First rule: Trump is lying

In retrospect, the first sign that Donald Trump did not “obliterate” Iran’s nuclear program was his claim that he did. No one ever went broke betting against the fact that Trump is lying. The louder he brags about something, the more certain it is that he’s lying. 

I don’t want Iran to have a nuclear weapon, but I have to admit it’s been fun watching Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth get increasingly angry and defensive in the face of mounting skepticism. If they want people to believe them, perhaps they shouldn’t lie about everything all the time. I believe there’s one of Aesop’s fables that teaches this lesson. 

Anyway, Trump is bad at everything — except conning easy marks — even stuff he tries to be good at. It’s scary, but also a weakness of his that can be exploited. His opponents should take note. 

Why I’m certain SCOTUS will bless Trump’s run for a third term

One of my ongoing laments about the internet is not just that people don’t read, but that they argue with you, without even reading what you actually wrote. So it was not surprising that I drew a lot of “nuh-uh” responses, especially from older men, to my Monday article positing that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has the best chance of beating Donald Trump in the 2028 presidential race. 

“Trump can’t run!” my critics insisted, as if I were unaware that the Constitution explicitly bars presidents from seeking a third term of office. Quoting myself: “Yes, yes, I know the Constitution forbids him from running again.” I follow that up with a “but” and that “but” really matters. The Supreme Court will find a way to bless Trump’s effort to run again. 

I was about 90% certain about that, even before last week. The Constitution also forbids those who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from holding public office, but the Supreme Court found a way to nullify that with technicality arguments in 2024. But it was last week’s birthright citizenship case that brought my certainty levels up to the 99% region. The clear language of the Constitution declares that people born in the United States are citizens. But the court used pretzel logic and side issues about national injunctions to give Trump the right to strip citizenship from babies if he doesn’t happen to like their parents’ ethnicity. 

So here’s how this plays out: Trump runs again in 2028. Pro-democracy groups sue to stop him. While those suits play out, Trump stomps his feeble competitors in the GOP primary. By the time SCOTUS actually takes the case, Trump is the Republican nominee. The right-wing justices simply cannot or will not accept that the Republican presidential nominee is ineligible for the office, so they’ll find or invent some technicality that gives him a mulligan.

Yes, Trump will be 82 by the time of that election, but it’s not a safe bet that age will prevent him from running. Joe Biden did it, and his staff wasn’t half as good at conspiring to cover up the boss’ obvious deficiencies as Trump’s staff is. So we need to hope that Democrats can get it together to run a candidate who can get voters excited. Someone like AOC. 

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Yelling at young people to vote isn’t improving morale

One big reason I was moved to write about why AOC should run in ‘28 is that Zohran Mamdani, a very AOC-like candidate, just won the New York City Democratic mayoral primary. The big objection I heard — again, most often from folks who didn’t read the article — is that we can’t extrapolate national lessons from a primary in a blue city. But that’s not true, especially in this case. We can pull one big, inescapable lesson: Exciting young candidates draw out younger progressives who otherwise don’t vote. 

This chart from the New York Times tells the story:

Even a lot of people who shared that graphic, however, failed to understand what a miracle this is. Young people never turn out more than older people. Never, as in not ever. I’ve never seen it, and nobody else has either. Even in 2008, when Barack Obama famously drove up youth turnout, only 47% of people under age 35 turned out, compared to 70% of people 65 to 74.

After Biden’s spectacular flame-out in 2024, which I very much believe cost Kamala Harris the election, there’s no denying any longer that Democrats have a gerontocracy problem. It’s not just that their elected leaders are so old that three congressional Democrats died this year alone, giving Republicans enough of a majority to pass Trump’s economy-wrecking budget in the House. It’s also symbolic of how out-of-touch Democrats feel to their supposed base.

It’s tough to convince younger voters that you care about their interests when the party literally puts the egos of elderly members ahead of the right of voters to be fairly represented. It sends an ugly message to young people that Democratic leadership in the nation’s largest city so opposed a young progressive who ran on making NYC more affordable (Mamdani) that they backed a corrupt, soulless sexual predator (Andrew Cuomo) instead.

If Democrats want to win younger voters back, they have to show they’re actually listening to them. The unwillingness to do so, at least so far, speaks volumes.

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What we're reading this week

• “This Is How You Lose the Sex Wars,” Jude Doyle

• “Andrew Cuomo and the Death of Centrism,” Sarah Jones, New York

• “Plenty of Jews Love Zohran Mamdani,” Michelle Goldberg, New York Times

• “The Democrats’ generational rift just got harder to ignore,” Philip Bump, Washington Post

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