"While the U.S. military can plan an air campaign, it’s up to the civilian leadership to set strategy and determine which ends America’s mighty means are working toward." You can't have one without the other. (Well, you can, and you might get disaster.)
"To TACO or not to TACO, that is Donald Trump’s question. I think we know how it’s likely to be resolved."
@billkristolbulwark.bsky.social, @eggerdc.bsky.social, and @markhertling.bsky.social in Morning Shots, only @thebulwark.com: www.thebulwark.com/p/tacos-with...
"Without taking into account the particular personalities of two major world leaders, it’s hard to explain two of the most important international events of the last five years." One of them could have learned from the other.
New from Matt Johnson:
You could make a case for Hegseth, but really RFK is at the top of the list for worst Senate confirmation of the bunch. He was a dedicated lifelong crackpot, nothing he has done is remotely surprising and the stuff he said to secure confirmation was transparently dishonest. Cassidy has no excuse.
South Carolina is in its largest measles outbreak in decades. Nearly 1,000 infected. The man running U.S. public health spent years arguing the MMR vaccine causes autism. This is what that looks like in practice.
"At a time when America desperately needed a champion for vaccination, it got the precise opposite—a lifelong anti-vaccine crusader running the nation’s public health apparatus."
Must-read from @mattjj89.bsky.social in @theunpopulist.net on the disaster that is RFK Jr.
Weird. I tried to warn libertarians about Trump
"The Post’s inability to make money covering a second Trump administration is a business catastrophe. It is also evidence of a moral collapse."
"It’s now impossible for Democrats to change the subject from the United States’ descent into authoritarianism, and they shouldn’t want to"—no matter how often they are advised to focus on the price of eggs or are cautioned against criticizing law enforcement.
From @mattjj89.bsky.social
It’s now impossible for Democrats to change the subject from the United States’ descent into authoritarianism, and they shouldn’t want to. Voters do care about the state of our democracy. New from Matt Johnson:
Wow, must have been rough to be stuck in a restaurant for awhile. I heard a crazy story that an ICU nurse was executed for exercising his First and Second Amendment rights
25th Amendment
“We have done so much for America.” — The mother of a Danish soldier who died in Afghanistan.
What a shameful day for the United States. www.theatlantic.com/national-sec...
Surreal. This is the most dangerous moment of the long Trump decade. A madman with a child’s temper is consciously and single-handedly destroying the most important military alliance in history. Simply unbelievable that we’ve fallen this far.
What a boon!
The effort to force 340 million diverse Americans to accept a narrow, postliberal-approved definition of the "common good" would be terrifyingly oppressive if it wasn't fundamentally unworkable.
@mattjj89.bsky.social
The vice president who dismissed outrage over Nazi chat logs as "pearl clutching" draws inspiration from a theorist who thinks liberalism is "more insidious than fascism."
@mattjj89.bsky.social
Now the Venezuelan regime has issued an emergency order telling police to “immediately search and capture” anyone who supports “the armed attack by the United States”
www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01...
"It’s easier to dislodge a tinpot dictator in Venezuela than to deter great powers....But this raises the biggest question at the heart of the 'Donroe Doctrine': Does Trump even want to deter those powers? Or does he want to carve up the world with them?"
Is this what Trump meant when he said we are "running" Venezuela?
The Trump administration has decided to prioritize the Western Hemisphere over Europe and East Asia, a decision that empowers the United States’ two most powerful geopolitical rivals. Nothing about that could go wrong! lnk.thebulwark.com/4aHNPmz
Trump is serious about the “Donroe Doctrine,” and he will continue to prioritize hegemony, imperialism, and unilateralism over the liberal international order the United States has maintained for the past 80 years.
My latest for @ms.now www.ms.now/opinion/trum...
Beyond the question of what's actually going to happen in Venezuela now, the removal of Maduro is the opening move in a reckless new American grand strategy that will be self-defeating in an era of renewed great power conflict.
New from Matt Johnson:
If you missed @mattjj89.bsky.social's epic profile of Rogan in @theunpopulist.net, please give it a read:
Not sure I understand why the Trump administration cares about Christians in Nigeria and not Christians in Ukraine
Anyone who wants to address the virulent conspiracism and antisemitism on the right shouldn’t let Trump, Vance, and the most powerful men in the world get away with acting like craven moral imbeciles. Demand that they break their silence.
My latest, no paywall open.substack.com/pub/mattjj/p...
