E.U. Statehood for Sovereign Countries

Even as the E.U. struggled to come up with foreign policies on Gaza, Ukraine, and Iran in March, 2026, the union must have been cogent enough then for the Icelandic government to set a date at the end of the summer to have a referendum on whether to seek statehood. The term for this is accession, not merger, for an empire-scale union such as the U.S. or E.U. contains semi-sovereign states rather than co-scale and co-equal “partners.” By implication, to liken a state in one such union to another entire union is to make a category mistake that can be thought of in historical terms as making the claim that a kingdom is equivalent to an empire (of kingdoms). Both the E.U. and U.S. are federations composed of early-modern scale kingdoms and republics.[1] This is not so in the cases of Mexico and Canada. In fact, the U.S. has an open invitation for Canada’s accession (rather than merger).[2] People who presume that it was arrogant for the U.S. founders to invite Canada to accede as a state forget that the U.S. was formed by sovereign countries that became semi-sovereign states.

The full essay is at "E.U. Statehood for Sovereign Countries."

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1. See Skip Worden, British Colonies Forge an American Empire: A Basis for Trans-Atlantic Comparisons (Seattle: Amazon, 2017)
2. Because Canada has expanded West since the 18^th century, Canada would most likely accede as three or four U.S. states rather than just one.

On University “Police Departments”: Accountability at Yale

Whereas in the E.U., universities do not have their own private police departments because the state governments hold the police power, the situation in the U.S. has devolved from such democratic accountability such that even small colleges (and even hospitals!) typically have their own “police departments.” This presents the unwitting American public with a potentially problem of conflict of interest: in disputes between a college or university administration, which is not democratically elected, and stakeholders, including students and the general public, the organizational police forces take orders from one side. This is especially problematic in cases, such as at Yale, in which the organizational police employees patrol off campus—off the university’s own “territory”—and arrest people who are unaffiliated with Yale and have not even been on the campus. Such a usurpation of the prerogative of the city of New Haven comes with the loss of democratic accountability.

The full essay is at "On University 'Police Departments'."

The Israeli Military Kills Starving Gazans Seeking Food as Police in Massachusetts Intimidate Human-Rights Protesters

Even as the Israeli military was shooting innocent, starving people waiting for food in Gaza, Massachusetts police were overreacting to a pro-Gaza, pro-human rights protest in Cambridge, where Harvard University has most of its campus. Whereas the Israeli military (intentionally?) did not engage in crowd control around a designated food-distribution site, Cambridge and Harvard police employees overreacted and in so doing, falsely presented the visuals of an emergency and intimidated peaceful protesters. Both the Israeli military and a local and a private police department in Massachusetts can thus be criticized, and the choices of all three were to the advantage of Israel in spite of its ongoing war crime and crime against humanity in regard to the Gaza Holocaust, and to the advantage of the American defense contractors profiting from the U.S. Government sending weapons to Israel.  

The full essay is at "The Israeli Army Kills Starving Gazans."

Bill Moyers: Pastor, Politician, Journalist

In a world in which higher education is increasingly thought as preparation for a profession, being multidisciplinary in college and especially in graduate school is decreasingly sought and valued by students at universities in the United States. Unlike in the E.U., where it is more common for the professional schools to be separate from universities given the difference between training and education—skills and knowledge—American universities make it institutionally possible for a person to get a MBA and MPA after a BA in liberal arts or a BS in natural science, or, less commonly, to get a MBA degree and a MDiv degree after having studied in the liberal arts and sciences. The MBA and LLB or JD has been a more popular combination, and I spoke once with a MPA student at Harvard who already had a MBA from Notre Dame and was considering a degree in law. I think the benefits vocationally from being multidisciplinary in one’s formal higher education (i.e., college and graduate school) tend to kick in only after a few decades after one’s final graduation. Perhaps only in retrospect does the traces of such an education reveal themselves in a person’s work-life. I contend that the political aide, pastor, and journalist, Bill Moyers, is an excellent example of how a multidisciplinary education can enrich a person’s career, which is not likely to stay “inside the lines” of one particular industry. This is not a bad thing.

The full essay is at "Bill Moyers."

The U.S. Government’s Debt: Federalism Unbalanced

On May 5, 2025, the debt of the U.S. Government stood at $36.21 trillion, $28.9 trillion being held by the public and $7.31 trillion being intragovernmental. That total is $1.66 trillion more than the total federal public debt on May 5, 2024. Projected interest payments of $952 billion in fiscal year 2025 would be 8 percent higher than the interest payments made in 2024. By comparison, the U.S. budget for national defense in fiscal year 2025 totaled $892.6 billion. Whether going to investors of treasury bonds or defense contractors and other corporations, the combined $1.85 trillion for fiscal 2025 represents a transfer payment to the wealthy from American taxpayers rich, middle-class, and poor. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill in May, 2025 that would subject Medicaid and food assistance to significantly less money and subject the States with having to spend more on the administration of those programs. Principles of political ideology reside just below the surface. My task here is to flush them out and relate them to each other, rather than to impose my own ideology.

The full essay is at "The U.S. Government's Debt."

Electing a U.S. President: What Is a Landslide?

A landslide electoral victory in representative democracy is typically limited to the criterion of the extent of the vote-spread between candidates for a given office. In regard to the U.S. presidency, the Electoral College presents an alternative criterion, especially as a significant difference in votes in the College may not be reflected in the popular vote. Although that vote is by member state, the totals from all of the states are typically used to assess whether a landslide has occurred and thus whether the winning candidate has a political mandate to implement campaign promises. Whether a landslide or not, winning an election legitimates a candidate implementing the platform on which a candidate has campaigned. So whether a candidate for U.S. president has a landslide has typically been over-emphasized by American journalists, as if not having a large spread in the popular vote—even if such a spread exists in the Electoral College vote (which is the vote that really matters in the election of a U.S. president)—means that the winner has no prerogative to enact one’s agenda. I contend that even under the assumption that an electoral landslide is important, there are alternative ways of assessing whether a landslide has occurred.

The full essay is at "Electing a U.S. President."

Journalism Goes Only So Far in Empire-Scale Democracy

A news story only goes so far; only so much “digging” is possible against a pressing deadline. Moreover, we humans are not particularly good at “connecting the dots” when they are far afield. Through natural selection in an environment in which humans were prey as well as hunters, we are still “hard-wired” to privilege the immediate. So it takes more than a bit of effort to counter this natural predilection in order to make a truly informed judgment that takes into account the relevant tributaries. One such judgment concerns the impact of U.S. President Joe Biden’s age on his fitness to serve a second term.

The full essay is at "Journalism Goes Only So Far."

On the Role of the U.S. Supreme Court in Safeguarding the Peaceful Transfer of Power

In the E.U., the state governments and federal institutions can ask the European Court of Justice (the ECJ) for an opinion on a legal matter. This is rare in the U.S., though waiting for a dispute to winds its way formally through district and appellate courts may be unduly bureaucratic, not to mention lengthy. On December 11, 2023, Special Counsel Jack Smith asked the U.S. Supreme Court the ECJ’s counterpart, to decide whether the former U.S. president Donald Trump had any immunity from criminal prosecution of his involvement in the riot at the U.S. Capitol that interrupted the formal counting by a joint session of Congress of the Electoral College presidential ballots. The trial was set to begin the following March, and the question of the former president’s immunity had to be decided before the trial could begin. Hence the “extraordinary request,” which I contend should not be extraordinary given the time frame and the important role of the highest court in safeguarding American democracy from domestic threats.

The full essay is at "On the U.S. Supreme Court."

Deficit Reduction and Tax Breaks: Rhetoric and Reality

Actions speak louder than words. A tree is known by its fruit. Where your treasure is, therein lies your heart. These three sayings each have at their root a value on integrity or authenticity that cuts through purported assertions designed to manipulate or otherwise mislead. Integrity here is consistency between word and deed. When members of Congress have cried that the sky was falling under the weight of the annual deficits and the accumulated debt of the U.S. Government, a person might ask by looking at the actual votes on legislation whether the representatives really considered the fiscal imbalances as so dire. If someone exclaims that her house is about to explode but does not act accordingly, such as in running out of the house rather than finishing dinner, it is reasonable to doubt that the person really believes that a blast is imminent. In protecting tax breaks even amid a deficit of over $1 trillion in 2011, members of Congress belied their own warnings concerning the American governmental debt crisis. The American people as a whole let their representatives get away with the Janus-like stances, and this in turn eventually allowed the U.S. Government debt to exceed $20 trillion. 

The full essay is at "Fiscal Rhetoric and Reality."

Two Sizes Fit All: America’s Two-Party-System Stranglehold

A Rasmussen Reports poll conducted in early August 2011 found that “just 17% of likely U.S. voters think that the federal government . . . has the consent of the governed,” while 69% “believe that the government does not have that consent.”[1] Yet an overwhelming number of Congressional incumbents is reelected. Is it that many Americans stay away from the polls on election day, or does the two-party system essentially force a choice? Voting for a third-party candidate risks the defeat of the candidate of the major party closest to one’s views. Such a vote is typically referred to as a protest or throw-away vote. Is it worth driving to the polls to do that?

The full essay is at "A Two Party Duopoly in American Politics."

1. Patrick H. Caddell and Douglas E. Schoen, “Expect a Third-Party Candidate in 2012,” Wall Street Journal, August 25, 2011.

The U.S. Enabled Turkey to Invade Syria: Absent the U.N.

Turkey invaded Syria on October 9, 2019 “to flush Kurds allied with the US out of northeastern Syria.”[1] Strategically, Turkey wanted to distance the Kurds from Turkey so they could not aid Kurdish separatists in Turkey should the latter rise up in attempting to establish Kurdistan. U.S. President Don Trump, who had just cleared American troops from northeastern Syria, had advanced knowledge from Turkish President Recep Erdogan that he planned to invade the area once the American troops were out. A rare bipartisan unity in Congress criticized the removal of American troops and the president’s acquiescence on Turkey’s plan to attach the Kurds, an American ally—a plan that could possibly give ISIS a toehold in the region. Both the Congress and the president had their respective rationales, yet neither side looked past the apparent dichotomy to arrive at a solution consistent with the points made by both sides.

The full essay is at "Dichotamous Thinking in Foreign Policy."

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1. Nicole Gaouette, “Republican Anger at Trump Grows as Turkey Launches ‘Sickening’ Attack on US Allies,” CNN.com, October 9, 2019 (accessed same day).

Limits to Overused Fiscal and Monetary Policy Can Result in Self-Induced Governmental Impotence

“The [U.S.] federal budget deficit is growing faster than expected as President Trump’s spending and tax cut policies force the United States to borrow increasing sums of money.”[1] This observation was made just after the Federal Reserve Bank relented under pressure from the White House to lower interest rates because bond investors had been investing with a possible future recession in mind. With the U.S. Government’s accumulated debt standing at $22.4 trillion and interest rates already low, the limits to both fiscal and monetary policy were apparent even if most Americans in the political and business elite were focused on avoiding a possible recession in 2020.

The full essay is at "Overused Fiscal and Monetary Tools."

See also: Skip Worden, Essays on Two Federal Empires. Available at Amazon.

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1. Jim Tankersley and Emily Cochrane, “Budget Deficit Is Set to Surge Past $1 Trillion,” The New York Times, August 22, 2019.

On the Unitary and Imperial American Presidency

In December 2009, Abdullah II, King of Jordon, dismissed the prime minister and replaced him with a palace aide and loyalist, dissolved Parliament, and postponed legislative elections for a year.   For all the defects of a representative democratic system, it is far superior to autocratic rule, especially by a dictator.   It is natural for people to resist preemption. “The nature of humans is they want democracy,” said Ali Dalain, an independent member of the Parliament that was dissolved. “One person cannot solve all problems and cannot make everyone happy, so people must share in determining their fate.”[1] These quotes are revealing from the standpoint of the American notions of the unitary executive and the imperial presidency.    

The full essay is at "The Unitary and Imperial U.S. Presidency."

1. Michael Slackman, "Jordan's King Remakes His Government," The New York Times, December 22, 2009.

Including Voter Judgments on Broad Policies in Elections: An Expansion of Active Popular Sovereignty

Days after the 2018 Congressional elections in the U.S., the Minority Leader and soon-to-be Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, declared, “Healthcare was on the ballot and healthcare won.”[1] As the new Democratic-controlled House worked on a budget the next Spring, Pelosi was still insisting that healthcare was what that election was about. Perhaps she based her statement on exit polls in which most voters claimed that they had voted chiefly the basis of candidate positions on healthcare. This does mean, however, that the voters voted on healthcare, for as only a choice of candidates could be made, the voters were left with inferring or even hoping that the favored candidate would act on, or at least stay with, his or her position on the issue. I contend that the next leap in the theory and practice of representative democracy could be to no longer keep an electorate, the popular sovereign, limited to selecting among candidates.

The full essay is at "Expanding What Voters Can Vote On."

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[1] Kimberly Leonard, “Nancy Pelosi: ‘Healthcare was on the ballot and healthcare won,” The Washington Examiner, November 7, 2018.

President Obama's Proposal to Rescue States: Unattended Problems in American Federalism and Human Sustenance

In 2011, President Obama proposed "to ride to the rescue of states" that had borrowed billions of dollars from the federal government to continue to pay unemployment benefits during the economic downturn. His plan was to "give the states a two-year breather before automatic tax increases would hit employers, and before states would have to start paying interest on the loans." Many of the states had begun the recession with "too little money in their unemployment trust funds'" Those states "quickly ran through what little they had as unemployment rose and remained stubbornly high month after month. With their own trust funds depleted, 30 states borrowed $42 billion from the federal government to continue paying unemployment benefits." These states were facing an estimated $1.3 billion in interest payments to Washington due in the fall of 2011. The President’s proposal also included raising the minimum taxable wage base from $7,000 to $15,000 in 2014. "The rate of the federal portion of the unemployment taxes would then be lowered, so the proposal would not raise federal taxes on states that do not owe the federal government money. But it would speed the rate at which states that do owe money repay the federal government, and allow states to collect more unemployment taxes to rebuild their trust funds if they do not lower their tax rates." By February, 2011, eighteen states had already raised their minimum taxable wage base to $15,000 or more, according to the National Association of State Workforce Agencies. Iris Lav, an adviser at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said that the unemployment system was “a constellation of problems" that needed to be solved." She added that the near-term problem was the economy, and "both the interest payments and the principal repayments are [were] cutting into employers, and it [made] great sense to postpone them." The larger question was how to "get states to solvency.”[1]

Analysis of the proposal is at "Proposal to Rescue States."

1. Michael Cooper and Sheryl Stolberg, "Obama Plans to Rescue States with Debt Burdens," The New York Times, February 8, 2011.

U.S. President Trump’s Spending on a Border Wall: Federalism at Risk?

U.S. President Trump announced in February of 2019 that he would fully fund a wall on the U.S.’s southern border. He would first use the $1.375 granted by Congress to be followed by  $600 million from a Treasury Department asset-foreclosure fund for law enforcement, $2.5 billion from a military anti-drug account, and $3.6 billion in military construction funds.[1] The president’s rationale hinged on his declaration of a national emergency due to illegal immigration, drug-traffic, and crime/gangs—all having been coming across the border on a regular basis. In federal court, sixteen of the U.S.’s member-states challenged the president’s declaration and use of funds. The U.S. president’s legal authority to declare national emergencies was pitted against the authority of the U.S. House of Representatives to be the initiator of federal spending legislation. The House therefore had standing to sue. The question of the states’ legal standing is another matter. It is particularly interesting because it involved not only whether a given state would be harmed by the wall or even the president’s use of other funding sources that could otherwise be used for other projects in the states not directly affected by the wall, but also because federalism itself could be negatively affected in a way that harms all of the states.

The full essay is at "Spending on a Border Wall: Federalism at Risk?"

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1. Charlie Savage and Robert Pear, “States’ Lawsuit Aims to Thwart Emergency Bid,” The New York Times, February 19, 2019.

The 2012 U.S. Presidential Election: Fueled by Leadership or Money?

The 2012 U.S. presidential election was the first in which neither of the major-party candidates participated in the campaign-matching system that imposes campaign spending limits in return for federal financing. It was also the first presidential election since the Citizens United case in 2010. That U.S. Supreme Court ruling was a significant factor in the election because corporations and unions could dip into their respective treasuries directly, rather than only through employee or member contributions, spend an unlimited amount on political ads by making donations to “social welfare” organizations. Without disclosing their donor lists, these non-profit organizations could create political ads that in turn could favor or criticize a particular candidate, albeit with no formal approval from the favored candidate. Faced with formidable super PACs pumping some $800 million or more in favor of Mitt Romney, Obama’s money-machine went into high-gear in a sort of “rich man’s” arms-race. Some rich donors had spent millions of dollars to push the massive ship of state a discernible distance in their direction. Hardly anyone expected that the contending high monies would virtually cancel each other out. Hardly anyone thought the Obama campaign’s scientifically-based “ground game” oriented to getting new voters registered would trump Romney’s financial advantage. To be sure, Wall Street was also behind Obama; Goldman Sachs had donated $1 million in 2008, and Obama in turn gave the big banks federal money (TARP) without strings, including on bonuses (which the bankers abused).

The full essay is at "A U.S. Presidential Election: Leadership or Money?"

Citizens United: A U.S. Supreme Court Ruling Ensconced in the Status Quo?

According to Rodell Molineau, executive director of the Democratic super PAC American Bridge in 2012, "The meta-lesson from [the 2012] election cycle is that showing up and participating in the process is key, which is something that we didn't do in 2010. I think a lot of Democrats ceded the field on super PACs because most people in progressive circles didn't believe in the Citizens United ruling."[1] The U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United ruling on January 21, 2010 opened up unlimited corporate and union spending on political campaigns. The fact is, sometimes you have to play by rules you don’t agree with in order to compete. The obvious danger is that one gets coopted by those rules in the process, even having a financial disincentive to push for a repeal of the problematic ruling. In other words, the ruling accrues the benefit of being the status quo and thus becomes extremely difficult to dislodge.

The full essay is at "Citizens United."

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1. Paul Blumenthal, “Democratic Super PACs Trim Conservative Advantage in Congressional Races,” The Huffington Post, November 10, 2012.

On the Futility of Divided Government at the Empire Level: The Case of the U.S.A.

Rick Perry, when he was the Republican governor of Texas running for re-election, said his primary opponent, Senator Kay Hutchison, was spending tax dollars too freely in Washington. He meant that she was too Washington. He claimed that she didn't get what he called, “Texas values.” Then, he added something really telling—something that went beyond his electoral contest: “Washington’s one-size-fits-all approaches simply don’t work. They want more control of your dollars and your life, and they want it now. We surrender that to them with peril.” His statement is worthy of our reflection even long after Perry's re-election campaign.

The full essay is at "On Divided Government at the Empire Level."

On European and American federalism compared, see Essays on Two Federal Empires, available at Amazon. See also, "American and European Federalism, a short critique of Perry's book on federalism, Fed Up!

John Kerry: An American Politician

Just after President Barak Obama announced that he would nominate Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts to be the U.S. Secretary of State, the E.U. Secretary of State (Minister of Foreign Affairs), Catherine Ashton, welcomed the prospect of working with Kerry. Whether she knew it at the time or not, she would be working with an American politician. After all, Kerry had already run for the American presidency. To be sure, he was not taking up the foreign affairs post to build his resume. I believe he genuinely wanted the job. The problem is, is trying to please all the people all the time, a politician's patina (or deeper?), best in foreign affairs? In this essay, I focus not on this question, but, rather, on the patina itself in the case of John Kerry so the underlying problem behind the question of fit with foreign affairs can be more transparent to the wider public.

U.S. President Obama nominates U.S. Sen. John Kerry to be U.S. Secretary of State.    Reuter

The full essay is at: "An American Politician."