PDF VERSION AVAILABLE HERE For Immediate Release: July 17th 2026 WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Steady State, an organization of more than 420 former national security, intelligence, diplomatic, military, law enforcement, and homeland security officials–whose careers traditionally required political neutrality–will be announcing endorsements in the upcoming November midterm elections. “In normal times members of the national […]
Congress was created to check presidential power. Instead, it is quietly surrendering its own. Photo with thanks to Medium, March 2026 The most dangerous constitutional failure in America today is not simply an increasingly powerful presidency. It is a Congress that has abandoned the oversight, independence, and institutional courage the Framers expected from the first […]
Executive Summary We assess with high confidence that accelerating authoritarian dynamics in the United States are already generating direct and growing risks to American businesses, both abroad and at home. This risk environment is defined less by episodic shocks than by a structural shift away from rules-based governance toward personalized, discretionary power, in w […]
Fighting corruption overseas has been a long-standing and integral piece of American diplomacy. Beyond advocating for important American values, fighting corruption globally advances stability, helps American companies and U.S. goods and services compete successfully around the world, and increases American prosperity. My experience fighting corruption abroad leads me to worry even more about patterns that […]
The pardon of Honduras’ former president is more than an isolated act of clemency. It reveals how twenty-first-century influence increasingly flows through interconnected networks of investors, political operatives, think tanks, and presidential authority—raising difficult questions about whose interests American foreign policy ultimately serves. For many Americans, Honduras rarely occupies a prominent place in U.S. foreign […]
By Adam Wasserman Communism no longer poses the kind of global ideological threat it did during the twentieth century. Yet by resurrecting the rhetoric of the Red Scare, Trump is breathing new life into one of American politics’ oldest tactics: using fear of an exaggerated enemy to justify extraordinary political power. The Red Menace is […]
In this episode, host Lauren Anderson turns the tables on co-host Jim Lawler, a 25-year veteran of the CIA’s clandestine service and the officer who led the takedown of the A.Q. Khan nuclear smuggling network, an operation that former deputy CIA Director John McLaughlin called “the closest thing to a perfect intelligence operation.” Lawler shares […]
By David Abramson The Department of State, Washington, D.C. On July 11, 2025, the State Department dismissed some of its most experienced intelligence analysts merely to appease the Trump Administration’s demands for cuts. I left soon afterward—not because I had stopped believing in the mission, but because I believed the institution had stopped defending the […]
The Steady State examines America’s democratic balance sheet—from national security and the rule of law to economic power and civic engagement. We ask a simple question: Are we investing in the institutions that sustain self-government, or spending down the reserves that generations before us built? The Steady State examines America’s democratic balance sheet—from national security […]