Photo courtesy of The Guardian.

Dear Commons Community,

Conservative Rick Hess , Director of Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute,  had an essay in yesterday’s Education Week chiming in on President Donald Trump’s first 100 days as have already felt like being “trapped inside a Russian novel—and we’re barely underway.”  Entitled, “Trump’s 100 Days: The Good, the Bad, and the Confounding,” here is his entire essay.

Here’s my take on what we’ve seen in K-12. Be forewarned, you’ll need to look elsewhere for a blistering denunciation or an exercise in cheerleading. That’s because I’m feeling pretty conflicted. On the one hand, I support Team Trump’s priorities and vision. On the other, I think responsible government is less a matter of what you intend to do than what you actually do. And, on that score, there’s much to give me pause.

Character is destiny, in Russian novels as in life, and what we’re seeing reflects Trump’s. But unlike Trump 1.0, when his staff often tempered his impulsiveness, bombast, and distaste for detail, we’re getting the Full Trump this go-round. I didn’t fully anticipate the resulting chaos. Much of what’s happened over the past three-plus months has startled me. It’s not the priorities that have surprised me: I anticipated the emphasis on diversity, equity, and inclusion; gender ideology; school choice; and reducing the federal footprint. But I’ve been taken aback by the number and sweep of executive orders, the blunderbuss posture, and just how indiscriminate DOGE proved to be.

What’s surprised me in particular? First, what we’ve seen has been far less deliberate than I’d expected, given the Trump team’s thick (metaphorical) playbook and deep bench of talent. Second, the prominence and relentless aggression of the DOGE chainsaw. Third, the taste for confrontation, even when it made it tougher to rack up wins. Fourth, the failure to coherently make the case for many of their more controversial actions.

Look, I thought DOGE had enormous potential. I’ve long argued that the U.S. Department of Education could be run far more efficiently and responsibly—as have others, like Mark Schneider, my AEI colleague and a former director of the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). The department suffered under a troubled culture and a padded payroll, and its contracts would benefit from a good scouring. Moreover, previous administrations have lacked the will (or even the desire) to tackle any of this. So I was inclined to give DOGE’s grip-it-and-rip-it tactics a chance. But I noted that success would depend on the coherence of what followed. What we got was a capriciousness and clumsiness that raised red flags. DOGE’s mission was to promote efficiency and ensure money is spent on the things that matter. Well, months after ED’s contracts were yanked and staff were first let go, it’s entirely unclear that this will produce a more effective agency—and not just a smaller one. There’s been a disconcerting lack of clarity about what’s being cut, the rationale for specific cuts, how much money is being saved, or how things will work going forward.

Take the National Assessment of Educational Progress. DOGE either ignored the secretary of education’s promise to preserve NAEP or didn’t realize that it was cutting NAEP-essential staff and contracts (similar lapses, of course, have been evident across a number of agencies). While the small NAEP unit attached to the National Assessment Governing Board was preserved, that team is charged with management, strategy, and communications. The staff members who actually coordinated and crunched the data for NAEP got wiped out, along with more than 90 percent of IES. As the administration scrambles to recover from this misstep, NAEP is getting put back together with bubble gum and duct tape, while chunks of it (including the U.S. history test) are jettisoned. I get less of an impression of streamlining than of DOGE just gutting everything in its path.

Trump’s executive order to dismantle the Department of Education is better understood as an emphatic memo asking the secretary of education to do what she was already doing (since abolishing the department or moving components to other agencies requires an act of Congress). That’s why many of us assumed the president would urge Congress to act and then focus on things he could control. Instead, the long-shot push to dismantle ED plays on, even as Team Trump reassures everyone that no spending cuts are coming to ED’s major programs like Title I, IDEA, or Pell Grants (though there’s been talk of moving IDEA, for instance, to the Department of Health and Human Services—a move that would require not-in-the-cards congressional approval). Trump’s budget proposal does call for zeroing out Head Start, though it’s unclear whether Congress will go along. Moreover, the push to shrink Washington’s role sits uneasily alongside the new executive order on artificial intelligence, which calls for Uncle Sam to actively promote AI integration in schools.

Then there’s DEI. Obviously, those who support DEI hate everything Trump has done on this count. If you’re like me, though, you think the administration has a compelling case. Federal civil rights law requires schools and colleges to abide by the Civil Rights Act’s prohibition on discrimination based on race, color, or national origin. It seems obvious that when school officials are organizing race-based affinity groups or restricting programs based on student race or ethnicity, they are violating federal law—and creating a “hostile learning environment” for some students. Moreover, since 2021, four years of state-level legislative and legal efforts have offered up lessons about how to craft directives and legislation that are broadly popular and take First Amendment concerns seriously. I expected the administration’s ability to draw on those experiences would be an enormous boon.

Well, that hard-earned wisdom sure seems to have fallen by the wayside. The administration’s executive order and “Dear Colleague Letter” on DEI did little to distinguish between discriminatory conduct by schools, on one hand, and classroom instruction or materials that touched on matters of race, on the other. The federal government has both a right and an obligation to tackle the first. But not only is ED statutorily barred from interfering in matters of curriculum and instruction, the sense that it wants to raises First Amendment concerns—and reframes its efforts not as a response to DEI excess but a worrisome exercise in illiberalism. That’s made it easy for blue state chiefs to reject the administration’s DEI directive while credibly arguing that they’re not “pro-DEI” (unpopular) but “pro-First Amendment” (very popular). It’s also given Trump’s opponents a strong legal hand, as seen last week when three different federal judges ruled that the DEI directive doesn’t pass legal muster.

The same kind of good, bad, and confounding analysis applies to much of Trump’s agenda. On gender identity, his EO clarifying that Title IX’s use of sex means “biological sex” was necessary and appropriate. After all, the Biden administration sought to unilaterally rewrite Title IX to include gender identity and then force schools to overhaul policies governing locker rooms, dormitories, and more. Trump’s EO was a much-needed reaffirmation of what the law actually says. The issue is with how Team Trump has followed up. Trump personally confronted the governor of Maine over its transgender sports policy, threatening to strip federal K-12 funds—and then rapidly did so. If it were to stand, this would be a stunning expansion of presidential authority in education. But it’s not likely to stand. Republican attorneys general successfully challenged Biden’s Title IX guidance, and Maine will likely prevail, too. Meanwhile, Trump’s move to strip vast sums based on an executive order is a lousy precedent, an odd move for a president who talks of empowering states and a tactic that invites backlash against an otherwise popular policy.

On school choice, there’s been a genial executive order, ED has (thankfully) dropped the poison pill regulations that the Biden administration imposed on the charter school program, and the department has invited states to apply for waivers and is looking to make programs more choice-friendly. Congress may adopt a groundbreaking tax credit for scholarship programs in this year’s budget reconciliation bill. But the reality is that choice is mostly a state issue. The Every Student Succeeds Act already grants states enormous flexibility that they’re not using, and empowering states is less about rhetoric than about changing laws or overhauling regulations. Thus far, as best I can tell, there’s been little obvious activity on tackling rules and regulations.

Like I said up top, I’m conflicted. I’ve been impressed by the willingness to mount fights that are overdue, necessary, and challenging. But I can’t look past the disorder, opacity, and disregard for established law. Doing so much via executive action is a horrific norm that serves no one well. These proclamations can be reversed on day one by the next president. Conservatives were rightly livid when Biden’s White House operated this way, and ratcheting things up will eventually come back to haunt Republicans.

As we hit the 100-day mark, there’s still much time to course-correct. I’m rooting for a recalibration, for some sensible restraint and respect for due process. Trump has altered course on priorities like tariffs and student visas; next to that, bringing more discipline to the education agenda is an easy lift. And it certainly appears that DOGE’s role in education is waning. Elon Musk is mostly out, and DOGE has already cut all it readily can. Meanwhile, veteran K-12 state chiefs Penny Schwinn and Kirsten Baesler will be stepping into senior roles soon, if confirmed by the Senate. What we’ve seen thus far could be a product of who’s been at the table, so these shifts could yield something of a reset.

Team Trump risks taking issues where they entered with broad-based public support and turning them into political losers. Now, some in the administration believe that, if they only move fast and forcefully enough, they’ll be able to drive lasting cultural changes. Some deem education such a captive of the left that there’s no real price to be paid for breakage—that there’ll be no blowback. But that’s a dicey bet.

The past decade has shown that over-the-top tactics may serve mostly to alienate normies and energize the opposition. The way to make lasting change is by enacting legislation. Republicans entered 2025 with public support on much of this and control the House and the Senate, yet Congress has mostly been on the sidelines. Meanwhile, Trump is bleeding support. During Biden’s first two years, Democrats could have legislated on student loans or amended Title IX to reflect gender. They didn’t even try, instead they left it to dubious White House freelancing. That proved to be bad politics and a recipe for reversal. I suspect the same will prove true here.

It was Vice President J.D. Vance who said in 2022 while running for the Senate, “We’re going to have to get pretty wild, and pretty far out there, and go in directions that a lot of conservatives right now are uncomfortable with.” Well, so far, Trump 2.0 has delivered on that promise. But plunging presidential popularity, internal discord, and market gyrations are creating fierce headwinds. We’re 100 days in, with 1,361 left to go, and I can’t yet say whether what we’ve seen thus far is a prologue or a plot device. I suppose this is what it feels like to be a character in a Russian novel.

Also, in keeping with the Russian novel metaphor, Trump has convinced himself that his delusions are reality!

Tony

NY Governor Kathy Hochul Announcing Budget Agreement

Dear Commons Community,

New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced yesterday that a new state budget agreement has been passed by the Legislature.  Key elements of the budget bill include:

• Cuts taxes for 8.3 million middle-class New Yorkers, bringing tax rates to their lowest levels in 70 years.
• Makes breakfast and lunch free for every New York student.
• Removes dangerous criminals from our streets and helps victims get the justice they deserve by making common-sense changes to our discovery laws.
• Makes our streets and subways safer with record investments in gun violence prevention and action to connect people in the throes of severe mental illness with the life-saving care they need.
• Tackles the housing crisis by standing up to big corporations that are making it harder for everyday New Yorkers to buy a home.
• Removes distractions from students at school with a bell-to-bell restriction on smartphones — so kids can focus on learning.
• Gives every New Yorker the opportunity to succeed by making community college FREE for adults pursuing careers in high-demand fields.

For education, the last two bulleted items are worth noting.

In a letter to supporters, Governor Hochul stated:

“While Washington remains distracted by chaos and division, New York is proving that government can get things done and make a real, positive difference in the lives of our families.”

Congratulations to the Governor and the Legislature!

Tony

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney speaking to supporters.   (Justin Tang//The Canadian Press via AP)

Dear Commons Community,

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal Party won Canada’s federal election yesterday, capping a stunning turnaround in fortunes fueled by U.S. President Donald Trump’s annexation threats and trade war.

After polls closed, the Liberals were projected to win more of Parliament’s 343 seats than the Conservatives. It wasn’t immediately clear, though, if they would win an outright majority — at least 172 — or would need to rely on one of the smaller parties to pass legislation.  As reported by The Associated Press.

The Liberals looked headed for a crushing defeat until Trump started attacking Canada’s economy and threatening its sovereignty, suggesting it should become the 51st state. Trump’s actions infuriated Canadians and stoked a surge in nationalism that helped the Liberals flip the election narrative and win a fourth-straight term in power.

In a victory speech before supporters in Ottawa, Carney stressed the importance of Canadian unity in the face of Washington’s threats. He also said the mutually beneficial system Canada and the U.S. had shared since World War II had ended.

“We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” he said.

“As I’ve been warning for months, America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country,” Carney said. “These are not idle threats. President Trump is trying to break us so America can own us. That will never … ever happen. But we also must recognize the reality that our world has fundamentally changed.”

A defeat for the Conservatives

The Conservative Party’s leader, Pierre Poilievre, hoped to make the election a referendum on former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose popularity declined toward the end of his decade in power as food and housing prices rose.

But Trump attacked, Trudeau resigned and Carney, a two-time central banker, became the Liberal Party’s leader and prime minister.

In a concession speech and with his own House of Commons seat still in doubt, Poilievre vowed to keep fighting for Canadians.

“We are cognizant of the fact that we didn’t get over the finish line yet,” Poilievre told supporters in Ottawa. “We know that change is needed, but change is hard to come by. It takes time. It takes work. And that’s why we have to learn the lessons of tonight — so that we can have an even better result the next time Canadians decide the future of the country.”

Even with Canadians grappling with the fallout from a deadly weekend attack at a Vancouver street festival, Trump was trolling them on election day, suggesting again on social media that Canada should become the 51st state and saying he was on their ballot. He also erroneously claimed that the U.S. subsidizes Canada, writing, “It makes no sense unless Canada is a State!”

Trump’s truculence has infuriated Canadians, leading many to cancel U.S. vacations, refuse to buy American goods and possibly even vote early. A record 7.3 million Canadians cast ballots before election day.

As Poilievre and his wife cast their ballots in Ottawa, he implored voters to “Get out to vote — for a change.” After running a Trump-lite campaign for weeks, though, the Conservative leader’s similarities to the bombastic American might have cost him.

Reid Warren, a Toronto resident, said he voted Liberal because Poilievre “sounds like mini-Trump to me.” And he said Trump’s tariffs are a worry.

“Canadians coming together from, you know, all the shade being thrown from the States is great, but it’s definitely created some turmoil, that’s for sure,” he said.

Historian Robert Bothwell said Poilievre appealed to the “same sense of grievance” as Trump, but that it ultimately worked against him.

“The Liberals ought to pay him,” Bothwell said, referring to the U.S. president. “Trump talking is not good for the Conservatives.”

The Liberal way forward

Carney and the Liberals secured a new term, but they have daunting challenges ahead.

If they don’t win a majority in Parliament, the Liberals might need rely on one of the smaller parties to remain in power and pass legislation. The Bloc Québécois, which looked set to finish third, is a separatist party from French-speaking Quebec that seeks independence from Canada. Trudeau’s Liberals relied on the New Democrats to remain in power for four years, but the progressive party faired poorly on Monday and its leader, Jagmeet Singh, said he was stepping down after eight years in charge.

“This is a dramatic comeback, but if the Liberals cannot win a majority of seats, political uncertainty in a new minority Parliament could complicate things for them,” said McGill University political science professor Daniel Béland.

Until this year, foreign policy hadn’t dominated a Canadian election this much since 1988, when, ironically, free trade with the United States was the prevailing issue.

In addition to the trade war with the U.S. and frosty relationship with Trump, Canada is dealing with a cost-of-living crisis. And more than 75% of its exports go to the U.S., so Trump’s tariffs threat and his desire to get North American automakers to move Canada’s production south could severely damage the Canadian economy.

While campaigning, Carney vowed that every dollar the the government collects from counter-tariffs on U.S. goods will go toward Canadian workers who are adversely affected by the trade war. He also said he plans to keep dental care in place, offer a middle-class tax cut, return immigration to sustainable levels and increase funding to Canada’s public broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Congratulations Prime Minister Carney!

Tony

Credit…Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

Dear Commons Community,

Marueen Dowd had a column yesterday in The New York Times where she compared Trump’s inner group of advisers to a “vicious little sewing circle.”  She especially clobbers Elon Musk and Pete Hegseth. She concludes:

“Trump, who often casts by looks, may have liked Hegseth’s slick style and pretty face. But even the Emperor of Chaos must realize this Princess of Chaos has to go.”

He is not the only one who has to go!

Dowd’s entire column is below.

Tony

——————————————————————-

The New York Times

Trump’s Vicious Sewing Circle 

By Maureen Dowd

April 26, 2025

I was already feeling queasy about the Trump administration when I saw that the Agriculture Department was withdrawing a Biden-era proposal meant to reduce salmonella in poultry.

So besides making us jittery — and “yippy” — the Trump gang is trying to make us actually sick.

It has been another wild, whiplash-y week in Washington.

Amid an economic catastrophe President Trump personally caused, a startling new Times/Siena poll found him underwater, even on immigration, as voters recoiled at the very thing the president loves: his overreaching.

How do most Americans see his first 100 days in office? “Chaotic” and “scary” — not the paternal reassurance he might have hoped to engender with his cartoonishly macho style, his manosphere heroics and his swaggering U.F.C. and wrestling posse.

“He is replacing the meddlesome Nanny State with an aggressive, paternalistic Daddy State, based on the deference and devotion of his underlings,” Gerald Seib wrote in The Wall Street Journal.

All the talk about more traditional gender roles hearkens back to a time when women were seen as biologically unfit to hold higher office. For centuries, women were thought to be too high-strung and unstable to have a hand in running world affairs.

What if women got into the highest echelons of government, determining life and death, war and peace, and began gossiping, catfighting, backbiting and clawing each other’s eyes out? And everyone knew, of course, that women were more deceptive.

So it is grimly entertaining to see this most “masculine” of administrations reflecting stereotypes about female behavior that long kept women out of power.

Trump’s macho crew, it turns out, is a vicious little sewing circle.

Elon Musk and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent got into a white-hot shouting match in a West Wing hall, within earshot of President Trump and his guest, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy. The fight started about their different opinions on who should lead the Internal Revenue Service but then spilled over into the efficiency of DOGE, Musk’s efficiency team.

“Bessent criticized Musk for overpromising and under-delivering budget cuts with DOGE,” Axios’s Marc Caputo reported. “Musk clapped back by calling Bessent a ‘Soros agent’ and accusing him of having run ‘a failed hedge fund.’”

Musk also had a nasty spat with Peter Navarro, Trump’s top trade adviser, earlier this month over Teslas and tariffs. Musk posted on X that “Navarro is dumber than a sack of bricks.”

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, dismissed that hair-pulling incident, saying, “Boys will be boys.”

There was once a fear that women would be too emotional at the top, but look at Elon. He maniacally jumps around the stage, and he is known to mist up in the middle of interviews about his work and his love life.

And if you don’t want an unstable creature at the top, particularly at that bastion of masculinity, the Pentagon, why would you hire Pete Hegseth?

The lightweight former Fox weekend anchor, who promised to forgo his louche ways, made dunderheaded blunders with Signal that could have jeopardized our troops, and invited a nest of vipers into the Defense Department. (He even ordered up a spiffy makeup studio next to the Pentagon briefing room, as CBS reported.)

Hegseth followed his boss’s reality-show lead and produced the Real Housewives of the Pentagon, casting fellow military veterans as top advisers, even if none of these men had the requisite experience to run a sprawling, global organization, and they had no interest in learning. Instead, they lit up the Pentagon with bawdy meetings, vicious rivalries and power feuds. The bad-mouthing led to three firings and, on Thursday, the abrupt departure of Hegseth’s chief of staff.

Having his wife, Jennifer, a former Fox producer, by his side at the Pentagon, where she is known as the “human leash,” has not kept Pete on the straight and narrow.

Hapless Hegseth fought back at the White House Easter egg roll by accusing reporters of publishing “hoaxes” and using “disgruntled former employees” to smear him.

But the man in charge of a department with a budget of approximately $850 billion seems flighty and shaky, unable to find loyal consiglieres and unable to stick to the Pentagon’s classified message system, which is among the best in the world for a reason. It protects our troops.

When Gen. Jim Mattis was Trump’s defense secretary in the first term, he conveyed the idea that he was the adult who would make sure the highchair king in the Oval did not do anything crazy with our military. But who is the adult now?

Trump, who often casts by looks, may have liked Hegseth’s slick style and pretty face. But even the Emperor of Chaos must realize this Princess of Chaos has to go.

Dear Commons Community,

For all the “oldies but goodies” fans of the 1960s, Chubby Checker is finally joining the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, 65 years after “The Twist” became a No. 1 hit and an international dance craze. As reported by The New York Times.

Checker, 83, who has campaigned for decades to be admitted to the pantheon — at one point taking out a full-page ad in Billboard magazine that said “I want my flowers while I’m alive” — is part of the 40th annual crop of performer inductees. He is joined by Joe Cocker, the White Stripes, Outkast, Cyndi Lauper, Bad Company and Soundgarden, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation announced on Sunday evening, after a Rock Hall-themed segment on ABC’s “American Idol.”

Those artists — a lineup that mixes classic rock, hip-hop, 1990s-vintage alternative rock and a female pop icon — will formally join the hall on Nov. 8 in a ceremony at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles that will stream live in Disney+.

Checker, Cocker, Outkast and Bad Company were all accepted on their first nomination.

The induction of the White Stripes, the stylish garage-rock minimalists whose “Seven Nation Army” has become a stadium-rousing standard, could lend some anticipatory drama to this year’s ceremony. Since the band broke up in 2011, Meg White, its drummer, has become one the great recluses of 21st-century pop, rarely seen in public and declining all interview requests — which would make any possible appearance by her a major coup for the Rock Hall.

Among the other honors this year, Salt-N-Pepa, the pioneering female rap group, and the singer-songwriter Warren Zevon will receive the musical influence award. The musical excellence citation will go to the keyboardist Nicky Hopkins, the studio bassist Carol Kaye and the producer Thom Bell, a key figure in Philadelphia soul. Lenny Waronker, a producer and longtime executive at Warner Bros. Records, will receive the Ahmet Ertegun Award.

Among the nominees who failed to make the final cut this year are Oasis, the Britpop standard-bearers who have reunited for perhaps this year’s most in-demand world tour, and Phish, the veteran Vermont jam band. Phish won the hall’s fan ballot — a single vote, entered alongside those submitted from the hall’s voting body of more than 1,000 music historians, industry professionals and previously inducted artists.

Other nominees who didn’t make the cut include Mariah Carey, the Black Crowes, Billy Idol, the Mexican rock band Maná and the linked British groups Joy Division and New Order.

The Rock Hall has come under close scrutiny over the makeup of its inductee classes, receiving particularly harsh commentary over its low numbers of women; as of 2023, women made up just 8.8 percent of inducted individuals, according to one scholar’s count. The hall has pledged to address those disparities, even revising its definition of rock ’n’ roll as “a spirit that is inclusive and ever-changing.”

After some gains in recent years — with lauded inductions of Janet Jackson, Sheryl Crow, the Go-Go’s and Kate Bush — the latest crop of performer inductees may draw more complaints. It includes just two women: Lauper, who rose to fame in the 1980s with hits like “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” and “Time After Time,” and Meg White of the White Stripes.

Congratulations to all the new inductees and especially Checker!

Tony

Senator Chris Murphy

Dear Commons Community,

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy isn’t drawing arena-size crowds like Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are as he tours the country talking to voters. But in a packed concert hall in rural North Carolina, people are starting to view the Democrat as worthy of the national spotlight.

Murphy and Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., have been staging events in Republican congressional districts in recent weeks, trolling GOP lawmakers such as Rep. Richard Hudson, who represents the area they visited Thursday. Hudson, the chairman of the House GOP campaign arm, has discouraged Republicans from holding town halls, so Murphy and Frost decided to hold one on his home turf in North Carolina. As reported by The Associated Press.

“We are doing the job that these Republican congressmen and senators won’t do,” Murphy told the hyped-up crowd of mostly older voters at the event, while acknowledging that Democrats need to do more to soothe their anxiety and counter President Donald Trump. “I want to make sure that everywhere, in every corner of this country, people are willing to stand up and fight.”

As other Democrats grasp for a response to Trump’s election, unsure of how to confront him, Murphy is channeling his own frustration and anger into a sustained blitz of television appearances, fundraising appeals, Senate floor speeches and events like the one in North Carolina. He also is talking directly to voters on social media, including through lengthy live videos on Instagram where he sits in his kitchen with a cocktail and tries to explain what he sees as “the central story” of Trump’s presidency — “the billionaire takeover of our government made possible by the destruction of our democracy.”

It’s a methodical approach for Murphy, 51, a serious-minded legislator who has been most well known for his yearslong fight to stem gun violence in the aftermath of the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut that killed 20 first-grade students and six educators.

While the kitchen talks on Instagram seem to come more naturally to Murphy than riling up a crowd, his message is clearly resonating with his party’s base of voters, many of whom are angry at Democrats in Washington for inaction. He raised around $8 million in the first quarter of the year, a significant sum that could rival the totals for Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, who have been drawing much larger crowds on a tour together.

“I mean, I’m not Bernie Sanders,” Murphy said in an interview. “I’m not going to draw 70,000 people. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t still have an obligation to try to go out and support a national mobilization.”

Frustration with the Democratic Party’s leaders came to a boil last month, with most of the anger directed at Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York after he voted for a Republican bill to keep the government open just as the base was hoping to see more fight from their elected officials. Murphy was strongly against the bill, even if opposing it meant Democrats would trigger a government shutdown.

“When people see us engaged in risk-adverse behavior, then they are much less likely to show up for rallies to ultimately engage in the kind of civil disobedience we might need to save the democracy,” Murphy said.

His fundraising haul, and his barrage of media and events, begs questions about his future ambitions. But it is unclear where Murphy’s moment might lead. He insists that he is not thinking about a presidential bid or a future in Senate leadership after the No. 2 Democrat, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, announced this week that he will retire next year.

“It’s probably not a coincidence that my content is breaking through and more people are listening to me at a time when I’m not getting up every day thinking about my personal political future,” said Murphy, who was reelected to the Senate last year. “There’s not going to be an election in 2028 if we don’t win this fight right now.”

The answer isn’t a cop out, he says. “It seems kind of silly to think about anything other than the emergency that exists today,” he said. “That is legitimately what drives me.”

Ron Osborne, the chairman of the Democratic Party in Alamance County, where Thursday’s event was located, said he had not previously considered Murphy a major contender for the presidency in 2028. But “he’s doing the right things,” Osborne said.

“He is speaking out where others could do the same thing and have not,” Osborne said, and “that takes courage.”

Terry Greenlund, a 78-year-old Democrat who was also in the audience, said he thinks Murphy “has a way of talking with people.”

“I think it’s time for a new generation to move in with some new views and insight and energy,” Greenlund said, echoing many others in the room.

A spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee said Hudson would not comment on the event in his central North Carolina district. The spokesman, Will Kiley, said Murphy had “parachuted in” and his “extreme, far-left values couldn’t be more out of step with these communities.”

Murphy, 51 and the father of two teenagers, seems to be enjoying the attention. He joked at the event that he may not be as “cool” as Frost, who is the youngest member of Congress at 28. But Murphy is still decades younger than Schumer, Durbin and other Democratic colleagues who have controlled the party for years.

“I’m trying to be dad cool,” Murphy said.

Murphy, who did a similar event in Missouri on Friday, is not the only Democrat venturing into red states. In addition to Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the 2024 vice presidential nominee, and Rep. Ro Khanna of California have also recently traveled to talk to voters in Republican areas.

He said he does not want to “reinvent the wheel” with his fundraising haul, but he does not want to sit on it, either. Murphy said he plans to help organizations mobilize voters before the 2026 midterm elections and also put pressure on Republicans as they try to push tax and spending cuts through Congress.

“The only way that history tells us that you stop an elected leader from converting a country away from democracy is mass mobilization,” he said.

“Our party has made mistakes, and if we don’t learn from those mistakes,” Murphy said, “we’re cooked.”

So true!

Tony

Pope Francis’ Funeral: LIVE from Vatican City

Dear Commons Community.

This morning, the world said goodbye to Pope Francis in a solemn and celebratory funeral ceremony in St. Peter’s Square.  It was in some ways a simple mass and in other ways, an uplifting tribute to a Pope who touched people all over the planet.  Regardless of  your beliefs, you had to be moved by the sights, sounds, music and color of this farewell. The two-hour ceremony is worth viewing.

Grazie Francesco!

Tony

Twenty-nine scientists came together in 1928. Albert Einstein is sitting in the middle.

Dear Commons community,

In a letter to the editor of Science written by Anita Simha∗ and Gaurav Kandlikar, a plea is made that scientists during this period of erosion for research must unite and come together.  Here is the entire letter.

US federal support for science is eroding (¹), and the future of US scientific agencies and institutions is uncertain. Simultaneously, the Trump administration is scapegoating minority groups, including immigrants, trans people, people of color, and disabled people (^2-4). In the face of this federal onslaught, scientists may feel uncertain about how to respond. Speaking up may feel risky or even futile, but the risk of backlash grows with each day that silence becomes the norm (^{5, 6}). Now is the time for scientists to ask more of each other and demand more from our institutions.

Scientists have a responsibility to care for each other as members of labs, departments, unions, and professional societies. We must collectively demand that our institutions safeguard our personal and professional well-being. Institutional actions should include protecting those targeted by the Trump administration (^{4, 7}) and pushing back against unjustified funding cuts (^{8, 9}).

Even in the absence of strong institutional response, labs and departments can model leadership by making space for open discussion of federal decisions. Conversations about the material consequences of the Trump administration’s actions (^{10, 11}) can serve as valuable guides for collectively identifying suitable responses. Sharing accurate information about the limits of federal policies is also crucial. Overestimating the power and scope of federal decisions could inadvertently lead to scientists ceding unnecessary ground (⁵). For example, preemptively removing content related to diversity, equity, and inclusion from lab materials may be a freely given concession at many institutions. Frank and frequent conversation can help assess the risks and benefits of potential action.

Scientific institutions face immense federal scrutiny, but this pressure cannot serve as an excuse for silence or inaction. In the face of unreliable federal support, scientists must raise, not lower, expectations of each other and of our leaders (¹²).

Department of Biological Sciences, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA.

∗Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

REFERENCES AND NOTES

1. J. Travis, K. Langin, J. Kaiser, M. Wadman “Mass firings decimate U.S. science agencies,” Science, 18 February 2025.
2. A. J. Connelly, “Federal government’s growing banned words list is chilling act of censorship,” PEN America, 21 March 2015.
3. M. Casey, R. Ngowi, “Transgender Americans aim to block Trump’s passport policy change,” AP News, 25 March 2025.
4. “Trump administration arrests Turkish student Rumeysa Ozturk at Tufts,” Al Jazeera, 26 March 2025.
5. C. Robin, Fear: The History of a Political Idea(Oxford Univ. Press, 2005).
6. J. McAlevey, No Shortcuts: Organizing for Power in the New Gilded Age(Oxford Univ. Press, 2016).
7. V. B. Chaudhary et al., Science387, 937 (2025).
8. B. Pierson, J. Allen, “Columbia faculty groups sue Trump administration over funding cuts, academic demands,” Reuters, 25 March 2025.
9. W. F. Tate IV, Science387, 1333 (2025).
10. A. Simha, G. Kandlikar, “Caring for our colleagues amidst backlash: A conversation guide,” Zenodo (2025); https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15101435.
11. A. Aguilar et al., “How should staff and mentors discuss the recent U.S. election with youth: Leading experts have answers,” The Chronicle of Evidence-Based Mentoring; https://www.evidencebasedmentoring.org/lets-chat-politics-tips-for-staff-and-mentors-ondiscussing-the-u-s-election-with-youth/
12. J. McAlevey, B. Ostertag, Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell): My Decade Fighting for the Labor Movement(Verso Books, 2012).