Federalist Flashback

On the Road Message

I’m traveling this week to Chicago to wrap up the last decade of my career. I shared my news last week. While I’m on the road, I wanted to share some earlier pieces for the new subscribers.

Today’s Headlines

Following the federalization of the National Guard and troops during the Los Angeles protests in June. I explored the topic by discussing Federalist 8, The Domestic Deployment Doctrine: Live, Laugh, Liberty. After a bit of reader feedback, we doubled down on the need to restrain the Federal reach to take on law and order instead of a strictly local function in The Liberty Dance.

This week, the Trump Administration announced sweeping federalization of law enforcement in Washington, DC in response to a “crime wave” in the nation’s capital. Though the president’s authority is a little more ambiguous in Washington, he indicated other urban centers around the country could be next, specifically Los Angeles and Chicago.

Liberty Day

As tariffs officially kick in for many of the nations we trade with, tariff costs are appearing in items we purchase. I explored the trouble with tariffs first in exploring Federalist 11, The Succession of States: Hamilton vs. the Dysfunctional Republic. Hopefully, Succession fans found the comparisons satisfying. We recently discussed it again in exploring Federalist 12, Taxed, Tariffed, and Totally Screwed. There is no surprise event here. Tariffs will increase costs to American consumers. A recent estimate indicates that at least 66 percent of the tariff costs will be passed on to consumers. Meanwhile, politicians in Washington are taking your money and want you to thank them for proposing to redistribute it back. The bottom line is we should tell Washington to get its act together and stop taking our money in the first place.

Americana

To help explain why The Federalist Papers and the Constitution were even necessary, I explored the stunning failure of the Articles of Confederation in Burn After Reading. One reader commented that my graphics really improved starting with this piece.

Finally, one of the most popular pieces in The Federalists Reloaded series was the piece I wrote celebrating our nation’s birth, On Independence Day. If you haven’t read it, it’s a good reminder that our national experiment was always supposed to evolve, and our faith should be in our ability to want freedom for everyone and not just some.

Thank you for reading, commenting, sharing, and believing in this project. I had no idea how this would evolve when I started, and it continues to evolve. The readers and the community help shape how we move forward. In the end, I’m just a policy nerd who wanted to use The Federalist Papers to talk about policy today. It’s much better than how social media has weaponized people into little groups, which I discussed in the controversial discussion of Federalist 10, Not Like Us: The Weapon of Them.

Enjoy the look back, and I can’t wait to get back to exploring the Federalists in the months ahead.