate at the end of 2025 with six more significant actions that went largely unnoticed.

Three could harm efforts to slow climate change:

• The Trump administration moved to weaken vehicle emissions standards on Dec. 3. Instead of raising the industry average for cars and light trucks vehicles to 50 miles per gallon by 2031, as planned, the standard would rise to about 34.5 miles per gallon by 2031.

• On Dec. 11, the U.S. joined Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia to block part of a U.N. environment report that would have called for phasing out fossil fuels.

• Eleven days later, the U.S. Department of the Interior jeopardized billions of dollars of U.S. investment in clean energy by pausing the leases of five East Coast offshore wind farms.

Three other moves by the administration shot arrows at the heart of climate science:

• The EPA rewrote its webpage about the causes of climate change to remove human influences, including burning fossil fuels – the primary cause of global warming. That occurred on Dec. 5.

• On Dec. 17, Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, announced plans to shut down the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a world-recognized leader in earth system science.

• A week later, the administration invited the authors of the discredited Department of Energy climate report to write the next U.S. National Climate Assessment, the latest in a widely used series of reports mandated by Congress to assess the nation’s climate risks.

Fossil fuels at any cost

In early January 2025, the United States had reestablished itself as a world leader in climate science and was still working domestically and internationally to combat climate risks.

A year later, the U.S. government has abdicated both roles and is taking actions that will increase the likelihood of catastrophic climate-driven disasters and magnify their consequences by dismantling certain forecasting and warning systems and tearing apart programs that helped Americans recover from disasters, including targeting the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

To my mind, as a scholar of both environmental studies and economics, the administration’s moves enunciated clearly its strategy to discredit concerns about climate change, at the same time it promotes greater production of fossil fuels. It’s “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” with little consideration for what’s at risk.

Trump’s repudiation of the UNFCCC could give countries around the world cover to pull back their own efforts to fight a global problem if they decide it is not in their myopic “best interest.” So far, the other countries have stayed in both that treaty and the Paris climate agreement. However, many countries’ promises to protect the planet for future generations were weaker in 2025 than hoped.

The U.S. pullout may also leave the Trump administration at a disadvantage: The U.S. will no longer have a formal voice in the global forum where climate policies are debated, one where China has been gaining influence since Trump returned to the presidency.

Gary W. Yohe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Foreign policy is usually discussed as a matter of national interests – oil flows, borders, treaties, fleets. But there is a problem: “national interest” is an inherently ambiguous phrase. Although it is often presented as an expression of sheer force, its effectiveness ultimately rests on something softer – the manner in which a government performs moral authority and projects credibility to the world.

The style of that performance is part of the substance, not just its packaging. On Jan. 4, 2026, on ABC’s This Week, that style shifted abruptly for the U.S.

Anchor George Stephanopoulos pressed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to explain President Donald Trump’s declaration that “the United States is going to run Venezuela.” Under what authority, Stephanopoulos asked, could such a claim possibly stand?

Rubio dodged the question. He just said that the United States would enact “a quarantine on their oil.” Venezuela’s economy would remain frozen, unable “to move forward until the conditions that are in the national interest of the United States and the interests of the Venezuelan people are met.”

Rubio’s point presumed authority rather than pausing to justify it. It was a diplomacy of dominance – coercion dressed up as concern. The unspoken assumption was pure wishful thinking: that “national interest” would immediately prevail, flowing smoothly in all directions.

As a historian of the early republic and the author of a biography of George Washington, I’ve been reminded these days of how Washington – amid harsh storms unlike anything the country faces today – forged a vision that treated restraint, not self-justifying unilateralism, as the truest measure of American national interest.

Acknowledging burdens and consequences

In the 1790s, the United States faced a world ruled by corsairs and kings. The Atlantic was not yet an American lake. Spain blocked its western river, the Mississippi. Britain still held forts on U.S. soil. Revolutionary France tried to recruit American passions for European wars. And in North Africa, petty “Regencies,” as Europe politely called them, seized American ships at will.

The young nation was humiliated before it was strong. George Washington understood that humiliation intimately. Independence had freed America from Britain, but not from the world.

“Would to Heaven we had a navy,” he confessed to the Marquis de Lafayette in 1786, longing for ships “to reform those enemies to mankind, or crush them into nonexistence.” But such a fierce wish never became Washington’s foreign policy. Visibility invited peril; peril required composure.

In 1785, two American merchant vessels – the Maria of Boston and the Dauphin of Philadelphia – were captured by Algerian cruisers. Twenty-one sailors were chained, stripped and sold into slavery. Their families begged the government to pay ransom. Negotiators proposed paying tribute, a kind of protection-in-advance payment system. The price kept rising.

President Washington refused to be rushed by either pity or anger. Paying the extravagant sum, he warned his cabinet in 1789, “might establish a precedent which would always operate and be very burthensome if yielded to.”

Precedent mattered to Washington. A republic must measure not only what it can afford, but what it will be forced to feel tomorrow because of what it pays today.

The Trump administration’s approach to Venezuela demonstrates the opposite instinct. It represents a readiness to take unprecedented steps without pausing to acknowledge their burden and consequences.

Washington feared that habit of nearsightedness in foreign affairs precisely because he believed it corrupted empires – and could corrupt republics as well.

Neutrality as ‘emotional discipline’

The storms soon multiplied.

By 1793, Europe was already “pregnant with great events,” Washington wrote to Lafayette. The French Revolution, welcomed at first as a triumph of “The Rights of Man,” slid into terror and general war.

Citizen Genet, the French envoy to the United States, landed in Charleston, South Carolina, and proceeded to enlist American citizens’ help in France’s war with Britain by commissioning privateers in U.S. ports to prey on British ships. Genet did not request permission to do this from Washington.

Gratitude to France – indispensable ally during the Revolution, provider of fleets, soldiers and hard-to-forget loans – clashed with alarm at her new demands. A single misstep could have dragged the United States into another catastrophic conflict.

And yet, Washington responded to Genet not with rashness and bravado but with restraint made public law.

The 1793 Proclamation of Neutrality insisted that the “duty and interest of the United States” required “a conduct friendly and impartial toward the belligerent powers.” Neutrality was an emotional discipline – the only source of authority.

Friendliness: strategy, not concession

President Washington knew that the road to successful pursuit of national interests was paved with international credibility.

Washington wanted America “to be little heard of in the great world of Politics,” preferring instead “to exchange Commodities & live in peace & amity with all the inhabitants of the earth.”

The first president pitched the republic’s voice toward ordinary people rather than rival powers. He spoke of “inhabitants,” not foreign enemies. He treated restraint – not self-justifying unilateralism – as the truest measure of national interest.

Even when insulted or thwarted – by Spanish intrigues on the Florida frontier, by British seizures in the Caribbean, by pamphleteers accusing him of being a monarch in disguise – Washington’s tone remained measured.

On March 4, 1797, he would leave the presidency. His final creed was simple and devout: “My policy has been, and will continue … to be upon friendly terms with, but independent of, all the nations of the earth.”

For Washington, friendliness was a strategy, not a concession. The republic would treat other nations with civility precisely in order to remain independent of their appetites and quarrels.

Foreign policy as civic mirror

The statements from the Trump administration about Venezuela revive habits Washington once deplored: sovereignty managed through fear, pressure enforced by economic asphyxiation, domination smoothed over with promises of kindness. In this performance, U.S. interests function as a blank check, and restraint appears obsolete.

Yet foreign policy has never been only a ledger of advantage. It is also a civic mirror: the emotional register of a government that tells citizens what kind of nation is acting in their name, and whether it tries to balance national interest with responsibilities to others.

Washington believed America’s legitimacy abroad depended on patience and respect for the autonomy of others. The current approach to Caracas announces a different imagination: a power that boasts of quarantines, sets conditions – and calls the result partnership.

A republic must still defend its interests. But I believe it should also defend the temperament that made those interests compatible with independence in the first place. Washington’s America learned to stand among stronger powers without demanding to run them.

The question asked on “This Week,” then, is only the beginning.

The deeper question remains whether the United States will continue to perform power with the discipline of a constitutional republic – or surrender that discipline to the easy allure of what seems to only serve national interest, but fails to build credibility or relationships that endure.

Maurizio Valsania does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette announced on Jan. 7, 2026, that it will cease all operations effective May 3. The daily newspaper, founded in 1786, has been the city’s paper of record for nearly a century and is one of the oldest newspapers in the country.

Block Communications, the company that owns the Post-Gazette, says the paper has lost “hundreds of millions of dollars” during the past two decades. The shuttering of the Post-Gazette comes after a three-year strike by newspaper employees who were asking management for better wages and working conditions. The strike ended in November 2025 after an appellate court ruled in favor of the union workers. The Post-Gazette was found to have violated federal labor law by cutting health care benefits and failing to bargain in good faith. Then, on Jan. 7, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the paper, stating that the Post-Gazette was required to adjust its health insurance coverage for union members. Hours later, Block Communications announced that the paper would shut down.

Victor Pickard, an expert on the U.S. media and its role in democracy, was born and raised just outside Pittsburgh. He talked to Cassandra Stone, The Conversation U.S. Pittsburgh editor, about what the closing means for local journalism and democracy.

Newspapers have been in decline for decades. How significant is this closure?

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has long been a vital part of the local community throughout western Pennsylvania. This would be the first major metropolitan newspaper closing since the Tampa Tribune shut its doors in 2016, and it’s a devastating blow to residents in that entire area of the state. Block Communications also closed down the Pittsburgh City Paper, which is an alt-weekly newspaper in Pittsburgh, in January 2026. The loss of the Post-Gazette will likely create a major gap in local news coverage.

How much did the labor strike from 2022-2025 affect the newspaper’s profitability?

I wouldn’t pin the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s loss of profitability on the strike – which was legitimate and did have a profound impact – as much as on the structural forces affecting nearly all local newspapers at this time.

Throughout the country, local journalism increasingly is no longer a profitable enterprise. The core business model of being reliant on advertising revenue has irreparably collapsed, and subscriptions rarely generate enough financial support.

Since the early 2000s, the U.S. has lost about 40% of its local newspapers and about 75% of the jobs in newspaper journalism, according to a 2025 report from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. A study published last year by Rebuild Local News and Muck Rack shows that in 2002, there were roughly 40 journalists per 100,000 people in the United States. Today, it’s down to about eight journalists.

This evisceration of local journalism leads to ever-expanding news deserts across the country, where tens of millions of Americans are living in areas with little or no local news media whatsoever.

How might this affect local civic engagement and democracy in Pittsburgh?

Democracy requires a free and functional press system. When a local newspaper closes, fewer people vote and get involved in local politics, and corruption and polarization increase.

Without local news outlets, people often turn to national news or even “pink slime” news sites. These sites masquerade as official local media institutions but in fact are often propagandistic outlets that amplify misinformation and disinformation.

With the retreat of newspapers, people are receiving less high-quality news and information. This means that people living in these areas are less knowledgeable about politics. They often don’t know who’s running for office in their communities, or what their political platforms are, and there’s just less civic engagement in general.

Most Americans have 24/7 access to unlimited news and information through their social media feeds, including local news influencers. Does this counteract the loss of local reporting?

I think an important distinction needs to be made between carefully reported and fact-checked articles and what seems like a glut of information at our fingertips at all times. Beyond the surface-level appearance of countless news sites, social media reports offer relatively few new facts that have been borne out of rigorous reporting.

You could say that Americans are living in a new golden age of political discourse, where we constantly see a churn of social media-based forms of expression. But that’s not necessarily journalism.

When we’re talking about the collapse of newspapers and fewer newspaper journalists working their beats, it would be an entirely different story if that journalism were being replaced by other institutions, by influencers, by podcasters. But many of those outlets are amplifying opinion-based commentary and punditry.

That’s not the same thing as reporting that adheres to journalistic norms and introduces new information into the world. Losing this kind of knowledge production hurts communities everywhere – from small towns and rural areas to major cities like Pittsburgh.

Victor Pickard does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation