It is hard to keep the scale of what the Trump administration is building in your mind all at once. But that approach was to minimize the kinds of chaos that we’re seeing ice really invite now. Something I’ve been tracking often with the Trump administration is the way it uses spectacle as policy, spectacle as message. And we are seeing significant challenges in federal court to some of what the Trump administration is trying to do. They don’t really make sense as a foreign policy initiative, but they’re very intimidating I’ve been thinking about something.

Source: New York Times January 23, 2026 11:33 UTC