Episode October 6, 2026 13 min 11s

Undermining the Post-WWII Order

From Letters from an American Heather Cox Richardson

October 5, 2026

The US Southern Command struck another small boat in the Caribbean, bringing the number of strikes to more than 70, The administration has not made its justification for the strikes public, although there was a DOJ memo, US District Judge Engelmayer has demanded that it be shown to him, Pete Hegseth told reporters that the US can move military personnel from Europe and that the US is expanding its presence in Latin America, In an interview, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said that he does not anticipate that the court will overturn the decision recognizing the right to same sex marriage because “people have come to rely on it,” but that overturning Roe v Wade in the Dobbs decision was acceptable because that was “much more abstract,” The administration is undermining the post-World War II order by abandoning the UN prohibition on violating the territorial integrity and political independence of any state and the human rights that are covered by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, It is also abandoning the rights of women, In place of the post-WWI order, Trump and his allies propose a dictatorship, FDR noted that Nazi forces were openly seeking the destruction of elective systems of government in place of rule by a handful of individuals, In a speech in March 1941, he said that “the rallying cry of the dictators … will prove to be pure stuff and nonsense."

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