Again.

August 28, 2025

The killing and wounding of schoolchildren as they knelt in devotion at a Catholic mass weighs heavily on the hearts and minds of most Americans. The evil is unspeakable on so many levels that it is difficult to know where to start. So, let’s start with first principles: The foremost duty of any civilized society is to protect, love, and educate its children. Any society that refuses to do so is depraved.

Guns kill more children than any other cause of death. That sentence speaks volumes but also contains answers. Guns kill children. Guns.

We must ban assault rifles. We must restrict access to guns. We must impose liability on those who fail to secure their guns. We must permit families of victims and survivors to sue gun manufacturers who commercialize weapons of war intended to maim and kill humans with frightening speed.

We can do all of the above, and more. Republicans have proven their ability to ban children’s books and literary classics because they might affect the hearts and minds of children trying to make their way in the world. Republicans should be willing to ban weapons that kill and maim those same children. Their children. Our children. America’s children. America’s future.

There is so much more to say. Not tonight. Soon.

---

A ray of hope in the redistricting wars.

Trump met with Indiana Republicans in the White House on Tuesday to pressure them to agree to engage in partisan gerrymandering in advance of the 2026 midterms. The reason Trump met with Indiana Republicans is that at least a dozen GOP members of the Indiana legislature are balking at the idea of further distorting a congressional map that is already highly gerrymandered.

See Talking Points Memo, White House Gives Indiana GOP Another Chance to Bend the Knee On Redistricting.

Per TPM,

At least a dozen Indiana Republicans remain vocally opposed to the Trump White House’s push for them to redraw their maps. And their opposition to the matter hasn’t come without a price. As we noted last week, some of Trump’s allies are already threatening to back primary challengers for those who are expressing some difficulty stomaching the matter.

The fact that a dozen Indiana Republicans are opposed to further gerrymandering is a ray of hope. We can’t count on Republicans to do the right thing, but the fact that they are even considering doing so is a hopeful sign.

As noted in the TPM story, the Republican National Committee is threatening primary challenges against GOP state legislators who oppose Trump's efforts at further gerrymandering. Democrats often lament the lack of a unified messaging strategy within their party. While the Republican Party is better at staying “on message,” that advantage comes at a cost. Anyone who disagrees with Trump is banished from the party.

While the GOP has a more consistent message, that consistency reflects the thinking of only one person who enforces obedience through brutish threats. Democrats do not want to imitate that model for their party.

In a second development, there has been some confusion over the position of the California League of Women Voters on California’s Proposition 50, which is the Election Rigging Response Act that will be voted on in November 2025. The California League of Women Voters released a statement on Wednesday saying that it was neutral on whether the proposition should pass.

Before the California legislature passed the ballot initiative responding to Texas’s gerrymandering, the California League of Women Voters issued a statement criticizing partisan gerrymandering by anyone. However, now that Texas has passed legislation creating five additional Republican-leaning seats, the California League of Women Voters has changed its position to one of neutrality. See California League of Women Voters, The League of Women Voters of California will not take a position on Proposition 50.

Opponents of Proposition 50 have been circulating flyers that falsely imply that the California League of Women Voters is opposed to Proposition 50. In truth, the CA League of Women Voters is taking no Position on Proposition 50.

---

D.C. grand juries repeatedly decline to indict defendants on felony charges

Former Fox News personality Jeanine Pirro is the US Attorney in Washington, D.C. She has repeatedly failed to secure indictments in cases where federal prosecutors sought felony charges over incidents that did not rise to the level of a federal crime. See Metro Weekly, Grand Jury Refuses to Indict D.C.'s 'Sandwich Guy'.

As noted in the Metro Weekly article, a grand jury refused to indict a man who admitted throwing a submarine sandwich at a federal law enforcement officer. In addition, a grand jury refused three attempts to indict a woman on felony charges for allegedly assaulting an FBI agent.

Per Metro Weekly,

On August 25, prosecutors downgraded a felony assault charge to a misdemeanor after three failed attempts to secure a grand jury indictment against Sidney Lori Reid, accused of injuring an FBI agent during a protest outside the D.C. Jail against immigration officials.

There is a saying in the legal world that a prosecutor can get a jury to “indict a ham sandwich.” It is an extraordinarily rare occurrence for a grand jury to refuse to indict on charges brought by federal prosecutors.

The fact that prosecutors in DC have now failed on four occasions to secure felony indictments demonstrates that they are grossly overcharging minor infractions that should be treated as misdemeanors.

This story gives me great hope. The burden of proof for obtaining an indictment is far less stringent than that required for conviction, which requires proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

As Trump threatens his political adversaries with felonies over fabricated charges, those targeted by Trump should take solace from the fact that Americans asked to serve on grand juries can tell when the government is engaged in retribution as opposed to seeking justice.

While defending baseless criminal charges is itself a form of punishment, Lisa Cook, Adam Schiff, Letitia James, and others should have confidence that grand jurors and trial jurors will closely scrutinize the government’s baseless claims.

---

Robert Kennedy continues his assault on public health

Non-scientist, antivaxxer Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy fired the head of the Centers for Disease Control because she favored controlling disease. See The Guardian, CDC erupts in chaos after ousted chief Susan Monarez refuses to resign | Trump administration.

Susan Monarez was confirmed by the Senate just last month and can only be fired by the president. As I write on Wednesday evening, the only statement from the White House press secretary says that “the White House” has fired Monarez. Last time anyone checked, “the White House” is a building, not a constitutional officer, much less a person.

No doubt that Trump will get around to firing Monarez, but that will mean Trump will assume personal responsibility for the chaos in America’s public health system. Per The Guardian, “she declined to support sweeping changes to US vaccine policies, according to reporting from the Washington Post and the New York Times.”

The purported firing of Monarez led to several other high-profile resignations. Again, per The Guardian,

The ousting has triggered a wave of departures within the agency, with at least three other CDC leaders publicly resigning following the HHS announcement.

The most explosive resignation letter came from Dr Demetre Daskalakis, who stepped down as the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, according to Inside Medicine, an industry newsletter that obtained the full statements.

“I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponizing of public health. . . . .

Those concerns were echoed by another departing CDC leader, Dr Deb Houry, the chief medical officer, who wrote that “For the good of the nation and the world, the science at CDC should never be censored or subject to political pauses or interpretations.”

This story will continue to unfold, but it is another example of Trump betraying the trust that his supporters placed in him in 2024. Kennedy seems determined to eliminate Covid vaccines for the vast majority of Americans—driven by an anti-science, conspiracy theory approach to medicine that is undermining the public’s trust in science-based medicine. People will become sick, suffer, and die because of Kennedy’s ignorance—and Trump's callousness.

---

Concluding Thoughts

Jill and I will be vacationing with our family on Thursday through Monday of Labor Day weekend. I will publish short notes each day and attempt to host a Saturday livestream, as usual. Recording and uploading the audio version will be challenging due to limited internet bandwidth, so I appreciate your understanding as I experiment with shorter audio segments. This is a difficult time, and I want to stay in touch, but I also need and want to focus on my family.

Over the last several days, I have received many concerned (desperate?) emails from readers about an essay from Garrett Graff, who hosts a site by the name of Doomsday Scenario. The website name should tell you all you need to know, but some readers went ahead anyway and read Graff’s essay, America Tips Into Fascism.

Graff’s thesis is that we have already succumbed to fascism and the only question is how far gone we are—Nazi Germany or Orban’s Hungary? He writes,

Everything else from here on out is just a matter of degree and wondering how bad it will get and how far it will go? Do we end up “merely” like Hungary or do we go all the way toward an “American Reich”? So far, after years of studying World War II, I fear that America’s trajectory feels more like Berlin circa 1933 than it does Budapest circa 2015.

Readers are understandably shaken by Graff’s claim that democracy has died, and the only question is determining the time of death based on the degree of rigor mortis.

It will not surprise you to hear that I disagree with Graff and every other writer who is not only “obeying in advance,” but “surrendering in advance.”

There are several problems with Graff’s analysis. But first, like many other reputable and distinguished writers, he accurately recounts the many ways in which Trump has undermined the rule of law and flouted the Constitution. He excoriates the response by the Democratic Party and its leadership.

But guess who he fails to mention? Us. He does not acknowledge that there is a resistance movement that just held the largest single-day political protest in American history in June. He does not mention the concerned Americans who stand on freeway overpasses and roadsides, who show up at town halls, who have created emergent networks of democracy defenders who meet every day across America to plan the defense and rehabilitation of the rule of law.

I don’t know why Graff doesn’t mention the resistance by tens of millions of Americans. Perhaps he thinks we were too precious in our belief in the consent of the governed and the will of the people. Perhaps he has never attended a pro-democracy rally, held a protest sign, knocked on a door, or participated in a phone bank.

(Then again, maybe he has. He was John Dean’s deputy national press secretary at 23, but it seems like he started at the top and skipped the hard work of retail democracy. I don’t know his background, so I could be wrong. If so, my thanks to Mr. Graff for his contribution to the resistance.)

Here’s my point: There exists an entire class of political and historical writers who see themselves as disinterested observers, as chroniclers who have no stake in the outcome of the struggle for American democracy.

[In contrast, Heather Cox Richardson is a writer who combines historical perspective, scholarship, and passion for democracy. She is a first-person participant in the historical events she chronicles.]

To be clear, writing the truth is good. Raising the alarm is good. We need journalists and historians who can explain how our present circumstances mirror past events, so that we can be forewarned and learn from others who have resisted before us. Indeed, such writing is a form of resistance in and of itself.

But where many writers cross the line is when they surrender in advance. “All is lost.” “We are pre-war Germany, and it’s all over but the shouting.” “We are a fascist dictatorship, and the only question is one of degree.” “Democrats aren’t up to the task of defending democracy.”

I disagree with Graff, as do tens of millions of Americans who are not acknowledged in his essay.

I am not giving up. You aren’t giving up. Together, we can save democracy.

And if we lose (and I don’t believe we will), we will go down fighting. We couldn’t live with ourselves were it otherwise.

In this perilous moment, there are no neutral observers. We are either part of the effort to save democracy, or we are part of the miasma of doubt, cynicism, and bemused disinterest that has doomed other nations resisting fascism.

Be bold and courageous. Do not give in to doubt and doomsaying, even as we raise the alarm about the daily assaults on democracy and the rule of law that mimic fascist nations of the past and present.

So long as we resist and refuse to surrender, we will keep democracy alive. We may not see ultimate victory, but if our task is to hold the bulwarks so the next generation can prevail, that is a sacred duty that has been performed by generations before us.

We are in this fight together, and it is an honor to be by your side. Stay strong, my friends! Do not lose heart or hope!

Daily Dose of Perspective

The Heart Nebula.