Maxwell School News

"People are going to see harm in their own lives and to the government, and they're going to blame the people who are in charge now, which is the Republican majority," says Shana Gadarian, associate professor of political science.

Dean David Van Slyke says organizations like the ACLU and Planned Parenthood "run the risk of new donors becoming just one-time donors."

"The release of two pages from President Trump’s 2005 tax returns didn’t show much. But they did show just how much Trump—and other super-rich Americans—would benefit from his proposed tax plan," says Christopher Faricy, associate professor of political science.

William C. Banks, director of the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism, says "the CIA needs to share what is known about its vulnerabilities with the companies that are impacted," in response to the documents released by WikiLeaks.

William Banks, professor of practice of public administration and international affars, says gaining access to the evidence to substantiate or refute Trump's wiretap claims will be incredibly difficult because under the law, the president can not access current or previous Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court orders.

Bill Smullen, director of the National Security Studies program, is concerned that the U.S. State Department could receive less funding to accommodate the proposed 10 percent hike in military spending. "I am a big advocate of making sure that the diplomatic arm of the United States is as strong as it can possibly be," he says.

According to Professor of Political Science Grant Reeher, "A lot of prominent Republicans, the usual suspects, either aren't interested or they were critical of the Trump campaign so therefore, they are not being looked at."

Professor Emeritus William C. Banks explains how a special prosecutor gets appointed. The explanation comes after lawmakers demand for a special prosecutor investigation on President Trump associates to Russian operatives.

"This was sort of a post-partisan moment, and quite different than many of his prior speeches in that respect," says Corri Zoli, director of research at the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism. She adds, "this was one of the most well-developed, programmatic speeches...putting numbers on things like infrastructure, development, working families and national security issues."

“If I’m an ally and I hear that I’m not going to get as much foreign aid as I had anticipated or that I had been receiving because money is going to be diverted to the defense department, I’m not going to be very happy with that,” says Colonel F. William Smullen, director of national security studies at the Maxwell School.

"The goals of nativist enclave policies and a robust job-creating economy are fundamentally at odds with one another. A full-throated embrace of nativism at this point will mean that we are walling ourselves inside our nation only to discover that we have walled in the very people that enclave nativists sought to eject," writes Elizabeth Cohen, professor of political science.

"From the far right to the far left, we all hate Mr. Trump," said Professor Rafael Fernández de Castro, who served as an adviser to former Mexican President Felipe Calderon. "I have never seen this consensus in Mexico. Mexicans are rallying around it."

"These are the folks who actually attempt to implement the policy changes that the administration is trying to push down from above," says Grant Reeher, professor of political science and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute, about the importance of political appointees below the Cabinet level.

 According to Professor of Political Science Grant Reeher, progressives will have to sustain the movement to the midterm elections of 2018 if they want to enact fundamental change. "The question from here on in is how sustainable will this be," Reeher said. "What will this look like a year from now?"

Miriam Elman, associate professor of political science, says President Trump “really values uncertainty as a matter of strategy and policy,” leading to questions about the U.S. Israel alliance.

Regionally based strikes like the one in Oakland "are very, very uncommon in US history," said Andrew Wender Cohen, professor of history, adding that for some time now there have been only 20 to 30 larger strikes per year in the entire country.