Contributor

More than any other artist in the 20th century, David Hockney defined Los Angeles in the public imagination. When he first arrived in January 1964, age 26, his mental image of the city had been forged not by art but by Hollywood movies, which he had watched as a young boy in Yorkshire, England. In later life, he often recollected the sharp-edged shadows cast by the Californian sunlight in movies such as Laurel and Hardy’s “Big Business.

Before he ever went to L.A., Hockney — who died Thursday at 88 — knew that he would love it. Writing about his first descent into the city, he recalled how “as I flew over San Bernardino and looked down — and saw the swimming pools and the houses and everything and the sun, I was more thrilled than I’ve ever been arriving at any other city, including New York.” By this time, the glamour of Hollywood had been compounded by other influences, including the homoerotic magazines that an American friend had given him at the Royal College of Art in London. Titles such as Physique Pictorial, published in L.A. by the pioneering “beefcake” photographer Bob Mizer, held out a promise of California as a paradise of rippling men and permanent sunshine. A darker, no less thrilling image of the city had arisen from Hockney’s reading of “City of Night,” the 1963 novel by John Rechy that tells the story of a hustler in the gay underworld of downtown L.A.

Los Angeles itself felt young to Hockney. He loved the light, the architecture, the sense of space and the sense of possibility — not least the possibility of greater sexual freedom. West Hollywood boasted a large gay bar, the Red Raven on Melrose Avenue, that was unlike anything he had found in London or New York. There was also the lure of the beach, with its pageant of sculpted physiques. Venice Beach struck him as a more body-beautiful version of London’s Portobello Road.

Before long, his work shifted from generic fantasies of the city (a young man showering in Beverly Hills, for instance) to vivid portrayals of its real-life pools, palm trees, architecture and people. American artists such as Edward Ruscha and Edward Kienholz were producing their own canonical images of L.A. in these years, but for Hockney, there were no artistic precedents — “no ghosts,” as he later put it — to live up to. “People then didn’t even know what it looked like,” he once said. “And when I was there, they were still finishing up some of the big freeways.… I suddenly thought: ‘My God, this place needs its Piranesi, Los Angeles could have a Piranesi, so here I am!’ ”

He was true to his word, even if his luminous, serene images of the city were a far cry from Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s feverish visions of Baroque Rome. “Beverly Hills Housewife” (1966), a portrait of a pink-dressed collector in her modernist home, marked the onset of a realist style that would define Hockney’s work for the next decade. This era gave rise to paintings that became icons of their time and place. Among them were “A Bigger Splash” (1967), which was based on a magazine cover that he came across on a newsstand, and “Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy” (1968, sold last year at Christie’s New York for $44.3 million). Inspired by Hans Holbein, this portrait of the English novelist and his artist partner was one of the first celebratory portrayals of a gay couple. Hockney would later recount how Isherwood proclaimed: “Oh David, we’ve so much in common; we love California, we love American boys, and we’re both from the north of England.” Hockney’s beloved American boy at this time was Peter Schlesinger, a young artist he had met while teaching at UCLA in the summer 1966 — and a recurring presence in the early L.A. pictures.

According to Norman Rosenthal, who curated a major survey of Hockney’s art at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris last year: “It is astonishing that a boy from a poor family in Bradford became the person — partly because of his gayness, but also his talent — who defined what everybody now thinks of as California. L.A. had no real image in the world before then, unlike New York.”

Despite his enchantment with Los Angeles, Hockney didn’t settle there until 1978, after a decade of bouncing between America and Europe. In the summer of 1979 he moved into a house in the Hollywood Hills, and soon adorned its pool with swishing strokes of blue paint. In the early 1980s, he converted the paddle tennis court into a studio. The meandering routes and Mediterranean scenery of the Hills were a fresh source of amazement, giving rise to monumental depictions of Mulholland Drive and Nichols Canyon in a newly abstract style.

By this time, the city was deeply familiar — a second home — and he had a close circle of friends around him who included the patron Betty Freeman (subject of “Beverly Hills Housewife”), the designer Gregory Evans, the gallery owner Nicholas Wilder and the film producer Joe Simon. “L.A. had represented a whole new world for him,” says Simon, who remained in regular contact with the artist until his final days. “He just loved the light. He was like a kid in a candy store when he first came. But David was all about the work. Everything came back to that.”

In recent decades, Hockney’s name had become synonymous with the landscapes of his native Yorkshire, which he began painting prolifically in the early 2000s. But Los Angeles never lost its newness and promise. His house in the Hills remained a sanctuary until his final years, when he was too frail to travel. L.A. was where he had come of age, and it remained an indelible part of his life and psyche — not least in terms of its egalitarian spirit and its tendency toward the horizontal. “The great thing about Hockney was that he spoke to everybody,” says Rosenthal. “Few artists of his world and his generation could do that.”

James Cahill, a novelist and an art critic, is the author of, among other books, “David Hockney” and the forthcoming “The Beverly Hills Housewife: Hockney’s Californian Muse and the World Beyond the Pool.”

After a decade of Trumpism, it should come as no surprise that President Trump’s ethos (presenting scandal as strength, outrage as authenticity and public disgrace as evidence you’re a “fighter”) has trickled down into congressional campaigns of both parties.

In Maine, for example, controversial oysterman and veteran Graham Platner, a Democrat, appears poised to face Republican Sen. Susan Collins, after incumbent Gov. Janet Mills’ failure to launch led her to drop out of the Senate primary.

Under old “pre-Trump” rules, Platner’s campaign would have withered instantly after revelations that he once had a Totenkopf SS tattoo, previously identified himself as a communist, said Black people were poor tippers, and wrote that white people “actually are” as racist and stupid as Trump thinks they are.

Instead, after all this surfaced, Platner actually rose in the polls. Considering the circumstances, there are several reasonable explanations for this.

Maybe Maine Dems have concluded that moral purity tests are politically suicidal after years of watching heterodox figures like Joe Rogan and Elon Musk drift away from the party.

Maybe Platner’s rough-edged outsider persona simply feels more authentic than another interchangeable politician in a pantsuit droning on about “working families.”

Perhaps the difference is that, unlike Trump or Texas’ scandal-plagued Republican Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton, Platner has at least attempted contrition.

Or maybe Maine Democrats have absorbed the same lesson Republicans adopted in 2016: Once voters stop treating scandal as disqualifying, policing your own side for off-the-field behavior starts to look like unilateral disarmament.

I mean, who could blame them for thinking you’ve got to fight fire with fire? America, after all, reelected Trump after 34 felony convictions.

At a certain point, continuing to insist that “character matters” starts sounding like advice Ward Cleaver might have offered Wally on “Leave It to Beaver.”

But Maine isn’t the only example of voters viewing scandalous behavior as a “keeping it real” feature, not a bug.

Another just took place in Texas, when the aforementioned Paxton crushed normie incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in a Republican primary runoff, garnering nearly 64% of the vote.

Paxton, it’s worth noting, was previously indicted on felony securities fraud charges, impeached by the Texas House on allegations including bribery, accused by senior aides of abusing his office to help a donor and real-estate developer and accused by his wife (a Texas Republican politician) of infidelity, just to name a few of his greatest hits.

Yet, not only did the scandals not doom Paxton, they probably helped him. They signaled a willingness to fight, casting him as both a victim and an outsider. There may be no purer expression of trickle-down Trumpism than Paxton, which probably explains why Trump endorsed him.

At this point, you might be thinking that all is lost. But there are counterexamples that lend to optimism.

Paxton’s Democratic opponent in Texas, for example, offers a stark contrast, as well as an opportunity to test the level of our societal decline in November.

Texas Democrats could easily have nominated their own chaos agent in Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a progressive firebrand whose flair for viral combat suggests she understands the incentives of modern politics perfectly well.

Instead, they chose James Talarico — a young state legislator, former middle-school teacher and Presbyterian seminarian — who projects the kind of earnest optimism that lands somewhere between Barack Obama and Pete Buttigieg.

If a Democrat like Talarico can win in deep-red Texas — against a scandal-plagued candidate who shouldn’t get within 10 miles of the U.S. Capitol — it will perhaps provide a modicum of hope that red lines still exist, and that some voters still believe character is destiny.

But regardless of who wins that matchup, the fact that both Paxton in Texas and Platner in Maine emerged as their party’s respective Senate candidates (Platner won’t technically be the Democratic nominee until after the Maine primary in June) still suggests something profound has shifted in American politics.

Not long ago, the scandals attached to either man would have ended a campaign overnight.

Today, they function more like résumé enhancements. Because the defining lesson of the Trump era may be this: Nothing is disqualifying anymore.

If a failed nepo baby and middling reality-TV star can become president, survive endless scandals (think “Access Hollywood”), rack up felony convictions, be found liable for sexual abuse, sit by and watch a Capitol riot, and then return to power anyway, traditional ideas about character and electability are simply no longer relevant.

The question now is whether Trumpism has become America’s permanent political operating system — or whether the new rules apply only to Trump himself.

November will offer some hints.

Matt K. Lewis is the author of “Filthy Rich Politicians” and “Too Dumb to Fail.”

Americans always say they want politicians with backbone — men and women of principle who will stand up for what they believe in, even when it’s unpopular.

And every so often, the American people prove their commitment to this noble aspiration by firing anybody who actually tries it.

Take Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, who just lost a reelection bid by double digits after President Trump’s affiliated committees dumped enough money into Kentucky to purchase, well, Kentucky.

Massie committed the cardinal sin of modern Republican politics: He behaved as though Congress were a coequal branch of government instead of the warm-up act before a Trump rally.

He bucked Trump on spending, Iran and — in what apparently qualified as political suicide — whether or not to release the Epstein files. For this display of independent thought, Massie was summarily retired by what can only be described as the Trump cult (formerly known as the Republican primary electorate).

Before anybody accuses me of hyperbole, consider the remarkably revealing example presented recently on the New York Times podcast, “The Daily.”

At a town hall in Burlington, Ky., one voter explained to Massie that Trump is basically omniscient.

“As I see it,” the voter said, “the one person in the whole United States, maybe the world, that understands everything and has input to everything is Donald Trump.”

Not content with mere earthly wisdom, Trump also possesses universal awareness, superior intelligence and perhaps even low-level clairvoyance. The voter continued that Trump “gets more information, more meetings, more everything” than anybody else in government.

When Massie noted that Trump opposed releasing the Epstein files, the man calmly explained that if Trump changed positions, “there was a reason” — one too profound for ordinary mortals to comprehend.

Massie’s reply deserves to be bronzed and mounted over the entrance to the U.S. Capitol: “I don’t give anybody but God that kind of trust.”

Unfortunately, for a large portion of the Republican electorate (about 55%, based on the Kentucky primary results), those words constitute sacrilege against their earthly savior.

As South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham cheerfully boasted on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, “This is the party of Donald Trump.” Which is true in much the same way North Korea is the party of Kim Jong Un.

The one ironic twist in all of this is that Americans finally managed to punish somebody over the Epstein files — only it turned out to be the guy who wanted them released.

There’s American justice for you.

Massie isn’t the only Republican currently being fitted for concrete shoes. Trump also helped finish off Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, whose unforgivable crime was voting to convict Trump during the impeachment trial following Jan. 6. And Trump has endorsed controversial Texas Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton over incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, which in today’s GOP primary environment is roughly the equivalent of finding a horse head in your bed.

Now, to be fair, Cassidy and Cornyn are no Massie, who openly opposed Trump and paid the price standing upright. Cassidy and Cornyn demonstrated brief moments of independence, only to spend years vainly performing political interpretive dance routines in hopes of regaining Trump’s favor.

Still, there may be a silver lining here for students of political irony.

Trump’s endorsement of Paxton will force Republicans to spend enormous sums defending a deep red state that would ordinarily require little more than a campaign sign and a pickup truck.

Meanwhile, Trump is creating resentful lame-duck Republicans in Congress who now possess the most dangerous attribute in politics: nothing left to lose.

But the broader message is unmistakable. Trump wants Republicans to understand that disagreement will not be tolerated. No criticism. No distancing. No independent branding.

The party line is whatever Trump said five minutes ago, amended by whatever he says five minutes from now. By now, everyone knows this to be true.

Which would be excellent news for Trump, if not for one small complication: The rest of the country appears to be tiring of his act. Recent polling shows Trump’s approval slipping to 37%, while Democrats gain major ground, surging to a +11 on the generic congressional ballot.

Trump, it seems, has created a situation in which Republicans can either oppose him and be destroyed in a primary, or they can embrace him and risk losing the House and the Senate in November’s general election. It’s the old “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” conundrum.

The point is this: With the midterms approaching, Trump is making sure Republicans are ensnared in the gravitational pull of his unpopularity.

That may satisfy the president’s desire for complete loyalty. It may also hand Democrats control of both chambers of Congress.

Trump is settling all family business this week, by purging those pesky disloyal Republicans. Only time will tell whether he’s also purging America’s non-Republican “swing” voters, as well.

Matt K. Lewis is the author of “Filthy Rich Politicians” and “Too Dumb to Fail.”

Nearly three months after the United States and Israel launched their large-scale bombing campaign against Iran and about six weeks since the April 8 ceasefire took effect, President Trump faces an inflection point. Does he return to war? Maintain the ceasefire and U.S. blockade on Iranian ports in the hope of cutting a deal on American terms? Or drop his maximalist negotiating stance?

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), an informal foreign policy advisor for the White House, continues to press for more aggressive U.S. military action. Trump’s political advisors would prefer that the war end as soon as possible to minimize political repercussions against the Republican Party in a midterm election year.

Trump seems conflicted. Despite weeks of U.S. bombardment and an ongoing naval blockade, Tehran is as protective of its nuclear program today as it was before the war began. “For Iran, the Clock is Ticking, and they better get moving, FAST, or there won’t be anything left of them,” Trump wrote on Truth Social over the weekend. A day later, Trump took to the social media platform again to announce he suspended planned U.S. attacks on Iran to give talks more time.

Unfortunately for Trump, he’s proved to be his own worst enemy on this subject. Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium and Tehran’s effective control of the Strait of Hormuz, the regime’s two biggest cards, are a byproduct of Trump’s own policy decisions.

The first is a clear indictment of Trump’s first-term order to withdraw the United States from the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a highly technical accord that put Iran’s nuclear work in a box by restricting the number and quality of centrifuges it could use, capped the amount of enriched uranium it could produce and compelled Tehran to ship 97% of its stockpile out of the country. When the Trump administration scrapped that hard-won deal, Iran responded by enriching more nuclear material at a faster pace and accumulating the very stockpile the Trump administration is now seeking to neutralize.

The Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s second card, would not even be an issue today if the Trump administration had refrained from going to war in the first place. On Feb. 27, the day before the conflict began, more than 150 tankers and vessels traveled through the strait. The international waterway was open for business.

Not so today. On Thursday, a grand total of three crossings were registered in the waterway. This collapse of commerce is a consequence of Iran’s ability to harass civilian tankers so much that shipping companies no longer view the journey as worth the cost. As Adm. Brad Cooper, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday: “The Iranian capability to stop commerce has been dramatically depleted through the strait, but their voice is very loud. And those threats are clearly heard by the merchant industry and insurance industry.”

By virtue of his own actions, Trump is now left with a series of policy options that range from least bad to terrible. None of them are ideal, and all of them carry some risk.

For starters, Trump could resume the war. Any renewed U.S. bombing campaign would probably expand the U.S. military’s original set of targets to include a portion of Iran’s energy infrastructure, which Trump has threatened repeatedly to hit. A U.S. invasion of Kharg Island, where 90% of Iran’s oil processing takes place, might also be up for discussion. The aim would be to destroy Iran’s remaining military capabilities and further squeeze its oil revenue until Tehran’s strategic calculus on the war shifts to Washington’s liking.

Yet there are no guarantees that doubling down on military force will work. Trump’s entire strategy has relied on a baseline assumption: The more punitive the United States is, the more likely Tehran will be to cave. Yet that simply hasn’t occurred. If anything, Iran is more dug in now than it was in the opening days of the conflict. For the regime, capitulating to Trump is as dangerous as losing the war. Why would more bombing succeed where previous bombing failed?

The risks of additional U.S. military action are considerable as well. Before the ceasefire, Iran was launching ballistic missiles and attack drones across multiple gulf Arab states, hitting Qatar’s largest natural gas processing facility, Saudi Arabia’s east-west oil pipeline and Dubai’s luxurious high-rises. As the Iranians have stated, such attacks will not only resume if Trump orders a resumption of the war but will expand to new targets, including desalination facilities and nuclear power plants. Such strikes would raise global oil and gas prices to even more absurd levels, adding to the extra $40 billion the American people are already paying for fuel since the war began.

What about continuing the status quo? While this contingency would be less costly than another round of bombing or a U.S. ground invasion, it’s unclear whether it would help or hurt negotiations toward a settlement. There’s a possibility that extending the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports could merely reaffirm the regime’s earlier decision to preserve its own shutdown of the strait. Iran is now urging Washington to end its blockade before talks on the nuclear file can be held. And it’s a mystery whether Trump’s blockade is working anyway; the U.S. intelligence community assesses that Iran could withstand this pressure point for three to four more months, which may be too long for Trump to sustain given the oil disruptions that are bound to get worse.

Striking an agreement to end the war, return the strait to open traffic and restrict Iran’s nuclear program would be the most beneficial policy for the United States with the least amount of cost attached — not quite undoing the harm from Trump’s first-term decision to scrap the nuclear deal and his second-term decision to start a war. U.S. and Iranian negotiators are passing proposals back and forth as we speak. But as of now, Trump can’t stomach agreeing to a deal that covers some of Iran’s terms, including but not limited to a shorter suspension of enriched uranium and some kind of Iranian role in the management of the strait. Even if Trump did reassess his position, he would be forced to confront the hawks in his political coalition who would consider anything short of Iran’s total surrender a failure.

In short, Trump is in an unenviable position. He’s got nobody to blame but himself.

Daniel R. DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a syndicated foreign affairs columnist.

With President Trump continuing to tank in the polls, the parlor game we know as “2028 Republican primary speculation” is back in full swing among the chattering classes.

Vice President JD Vance — who would normally be considered the heir apparent, and who just happened to make a campaign stop in Iowa recently — now finds his “America First” brand positioning complicated by Trump’s Iran misadventure. So much for an easy glide path to the nomination.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio would seem to benefit from Vance’s stumbles, but in a political moment that fetishizes “authenticity,” Rubio risks coming across like a man who irons his blue jeans. Add to that his reputation as a foreign policy hawk in a party that increasingly wants out of “forever wars,” and he’d be the ideal presidential candidate for … 2004.

All of which has opened the door to more imaginative speculation. “If Pat Buchanan and Roger Ailes had a baby,” former “Meet The Press” host Chuck Todd recently quipped, “it would be Tucker Carlson.”

Ailes, of course, was the media-savvy evil genius who took Fox News to No. 1. And while “Pitchfork Pat’s” populist presidential campaigns weren’t ultimately victorious, he is credited with paving the way for Trump’s eventual 2016 victory.

As this comparison suggests, Carlson could make a formidable Republican presidential candidate. The hitch? Carlson and Trump have recently been trading blows, which is not where any potential Republican candidate wants to be.

For all of his polling woes, Trump still enjoys an 85% approval rating among Republicans, according to the recent Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll. And his recent defeat of Indiana Republican legislators who dared defy him over gerrymandering only underscores the point: Trump’s grip on the Republican Party remains firm.

Even if you dismiss talk of a third Trump term as overwrought constitutional fan fiction, it’s hard to imagine a Republican nominee emerging without Trump’s blessing — let alone in defiance of it.

Which brings us to the latest theory making the rounds: Trump isn’t going to pass this torch to anyone lacking the proper surname.

In this telling, Vance is the loyal, if naive, assistant manager waiting for the boss to retire and hand him the keys to the office — only to discover it’s a family business and the ne’er-do-well son has just pulled into the parking lot in a Ferrari.

Enter Donald Trump Jr., whose chief qualification is name recognition so strong it could probably win a Republican primary on its own.

Add to that daddy’s endorsement, and as the Bulwark’s Jonathan V. Last has noted about Vance and Rubio, “Challenging Don Jr. would turn them into enemies of the people.”

But that doesn’t mean this is a slam dunk for Junior.

As British-American journalist Sarah Baxter recently wrote, “like Logan Roy, the patriarch in the television drama Succession, Trump loves playing his children off against each other. He thinks it instills a healthy killer instinct in his privileged offspring.”

This is to say that Junior isn’t the only potential heir lurking in the wings.

Last year, for example, Eric Trump told a journalist: “I think I could do it. And by the way, I think other members of our family could do it too.”

Which brings us to the wildest speculation of all: Ivanka Trump.

Now, to be sure, Ivanka has kept a polite distance from politics (and her father) in recent years, and she doesn’t exactly electrify the MAGA faithful. But she was always her father’s favorite, and her aforementioned liabilities could be overcome with a sufficiently enthusiastic paternal endorsement.

And once she became the standard bearer, Ivanka could market herself as both continuity and “change” — a neat trick, if she can pull it off.

In that sense Republicans could keep the Trump brand while offering a kinder, gentler, fresher face — all while making GOP history with a female presidential nominee.

This, of course, raises the question: Why would Ivanka — or any of the Trumps — want to be part of a political dynasty?

Among the many reasons, the Trump family is raking in cash. Lots of it. And as long as the next president could conceivably be a family member — a possibility that remains operable even if a Trump family member were to lose the general election in 2028 — the spigot will remain on.

That’s one of the reasons that, although Vance would normally be Trump’s obvious successor, the smart money might actually be to bet on someone with the last name “Trump.”

Now, if this dynastic denouement sounds far-fetched, of course it is. But so was electing a thrice-married casino magnate to the presidency in 2016. And so reelecting him in 2024.

We’re living in an era when the seemingly improbable isn’t just possible — it might even be likely.

Matt K. Lewis is the author of “Filthy Rich Politicians” and “Too Dumb to Fail.”

Democrats have a huge opportunity to make a huge difference. But whether they’ll grab it is a huge question.

In 2020, I wrote that voters were “weary, anxious and looking for salve” after President Trump’s first term. I said then that the experienced, reassuring Joe Biden fit the moment. Now I fear that if Democrats nominate a similar presidential candidate in 2028, one who wins yet doesn’t act with alacrity on democracy preservation and helping Americans live better lives, a fed-up electorate will once again turn them out as ineffectual.

Who can or should lead the party at a time like this?

I’m not alone in hoping for a tough and confrontational 2028 nominee, someone who is aggressive, persistent and, when necessary, as ruthless as the forces on the opposite side. This person also must have the energy to undertake the mammoth task of repairing the institutional wreckage of Trumpism. Which suggests Democrats should be checking out younger nominees.

Fortunately, newer generations of leaders are emerging. Those who “get it,” in my view, include Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut.

Obviously any Democrat will be better than anyone from Trump’s team or orbit, including JD Vance, Donald Trump Jr. or Marco Rubio. The issue facing Democrats is whether moderate or policy wonkish people such as former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear or Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro would be the democracy warriors this moment demands. Repairing a crucial interstate bridge with lightning speed is a great thing and, sometimes, so is outreach to Republicans and Fox News. But would they prioritize thinking big and fighting hard for the fundamental changes we need?

Where would centrist former CIA officer Abigail Spanberger, the new Virginia governor, land on this scale? Even after coming around to supporting new House maps that will net four seats for her party? Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, who began his podcast by inviting MAGA guests, championed a referendum on five new Democratic seats in his state and led his party to a redistricting triumph. Where would he land? Would he prioritize outreach to Republicans or the battle to assure a “no kings” future for America? The need for structural changes in our outdated institutions is glaringly obvious. Who will run to repair this country? Who can be trusted to follow through? Because the solutions are out there, staring us in the face:

Checks on presidential pardon power. A larger, term-limited Supreme Court bound to an enforceable ethics code. A national law requiring independent redistricting commissions or, better yet, multi-member districts with proportional representation. A voting rights law that sets minimum standards for mail voting, early voting and voter IDs. Anti-corruption laws that prevent profiteering by presidents and their allies. Explicit limits on presidential construction and alterations to federal properties. A stronger “impoundment” act with sharp teeth to make sure future presidents spend taxpayer money constitutionally, as Congress intends, instead of any way they want. D.C. and Puerto Rico statehood to start rebalancing a Congress and electoral college that have shortchanged urban America since the late 19th century.

It’s a long list, and there’s no guarantee that today’s Supreme Court would allow any of it. But realizing some of these goals will take decades; we can’t be discouraged by temporary impediments such as the current lineup of justices. The work on all of it should start ASAP — next year in the next Congress if Democrats are running one or both chambers. And at some point, we’ll have a different high court.

I can already hear the protests: What about affordability? That’s the best part: Trump has done so many things to make life more expensive that simply reversing them would have immediate impact. Stop the Iran war; reopen the Strait of Hormuz; aim to restore the Obama-era agreement that kept Iran’s nuclear ambitions in check; end the Trump tariffs; stop shrinking labor forces in agriculture, healthcare, construction and other industries by ending detentions and deportations of noncriminals; reverse last year’s tax breaks for elites and restore the money for Medicaid and health insurance premium subsidies; and kill off the Versailles-level Trump ballroom that he now wants to fund with taxpayer dollars (initially $400 million, now $1 billion).

Then Democrats could revisit some of their own affordability priorities, including the expanded child tax credit that significantly reduced child poverty, new ways to put housing within reach of more people and national paid family leave. They could also crack down on military spending that is pointless in the modern era and refocus on cheap and effective equipment such as drones like Ukraine is using to strike inside Russia.

As it happens, a stark indicator of the political tides came as I was writing this. Maine Gov. Janet Mills suddenly dropped out of the Democratic Senate primary race against Graham Platner. It was a lightning bolt, given her establishment support after being recruited by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. But in a way it was inevitable.

Mills is 78. If she had gone on to win the primary and defeat GOP Sen. Susan Collins, she would have been sworn in at age 79. Platner is 41, an oyster farmer and military veteran with a compelling, relatable persona. Though he has a controversial past, Mills’ negative ads did nothing to dent his appeal. Polls showed him winning the primary vote against Mills, sometimes by 2 to 1, and with a consistent general-election edge against Collins as well.

Platner told Jon Stewart last week that the party leadership establishment had largely ignored him. His message to them? “You should be curious, because I’m polling 40 points ahead.” By the next morning, Mills was out, and the establishment — Schumer and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, chair of the Senate campaign committee — said they’d work with Platner to flip the seat.

The midterm races are sending Democrats clues. They should take them seriously.

Jill Lawrence is a journalist and the author of “The Art of the Political Deal: How Congress Beat the Odds and Broke Through Gridlock.” Bluesky: @jilldlawrence

In June 2017, with President Trump newly installed in office for the first time, one of the biggest battles with the administration was about oil. He’d just named the chief executive of Exxon Mobil, Rex Tillerson, as his secretary of State, even though great reporting — in this newspaper among others — had recently shown that the company knew all about, and lied all about, climate change as far back as the 1980s.

Back east, the attorneys general of New York and Massachusetts were trying to take the oil giant on, initiating investigations of the company to try to hold it accountable. Environmental advocates and consumer groups were pressing hard for California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris to join in, and she seemed to be considering it. Then she left the office to assume her new U.S. Senate seat, and the decision fell to her replacement, Xavier Becerra — now a leading candidate for California governor.

As I wrote in these pages at the time, it was a great test for him, and a great curiosity that he was staying silent, “since the rest of Sacramento is hard at work dealing with climate change.” I was not the only one who noticed. Seventy thousand Californians signed petitions demanding action. Eight California representatives in Congress — including Jared Huffman and Ted Lieu — sent him a letter demanding a “vigorous” inquiry and pointing out that it was particularly important because the newly elected Trump administration was clearly favoring the oil industry. “California has led the world in responding to the dangers of climate change, and we know that it will continue to do so,” they wrote. “You now have a leading role in that effort.” But ultimately Becerra did not have a leading role, or indeed any role at all: He punted, as this editorial page pointed out. What Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is now trying to do by statute — immunize the big oil companies from prosecution for climate liability — Becerra accomplished by sheer silence.

In the years since, of course, California has paid a huge price for our inaction on climate. Just looking at wildfire, there were of course the great blazes that Los Angeles County will never forget in 2025, but also the 2020 August Complex fire in Humboldt and Mendocino counties, the 2021 Dixie fire up north, the 2017 conflagration across Napa and Sonoma counties, the 2017 Thomas fire in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, the 2018 Camp fire that devastated Paradise — the list goes sadly on and on and on.

Meanwhile, Big Oil and its friends at Big Utility have racked up huge profits, and Californians have faced ever higher bills. An unhobbled oil industry played a huge role in reelecting Trump in 2024 and in taking us to war with Iran.

And through it all, during his years as attorney general, Becerra did little or nothing to help. As I said all those years ago, it’s a mystery why, though I fear the mystery gets clearer with each campaign funding filing over his long career. As California’s top prosecutor, he took big donations from oil industry giants such as Chevron, and also from energy companies Sempra and Southern California Edison. As a member of Congress, he took larger checks from Pacific Gas and Electric and Edison International.

This time around, as he seeks the governor’s office, Chevron has maxed out its contributions to his campaign, the first time they’ve found a gubernatorial candidate to back in a decade. Meanwhile, across the country, leading progressives have signed a pledge refusing fossil fuel donations. Another gubernatorial contender, Katie Porter, is among them. Needless to say, Becerra is not.

The California chapters of Third Act — a group of Americans over 60 that I helped found — canvassed their members last month and issued an endorsement of Tom Steyer, on the grounds that he had worked hard over the years to address energy and climate issues. Instead of taking money from Big Oil, he’s given money, time and counsel to those of us volunteering in the fight against the industry. In fact, I think that whether one is most concerned about lowering utility bills with clean energy or protecting California’s forests, beaches and insurance rates from the global warming threat, he’d be the most climate-conscious elected official in America.

But Third Act was also founded to help protect our democracy. And that means disconnecting public policy from campaign donations. We need leaders who will do the right thing for us, not for their donors. Steyer has called on Becerra to return his donations from Big Oil. That would be a start, but it doesn’t really make up for the wasted decade we’ll never get back.

Bill McKibben is the founder of Third Act and the author, most recently, of “Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate, a Fresh Chance for Our Civilization.”

When you break a promise as clear as “No new wars,” you shouldn’t be surprised when even your most loyal supporters revolt. And that’s exactly what is happening to President Trump.

One such disillusioned supporter is Tucker Carlson — who on a recent podcast with his brother Buckley admitted, in essence, “My bad.”

“You wrote speeches for him. I campaigned for him. I mean, we’re implicated in this, for sure,” Tucker Carlson said during the conversation.

“In real ways, you and me, and millions of people like us, are the reason this is happening right now,” Calson confessed, referring to the Iran war. “We’ll be tormented by it for a long time. I will be, and I want to say I’m sorry for misleading people, and it was not intentional.”

Having worked for Carlson for six years at the Daily Caller, I’ve always found him intelligent and funny and generous, even as I have profoundly differed with him on a variety of issues throughout the Trump era.

It did my heart good to hear him accept some responsibility for what Trump has wrought.

A lot of people were complicit in boosting Trump, and some of them have even subsequently criticized him for various sins (failing to release the Epstein files, going to war with Iran, etc.). But this is the first time I can recall anyone of this stature explicitly apologizing for helping elect Trump. And that warrants a certain amount of respect.

Still, let’s be clear-eyed about what Carlson is — and isn’t — saying here. Specifically, it’s worth noting that the apology doesn’t extend to validating those of us who opposed Trump from the beginning.

In fact, it almost can’t.

Doing that would require the confessor to reinterpret not just Trump’s presidency, but also the entire ecosystem that made supporting Trump a viable option in the first place.

It would mean admitting that the framework he used to evaluate Trump was flawed, not just the outcome.

That would end up being perceived as an indictment on the broader Republican electorate — and on Carlson’s worldview and judgment — not just on Trump’s recent performance or (even more conveniently) the notion that Trump has changed or was co-opted by Israel (or whomever) since 2024.

It’s a much bigger ask than saying, “I regret this specific result.”

Specifically, Carlson is not conceding that the “Never Trump” crowd got it right — which is what those of us who have spent a decade opposing Trump (with little fanfare) have been dying to hear for a decade (even more so than “I’m sorry.”)

This is an important distinction, partly because it means that, although Carlson is now a convenient ally in the “resistance,” he is not opposing Trump for the same reasons that most Democrats or Never Trump conservatives oppose Trump.

If you put aside Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran, the Carlsons’ second-biggest criticism of Trump (based on their two-hour-long podcast) is his failure to more vigorously defend the Jan. 6 Capitol rioters.

That’s right. It’s not that he sicced immigration enforcers on immigrants and that they subsequently killed two American citizens. It’s not that DOGE fired lots of good people. It’s not that this president tried to use the Department of Justice to seek vengeance on his political rivals. It’s that Trump — the person who pardoned these people — wasn’t aggressive enough in defending the criminals who stormed the U.S. Capitol while trying to overturn the 2020 election results.

And while there’s no reason to doubt Carlson’s remarks are sincere (he has been a vocal opponent of war with Iran) and meaningful (he’s an influential figure), his comments may also signal something else: a recognition that opportunity awaits.

Consider this: Trump’s political standing is in deep trouble (Trump’s approval rating is down to 33%, according to a new AP-NORC poll).

What is more, Trump’s fading fortunes aren’t just isolated to Trump. As always, there is collateral damage: JD Vance.

Once seen as Trump’s obvious heir, Vance now finds himself in a difficult position, defending the war in Iran and attacking the pope, while simultaneously releasing a book about his Catholic conversion.

In that sense, Carlson’s apology could be less a grudging epiphany than a strategic recalibration. It acknowledges that Trump has gone off the rails but stops short of examining why it was destined to go wrong in the first place.

Carlson gets close to the answer when he tells his brother, “there were signs of low character. We knew that,” but then dismisses it by saying “there are tons of people of low character who outperform their character.”

Without deeper reflection, this apology risks becoming just another pivot — one that has as much to do with positioning as it does with repentance.

And that would be a shame.

It’s easy to regret an outcome. It’s much harder to interrogate the instincts that led you (and tens of millions of Americans) to enable it.

Apologies like Carlson’s won’t close the chapter on this long national nightmare.

Matt K. Lewis is the author of “Filthy Rich Politicians” and “Too Dumb to Fail.”

It felt like the Olympics. Crowds cheering. The American flag standing tall above the bleachers. Trainers jumping with anticipation. A swimmer staring in disbelief at the clock after his final stroke. The Jumbotron announced: Kristian Gkolomeev — 20.89 seconds. A new world record in the 50-meter freestyle.

Well, kind of.

I’ve left out some details. There was only one swimmer. The crowd? Just doctors, trainers and filmmakers. This was not in an Olympic city nor an Olympic year, but in Greensboro, N.C., in 2025. And there were no iconic rings on the banners, just “Enhanced Games.”

Yes, Gkolomeev swam faster than César Cielo, the official record holder at the time (20.91 seconds). But he did it “enhanced” — a polite way to say that he used performance-enhancing drugs. At the Enhanced Games, doping isn’t punished. It’s required.

The concept, as described by the organization: “to create the definitive scientific, cultural and sporting movement that safely evolves mankind into a new superhumanity.”

Backed by investors such as Peter Thiel and Donald Trump Jr.’s 1789 Capital, the Enhanced Games embodies a techno-utopian ideal: athletes as canvases for chemical optimization, testing the limits of human health for a lot of money. Gkolomeev earned $1 million for his record.

So far, the competition has happened at one-off pop-up events. But in May, Las Vegas will host the first full-scale Enhanced Games, a four-day meet in swimming, track and field, and weightlifting. The group advertises a “potential prize purse of $7.5 million for just a single day of competition,” plus appearance fees.

Does it need to be said? Apparently yes: The Enhanced Games glorifies the risky use of enhancement drugs.

Steroids can harden arteries, elevate stroke risk, damage the liver and permanently alter hormone systems. They are not electrolyte tablets or a little preworkout creatine. If Lance Armstrong had been rewarded — rather than sanctioned — for doping, what would have happened to competitive cycling?

Fans — and especially kids — mimic their idols. As risky as the drugs are for athletes at the Enhanced Games, with its “medical commission” to give the illusion of safety, the substances are even more dangerous when used by people without medical supervision.

The games also expose the economic neglect that drives athletes toward such competition. As Benjamin Proud, the British silver medalist who recently joined the Enhanced Games, put it: “It would have taken me 13 years of winning a World Championship title in order to win what I could win in one race at these games.”

Indeed, the Enhanced Games might look like an easy way out. Only nine swimmers worldwide received prize money and performance bonuses above $75,000 in 2025, according to World Aquatics.

Investors clearly hope to make money off the games as well. The organization is moving closer to becoming a publicly traded company. The economics are not mysterious.

But the Enhanced Games are not just another sporting event. They are an arena for biomedical experimentation and should be regulated as such. The games should face limits similar to those imposed on other high-risk industries, including age restrictions and strict advertising rules.

We already know how to govern legal, profitable activities that carry serious health risks.

In the United States, that means oversight from the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission — bodies that regulate drug protocols and police misleading commercial claims. A steroid-based competition should not be treated as a sport but as a medical experiment and a marketing stunt.

Regulations on pharmaceutical advertising offer a useful model for the Enhanced Games. Prescription drugs are advertised every night on television, but only under strict rules. They require fair balance (content must present benefits and risks with comparable prominence, readability and duration) and a “major statement” of risks (most serious risks must be spoken aloud and not obscured by visuals or music).

Right now, when you play Gkolomeev’s “world-record” video on YouTube, a medical-risk warning appears for barely five seconds — then vanishes. If a cholesterol drug must audibly warn viewers of stroke risk, why shouldn’t a steroid-based competition do the same?

Enhanced Games content should be accompanied by clear warnings of the risks of performance-enhancing drugs and be clearly labeled, age-gated and distributed as high-risk content more akin to pornography than to a boxing match.

Prohibition is not the answer. Trying to shut down these games only fuels a controversy-driven brand. Just recently, the Enhanced Games sued organizations such as World Aquatics and the World Anti-Doping Agency, alleging antitrust violations and that blocking athletes from participating at the Enhanced Games is illegal. As those organizations fight back, they will be seeking to protect the integrity of mainstream sports, but they will also inadvertently be promoting the Enhanced Games.

If we want kids to admire clean athletes rather than those using banned drugs, the Las Vegas launch must not reach the world as a Super Bowl would. The Enhanced Games should not be televised or allowed to stream online to minors. Otherwise, Las Vegas, in May, risks becoming an unregulated public-health experiment mislabeled as a sporting event.

Fabricio Ramos dos Santos is a lawyer, entrepreneur and sports investor.

Until recently, President Trump always found a way to fail forward, through a combination of spin, threats, payoffs and bluster.

OK, that’s the simplistic interpretation. The fine print tells a less-glamorous story: a man born on third base who spent decades insisting he’d hit a triple.

Still, it’s hard to argue with success. When Trump entered politics, he redefined the rules of the game. Rivals who tried to outflank him on policy detail, ideological consistency and institutional norms found themselves either vanquished or assimilated by the Borg.

By my lights, only once during Trump’s admittedly chaotic first term did he run into something that his playbook couldn’t at least mitigate or parry: the COVID-19 pandemic. For the final year of his presidency, reality refused to negotiate, and political gravity reasserted itself. It turns out, viruses aren’t susceptible to the Art of The Deal.

But then, miraculously, Trump wriggled through legal jeopardy, bulldozed his way past more conventional Republicans and Democrats, and re-emerged victorious in 2024.

If anything, that comeback reinforced the idea that Trump could survive anything by virtue of his playbook.

By the start of his second term, he’d made impressive headway in co-opting not only individuals but also major institutions within big tech, the media and academia.

Even in foreign affairs, Trump’s sense that any problem could be solved via force, intimidation or money was confirmed when he captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and installed Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, as a sort of puppet leader. Everyone has a price, right?

Unfortunately for Trump, no. Not everyone does.

Lately, the president has encountered a different kind of resistance — adversaries motivated by something bigger and more transcendent than money, power or the avoidance of pain.

In dealing with Iran, for instance, Trump has confronted people operating under a wholly different set of incentives. It’s a regime guided by a mix of ideology, radical religious doctrine and long-term strategic interests that don’t always align with short-term material gain.

(Now perhaps, having punished Trump enough already, Iran will finally come to the negotiating table. But even if that happens, it will have occurred after exacting a steep price — so steep, in fact, that it may already be too late for Trump to plausibly claim a win.)

It turns out, you can’t easily intimidate or pay off a true believer who isn’t afraid to die and believes they have God on their side.

A similar (though obviously not morally equivalent) dynamic is now also on display in the form of Trump’s skirmish with Pope Leo XIV, a man who commands moral authority. He opposes the war in Iran (“Blessed are the peacemakers”) and has demonstrated a stubborn refusal to back down to Trump’s attempts at bullying.

“Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic and political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth,” Leo said during a tour of Africa. It’s a remark that the American pope seemed to implicitly be aiming at the American president.

Here’s what Trump doesn’t understand: There are still pockets of the world where concepts like faith and national identity outweigh tangible incentives. Where sacrifice and suffering are an accepted part of the plan.

When facing these sorts of foes, Trump’s usual operating system starts to look less like a cheat code and more like a category error.

But he can’t see this because Trump is always prone to a sort of cynical projection — of assuming everyone views the world in the same base, carnal, corrupt way he sees it.

Whether it was his incredulity that Denmark wouldn’t sell Greenland, rhetoric that seemed to discount the motivations of those who serve and sacrifice in the military, or his affinity for nakedly transactional gulf states, the pattern is familiar: a tendency to view decisions through a cost-benefit lens that not everyone shares.

To be fair, that lens has often served him well. In arenas where power, money and leverage dominate, Trump’s approach is eerily effective.

But after years of taming secular, “rational” opponents, he is fighting a two-front war against people who see their struggles as moral and spiritual.

They aren’t stronger in a conventional sense. But they are, in a very real sense, less susceptible to Trump’s methods.

For perhaps the first time in his life, Donald Trump finds himself facing adversaries who aren’t just immune to his usual Trumpian playbook but are playing a different game altogether.

Matt K. Lewis is the author of “Filthy Rich Politicians” and “Too Dumb to Fail.”