By appointing a commission to study redistricting, that’s exactly what Moore did. Ferguson made a different choice and articulated the practical and moral case against redistricting, and then held his ground. His actions are a local reminder of something that’s important to remember nationally: Loud voices in the Democratic Party are embracing an extreme position on political gerrymandering, describing it as a justified response to Republican redistricting. A different group of Democrats is setting a better example.

Ferguson didn’t present his decision in terms of the ongoing debate among Democrats between the left and the center, but his decision embraced an important part of the centrist mentality. It held out hope that American politics can change, and that layering bad decisions by Democrats on top of bad decisions by Republicans doesn’t make anything better. In 2018, Democrats flipped 40 seats when they took control of Congress. Even if Republican redistricting plans work as President Donald Trump intends, Democrats don’t need to embrace redistricting to win.

With a congressional majority and their credibility intact, Democrats can marshal support from the 67% of Americans who prefer districts that aren’t gerrymandered and address the practice through federal legislation. In Rucho v. Common Cause, the Supreme Court in 2019 suggested that Congress has the power to regulate partisan districting. Rather than embrace what they know is wrong, this is a better way for Democrats to proceed.

Bill Ferguson will almost certainly face political consequences for his principled stand against gerrymandering, and it’s been a tough run nationally for centrists as politics has become a competition between MAGA and the Zohran Mamdani wing of the Democratic Party. Attention may be focused on the extremes, but moderates are the answer to solving our nation’s problems. MAGA and Mamdani can’t create the consensus we need to escape the discord defining our politics.

Electing centrists requires Americans to believe that centrist victories are possible. The political environment will look different if Trump’s policies fail to deliver the golden age he promised and some of his voters stay home in 2026 and 2028 when the president isn’t on the ballot. If ICE raids and No Kings marches mix with an underperforming economy and rising prices, Americans will be ready for a change.

Republican primary voters may even find their way to supporting a more traditional candidate. Larry Hogan’s easy victory in Maryland’s 2024 Republican primary for U.S. Senate and Spencer Cox’s governorship in Utah prove the old Republican Party isn’t gone.

On the left, the Mamdani wing feels ascendant, aided by the 66% approval rating that Democrats give socialism. That level of support is a condemnation of our system’s inability to produce results for struggling workers more than it’s a commitment to a political ideology. The centrist wing of the Democratic Party can still convince voters that its moderate policies can win elections and improve their lives.

Republicans should turn away from MAGA, and Democrats should chart a course away from socialism. Socialism is a loser in general elections and throws out too much of what’s good in our system as it tries to fix what isn’t working. The energy being generated by democratic socialists is noticeable but still pales in comparison to what centrists are accomplishing.

Governors like Josh Shapiro and Andy Beshear are popular and winning contested elections in states that are difficult for Democrats. No democratic socialist can say the same. In New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District, Rebecca Bennett is leading the Democratic field in fundraising without embracing socialism and by talking comfortably about her religious faith and military service. Along with governors-elect Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey, it’s centrists like these who make Democrats a national party.

Against a weak field, Mamdani only won about 50% of New York City voters. If a democratic socialist can only win half the vote in one of the nation’s most liberal cities, embracing socialism is a sure way for Democrats to lose nationally.

Rahm Emanuel is another centrist Democrat offering an alternative to the left wing of the party. His willingness to admit in the Wall Street Journal that Democrats kept schools closed for too long during COVID was a welcome dose of humility when most politicians refuse to admit their party is capable of mistakes.

Emanuel represents a segment of the Democratic Party that believes in accountability, not the part that unconditionally supports teachers unions even as test scores fall and too many of our public schools fail. His version of the Democratic Party acknowledges the tragic loss of an innocent woman on a train in North Carolina before it rationalizes the circumstances of the man who killed her. Emanuel’s Democratic Party supports policies that offer a helping hand but honor the idea of personal responsibility and provide people with tools rather than trying to guarantee outcomes.

Emanuel may be a centrist, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a fighter. The idea that the far left is the only part of the Democratic Party capable of taking on MAGA is wrong. Nearly a year into President Trump’s second term, Democrats want a candidate with strength, but they shouldn’t be fooled by tough talk and large crowds. The Mamdani wing is taking the path of least resistance by promising policies that are hard to deliver. Centrists like Shapiro, Beshear, Bennett and Emanuel are the ones showing real fortitude by refusing to embrace this easy path. Bill Ferguson did the same in Maryland when he took an honorable and practical stand against redistricting.

If Democrats want leaders capable of standing up to MAGA, they should support candidates who can withstand pressure from their own party and share hard truths with voters. That’s real strength. Coupled with centrist policies, it’s that type of honesty and fortitude that stands the best chance of returning Democrats to power.

Colin Pascal (colinjpascal@outlook.com) is a retired Army lieutenant colonel, a registered Democrat and a graduate student in the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, D.C.

Success in Gaza doesn’t mean that Trump succeeds at every negotiation, but even in failure, the president has shown a willingness to engage with adversaries. He met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska and expressed his willingness to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping later this month in South Korea. Engaging this way is in keeping with the president’s style and follows meetings during his first term with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. His willingness to meet with America’s foreign adversaries stands in contrast to his unwillingness to engage with political rivals at home.

Practically speaking, it doesn’t matter if Democrats are right or wrong to demand concessions before they vote to reopen the government. What matters is their ability to exercise power. In the same way that Israel was forced to acknowledge that its military couldn’t obliterate Hamas, the president should acknowledge that he needs to cut a deal with Democrats. The only other options are to let the shutdown continue indefinitely or change Senate procedures to allow Republicans to reopen government with 51 votes rather than the 60 now required. This option would solve a problem in the short term but sow the seeds of future instability since parties would then be able to undertake significant swings in policy with a simple majority. Just as President Trump could have encouraged Israel to continue its war against Hamas, he could encourage Republicans to change the threshold needed to pass the budget in the Senate. Let’s hope he shows the same wisdom regarding the Senate’s traditions as he showed when pushing Israel to restrain itself in Gaza.

At his one meeting with Democrats about the shutdown in September, the president made fewer concessions to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries than he was willing to make to secure a ceasefire with Hamas. He also offered less praise to the Democratic leaders than he routinely offers to foreign autocrats. His attitude toward President Putin may be hardening, but Trump has made a habit of praising Russia’s leader and complimenting China’s President Xi. A few kind words about the Democrats might soften their negotiating position and would certainly be good for our country. The president often uses praise to set the stage for negotiations with foreign leaders, and the same technique might pay dividends at home.

President Trump need not be worried about losing face if he agrees to support the health insurance subsidies demanded by Democrats, at least not if he still believes he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue without losing his supporters. President Trump controls his party and commands loyalty from Republicans in a way Democrats can only dream of. Schumer and Jeffries are worried about losing support from the left wing of the Democratic Party if they don’t continue the shutdown until getting what they demand. That means President Trump is the only person involved with enough political capital to act freely.

Even if the president decides to approach the shutdown negotiations the way he approaches negotiations abroad, Democrats shouldn’t expect to get something for nothing. To make it easier for the president to act they should offer support for one of his priorities as part of a grand bargain to end the shutdown. The policy differences between the president and Democrats make any compromise difficult, but voter identification is a relatively painless way for Democrats to give something meaningful to the president.

Democrats are concerned that requiring identification at polling places will disenfranchise voters, but there’s little data to suggest that voter turnout suffers after adding a requirement to show a government-issued ID.

The belief that requiring ID presents insurmountable obstacles underestimates the capabilities of Americans. If obstacles exist to obtaining identification, whether financial or otherwise, Democrats can address these concerns through legislation Republicans would probably support if it were included in a larger bill about voter ID. Democrats don’t love the idea of requiring voters to show identification at the polls, and Republicans aren’t enamored with the idea of extending health care subsidies. Compromise means neither side gets everything it wants, and both abandon something important for the sake of getting something else of value. By agreeing to voter ID requirements, Democrats might convince the president to support an extension of health care subsidies. This would be a win for Democrats since most voters can obtain ID but might lose their health care without access to subsidies. Republicans would end up extending subsidies that many of them don’t support but also achieve one of their long-standing goals.

President Trump owes Democratic leaders at least the same consideration he shows to foreign autocrats, and he owes the American people a way out of the government shutdown. He’s the only person who can make concessions without hemorrhaging political support because his base is strong and remarkably secure. Offering to support one of the president’s signature policy proposals would be an acknowledgment by Democrats of this political reality. Paying a few compliments and agreeing to extend health care subsidies would be an acknowledgment by the president of the power Democrats retain. If it’s hard to imagine President Trump or congressional Democrats negotiating this way, it’s never too soon for Americans to start looking for leaders who will.

Colin Pascal (colinjpascal@outlook.com) is a retired Army lieutenant colonel and a graduate student in the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, D.C. He lives in Annapolis.

Two years after Hamas’ murderous incursion across its southwestern border, Israel has decimated Hamas’ military capacity. In the process, however, Israel brought itself to the verge of international isolation and the type of reputational damage that takes decades to repair. The country seemed ambivalent to international opinion even as its reputation in Europe and America declined. Israelis are also tired of the war, and 82% of them want the conflict to end.

Israel’s strength is magnified by the ability of its people to stand together in a world that’s sometimes hostile. That unity, however, has been tested by the maximalist policies of Israel’s current government, and Trump’s peace plan allows Israel to extricate itself from a strategically challenging position. The risk of further isolation and internal divisions now poses a bigger menace to Israeli security than the residual threat from Hamas.

Israeli soldiers are tired, and some have called on their fellow citizens not to serve in the military in Gaza. The ultra-Orthodox Jewish community is mostly refusing military service even though its political parties have pushed for a continuation of the war. The internal cracks being exacerbated by the conflict are significant, and a country of 10 million people, about two-thirds of whom are Jewish, can’t afford to be disunited.

Netanyahu finally understands that ending the conflict is necessary. That doesn’t mean Hamas is anything but a brutal organization that preys on Palestinians and murders Israelis. Hamas’ military forces are more thug than soldier and its leaders resemble criminals more than military commanders. Hamas deserves the blame for starting the conflict, and if the Palestinian people deserve the world’s sympathy, Hamas deserves none.

Israel’s government is right to condemn Hamas but wrong that its military can eliminate the organization completely. Israel is fooling itself if it thinks it can occupy Gaza without incurring significant losses and creating a massive drain on its resources. The debate about whether an occupation is justified is beside the point, since the practical result would be further damage to Israel’s international reputation. Israel can’t achieve the ends it seeks, even if its military can win every battle.

Israel has already won the military conflict with Hamas. Now comes the harder work of winning the peace. Openness to a Palestinian state is essential in the long run, but Israeli leaders should consider three specific actions immediately. All are risky and difficult to achieve but also essential for Israel to regain control of the narrative.

First, Israel’s centrist parties should explicitly commit to joining a government led by Prime Minister Netanyahu. Even if that thought is personally and politically unpalatable, their willingness to join the government would break the stranglehold currently exercised by parties opposed to ending the war.

Second, Israeli leaders should look for ways to limit the consequences of criminal charges facing Netanyahu. This is unappealing to anyone who believes that no Israeli is above the law but would remove one of Netanyahu’s key motivations for holding his far-right government together at any cost. A collapse of his government would end his premiership and expose him to criminal prosecution. The damage done to Israeli society by this course is less significant than what might occur if Netanyahu is making decisions for self-preservation.

Third, Israel should look for a figure capable of garnering support from most Palestinians. The Palestinian Authority has been a feckless negotiating partner, but it’s not true that the Palestinians lack a unifying figure. Marwan Barghouti, imprisoned by Israel since 2002, may be the answer. His tenure on the Palestinian legislative council in the 1990s was marked by efforts to combat corruption and reform Palestinian governance. He holds multiple university degrees, speaks fluent Hebrew and advocated for a two-state solution.

Even when Barghouti called for resistance, he insisted it should be directed at soldiers and settlers in what most of the world calls the occupied territories and never at civilians inside Israel. This is a hard position for Israelis to accept, but it’s relatively moderate given Hamas’ call for Israel’s destruction. Barghouti at least seems viable. The thought of releasing him is anathema to parts of Israeli society, but if the centrist parties join Netanyahu’s government, that may not matter.

President Trump has crafted a deal that can lead to a lasting peace, but that requires bold gestures on Israel’s part and a willingness to assume risk. Releasing Barghouti is a good start, but only possible if Netanyahu feels secure and the centrists minimize the importance of the extreme right-wing. Israel is an extraordinary country with a military that just won a difficult war. Securing its victory requires the country to take uncomfortable actions, but the alternative is a return to conflict and increasing isolation in the world.

Colin Pascal (colinjpascal@outlook.com) is a retired Army lieutenant colonel who served as Director of Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence for Operation Inherent Resolve and as Director of Operations for the US Army Foreign Counterintelligence Activity. He’s a graduate student in the School of Public Affairs at American University and lives in Annapolis.

Given my personal experience, I might be expected to embrace Hegseth’s style and his call for standards and toughness, but most of what he’s doing won’t make us stronger, and I find myself disagreeing with him far more than I agree.

Hegseth’s fixation on what he calls “lethality” employs the narrowest understanding of the word, and the U.S. military is already the most lethal in history. Our nuclear weapons, advanced aircraft, ballistic missile submarines, cyber warfare tools and combined arms teams can bring devastation to any place in the world. There’s not a foreign country in existence that wants to tangle with the U.S. military.

Hegseth’s belief that our military is rotting from within is peculiar, especially given President Donald Trump’s insistence that our forces remain the best in the world. Even as I once felt let down by a system that put too much weight on the complaints of a few people, I never doubted the strength and capability of our nation’s military, and I never stopped loving the institution or believing in its effectiveness. The system needs reform, but on a scale that runs between solid and rotten, our military remains firmly on the solid side.

Hegseth’s narrow view of lethality and his extraordinary focus on physical fitness seem rooted in an earlier type of warfare. General George Washington might be surprised to see the Army’s current focus on running long distances, and it’s unlikely he ever ran a mile at a time in his life. Generals like John Pershing and George Patton smashed the Germans in Europe but didn’t seem particularly well built for marathons and probably didn’t do many push-ups. Hegseth’s view of physical fitness feels Spartan, as if the job of the American military is to line up in a row with spears and shields and use muscles to push against an enemy who’s pushing back.

Hegseth is right that every American service member should be fit, healthy and strong. Like anything good, however, an emphasis on fitness can be taken too far. We must be careful not to confuse fitness with fortitude. The few soldiers who complained about my leadership were part of a unit that prioritized physical fitness but couldn’t hold up to the pressure of my reasonable demands.

As Hegseth pushes the military to focus on physical fitness and grooming standards, we risk being distracted from the hard and complex tasks at hand. It’s ironic that the newly named War Department is shifting its focus away from war and toward the type of police operations traditionally carried out by law enforcement and the Coast Guard.

As the secretary of war scolds America’s senior military officers for putting on weight, he’s simultaneously directing U.S. military resources toward the Western Hemisphere, shifting advanced fighter jets, naval forces and U.S. Marines into the Caribbean rather than focusing on winning wars against America’s most consequential adversaries.

Redeploying our military forces near our borders endorses the idea of a multipolar world with distinct spheres of influence. Accepting these spheres abandons the idea that American interests exist everywhere, so American power must retain preeminence in every region of the world. This was the view embraced by the Department of Defense, which recently recommitted itself to fighting and winning big wars against peer adversaries like Russia and China. The newly named Department of War seems to have a different focus, shifting American resources and attention away from great power competition and toward less existential missions closer to home.

At the end of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military understood that decades of counterinsurgency had caused our conventional warfighting skills to atrophy. These counterinsurgency fights, which made it difficult to train for conventional conflict, showed that it isn’t easy to do two disparate things well. Either the U.S. military is focused on defeating the armed forces of major foreign nations, or it’s trying to prepare for that mission alongside competing priorities.

Important as these other priorities may be, using the military to address them on anything but a temporary basis degrades its readiness to fight wars against peer competitors. Hegseth understood this when he complained in the past that ancillary tasks were distracting the military from warfighting. He was especially upset by what he believed was a heavy focus on diversity programs. Now, by focusing the War Department on domestic policing and operations in the Caribbean, he risks becoming a proponent of a different set of non-warfighting tasks that are far more distracting than anything he previously criticized.

America should not withdraw from the world, and isolationism has never once in our history brought long-term peace. Avoiding conflict means deterring our adversaries by showing our preparedness for any contingency. The Russians and the Chinese aren’t particularly concerned about how fast our soldiers run or their maximum number of pushups. They’re concerned about the health of our alliances, the speed of our procurement programs and our willingness to remain engaged on the world stage. That’s where the secretary of war should focus his attention.

Given my experience with the Army’s complaint process, I appreciate Secretary Hegseth’s commitment to restoring a sense of balance to that system. Doing so will make our military better. America won’t be safer, however, if he reshapes the military into an institution composed of clean-shaven men at the peak of physical fitness who are overly focused on countering crime in America and policing our borders. Fitness matters, but staying engaged with the world matters more.

Colin Pascal (colinjpascal@outlook.com) is a retired Army lieutenant colonel and a graduate student in the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, D.C. He lives in Annapolis.

The debate about opting in to the tax credit program is not a referendum on Maryland’s public schools. Maryland is teaming with talented public-school educators who are making a positive impact on children. Despite their efforts, it’s undeniable that many students are struggling. Test scores improved last year, but only 51% of students were proficient in English Language Arts and only 27% were proficient in mathematics. Public education is working for many but not for all of Maryland’s children.

Because every child is different and every family’s situation unique, it makes sense to offer as many school options as possible. Our goal shouldn’t be to support one method of education but to pursue any method that provides students a foundation on which they can build successful and productive lives. Public schools play a decisive role in this endeavor but aren’t the answer for every child. Gov. Moore says he supports an “all of the above” strategy when he talks about public safety and energy. That’s the approach he should take with education.

The Maryland State Education Association (MSEA), the state’s largest teachers union, opposes school choice. Its opposition is self-serving since maximizing enrollment in public schools is the best way to guarantee jobs for its members, but in one important way, MSEA’s opposition is rooted in a valid point. In traditional school choice programs, using state funds to subsidize private tuition can reduce the money available to public schools since funding “follows the student” to his or her new institution. This is problematic because there are fixed costs associated with education, costs that don’t necessarily decrease when enrollment declines.

The cost of running a school bus route, for instance, is generally the same whether it serves 50 children or a dozen. It costs about the same to heat a school in winter even if several classrooms are empty because of declining enrollment. A principal will cost the same in salary in a school with 300 students as he or she would in a school of 350 or more. Since the amount of money schools receive is tied to the number of enrolled students, these fixed costs can be hard to meet when enrollment decreases. Districts are forced to maintain the same facilities and provide many of the same services even as they receive less money when enrollment declines.

This problem needs to be addressed if Moore opts in to the tax credit program. There are options available since the tax credit isn’t a traditional school choice program and doesn’t require state funds to pay for private education. Children who benefit from the program will have their tuition paid by scholarship-granting organizations that are funded by private donations. This means the money currently being spent by the state on each student doesn’t transfer to private schools and is available to be used in new ways.

Working with the legislature, Gov. Moore can ensure school districts retain a portion of the per-pupil funding they would normally lose when students depart for private school. This isn’t possible with traditional school choice programs since the money is used to pay private school tuition. Maryland spends on average $18,500 per year on every public school student. A portion of this amount can stay with school districts when they lose a student to private school because of the tax credit program. The state would save money, the fixed costs of school districts would be subsidized and more Maryland families would have access to the school of their choice.

Allowing families to choose their school isn’t a partisan issue except among our state’s elected leaders. A Gonzales Research poll from January found that 74% of Marylanders support giving families in struggling public schools the means to enroll elsewhere. Opponents of school choice are supporting a position at odds with most Marylanders.

MSEA dominates the education discussion in Maryland, so it deserves much of the credit for what’s effective and much of the blame for what isn’t working. MSEA believes the tax credit “encourages families to abandon public education.” A bit of introspection might help it realize there are reasons unrelated to the tax credit why many families want to leave public schools.

My daughter Claire is in second grade and thriving in private school. Her teachers make less money than their public-school counterparts and have fewer benefits, but their commitment to her success is extraordinary. It’s important that we never belittle or look down on private schools even as we celebrate the contributions of public educators.

Sending Claire to private school was a difficult decision. I grew up watching my mother build a career in public education before retiring as a school superintendent. She dedicated her life to the children who attended her schools, and I know from her how special public schools can be.

My experience with public school was less positive when my wife and I were considering kindergartens for Claire. I had the financial ability to choose a school that was a better fit for our situation, but most families can’t make a similar choice. Participating in the tax credit program would begin to address this shortcoming by making private schools accessible to more families. This doesn’t mean private schools are inherently better than public schools, but we can acknowledge they are better for some children some of the time.

Opting in to the tax credit program won’t solve all of Maryland’s problems and won’t help every child. It will, however, help many children who would benefit from attending a different type of school. If the legislature works with the governor to address concerns about lost funding, opting in provides meaningful new opportunities without burdening our public schools. MSEA is a powerful force in Maryland politics, but our governor should act without deferring to its judgment.

Colin Pascal (colinjpascal@outlook.com) is a retired Army lieutenant colonel and a graduate student in the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, D.C.

For a man who regularly denounces President Donald Trump’s character and tactics, it was surprising to see Van Hollen adopt one of the president’s signature moves by putting pressure on members of his own party to adopt his position. Van Hollen has called on Republicans to act independently, and he should acknowledge that every member of his own party has the right to make his or her own decision about endorsing Mamdani. That would reinforce an important idea in American politics, that leaders are elected to exercise their best judgment and not follow the dictates of others.

Van Hollen’s embrace of Mamdani tells us one of two things is true about his politics: Either he believes Mamdani’s policies are right, or he believes that every Democrat has a duty to support politicians who happen to win a Democratic primary, regardless of the candidate’s policies and beliefs. This is reminiscent of the behavior we saw from mainstream Republicans who decided to support Trump simply because he was the Republican nominee.

Unless Van Hollen supports Mamdani’s far-left platform, a platform that includes city-run grocery stores, free buses and a $30 hourly minimum wage, his endorsement is perpetuating the idea that party loyalty is more important than policy. If Van Hollen believes in Mamdani’s policies, he should advocate for them in Maryland. And if he doesn’t want to see Mamdani’s policies enacted here at home, he should never have endorsed a candidate promising to enact them elsewhere.

When New York’s Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul offered her endorsement of Mamdani, she assured New Yorkers that he was building bridges with the Jewish community and understood that New York City’s police department needed resources and strong leadership. The fact that the governor needed to offer these assurances shows how far Mamdani exists beyond the Democratic mainstream. One of Mamdani’s opponents in the mayoral race, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, has asserted that Mamdani’s distance from the most controversial positions of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), positions that include the public ownership of major industries, unlimited migration into the United States, an end to all deportations and the provision of social services and jobs to every migrant who crosses a U.S. border, is “unconvincing and convenient”. He’s right that Mamdani has only recently tried to distance himself from the DSA even though he’s been a member of the organization since 2017.

Schumer and Jeffries seem to understand that affiliating their party with democratic socialism isn’t the way to secure a decisive victory in the midterm elections. At only 39% of the population, even if that number is surprising high, there simply aren’t enough Americans who believe in socialism.

Democrats endorsing Mamdani plays into every stereotype that Republicans work hard to cultivate, and Democrats may find it difficult to explain next year why they endorsed Mamdani unless they also support his policies. And if they do support his policies, then the party has moved decisively toward what an earlier generation of Democrats disavowed.

Democrats are either comfortable with Mamdani’s policies or they’re not, and if they’re not, the honest thing to do is ignore Van Hollen’s call and refrain from endorsing him. If they are comfortable with Mamdani’s agenda, they should endorse him enthusiastically and be willing to accept the political results associated with that decision. At least then we’ll know where the party stands.

Of nine Democrats in Maryland’s congressional delegation, Van Hollen and Representative Jamie Raskin are the only two who have so far endorsed Mamdani. Van Hollen should leave the rest alone to make up their own minds. He should honor their independence by not accusing any more Democrats of being spineless for not immediately declaring their support for Mamdani. The stakes of this decision are high, and Democrats should take their time and consider their options.

Van Hollen’s approach to Mamdani is more likely to alienate swing voters than it is to bring those voters to the Democratic side. More importantly, it’s dishonest for Van Hollen to endorse a candidate unless he supports that candidate’s agenda, since an agenda is not a set of goals but a detailed plan of action intended to achieve certain outcomes. Van Hollen can’t get away with saying he’s endorsing Mamdani because they both believe housing costs are too high. Everyone believes housing costs are too high. It’s how Mamdani plans to address housing costs and a host of other issues that matters.

Democrats should be in a strong position as they approach the 2026 midterms. Historically, the president’s party loses seats in Congress as Americans realize the grand promises made on the campaign trail are mostly unaccomplished and voters seek to return balance to the federal government. Republicans are facing headwinds. Economic growth is slowing and unemployment is rising. Most Americans support a strong border but aren’t enamored with the way the president has carried out his immigration policies.

The biggest danger facing Democrats is their own poor decision-making, and Van Hollen’s endorsement of Mamdani plays directly into Republican hands. If his aggressive call to Democrats gets more of them to endorse Mamdani, he’ll make it harder for Democrats to win next year’s elections. Mamdani’s economic policies aren’t supported by most Americans, and he has a history of anti-police rhetoric and suggesting that prisons don’t serve a useful purpose in society. His beliefs seem destined to increase disorder. Endorsing Mamdani ties Democrats to his history and controversial ideas.

Democrats don’t need to be the party that accepts anti-social and criminal behavior to be the party of compassion. We can endorse the ideas of accountability and personal responsibility while we pursue policies that uplift the disadvantaged. We don’t have to be a party opposed to capitalism to recognize that our current system isn’t working well for many Americans. Democrats like Van Hollen who support Mamdani are endorsing a view of the Democratic Party that abandons the center and feels increasingly alien to voters like me.

Colin Pascal (colinjpascal@outlook.com) is a retired Army lieutenant colonel, a registered Democrat and a graduate student in the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, D.C. He grew up in and around New York City and lives in Annapolis.

It shouldn’t be surprising that Americans who are led to believe their country’s deepest values are under attack from internal enemies would eventually embrace violence. In the fundraising text messages that flood our phones, the social media posts that pollute our discourse, and in countless speeches and cable news interviews, that’s exactly how the left and right portray their opponents. Both parties regularly suggest that the other side is somehow less than fully American.

Sometimes this accusation is made blatantly, like when President Trump describes Democrats as people who hate America. Sometimes it’s more subtle, like when President Joe Biden called Trump supporters garbage or when Hillary Clinton called them deplorables. This type of talk may not call for violence, but it paves the way for the violence we’ve too often seen in our politics.

The first thing all of us must do is decisively condemn Charlie Kirk’s killing. We can’t repeat the equivocation we saw when UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was murdered in New York. And we can’t excuse one act of political violence by pointing to the violent acts of others. Too many Americans, even the ones who initially admit the tragedy of Kirk’s loss, will quickly shift to cataloging the bad and violent actions of the other side. Even if the list they produce is accurate and the facts are true, compiling it won’t help us move forward. We need to start from the fundamental truth that killing is wrong and then acknowledge that killing for political reasons in a nation that stands as the world’s oldest democracy is particularly heartbreaking.

Charlie Kirk was controversial. He was described by detractors as intolerant and divisive, but he didn’t shy away from debates with people who disagreed with his positions. Before he died, more than a thousand students signed a petition asking the administration of the university where he was eventually killed to bar him from speaking on campus, preferring to silence his speech rather than offering a different opinion through speech of their own. The petition to ban Kirk from campus was an unfortunate echo of other efforts we’ve seen to silence speech that one side or the other finds offensive. Part of Charlie Kirk’s legacy is his willingness to go places where people didn’t want him and say things they didn’t want to hear. The ability to do these things is an essential part of being American, and if we don’t use this moment to recommit to the type of free speech Kirk championed, we’ll miss an opportunity to create something good from this tragedy.

In the days ahead, politicians of both parties will condemn Mr. Kirk’s killing. In the weeks ahead, these same politicians will return to the type of charged language that likely contributed to his death. Americans should notice if any of their political leaders make a different choice and celebrate those who refrain from using inflammatory language and silly name-calling. Few of us want to live in a country defined by discord and disquiet, so each of us should be offended when politicians use their platforms to lead us down that destructive road.

To change America’s political culture, all of us must realize that nothing in politics is small. Every single mean-spirited remark, every untrue accusation, every demeaning nickname, and every sweeping generalization about political opponents leads us down the road that killed Charlie Kirk. Extreme actions become easier once the targets of aggression have been dehumanized, described as a threat, and labeled as being fundamentally un-American.

As we watch our politicians condemn the violence in Utah, let’s remember that shifting between lofty rhetoric and schoolyard taunts never works. We won’t begin to bridge our divides if we express sorrow on one day and then launch hyperbolic attacks on the next. That shift has become the norm in our politics. Regrettably, it’s what history says we should expect from our leaders in the weeks ahead.

As we mourn the loss of Charlie Kirk, we should also remember the police officers who came under attack on Jan. 6, the hammer that was wielded against Paul Pelosi, the lawmakers who were killed or wounded in Minnesota, and the shot that almost took our president’s life. We should remember all the other senseless acts of political violence that stain our history and make our country worse. Silencing speech isn’t the answer, and we should expect better speech from our leaders. More than just expect, we should reward leaders who engage in civil discourse, respect their opponents and consistently refrain from the political antics that begin small but eventually become deadly.

In the aftermath of this tragedy, we should encourage our leaders to be their best, not just in the days ahead but through changed actions from this moment forward. What we need is consistency from people who believe in virtuous leadership and know it isn’t possible to casually switch between charged partisan speech and high ideals. The president can’t bring us together unless he stops calling Democrats derogatory names and suggesting they hate America. Our governor can’t bring us together unless he stops calling the president a “chicken hawk” and “President Bone Spurs”. That language is the gateway that inevitably leads somewhere worse. In this case, it led to the death of a husband and father of two young children. Pray for his family, then do everything you can to forge a kinder and more respectful politics.

Colin Pascal (colinjpascal@outlook.com) is a retired army lieutenant colonel and a graduate student at the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, D.C. He lives in Annapolis.

There’s nothing wrong with our governor trying to reach the widest possible audience by appearing on CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, but that effort should never come at the expense of Maryland reporters. Moore may believe his political position is strong enough to withstand an absence from Maryland media, but recent polling suggests otherwise. How the governor spends his time says a lot about what he values, and unfortunately for Maryland, the national media seems to be what he’s prioritizing.

Moore’s talking points land better with national audiences who aren’t well acquainted with our state. When he talks about our budget, the national media isn’t always prepared to ask why he believed Maryland was in a fortunate financial position when he took office but now believes he inherited a fiscal disaster. National media doesn’t always know to ask why our electric rates are soaring, or have the background knowledge to point out that the fee increases contained in this year’s budget more than cancel out the small tax break he repeatedly cites.

With each national interview, Governor Moore is telling stories to an unsuspecting country. His quick smile and ready assurances that Maryland will soon be thriving are familiar to people in our state but less well-known to a national audience. Much of that audience probably thinks about Governor Moore the way Marylanders did in 2022, when many of them were inspired by a charismatic young candidate who seemed to value substance over style.

Democratic primary voters that year chose Moore over established political leaders, trusting him to focus relentlessly on Maryland and work tirelessly to address their problems. Though his victory was impressive given the fact it was his first campaign, it was far from overwhelming. Of the approximately 671,000 votes cast by Democratic primary voters in 2022, only about 218,000 chose Moore. Our governor’s political rise in Maryland was far from inevitable.

Understanding that reality is important for Democrats across the country as they consider who should represent the party on the national stage. There are several talented and viable candidates who could challenge Republicans in 2028, and Democrats shouldn’t settle on Moore because they think he’s a guaranteed winner.

Governor Moore faced a weak opponent in the 2022 general election. Dan Cox was a pro-Trump candidate in a state that’s overwhelmingly opposed to the president’s policies. Moore would have fared worse had he faced a competitive candidate like former Maryland Secretary of Commerce Kelly Shultz, who lost to Cox in the Republican primary. Shultz was endorsed by former Governor Larry Hogan, who enjoyed sky-high approval ratings that would climb to 77% as he left office. Democratic interest groups understood Moore’s vulnerability to a viable challenger and worked hard to boost Cox over Shultz in the primary.

The national media often implies a sense of inevitability around Governor Moore, as if his charisma is so deep that becoming Maryland’s governor was inevitable. But the 67% of Maryland Democrats who voted for a candidate other than Moore in the 2022 primary know this isn’t true. A recent poll shows only around 50% of Marylanders approve of the job he’s doing. A spokesman for the Democratic Governors Association called the poll “silly,” stealing a page from President Trump’s playbook to portray any unfavorable development as fake news.

It’s not clear why anyone would think a 50% approval rating was unreasonable given Maryland’s list of problems. Federal layoffs are increasing unemployment and our private sector can’t provide enough jobs to accommodate these workers. A new tax on digital services makes our state less competitive, while large government grants to nonprofit organizations are mostly unaccounted for. Maryland instituted a hiring freeze at state agencies just months after Governor Moore made headlines by announcing plans to grow the state workforce by hiring federal workers. Moore hasn’t built the Red Line light rail in Baltimore, even though his first two years in office coincided with President Joe Biden’s transit-friendly administration. As states in the South and Midwest benefit from investments in manufacturing, Maryland hasn’t enjoyed similar success. Crime in Baltimore has decreased significantly, but the city remains one of the most dangerous places in the country. The well-intentioned investment in education driven by the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future will cause multibillion-dollar deficits as soon as 2030, even after the modest changes enacted this year.

Governor Moore likes to give the impression that he’s fighting for Maryland. If that’s true, it’s not clear he’s winning. Well into his third year in office, more than half of Marylanders have a negative view of our state’s economy and 67% believe they’re paying too much in state taxes.

Not all the problems driving that gloomy outlook are the governor’s fault alone, but leaders are defined by what they accomplish in the face of challenging circumstances. Despite his sunny assessments, catchy phrases and positive demeanor, Marylanders know that not everything in our state is well. As he continues to engage aggressively with national media and travel the country, Governor Moore is telling a story about his policies working. He reflexively blames former Governor Hogan or President Trump whenever he’s presented with negative news. Moore can talk about the miracle he’s leading in Maryland, but those of us who live here are less interested in sunny assessments or passing the blame and more interested in results.

Given the complexities of his job, Governor Moore is entitled to the benefit of the doubt and a fair amount of grace, but only if he’s fully focused on Maryland. Our governor has already devoted a significant amount of time to raising his national profile, and his embrace of tit-for-tat exchanges with President Trump seems destined to raise it further. Rather than exploit his recent publicity, our governor could earn a much more powerful type of press if he recreated Larry Hogan’s bipartisan coalition and helped Marylanders feel better about their lives and the future of our state.

Colin Pascal (colinjpascal@outlook.com) is a retired Army lieutenant colonel, a registered Democrat, a former member of the Veterans for Hogan Coalition and a graduate student in the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, D.C. He lives in Annapolis. 

Critics of the president’s policies are right that criminal activity in D.C. is decreasing, but the city unfortunately remains one of the most dangerous places in the country. We should celebrate the progress but recognize that not having a fully staffed police force makes it difficult to further reduce crime. The number of law enforcement officers in a city matters, along with other initiatives like addressing the root causes of criminal behavior. D.C. will struggle to continue its forward motion without closing the gap between the 4,000 officers allocated for the MPD and the 3,200 who are currently employed.

It’s counterintuitive to believe that a police department operating without 20% of its assigned strength can meet 100% of its assigned responsibilities. Augmenting MPD with federal law enforcement makes sense in the short term, until the department is brought up to full strength. This criterion provides a clear endpoint to federal involvement in local policing and solves a real problem in the short run: Washington needs more police.

MPD is smaller than it’s been in 50 years, and like most big city police departments has struggled to attract enough applicants to match the rate of separations and retirements. As the federal government deploys its resources to make up for the 800 officers MPD is missing, it should also look for ways to address problems with long-term police recruiting. Both parties have a role to play. Republicans control the government and could provide money to local jurisdictions, allowing them to increase salaries and make police work more financially rewarding. Democrats, who for the most part have stopped using their aggressive anti-police talking points, could make sure they’re not contributing to the type of anti-police sentiment that saps morale and drives down recruiting. Though much improved, they don’t always get this right.

When Bilal Yusuf-Muhammad Abdullah Jr. was killed by police who returned fire after being shot at, Baltimore’s Police Accountability Board called an emergency meeting and implied that BPD policies were to blame for Abdullah’s death rather than his decision to fire on officers. Even if the board didn’t condemn the police outright, their emergency action implied that officers were wrong. Investigation is fair, but this type of immediate second-guessing and subtle condemnation makes a hard job harder. The conversation about who’s at fault when police are involved in a shooting can’t be entirely one-sided. And if we don’t celebrate the police even as we point out and work to correct their flaws, we discourage people from taking on the immense challenges of the job.

Like Washington, D.C., Baltimore remains a dangerous city even as its crime statistics improve. Mirroring the problem in the nation’s capital, the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) is short a significant number of officers, missing almost 500 out of an authorized strength of more than 2,500. BPD is making progress toward closing the gap and expects to meet its recruiting goals in the future, but until it does, it makes sense to augment the force with federal officers in the short term, the way we are in D.C. If a hospital were short 20% of its doctors, it would likely save fewer patients. When a police department is short 20% of its officers, it deters less crime.

Rather than saying federal help isn’t needed, Democrats could point out the type of help they need: resources to hire and retain police officers in the long run, and augmentation from federal law enforcement in the short run until staffing has increased. Augmentation, however, shouldn’t mean federal control. Policing of city streets by the federal government is outside the American tradition of maintaining authority and accountability as close to the people as possible. Law enforcement should remain under the direction of the citizens who live in the cities being policed. Even when it’s done properly, augmentation isn’t a long-term solution.

Each moment a federal agent spends riding a Metro train or walking a beat is a moment he or she isn’t performing other critical functions. Using federal law enforcement on the streets of American cities is workable on a temporary basis but not sustainable in the long run. Too many other important missions, from counterterrorism to tax evasion, would end up neglected.

As usual, the president has taken some core truths and pushed them to the extreme. His comment that D.C. police can do “whatever the hell they want” was counterproductive because one of the biggest public safety problems in D.C. is distrust between communities and police. If law enforcement damages rather than repairs its relationship with these communities through heavy-handed tactics, the increased police presence ordered by the president could in the end do more harm than good.

Compared with federal police, the use of the National Guard is more complicated. Each time the president uses the military in American cities, he risks a confrontation between service members and civilians that would damage the positive view most Americans hold of our military. Members of the armed forces are being placed in difficult positions, and if a video surfaces of a soldier hitting an American with a baton, firing rubber bullets into a crowd, or taking lethal action, the view of the military in the eyes of many Americans will change. This is especially risky given how few parts of government still enjoy bipartisan trust and appeal, and losing another would push Americans even further apart than they are. Using the National Guard to perform very limited police functions to augment understaffed police departments might make sense to the American public if explained that way, but only if federal or state law enforcement isn’t available to fill that role and only until staffing improves.

Democrats are right to point out that President Trump’s timing is suspect and his characterization of D.C. crime is inaccurate, but the president is right that crime in our cities remains too high. It’s important that his solutions don’t exacerbate the problem by drawing new divisions between the police and the communities they serve. It’s equally important that we don’t develop a culture of habitually using the armed forces for domestic law enforcement. Doing so would risk the reputations and unifying influence of the Americans who serve.

Colin Pascal (colinjpascal@outlook.com) is a retired Army lieutenant colonel and a graduate student in the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, D.C.

President Trump’s appeal to Gov. Abbott is what initiated the current standoff, but if this latest failure of good governance is the president’s responsibility, it’s important to acknowledge that leaders on both sides of the aisle have a long history of playing games with congressional lines. Governor Wes Moore and Maryland’s Democratic leaders are right to be upset by what’s happening in Texas, but this may be a good time for them to reconsider the actions Democrats have taken to make Maryland one of the most gerrymandered states in the country. More than assigning blame, what matters now is finding a way out of this situation.

One way is to up the ante, and New York and California are preparing to gerrymander Republican districts out of existence. Rather than follow suit, Maryland could lead in a different direction. Instead of reshaping the 1st Congressional District, the only Republican-held district in Maryland, we could signal our willingness to redraw the lines of the 6th Congressional District, removing parts of Montgomery County that are heavily Democratic but have little in common with the rest of the district that covers Western Maryland. This would give Republicans a fair shot of winning a seat that’s less competitive because it was gerrymandered to benefit Democrats.

If other Democratic states followed Maryland’s lead and allowed a few of their most gerrymandered districts to become more competitive, it’s possible that Republicans would accept that outcome as a reasonable way out of the current standoff. This would extricate us from a situation that’s quickly becoming a crisis.

Rather than engage in a race to the bottom, changing the 6th Congressional District would allow Maryland to suggest a novel end to the current crisis. The idea of making this sort of gesture, at a time when Texas Republicans are violating the spirit of the rules, is understandably hard for Democrats to consider. But ending the crisis on terms that are generally acceptable to both sides is more important right now than pointing fingers. There’ll be plenty of time for Democrats to review what’s happened and explain it to voters.

Gerrymandering isn’t the only way to win elections. Democrats are making the case that President Trump is weakening the economy and threatening people’s healthcare. If they’re right, voters should notice, and a reconfigured 6th Congressional District should still be winnable.

President Trump promised America a golden age, but downtown Cumberland in Allegany County hasn’t experienced a Trump-induced boom. Not in the first six months of his current term or the entire four years of his first. Some of that failure is tied to state policy, but Democrats have a good case to make to rural voters that President Trump’s actions aren’t improving their lives. More of these voters might listen if Democrats created goodwill by fixing the gerrymandered lines of the 6th Congressional District.

If Democrats moderate their positions and speak to a wider audience, the five seats Texas hopes to create shouldn’t matter. In 1932, Democrats gained 90 seats in the House. In 2018, they flipped 40. Big victories are possible.

Those who say our politics are too polarized to create these kinds of margins are wrong. Americans who don’t identify with either party are now the largest group of voters in our country, a clear signal that more people are rejecting the tactics we’re seeing in Texas and the tactics that created Maryland’s 6th Congressional District. These voters are winnable by the party that differentiates itself by refusing to add to our dysfunction.

Democrats don’t help themselves when a member of Congress like Jasmine Crockett gives Governor Abbott the nickname “hot wheels” because he uses a wheelchair, and they don’t help themselves when they match Republican redistricting antics with antics of their own. There are two ways for Democrats to engage in the fight with President Trump’s Republicans: They can adopt Trump’s tactics and try to carve out five new seats of their own, or they can reject his tactics, moderate their message, talk to voters beyond the cities, offer a grand gesture like redrawing the 6th Congressional District, and with that momentum pursue a landslide victory in the 2026 midterms. If things are as bad under Trump as Democrats claim, a huge win is attainable. And if they’re as good under Trump as Republicans claim, they wouldn’t be trying to carve out five new districts in Texas.

Colin Pascal (colinjpascal@outlook.com) is a retired Army lieutenant colonel and a graduate student in the School of Public Affairs at American University in Washington, D.C. He lives in Annapolis.