When President Trump was running for a second term in 2024, he promised to end the Ukraine war “in 24 hours.” Of course, that did not happen, but now we are seeing how he seeks to end this atrocious war, now over 3 years old. As the Wall Street Journal editorially observed, Trump’s plan is a “tilt toward a Ukraine sellout.” As a student of history, I believe it also ignores one of the profound lessons of history from the 1930s in Europe.

In our democratic-republic in America, there are three branches of the federal government. In the brilliance of the design articulated by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, all three of whom wrote The Federalist, these three branches are to form a checks and balance system without the national government. The judicial branch interprets the Constitution as cases are brought before it. There are federal District Courts, Courts of Appeals and then of course the Supreme Court. The founders argued forcefully for an independent judiciary.

The age of amateur sports at many American colleges and universities is apparently over. Year 2024 is the last year where the College Football Playoffs will be played by amateur athletes. Next year they will all be pros. It is pretty clear that the NCAA has embraced some form of “pay for play” that enables schools to pay players for their athletic skills.

When Hamas militants led a deadly cross-border raid into Israel on 7 October 2023, Hamas leaders were convinced that this event would trigger a wider Middle East war that would result in the end of Israel. The exact opposite has occurred. The Hamas terrorist attack triggered a war with Israel that has devastated Gaza, and it set off additional shock waves that have reshaped the Middle East: Powerful alliances were upended. Long-established “red lines” were crossed. A decades-old dictatorship at the heart of the region was swept away. The Middle East has been radically transformed.

President Trump had made immigration a major aspect of his presidential campaign and now a policy goal of his presidency. Few would disagree with his commitment to end illegal immigration. Few would doubt that dealing with illegal immigrants already in the country must be addressed. But, solving these challenges must be balanced with the reality of a serious worker shortage in the US. In this Perspective, I hope to review the issue of the worker shortage facing the US along with the volatile issue of immigration.

In 1958, political theorist, Isaiah Berlin, delivered a lecture entitled “Two Concepts of Liberty,” which established two strands of thought on the concept of freedom.

Over 30 years ago, Daniel Patrick Moynihan published his famous essay, “Defining Deviancy Down.” Bret Stephens summarizes his thesis: “Every society, the senator-scholar from New York argued, could afford to penalize only a certain amount of behavior it deemed ‘deviant.’ As the stock of such behavior increased—whether in the form of out-of-wedlock births, or mentally ill people living outdoors, or violence in urban streets—society would most easily adapt not by cracking down, but instead by normalizing what used to be considered unacceptable, immoral or outrageous.”

In the 1930s, the United States pursued a policy of protectionism and isolationism. “No coincidence, World War II soon followed.” Germany’s and Japan’s neighbors were too weak to deter and defeat those fascist dictatorships on their own. They desperately needed American help, and they did not receive it until it was nearly too late. Max Boot argues that “After 1945 in the United States, the greatest generation sought to rectify that mistake by constructing a new world order based on free-trade pacts and security alliances. That approach was staggeringly successful: Democracy and prosperity spread around the world. […]”

The birth of a child produces wonder, astonishment, even adoration. The birth of Jesus was no different. Yet, biblical Christianity adds that He was God in human form entering our history. As Chuck Swindoll summarizes: “On a rescue mission designed by His Father before time began, Jesus silently slipped into our world, breathed our air, felt our pain, became acquainted with our sorrows, suffered and died for our sins . . . to show us the way out of our darkness and into His glorious light.”

The past three decades have produced an economy in America that is indeed the envy of the world. The Economist summarizes the financial and economic dynamic of the US economy: “In 1990 it accounted for about two-fifths of the GDP of the G7. Today it makes up half. Output per person is now about 30% higher than in Western Europe and Canada, and 60% higher than in Japan—gaps that have roughly doubled since 1990. Mississippi may be America’s poorest state, but its hard-working residents earn, on average, more than Brits, Canadians or Germans. Lately, China too has gone backwards. Having closed in rapidly on America in the years before the pandemic, its nominal GDP has slipped from about three-quarters of America’s in 2021 to two-thirds today.”