Part of the American creed is that we don’t care where anyone’s ancestors are buried. Vance’s debased version of patriotism says that we’re just a tribe like any other: insular, fearful and hateful, believing in nothing more morally ambitious. It’s small and ugly — and, dare I say, un-American.
Paul Waldman
The GOP megabill fulfills JD Vance’s incredibly depressing vision of patriotism (MSNBC)
Now, here we are, an era in which the men of cyber industry — having monopolized goods distribution, security algorithms, internet satellites, social networks, and our attention — have seen fit to attempt a sort of siege on the American government. Is this techno-fascism? Sure! Should it concern us that power and tech — and the power of tech — are so concentrated in so few hands and that Trump appears to be a Trojan horse for Silicon Valley’s most neo-reactionary ambitions? Absolutely! Do we want America remade in the image of a tech startup by men who like to move fast and break things (especially when most of the systems they’re breaking are ones that they, in fact, would never rely on)? Not I! But also: What is going on with this idea that humans should even want to live in space? What sort of lack of reality testing are we dealing with here?
Alex Morris
What You’ve Suspected Is True: Billionaires Are Not Like Us (Rolling Stone)
Goldberg assumed the chat was fake, some sort of disinformation campaign, although he was concerned when Ratcliffe provided the full name of a CIA operative in this unsecure channel. But on March 14, as Vance, for example, took a strong stand against Europe—“I just hate bailing Europe out again”—and as Hegseth emphasized that their messaging must be that “Biden failed,” Goldberg started to think the chat might be real. Those in the chat talked of finding a way to make Europe pay the costs for the U.S. attack, and of “minimiz[ing] risk to Saudi oil facilities.”
And then, on March 15, the messages told of the forthcoming attack. “I will not quote from this update, or from certain other subsequent texts,” Goldberg writes. “The information contained in them, if they had been read by an adversary of the United States, could conceivably have been used to harm American military and intelligence personnel, particularly in the broader Middle East, Central Command’s area of responsibility. What I will say, in order to illustrate the shocking recklessness of this Signal conversation, is that the Hegseth post contained operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying, and attack sequencing.”
On the chat, reactions to the military strikes were emojis of a fist, an American flag, fire, praying hands, a flexed bicep, and “Good Job Pete and your team!!,” “Kudos to all…. Really great. God Bless,” and “Great work and effects!”
Heather Cox Richardson
March 24, 2025 (Letters from an American)
Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader.
Kaja Kallas, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
EU’s top diplomat: ‘The free world needs a new leader’ (The Hill)
We are perilously teetering towards a global disaster, one that few seem to fully comprehend. Today’s obscene spectacle in the Oval Office, where the President and Vice President of the United States berated the leader of a sovereign nation fighting for its survival, is not just a diplomatic misstep. It is a stark warning that we are perilously close to the collapse of the post-World War II international order.
Mike Brock
This is an Emergency (Notes From The Circus)
Why did they hammer him? Because they don’t want Americans to view Zelensky as a hero. That view will complicate Trump’s plan to surrender Ukraine to Putin. Trump is ready to give Putin everything he wants. And then carve up the world.
Make no mistake: Putin’s aggression will not end with Ukraine. By giving in to Putin, Trump is inviting him to invade Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and Poland — and then the rest of Eastern Europe that used to be under Soviet and Russian control.
Trump wants Canada, Greenland, Panama, and much else.
Robert Reich
Today’s disgusting scene (Robert Reich)
If you want to watch the entire meeting, C-SPAN has it available. If you want to jump to where it goes off the rails, that starts to happen around 38:20 after a reporter asks President Trump a question about how some people see him as too aligned with Putin.
Full Meeting between President Trump, VP Vance and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in Oval Office (C-SPAN)
It seems that we now live in an America that is more likely to throw its support behind autocrats and fascists than to align with our long-term democratic allies.
European leaders should end the isolation of far-right parties across the Continent, US vice-president JD Vance has said.
The comments mark an extraordinary embrace of a once-fringe political movement with which the Trump administration shares a common approach on migration, identity and internet speech.
The address stunned and silenced hundreds of attendees at the Munich Security Conference, a forum where top-level politicians, diplomats and analysts had gathered expecting to hear US president Donald Trump’s plans for ending the war in Ukraine and Europe’s defence against a rising Russian threat.
Mr Vance singled out his German hosts, telling them to drop their objections to working with a party that has often revelled in banned Nazi slogans and has been shunned from government as a result.
Jim Takersley, Steven Erlanger, and David E. Sanger
European leaders left in stunned silence as JD Vance harangues them over approach to far right (The Irish Times)
Mr. Trump’s remarks late on Tuesday, when he sided fully with Russia’s narrative blaming Ukraine for the war, have now fortified the impression that the United States is prepared to abandon its role as a European ally and switch sides to embrace President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
It was a complete reversal of historic alliances that left many in Europe stunned and fearful.
Catherine Porter and Andrew Higgins
Meeting Again in Paris, European Leaders Try to Recalibrate After Trump Sides With Russia (The New York Times)
Make no mistake. The Trump-Vance-Musk regime is not only undermining democracy in the United States. It is also laying the foundation for undermining democracies around the world.
Since the end of World War II, liberal democracies have stuck together — led by America. On the opposite side have been authoritarian states, led mainly by the Soviet Union, followed, after the demise of the Soviet Union, by Russia and China.
But all this is rapidly changing. Both Russia and China have morphed into oligarchies, run by small groups of extraordinarily wealthy people.
America has also been moving from a democracy to an oligarchy — and is doing so at lightning speed under Trump, Vance, Musk, and their billionaire buddies.
The new poles of international power are coming to be global democracies versus a global oligarchy. The United States is emerging on the side of global oligarchy.
Robert Reich
The Trump-Vance-Musk-Putin plan (Robert Reich)
As Trump’s marauding continues, America’s last defense is the federal courts. But the big story here (which hasn’t received nearly the attention it deserves) is that the Trump-Vance-Musk regime is ignoring the courts.
On Sunday, Vice President JD Vance declared that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”
This is bonkers. In our system of government, it’s up to the courts to determine whether the president is using his power “legitimately,” not the president.
Robert Reich
The end of law? (Robert Reich)
Scott Boehmer 