If you witnessed the unsightly gathering of european leaders at the White House recently, it was hard not to compare them with schoolchildren who got called into the principal’s office.  

But it was worse than that: President Trump had to do their job, and effectively act as president of the European Union concerning national security and leadership.

But the same thing is happening domestically in the U.S.: President Trump is doing the job of many state governors and city mayors who can’t seem to face reality.

Whatever the ideological origins of our system of government may be, the one thing it always fundamentally depended on was adulthood.

President Trump knows the difference, and increasingly, so do all Americans: many blue states turned more red in the 2024 election, and even Illinois made historical gains but for Chicago.  

In a way, the “new federalism” is between the states and their radicalized, Democrat-controlled cities, with the federal government called upon to resolve the conflict in law created when city mayors don’t even know what the word “law” means.

Matthew G. Andersson is the author of the forthcoming book “Legally Blind,” concerning law and ideology.  He is a graduate of the University of Chicago, a former CEO, and testified before the U.S. Senate.

Image: Library of Congress, via Picryl // public domain