Trump’s West Point speech brought partisanship to the home of the US military − 2 essential reads

President Donald Trump delivers the commencement address at West Point on May 24, 2025. AP Photo/Adam Gray

Jeff Inglis, The Conversation

President Donald Trump’s speech at the graduation of the class of 2025 from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point included segments that were clearly scripted and portions that were obviously not.

During the unscripted portions, Trump, who wore a bright red “Make America Great Again” campaign hat during his entire appearance on May 24, 2025, delivered remarks that hit many of his frequent partisan political talking points. That included attacking presidential predecessors Barack Obama and Joe Biden, describing immigrants to the U.S. as “criminals” and trumpeting other policy accomplishments in his first and second terms.

That level of partisanship in a military setting – on the campus of the nation’s first military academy, and before an audience of cadets and their families, many of whom are veterans – is unusual in the United States.

The Conversation U.S. has published several articles discussing the importance to democracy of keeping the military and partisan politics separate. Here are two highlights from that coverage.

1. Cadets focus on the Constitution

During the West Point ceremony, the graduates themselves took an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” And all of them had studied the significance of that oath, including in classes like those taught by Joseph G. Amoroso and Lee Robinson, active-duty Army officers who graduated from West Point and later served as professors there.

As Amoroso and Robinson wrote, those classes teach cadets that, like all military personnel, they serve the Constitution and the American people, not a particular person or political party:

“(O)ur oath forms the basis of a nonpartisan ethic. In the U.S., unlike in many other countries, the oath implies military leaders should be trusted for their expertise and judgment, not for their loyalty to an individual or political party. We emphasize to cadets the rules and professional expectations associated with this profound responsibility.”

2. A tradition of nonpartisanship

Retired U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. Samuel C. Mahaney, who teaches history, national security and constitutional law at Missouri University of Science and Technology, observed:

“(S)ince the days of George Washington, the military has been dedicated to serving the nation, not a specific person or political agenda. … (N)onpartisanship is central to the military’s primary mission of defending the country.”

Mahaney wrote that if Trump’s actions during his second term meant a change from the centuries of precedent, “military personnel at all levels would face a crucial question: Would they stand up for the military’s independent role in maintaining the integrity and stability of American democracy or follow the president’s orders – even if those orders crossed a line that made them illegal or unconstitutional?”

Presenting a key question for military personnel.

This story was updated to highlight two articles from The Conversation’s archives.

Jeff Inglis, Environment + Energy Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

What’s behind Trump’s flurry of executive action: 4 essential reads on autocrats and authoritarianism

President Donald Trump shows off one of his new orders upon taking office. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

Jeff Inglis, The Conversation

If you think a lot is happening in the federal government all at once on a lot of different issues, you’re right.

At the beginning of a new presidential administration, there is often a flurry of changes – new Cabinet appointments and a few executive orders. But what’s happening right now in Washington, D.C. – actions affecting immigration, tariffs, the firing of career government workers, gender identity, federally funded research, foreign aid and even broader categories of federal spending – is different from most presidential transitions, in volume, pace, content and breadth of the changes ordered.

Administration officials and Trump allies have described all this action as a “shock and awe” campaign intended to “flood the zone.” Translation: It’s both an effort to demonstrate autocratic power and an effort to overwhelm and exhaust people who might resist the changes.

The Conversation U.S. has published several articles – many from Donald Trump’s first term as president – that spell out how autocrats, and those who want to be autocrats, behave and why. Here are some key points to know.

1. Seize executive power

The move toward autocracy starts with wielding unyielding power over not only people but democratic institutions, explained Shelley Inglis, a scholar of international law at the University of Dayton. In a checklist of 10 items for wannabe authoritarians, the first task, she wrote, is being strong:

“The mainstay of today’s authoritarianism is strengthening your power while simultaneously weakening government institutions, such as parliaments and judiciaries, that provide checks and balances. The key is to use legal means that ultimately give democratic legitimacy to the power grab.”

2. Control political backers

When a leader’s supporters are more loyal to the person than their political party, that creates what is called a “personalist party,” as scholars of political science Erica Frantz at Michigan State University, Joe Wright at Penn State and Andrea Kendall-Taylor at Yale University described. That creates a danger to democracy, they wrote:

“(W)hat matters for democracy is not so much the ambitions of power-hungry leaders, but rather whether those in their support group will tame them. … (W)hen personalist ruling parties hold legislative majorities and the presidency … there is little that stands in the way of a grab for power.”

Many Republican Party members back Trump, in part because other party leaders signal their own support. AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki

3. Sideline the public

In a democracy, the public has power. But if the people choose not to exercise it, that leaves room for an authoritarian leader to take more control, warned Mark Satta, a professor of philosophy and law at Wayne State University in an article comparing George Orwell’s book “Nineteen eighty-four” to modern events:

“Trump routinely speaks like an autocrat. Yet many Americans excuse such talk, failing to treat it as the evidence of a threat to democracy that it is. This seems to me to be driven in part by the tendency Orwell identified to think that truly bad things won’t happen – at least not in one’s own country.”

Donald Trump hugs an American flag as he arrives at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Feb. 24, 2024, in Baltimore. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

4. Depend on complacency

Another scholar delivered a warning of a possible future. Vickie Sullivan, a political science scholar at Tufts University, studies Renaissance writer Niccolò Machiavelli, who lived from 1469 to 1527.

He is perhaps most widely known for encouraging “sole rulers – his phrase for authoritarians or dictators – … to use force and fraud to gain and maintain power,” she wrote. But Machiavelli had advice for the public, too, Sullivan explained:

“He instructs republican citizens and leaders … to recognize how vulnerable the governments they cherish are and to be vigilant against the threats of tyranny. … If republican citizens and leaders fail to be vigilant, they will eventually be confronted with a leader who has accumulated an extremely powerful and threatening following. At that point, Machiavelli says, it will be too late to save the republic.”

This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.

Jeff Inglis, Politics + Society Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Now the Electoral College votes for president – 4 essential reads

Jeff Inglis, The Conversation

The voters have cast their ballots, and after those ballots have been counted, and a winner has been projected by news organizations, that’s not the conclusion of the election. The actual outcome of the 2024 presidential election will be determined by the Electoral College.

The Conversation U.S. has had several articles explaining the history and effects of the United States’ curious method of choosing a president, not with one national election but with 51 smaller elections, in each state and Washington, D.C. Here are the highlights of that coverage.

1. A safeguard for democracy

The Electoral College was the result of a compromise devised among 11 men at the Constitutional Convention in the hot Philadelphia summer of 1787. It was meant as a protective measure against rule by an uninformed mob, as Purdue University social studies education professor Phillip J. VanFossen explains. He describes how electors came to cast the decisive votes for president, writing:

“(The) founders were reassured that with this compromise system, neither public ignorance nor outside influence would affect the choice of a nation’s leader. They believed that the electors would ensure that only a qualified person became president. And they thought the Electoral College would serve as a check on a public who might be easily misled, especially by foreign governments.”

These 11 delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 agreed on a compromise that created the Electoral College. The Conversation, from Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-ND

2. Creating new danger

By contrast, though, Barry C. Burden, a political science scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, found that rather than protecting American democracy, the Electoral College system created a new risk:

“Someone who wants to infiltrate the election system would have difficulty causing problems in a national popular vote because it is decided by thousands of disconnected local jurisdictions. In contrast, the Electoral College makes it convenient to sow mischief by only meddling in a few states widely seen as decisive.”

3. Protecting the popular vote?

A news item published Aug. 19, 1868, in South Carolina provides insight about the contemporaneous understanding of Section 2 of the 14th Amendment. The Anderson Intelligencer via newspapers.com

There may be limits to that meddling, though. The Constitution allows state legislatures to choose the electors – which Donald Trump and his supporters tried to exploit in 2020 by asking Republican state legislators to appoint fake electors to confuse matters.

However, as Eric Eisner, a history Ph.D. student at Johns Hopkins University, and David B. Froomkin, a law professor at the University of Houston Law Center, explain, that would have run afoul not only of those states’ laws but also of another provision of the Constitution: The 14th Amendment says that if a state disenfranchises any of its voters, that state loses a proportional amount of its seats in the House of Representatives.

So, Eisner and Froomkin explain:

“(I)f a state legislature were to directly choose electors, that would disenfranchise all of the state’s voters. The right to vote, after all, is the right to have one’s vote counted, not the right to have one’s preferred candidate win. If all of a state’s voters have their right to vote taken away, Section 2 requires that the state’s House representation immediately and automatically be reduced to zero.”

That, in turn, means the state would only have two electors – and would no longer be a factor in the election.

4. Why does the US still have an Electoral College?

Other nations took a lead from the U.S. creation of the Electoral College, creating their own versions. But they didn’t last, as Westminster College political scientist Joshua Holzer explained:

“None have been satisfied with the results. And except for the U.S., all have found other ways to choose their leaders.”

Many people in the U.S. also have problems with the Electoral College, and Holzer identifies one effort underway to replace it without amending the Constitution. But even that wouldn’t ensure that the person who becomes president would be supported by at least half of the people who cast ballots.

Jeff Inglis, Politics + Society Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Independent voters think for themselves and stay out of politics – 3 essential reads

Jessie Harris, left, a registered independent voter in South Carolina, casts a ballot in February 2024. Joe Lamberti for The Washington Post via Getty Images

Jeff Inglis, The Conversation

In the 2024 election, the two major-party campaigns and many news reporters are spending a lot of time talking about independent voters – those who are neither aligned with the Republican Party nor the Democratic Party. Despite the power that political independents are anticipated to have over the election results, there’s a lot that remains unknown about this group.

The Conversation U.S. has published several articles about what is known, and why it’s hard to know much more. Here are selections from some of those articles:

1. How many independent voters are there?

It’s very hard to answer that question, wrote Thom Reilly, a professor of public affairs at Arizona State University. Part of the problem is figuring out how to define who independent voters are. Surveys often ask people if they are Republicans, Democrats or independents, and if they answer that they are independents, the surveys ask how strongly they might lean toward one party or the other. But this muddies the waters of political identity, Reilly wrote:

“It’s possible that some voters identify as independent but really just have weaker political preferences than party die-hards, while still maintaining some loyalty to one party or the other. And some independent voters change their political identification from one cycle to another. That makes it hard to tell who an independent voter is and how many of them exist.”

Those changing alignments, Reilly wrote, “may require scholars, media outlets and the public to shift their traditional two-party view of American politics.”

2. Independent voters think for themselves

Independent voters exhibit a key quality that most Americans expect of their fellow citizens: They base their views on their life experiences.

Unfortunately, as politics scholars Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz at the University of Maryland and Joshua J. Dyck at UMass Lowell explained, this is an attribute almost unique to political independents:

“In contrast, Democrats’ and Republicans’ ideas of what problems deserve government attention and how to solve them are much less likely to be based on their own life experiences, and instead simply mirror the information they have gained from leading political figures on social media, on cable news networks or through other partisan information outlets.”

For instance, independents living in neighborhoods with high levels of gun violence are far more likely to report being concerned about gun violence than independents who live in safer areas. But, Pearson-Merkowitz and Dyck wrote,

“for Democrats and Republicans, there is no relationship between where they live and their level of concern about gun violence: Whether they live in a relatively dangerous community or a relatively safe one, their views on gun violence reflect their party’s messages on the issue.”

3. Independents less likely to engage in any politics

Research into independents’ political activity finds them tending to stay away from politics, wrote Julio Borquez, a political science scholar at the University of Michigan-Dearborn:

“Perhaps most importantly, pure independent voters are simply less likely to vote than those who express any degree of partisan attachment. In the 2020 presidential election, reported turnout among pure independents was about 20 percentage points lower than turnout among other voters, including independents who lean toward a party.”

Research has found members of this group “tend to be genuinely put off by partisan conflict and party labels,” Borquez wrote. Different studies have found, for instance, that they prefer photos of neighborhoods that did not show political yard signs over the same photos of the same neighborhoods with homes displaying political yard signs. And they pay less attention to campaigns and partisan social media than people with partisan affiliations.

So they are indeed independent – but the question remains whether they will be uninvolved in 2024 or motivated to cast their ballots and make their views known.

Jeff Inglis, Politics + Society Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Slow vote-counting, flip-flopping leads, careful certification and the weirdness of the Electoral College – people who research elections look at what to expect on election night

What should you make of the flood of information about the election? Dilok Klaisataporn/iStock / Getty Images Plus

Jeff Inglis, The Conversation

As Election Day arrives, people’s feelings of eagerness and anxiety can intensify. It’s normal to want to know the results, but it’s also important to make sure that when the results are announced, they’re accurate.

The Conversation U.S. has covered many aspects of the election, including the mechanics of tallying and reporting the votes. Here are selections from some of those articles:

1. How long did it take to count votes in 2020?

In 2020, Election Day was Nov. 3. While some results emerged that evening and over the subsequent days, it was not until four days later, Nov. 7, that The Associated Press called the race for Joe Biden over Donald Trump.

Waiting can be unsatisfying, wrote John M. Murphy, a communications scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, but it’s key to getting accurate results.

Murphy warned: “People tend to see what they want to see. … Partisans want that beautiful picture of triumph, blue or red seas cascading across screens on election night.” But, he observed, that might be a mirage – and realizing it’s a mirage means one thing: “Wait. … Wait until we know it’s real.”

Election officials count ballots at the Allegheny County elections warehouse in Pittsburgh in 2020. Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

2. Why do candidates’ leads change as the results emerge?

Every state counts votes slightly differently. Some, like Colorado, allow election workers to begin counting absentee ballots in advance of Election Day, while in other states, like Illinois, the count can’t even start until the polling places close at the end of Election Day.

In addition, various communities report their results in different ways. Some may release preliminary results every so often while the counting continues, while others may wait until counting is fully complete before announcing any results.

That’s why vote counts change over time: Partial results are updated, and additional results are added to statewide tallies. In a 2020 article, Kristin Kanthak, a political science professor at the University of Pittsburgh, went through the whole process, including the release of partial results:

“Importantly … this doesn’t mean the system is ‘rigged.’ Actually, it means the system is transparent to a fault,” she wrote.

3. How do we know the results are accurate?

Election officials take their jobs very seriously and work hard to count all the eligible votes accurately while under great pressure. They have specific rules and processes for how to handle ballots and vote-counting.

Derek Muller, an election-law scholar at the University of Notre Dame, explained those steps in detail, highlighting the focus on verifiable facts rather than people’s opinions about the process:

“Certifying an election is a rather mundane task. … It is little more than making sure all precincts have reported and the arithmetic is correct. But it is an important task, because it is the formal process that determines who won the most votes.”

Washoe County employees in Nevada open ballots as they begin processing mailed ballots in the 2024 primary election. AP Photo/Andy Barron

4. Who invented the Electoral College?

Of course, the candidate who gets the most votes doesn’t necessarily win the presidency. The official decision is made by the Electoral College.

Phillip VanFossen, a civics educator at Purdue University, explained that the Constitutional Convention in the summer of 1787 came up with three ideas, but couldn’t agree. Determined to find common ground, even if it was imperfect, the delegates told 11 men to come up with a solution, which was the Electoral College.

VanFossen explained that “with this compromise system, neither public ignorance nor outside influence would affect the choice of a nation’s leader. (The delegates) believed that the electors would ensure that only a qualified person became president. And they thought the Electoral College would serve as a check on a public who might be easily misled, especially by foreign governments.”

5. Why does the US still have an Electoral College?

Other nations were inspired by the U.S. Constitution, but not for long, as Westminster College political scientist Joshua Holzer explained:

“None have been satisfied with the results. And except for the U.S., all have found other ways to choose their leaders.”

Many people in the U.S. also aren’t satisfied with the Electoral College, and Holzer identifies one effort under way to replace it without amending the Constitution. But even that won’t ensure that the person who becomes president is supported by at least half of the people who cast ballots.

Jeff Inglis, Politics + Society Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.