Trial and Error

"You shall appoint judges and officials throughout your tribes, in all the settlements that the Lord G-d is giving you and they shall govern the nation with righteous justice" Deuteronomy 16:18

At the time of this writing, a number of Israelis are on the street for the 15th week in a row to protest a now delayed judicial reform package proposed by their government. At present there are tentative negotiations between the government and elements of the opposition over the content of the reforms. The reforms proffered by the government mainly concern (1) ending the Supreme Court’s ability to override the legislature's Basic Laws (laws of a quasi-constitutional status), (2) the scrapping of vague legal standards, (3) that the attorney general ought to represent the government's view in court and their legal advice be non-binding, (4) stopping the court from dismissing governmental ministers, (5) a controversial parliamentary override on the court in terms of regular laws, (6) changes in the selection of justices on the court to make elected officials have more say, and (7) the formal granting to the court by the legislature for the first time the power of (limited) judicial review. To the casual observer, however, the cause of reform may be lost without examining how the country got to this point. This article seeks to give a background to the reforms and state the case for most of them.

When David Ben Gurion publicly read the declaration of independence of the State of Israel on the 14th of May 1948, this proclamation included a provision that a constitution shall be adopted no later than 1st of October of that year. The constitution for the state never happened and in lieu of a singular written document that laid out the structure of government and the fundamental law of the land, quasi-constitutional Basic Laws passed by the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, stood in its place.

In the 1995 United Mizrahi Bank v. Migdal Cooperative Village decision the Israeli Supreme Court under its President Aharon Barak retroactively claimed that there had been a “constitutional revolution” in Israel and that two 1992 Basic Laws “endowed the State of Israel with a constitutional bill of rights” from which the court could give themselves vast judicial review powers.

Never mind that the two Basic Laws that were the basis for the usurpation were only passed with votes of 32-21 and 23-0 of the 120 man chamber respectively and that the laws were not written by the members of Knesset with the purpose of forming a constitution or granting the court such broad judicial review powers in mind. On the contrary, as one history professor looking back at that point wrote “[t]he domination of the court…was exercised without official [legislative] authority…Not only had the court demanded judicial review… it had gone beyond the judicial supremacy as practiced in the US, because it [the court] was composing a constitution.”

This unilateral usurpation of power was now coupled with Aharon Barak’s judicial philosophy which proclaimed that “the world is filled with law… There are no areas in life which are outside of law.” This act of legal legerdemain by the Israeli Supreme Court in granting itself vast powers of judicial review overturned previous institutional balances on the court. It effectively meant that the court could grant itself any power it wanted. It could (and has) dismissed government ministers, it could (and has) dismissed laws or governmental decisions based on the vague standard of being merely “so unreasonable as to be illegal” (even when no law, Basic or otherwise, prohibited it), and even potentially go further. As the main parliamentary architect of the modern judicial reform effort, Member of Knesset (MK) Simcha Rothman mentioned that one concern of his was that there was a school of thought that the Israeli Supreme Court had the power to block any changes to Basic Laws (or Basic Laws in themselves) that they do not like. The danger was as he put it:

The equivalent in the US [is that] if there will be a change in the constitution and the Court will say “I don’t like the 18th amendment! I don’t like the 19th amendment! I think it is unconstitutional and I will disregard it or even cancel it” …One of the judges on the [Israeli] Supreme Court said that a Basic Law that says Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people should be voided by the Court because it is [an] unconstitutional constitutional change.

Proper democratic constitutional (both of the written and unwritten kind) systems are predicated on the idea that there are checks and balances within the system. A court that has no limits on the scale and scope of what it can review, override, and effectively engage in, what Aharon Barak favorably called, “judicial legislation” cannot be considered to be functioning as a proper judicial body.

Now added to this body with theoretically nigh limitless power the fact that the justices on the bench and the pro-revolution Israel Bar Association have votes over who gets to succeed the judges. You have in essence a system where unelected officials can have veto power over who gets into the Supreme Court. Activist judges have not been slow to take advantage of the selection system as in the case of Aharon Barak vetoing the nomination of the anti-judicial revolution Professor Ruth Gavison to the Supreme Court in 2005. Barak brokered no restorationist rival judicial philosophy on his court. In effect, the Supreme Court selection process tends to accept those who have accepted in part or in whole Barak’s revolution.

Further adding to this problem is the fact that the position of attorney general is also noted for being a traditional steppingstone to the Supreme Court and Barak ruled that this post, which he used to serve in, has expanded powers to effectively scrap any governmental proposal that it deems illegal or unreasonable without judicial review. The attorney general has all the incentive to become an agent of the Supreme Court without the need for direct intervention by the judicial branch. Through these means the Supreme Court has become an unaccountable reserved domain of power.

This notion of the 1995 Constitutional Revolution going too far was previously at least shared by a broad swath of political parties. MK Yair Lapid, the current head of the Israeli opposition and now an avowed critic of the judicial changes proposed by the government, concurred with such analysis when he said in a 2016 speech to the Kohelet Policy Forum:

I have opposed, and I still oppose, judicial activism of the sort introduced by [former Supreme Court President] Aharon Barak… I don’t think it is right that everything is justiciable. I don’t think it is right for the Supreme Court to change fundamental things in accordance with what it refers to as the judgment of ‘the reasonable person.’ That’s an amorphous and completely subjective definition that the Knesset never introduced to the legal code. It’s not right in my mind that the separation of powers, the sacrosanct foundation of the democratic method, should be breached by one branch of government placing itself above the others.

Mr. Lapid publicly spoke in favor of legal reforms as late as September 2022. Nor is Lapid the only individual to have such a conversation experience toward the court. Opposition MK Matan Kahana of the National Unity party commented in a Facebook post back in 2020:

Once again, the High Court tramples [on] democracy…The High Court ruling is the continuation of the erosion of the delicate balance required in democracy between three authorities [i.e. branches of government] …The time has come for a recovery period that will return the country to the people.

Former Netanyahu ally and current opposition MK Gideon Sa’ar similarly blasted the activist Supreme Court, lamented that their ruling as leaving the state “without tools” to deal with problems, and called for limitations on judicial authority back in 2014. MK Sa’ar ran in 2021 on the issue of judicial reform and curbing the Supreme Court’s overmighty powers. Why then did the current government’s judicial overhaul plan engender such controversy?

Let us cast aside the shrill sky-is-falling jeremiads of the reforms bringing about the doom of Israeli democracy, the death of the Israeli economy, and the erosion of Israeli security. (These rallying cries being perhaps more indicative of what some in the crowd are trying to achieve in the event of the reforms’ passage than an earnest and rational warning.) According to Yair Lapid, his opposition to the current overhaul proposal rests on the fact it is a “unilateral revolution against the system of government in Israel.” The irony is that his statement about the reform package can just as easily be said about the Supreme Court activism that brought forth the call for reforms. Opposition MK Oded Forer of the Yisrael Beiteinu party was perhaps a bit more candid when he said that the reforms individually may be fine but “the problem is when you put them all together.” The reason being that the reforms could make for unchecked parliamentary supremacy, which eventually leaves all major decisions to be decided by the government without significant checks. In other words, the concern is out of the problems of concentrated overmighty judicial powers that were the result of the 1995 Constitutional Revolution, its modern-day counterrevolution would create problems of concentrated overmighty governmental powers.

It is on that matter that law professor Yaniv Roznai pointed out the ease of which (most) Basic Laws can be changed and how this can be problematic. Professor Roznai said in a public debate with MK Rothman:

[On] May 2018 our Knesset amended a Basic Law… [which concerned] the way by which the government can go to war, which is probably the most important constitutional rule that exists in a constitution. They amended it quickly without any public deliberation…they changed it so the person that can declare how to go to war is the Prime Minister together in consultation with the Minister of Defense. What if it is the same person? What if it is one politician?…They made it very quickly but afterwards people told them “but it is unbelievable, how you can do such a thing.” So, three months later they reversed that decision and again amended [the] Basic Law of the government. But this is to show you how quickly, how hastily, and without considerations our politicians amend our Basic Law.

In the same debate, Professor Roznai mentioned how he better trusts the Supreme Court with the safeguarding of human rights, rather than the Knesset and how the reforms proposed by Mr. Rothman would endanger those rights because they would then ultimately rest on a parliamentary vote and the fickleness of politicians. One may readily admit that the passage and amending of Basic Laws ought to be made more difficult due to the special status implied by said laws. That being said, at least in the case highlighted by Professor Roznai, public pressure did lead toward parliament correcting its mistake.

As for the record of the court in democracies being stalwarts of civil liberties that is, however, more muddled. In the United States at least a number of infamous legal decisions by the courts have led toward the denial of rights to people, ranging from Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), Buck v. Bell (1927), and Korematsu v. United States (1944) to name a few. In the case of the Israeli Supreme Court, there are allegations arising from the conservative and religious voter base of the governing coalition, who believe that neither the Supreme Court nor the legal establishment protects their rights and only protects “the segment of society from which they [the court and legal establishment] themselves come. As one example…[the alienated voter base cites is] the intolerable ease with which people from the “wrong” groups are held without bail until the end of their trials.”

The legal analyst Evelyn Gordon lists several examples of such justified grievances against the court. In one example in her lengthy essay on the subject, she noted that:

…during protests against the 1993 Oslo Accords and the 2005 disengagement from Gaza, thousands of demonstrators who blocked roads were beaten by police and jailed; the jailing of protesters was approved by the entire legal establishment—the prosecution, lower courts, and the Supreme Court. Moshe Feiglin, later a Likud MK, was charged with sedition for advocating civil disobedience and sentenced to jail (though the sentence was commuted to community service); his conviction and sentence were upheld by the Supreme Court. Today, too, there are widespread calls for civil disobedience; protesters have blocked roads on a weekly basis and also staged more severe disruptions, including collective refusals to do reserve duty and blockading Israel’s ports and airport. Yet almost nobody has been kept in jail for more than a few hours, and certainly nobody has been charged with sedition.

Surely civil liberties at their very essence mean equal treatment and protection under the law. Yet, this is one example out of many of the Israel Supreme Court being accused of holding a convenient and biased double standard and applying the law unequally.

Yet there is a notion posited by European countries, many of whom do not have a common law tradition like Israel, that any “judicial interference” by parliament amounts to an erosion of liberal democracy. This ignores that a branch, like the court, that operates without significant checks on its own power also undermines liberal democracy. Tellingly, there is no great analysis by said foreign philosopher kings about how exactly the content of the Israeli reforms does this. The open interference run by the European Union (which has democratic deficits of its own) and even the United States in matters of Israeli domestic import ought to concern anyone who believes in democracy. After all, democracy at its most basic distillment means voter sovereignty.

Still, what about the protesters' criticism that the current reforms proffered are too extreme and that the discussion over the content of reforms has been too short? The reform bills have been subject to massive scrutiny as the months-long protestations themselves demonstrate. Yet, the general discourse of reform has been around for decades and the first (and so far only) law concerning the current judicial reform package only passed on March 23rd. The immediate discussion about judicial reform began on January 11, 2023 when the government unveiled its general proposals. The election that brought in the current nationalist-religious coalition was fought on whether the public thought that Prime Minister Netanyahu’s indictments and trials were sufficient grounds to vote against him and a government led by him. MK Simcha Rothman, the parliamentary manager of the reforms, said that he expected that the reform proposals would be moderated through engagement with the opposition. Mr. Rothman went further still by saying that “I don't even want to pass the legislation exactly as it was written in the precise language it appears in the draft. It will be changed and it should be changed.” Basically, the text of the reforms was open to bargaining.

Mr. Rothman has acted upon those words too and the government has pitched and accepted revised proposals from their original position. Prior to the halt in legislation, the government expressed its desire for a negotiated settlement with the opposition but as one anti-reform source admitted “Lapid, however, did not take advantage of the opportunity.” In effect, the opposition did not meaningfully talk. This is not to write that the opposition has no right to protest or take its cause beyond the halls of parliament, they do. This is merely highlighting that the chances to water down what the opposition sees as the extreme elements of the reforms was there prior to the formal halt in the proceedings.

Nor was Mr. Rothman eager to take away anyone’s civil liberties. He insisted that should anyone demonstrate that any of his reforms violated key Israeli Supreme Court precedents like the 1953 Kol Ha’Am case that protected freedom of the press then he would immediately amend the draft to avoid such a thing. To quote Rothman back in early February:

I will just say this, and I hope it will settle the dispute down. Kol Ha’Am is a very important case…it did not cancel any Knesset law, that is why this judicial reform has nothing to do with it. I asked specifically…in the committee room…the legal adviser and…[asked] him if anything we are doing here today will prevent the court from giving the exact same ruling as in Kol Ha’Am…the answer [I received] was no. If you [the adviser] think that anything we are doing here today will be- or tomorrow- will prevent those rulings [favorable to civil liberties] given in Israel before 1992 and 1995…please raise your hand and prevent me from doing it because that is not my intention and offer changes to the reforms based on that.

Nevertheless, one can argue that Israel ought to have a written bill of rights and that the 1992 Human Dignity Basic Law ought to be amended to better define and protect civil liberties and enable the courts to strike down ordinary laws contrary to such civil liberties. Still even some legal analysts who are critical of the reforms agreed that even if they were passed in their original unmoderated form, Israel would still remain a vibrant democracy. Alan Dershowitz, who was cited by the anti-reformers as a prominent authority for their cause, conceded as much while viewing many of the reforms as potentially compromising the quality of the judges and their rulings on the bench. He opined about them:

In some respects, it [the reforms] would make Israel more democratic. If all of these reforms were enacted—and I oppose most, but not all of them—it would turn Israel into, God forbid, Canada or New Zealand or Australia, or many European countries. It would not turn it into Poland. It would not turn it into an autocratic country.

Eminent Canadian jurist Irwin Cotler basically admitted the same thing when he stated that the reforms “would [not] take Israel down the road to Hungary and Poland for all the reasons that I mentioned.”

One may still argue that even though the Supreme Court during the days of Aharon Barak acted immoderately and outside the bounds of traditional checks and balances, such politicized use of the court does not happen in Israel today. Even if this were the case, this ignores the fact that Barak’s Constitutional Revolution remains intact and theoretically nothing stops the Supreme Court from reverting back to such major activism. Furthermore, there is abundant evidence that these politicized practices still occur by the court. The recent dismissal of Arye Deri from his position in the government by the Supreme Court’s order on account of it being “unreasonable in the extreme” is one such example. Similarly, the overly broad gag order by the attorney general that previously prevented Netanyahu from taking part in the debate over the reforms due to a murky conflict of interest being present. None of the proposed reforms would allow Netanyahu to select the judges overseeing his trial and as such no conflict of interest is reasonably present. A conflict of interest can be argued on the part of the attorney general, who was appointed by the previous anti-Netanyahu government, and who has acted at every step to derail the reforms. Such reforms as mentioned in the beginning paragraph of this article touched on the powers of the attorney general. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court found that the attorney general did not have a conflict of interest. There is also pressure from the anti-reform legal intelligentsia on the High Court to strike down the Basic Law reforms by the government should they pass. Put simply, to imagine any government institution as free from politics is fantastical.

None of this is to write that the reforms as they are perfect. There are hints to this fact throughout this article. Personally, it would be desirous if a greater majority to pass and amend was required for Basic Laws. Whether this threshold is 70, 80, or 90 MKs is fine with me. A better written bill of rights can be passed (or amended) as a Basic Law that would clearly define what set of rights the courts could use to override ordinary legislation and better prevent judicial overreach. The reform permitting Knesset overriding the Supreme Court in the event of an adverse ruling on ordinary legislation should be dropped. Whether the government (and opposition) can deliver such personally desired items (or even on the overhaul itself) is a different matter. Ultimately though the tone, tenure, and content of the reforms (or lack thereof) should be up to the Israeli people and their duly elected representatives to be free to decide.

On April 13th, Jack Teixeira, a 21-year-old in the Massachusetts Air National Guard, was arrested and charged with two counts under the Espionage Act for disseminating top secret documents through a Discord server that he moderated. Although the source of America’s most consequential National Security leak in at least a decade has been found, questions still linger about the potential ramifications from the publication of some of America’s most sensitive secrets about the war in Ukraine, relations with China, and the ongoing surveillance of international allies like South Korea.

The cache of leaked Pentagon documents illustrates the extent to which Russian security and intelligence services have been penetrated by the United States. The documents portray a Russian military bruised by 189,500-223,000 casualties that is stalling in its war against Ukraine and a military apparatus that is deeply compromised. There has been some controversy over the exact figures - as an altered version of the document surfaced showing lower casualty estimates. Some documents contain daily briefs about real-time warnings by American intelligence agencies on the timing of Moscow’s strikes and even its specific targets.

Equally blunt was the American assessment of Ukrainian military strength, which is itself in dire straits. The leaked material outlines critical shortages of air defense munitions and 124,500 to 131,000 casualties on the Ukrainian side.

The intelligence reports seem to indicate that the United States is also spying on Ukraine’s top military and political leaders, a reflection of Washington’s struggle to get a clear view of Ukraine’s fighting strategies. Which according to Timothy Edgar, a former national security official and current lecturer on law, is both “the good news and the bad news.” As he explains, “the Ukrainians did not share their secret war plans about the coming spring offensive, and as a result, they were not leaked. So, that’s good news. It’s also bad news, because, again, it points out that if you’re a partner and ally of the United States, then the only way you can really keep your secrets from being potentially leaked is to not share them with the Americans. And that could have big long-term implications for us.”

Edgar’s analysis, and the purported surveillance of Ukrainian officials points out a perverse irony that defense officials have long acknowledged: The United States has a better understanding of Russian military operations than it does of Ukrainian planning. And the Teixeira leak is only going to reaffirm the belief in Kiev, and other allied capitals, that sharing strategic information with the Americans could jeopardize rather than improve your national security.

While an interagency damage assessment is underway, it is important to examine the scope of the possible fallout. Friendly nations as nearby as Canada and distant as South Korea have had their feathers ruffled by revelations made public by the leaks. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada was put in the hot seat after his private statements among NATO leaders were made public. He informed other leaders that Canada would “never reach 2% defense spending” due to domestic constraints and the leaked assessment said “widespread defense shortfalls hinder Canadian capabilities while straining partner relationships and alliance contributions.”

Across the Pacific, it has surfaced that American intelligence agencies have been electronically surveilling the communications of senior members of South Korean parliament. While these revelations are not surprising to government leaders, there is always a feeling of betrayal that is felt by the civilian populations of the aggrieved and spying states. As Timothy Edgar explains: “For intelligence, the circle of trust is very small. And for [the U.S.], the most important circle of trust is the Five Eyes (an intelligence sharing partnership involving five nations: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States). And if you’re not in the Five Eyes club, you’re not in the Five Eyes club and it shouldn’t shock you that the Americans may be spying on you.”

This understanding is reflected by South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s downplaying of the incident ahead of a summit with Biden - "I believe that this matter is no reason to shake the ironclad trust that supports the U.S.-South Korea alliance.” However, just because the heads of state understand these dynamics does not mean there won’t be unspoken consequences for the United States global partnerships.

Additional repercussions from the vast array of leaked documents, (over 100 pages in total) many labeled with the highest level of government clearance - the Top Secret classification - may have very real and immediate consequences. A major aspect of the damage is going to be felt by intelligence source networks, as the information in the documents could be specific enough for foreign authorities to identify the source of their leak. For example, if sources in the Russian Ministry of Defense (MOD) are exposed now, it could give Moscow the ability to quarantine and eliminate those streams of information that have been vital to Ukraine’s war efforts thus far.

Although it is hard to predict the outcome of the charges against Jack Teixeira, both because the investigation is in its preliminary stages and because of the unusual lack of ideological or moral motivation, there are a few cases that may give us insight into how it will play out.

In our current legal system, defendants are incentivized to make a plea deal for a possible shorter sentence rather than face the threat they are facing under the Espionage Act, which criminalizes the “unauthorized retention and disclosure of national-security secrets”. It packs a punch of up to 10 years per charge, and each leaked document could be its own charge. That's 20 years on the table for Teixeria’s 2 current charges, with the possibility of more to come. On the other hand, plea deals in leak-related cases have typically resulted in a few years of prison.

According to an investigation by the New York Times, in two other cases involving the leaking of archives of material rather than a discrete secret or two, prosecutors and the defendant did not reach a plea deal.

That being said, prosecutors leading such a high profile case may be less inclined to offer an attractive plea deal to Teixeira because of the sheer scale of the documents leaked. As the case plays out in court, the number of additional charges and the terms of any plea deal offered will be dependent on the severity of the damage found by the interagency investigation. However, the U.S. government will have its own incentives to offer a plitable plea deal in order to avoid the bureaucratic complexities and obvious discomfort of openly discussing classified evidence in the courtrooms; especially since the Justice Department is unlikely to relinquish control of such a high profile case to military courts that would offer greater secrecy for prosecutors.

To understand what that damage might look like we turn to Thomas Warrick, a fellow at the Atlantic Council and former senior counterterrorism official with the Department of Homeland Security, who said the leak was “damaging,” but could have been worse. He pointed out that many of the documents shared online were daily briefings, i.e. short form “snapshot[s]” of intelligence agencies’ current thinking. “That’s something we obviously should be concerned about.” But as time passes, he said, the relevance of those snapshots will wane and so will the damage caused by their release.

However, this is true for most but not all of the information that was leaked. One particularly concerning section of the documents posted came from a C.I.A. daily intelligence briefing. The material in that section revealed not just who but some details on how the C.I.A. is gathering its intelligence. This particular report indicated that the C.I.A. is using intercepted communications to spy on discussions inside Russia’s MOD, possibly giving the Kremlin ways of securing those communications.

Although Jack Teixeira told his online compatriot’s that “it's in God’s hands now”, his future currently rests in the ability of our adversaries to capitalize on his arrogance, and the terms of the plea deal that will presumably be offered to his public defenders. Even though the judge leading the preliminary hearings has delayed his ruling on whether to offer pre-trial bond to Teixeira, his messages to friends on Discord about planning to “disappear” likely undermine any chances he had of being released to his father’s custody before going to court. As does his recently discovered online obsession with school and mass shootings, and his bullheaded acquisition of semi automatic rifles despite two sequential denials of a gun license (based on a school threat related suspension he received in high school). He must tread very carefully in the proceeding months in court because he is likely facing multiple decades behind bars. Likewise, the United States must tread carefully with its allies in the wake of the Discord Leaks and make up for the damage done - especially in Ukraine.

On April 4th, the Manhattan district attorney made the unprecedented decision to issue an indictment of US President Donald J. Trump on 34 criminal charges relating to his alleged falsifying of business records and allegations that he used campaign money to pay a pornstar to keep silent about her extramarital affair with him. Trump predicted his imminent arrest in a post on Truth Social and urged his supporters to “protest, [and] take our nation back”. However, protest crowds were lightly attended, a concerning sign for his presidential candidacy in 2024. Nevertheless, he is still the candidate to beat in the GOP primary. This past April, a Wall Street Journal poll found that 48% of GOP (an acronym for “Grand Old Party”, a nickname for the Republican Party) voters backed Trump. This is a figure that is twice as high as his main rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, with the former President leading DeSantis 51%-38% in a potential head-to-head matchup. DeSantis announced his candidacy late this month, pledging to “lead our great American Comeback”. Trump's unpopularity with independents (a PBS poll in September of 2022 found that 67% of independents didn’t want him to run again) and popularity with the GOP base, suggests that conservative voters should carefully consider other alternatives before choosing Trump as their nominee for president in 2024.

When Donald Trump descended down the gold plated escalator to announce his 2016 presidential run, few pundits or candidates saw him as a credible threat. As his campaign progressed, Trump continued to create controversy after controversy, but it had little effect on his appeal to his supporters. In fact, Trump's brash and unscripted style of leadership was one of the key reasons Trump earned the support and trust of his voting base. His rhetoric was a voice to many Americans that rejected political correctness and despised the political establishment. They preferred Trump's tendency to eschew political correctness (PC) and political norms and traditions. Trump’s controversial behavior had the additional benefit of attracting consistent media coverage and thereby increasing his political profile in the midst of a crowded GOP primary. The increased media attention in turn helped him highlight the difference between himself and the rest of his fellow candidates. He would go on to win the GOP primary, in spite of the fact that he had been severely underestimated by both progressives and the political establishment. On November 8th 2016, Trump was elected to become the 45th President of the United States. Hillary Clinton, the consummate political insider, had lost to someone who had never held public office or served in the military. This was the first time in American history that such a candidate who lacked traditional credentials won the presidency. In an election season that was defined by its break from political norms and traditions, it was a fitting end.

By the end of the 2016 presidential campaign, the political environment in the US was fraught with palpable tension. The campaign had been an all-out slugfest that had become aggressively personal. Trump’s campaign rallies frequently featured chants of “lock her up”, a reference to Clinton’s alleged corruption and Trump’s promise to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Clinton if he was elected President. Hillary described Trump’s supporters as a “basket of deplorables” and frequently tried to paint him and his voters as bigoted and uneducated. Upon entering office, Trump’s presidency faced staunch and uncompromising opposition from progressives, who rallied behind the symbolic hashtag #notmypresident, a powerful symbol that signfied the extent of polarization in the US. A December 2016 Pew Research Center poll found that American voters were divided in their views about the President-elect to an extent that hadn’t been seen in decades.

In the wake of Trump’s 2016 victory, thousands of progressives gathered nationwide in America's biggest cities, to vent their anger against Trump’s victory. Some of the protests escalated into full blown riots and more than 120 people were arrested on that night. Despite Clinton’s gracious request in her concession speech, in which she urged her supporters to give Trump a chance, her plea mostly fell on deaf ears. Regardless of how sincere it may have been, her concession speech was a rare instance of political civility, amidst the fire and brimstone rhetoric between the two figures before and after the 2016 election. Hillary would later reverse course, claiming in September 2019 that “Trump knows he’s an illegitimate President”.

For most progressives, there was no change in their rhetoric or their shared antipathy towards his presidency. Only four months after the beginning of his administration, progressive lawmakers Al Green (D-TX) and Brad Sherman (D-CA), had already filed to impeach the President. Sherman alleged that the President had obstructed justice by firing FBI director James Comey in may of 2017, accusing the president of trying to “curtail” the FBI’s investigation into Michael Flynn, his former NSA (National Security Agency) Advisor. However, Sherman's early impeachment attempt gained little traction and was ultimately blocked in the House of Representatives, which was controlled by Republicans at that time. The FBI's investigation into the president over collusion with Russia, also came up empty, with special prosecutor Robert Muller finding no evidence of collusion.

Despite facing staunch and determined political opposition from progressives throughout his first term, Trump delivered on many of his campaign promises. In that vein he withdrew from the Iran deal, tightened border security, reduced illegal immigration, and moved the embassy to Jerusalem. Still, he has become a liability for conservatives, a man with tremendous political baggage and risk, should the GOP decide to select him as their presidential nominee in 2024. Trump has a very limited ability to attract new support from independent voters and nominating him will only further inflame tensions between conservatives and progressives. A recent Quinnipiac poll found that among registered voters, 34% of voters viewed DeSantis favorably, 42% unfavorably and 22% said they hadn't heard enough about him. In that same poll, only 2% of respondents said they hadn't heard enough about Trump and 4% said they hadn't heard enough about Biden. Furthermore, Trump has already faced President Biden in a general election and lost. It will be challenging for him to make an effective case that the results would be different from 2020 if the party picked him as their candidate for 2024.

If the GOP is serious about winning the White House in 2024, it should nominate Ron DeSantis as their candidate. While DeSantis may not be as well-known of an entity to conservative voters as Trump, he possesses many of the same positive qualities and lacks many of his key negatives. Like Trump, he is also diametrically opposed to bowing to political correctness and has made that a central tenet of his political career. Both leaders are charismatic and share a flair for political drama, but Desantis is younger and more eloquent than Trump. For now, Trump is still the candidate to beat in the primary in 2024. As voters get to learn more about DeSantis his poll numbers will likely improve. If they don’t, Republicans should be worried, because he is the only candidate who can beat President Biden in the general election.

On March 10th, 2023, Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to re-establish their diplomatic relations, in a deal sponsored by China, ending seven years of estrangement and changing the regional balance of power in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia cut ties with Iran in 2016 after its embassy in Tehran was stormed during a dispute between the two countries over Riyadh's execution of a leading Shiite cleric for terrorism, which escalated tensions between the two countries. In the last decade, the two countries have fought proxy wars in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen and maintained a fierce enmity towards one another, while competing for influence in the region. This surprising new agreement between the two regional rivals, includes the restoration of diplomatic relations, within a maximum period of two months.

This deal is an important diplomatic victory for Beijing as a mediator in the region at a time when Saudi Arabia's relations with Washington have undergone strain since US President Joe Biden assumed power in January of 2021. The Biden administration’s Middle East policies and a strong movement amongst Democrats to hold the Saudi crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman (MBS) responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, have likely played a role in alienating Riyadh. The Yemen war and OPEC's decision to cut oil output by 2 million barrels a day have also affected US-Saudi defense deals. On June 2nd 2021, the US informed Saudi Arabia that it had decided to withdraw some of its air defense capabilities, including fighter aircraft. This policy change was a result of Saudi atrocities, which included imposing a naval blockade against Yemen and indiscriminately targeting civilian infrastructure there. Many believe that the drone attacks claimed by Yemen’s Houthi rebels (a proxy group financed by Iran), which struck two key oil installations inside Saudi Arabia, led to Saudi Arabia's political leadership becoming disillusioned and disappointed with the unenthusiastic American response to its defense.

Additionally, China needs stability in the Gulf to maintain the flow of 40 percent of its crude oil imports. Iran and Saudi Arabia are pivotal transit points in China’s ambitious new Silk Road initiative, also known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This agreement reduces tensions and the possibility of a conflict between the two nations, simultaneously stabilizing 2 key partners for China and safeguarding the economic conditions necessary for cooperation.

In April of 2016, the Saudi prince Mohammed Bin Salaman (MBS) announced an ambitious economic development plan called Vision 2030, which is designed to prepare the Kingdom’s economy for the future, by weaning it off its economic dependence on oil revenue, diversifying its investments and attracting international companies to the Kingdom through extensive building projects and spending. The Saudis will need to wind-down their military intervention in Yemen, and reduce the risk of armed conflict with Iran, if they want to further improve their climate for international investment. MBS has staked his political reputation on his image as a man of reform, as a transformer of Saudi society and developer of its economy. This agreement will help him to secure the required conditions to achieve these lofty goals.

One of the benefits that Iran receives in this deal, is potential economic cooperation with a key player in the region, at a time when it is increasingly important for it to be able to break its diplomatic and economic isolation. Rapprochement with Saudi Arabia, formally breaks the anti-Iranian maximum pressure coalition providing it an opportunity to increase its economic engagement in the region. The resumption of flights between the countries also means a revival of religious bridges between the two nations, now that Saudi Arabia has authorized the restoration of the policy allowing Iranians to make Hajj (a sacred pilgrimage that is required of every Muslim). Iran has also welcomed China’s deepening role in the Middle East because it weakens U.S. influence in the region and undermines the U.S.-led sanctions regime that has crippled Iran’s economy.

The agreement might be a turning point for the security and stability of the region. The Iranian-Saudi rapprochement may lessen Gulf Arab states’ security and stability concerns about an imminent conflict with Iran. However, by not including the resolution of the war in Yemen in their normalization agreement, or any of their proxy disputes across the middle east, their commitment towards their recently restored relationship will likely be further put to the test, so long as their proxy wars continue.