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The predawn U.S. military operation that spirited Nicolás Maduro and his wife out of Venezuela and into U.S. custody marks a watershed in hemispheric politics. In an operation that lasted just over two hours, American forces removed a foreign president. It followed months of saber-rattling and a steady buildup of America’s regional forces.

Robert Muggah
Instituto Igarapé; Princeton University

(THE CONVERSATION) — The predawn U.S. military operation that spirited Nicolás Maduro and his wife out of Venezuela and into U.S. custody marks a watershed in hemispheric politics. In an operation that lasted just over two hours, American forces removed a foreign president. It followed months of saber-rattling and a steady buildup of America’s regional forces.

Whether under the banner of counter-narcotics or regime change, the message is unmistakable: The U.S. is prepared to act unilaterally, forcefully and, potentially, illegally. And this will have broad ramifications across Latin America, not least for Venezuela itself.

The reaction to the U.S. intervention from across the region was instantaneous. Colombia rushed troops to its frontier, bracing for potential refugees and denouncing the strikes as an affront to regional sovereignty. Cuba joined Iran, Russia and other foes of Washington in condemning the raid at the United Nations. A handful of governments, notably in Argentina, offered ringing endorsements.

Maduro’s next public appearance will likely be in a New York court. But where do the U.S. and Venezuela go from here? President Donald Trump declared that the U.S. will “run” Venezuela until there is “a safe, proper and judicious transition” of power. He also said his administration is “not afraid of boots on the ground.”

But so far, few concrete details are on offer. Much depends on what Washington does next and how Venezuela’s fractured polity responds. As an expert on U.S.-Latin American relations, I think five broad scenarios seem likely.

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1. Trump declares victory and walks away

In the first scenario, Trump will proclaim mission accomplished, parade the capture of Maduro as a triumph of American will and rapidly reduce the U.S. footprint. Venezuelan institutions would be left largely intact. Current Vice President Delcy Rodríguez, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López would preside over a reconstituted government that retains its commitment to the style of left-wing governance developed by the late Hugo Chavez, now minus its latest figurehead in Maduro.
This would suit American generals keen to limit U.S. troop exposure, as well as foreign powers anxious to avoid a power vacuum. But it offers little to the Venezuelan opposition or to regional governments that have borne years of refugee flows.

Above all, it would squander the leverage Washington has just expended effort and money to obtain. Having taken the extraordinary step of abducting a head of state, simply reverting to a slightly reshuffled Chavismo would look, even by the standards of foreign American interventions, oddly anticlimactic.

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2. A popular uprising topples ‘Chavismo’

A second possibility is that the shock of Maduro’s removal cracks the government’s aura of inevitability and triggers a mass uprising that sweeps Chavismo from power. With the presidency vacant and the security forces demoralized or divided, a broad coalition of opposition parties, civil-society groups and disaffected Chavistas could push for a transitional council, perhaps under Organization of American States or U.N. auspices.

Yet as neat and tidy as this sounds, such revolutions — especially those supported by outside interference — rarely proceed tidily. Years of political repression, organized crime, economic misery and emigration have hollowed out Venezuela’s middle class and organized labor. Armed colectivos – paramilitary groups with a stake in the old order – would resist fiercely. The result might be not a swift democratic breakthrough but an unstable transition: a fragile caretaker government, sporadic violence and intense infighting 
over amnesties and control of the oil sector.

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3. U.S. escalation to install a friendly opposition

Another scenario has Washington leveraging its new position to push forcefully for complete regime change. That could mean tightening sanctions on remaining power brokers, expanding strikes against security installations and militias, covertly supporting insurgent factions, and using Maduro’s prospective trial as a global stage on which to delegitimize Chavismo once and for all.

In this scenario, a recognized opposition leader would be ushered into office following some form of managed election, transitional council or negotiated handover — potentially someone like the Nobel Prize-winning María Corina Machado. The U.S. and its allies would dangle debt restructuring and reconstruction funding in exchange for market reforms and geopolitical alignment.

The risks are obvious. An overtly U.S.-produced transition would taint the new leadership’s legitimacy at home and abroad. It would deepen polarization, entrench the narrative of imperial imposition that Chavismo has long peddled, and invite proxy meddling by China, Cuba, Iran and Russia. A bruised but not broken Chavista movement could pivot into armed resistance, turning Venezuela into another theater of low-level insurgency.

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4. U.S. custodianship and managed transition

A managed transition is the option Trump has now openly floated, with Washington taking an interim custodial role in Venezuela. In practice, it would resemble a trusteeship in all but name. Early priorities would be to impose a basic chain of command and restore administrative capacity, stabilizing the currency and payments system, and sequencing reforms to prevent state collapse during the handover.

The political timetable would be central. Washington would heavily influence interim governance arrangements, electoral rules and the timing of presidential and legislative votes, including reconstituting electoral authorities and setting minimum conditions for campaigning and media access. The U.S. would not necessarily need to occupy the country, but it might require American forces on the ground to deter spoilers.

The economic logic of this way forward would hinge on rapidly restoring oil output and basic services through U.S. technical support, private contractors and selective sanctions relief tied to compliance benchmarks. Companies such as Chevron, the only U.S. major oil company still positioned inside Venezuela, or oilfield service providers like Halliburton would likely be early beneficiaries.

Yet the hazards are profound. Like with the U.S.-friendly opposition above, a U.S. custodianship could inflame nationalist sentiment and validate Chavismo’s anti-imperial narrative. The implicit threat of force might deter spoilers, but it might also deepen resentment and harden resistance among armed groups, Maduro remnants or anyone else opposed to U.S. occupation.

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5. Hybrid conflict and managed instability

A final outcome may a messy hybrid of some or all of the above: a protracted struggle in which no actor fully prevails. Maduro’s removal could weaken Chavismo but not erase its networks in the military, bureaucracy and low-income barrios. The opposition could be energized but divided. The U.S. under Trump will be militarily powerful but constrained by domestic fatigue with foreign wars, the upcoming midterm elections and doubts about the legality of its methods.

In this scenario, Venezuela could lurch into years of managed instability. De facto power might be shared among a weakened Chavista elite, opposition figures co-opted into a transitional arrangement, and security actors controlling local fiefdoms. Sporadic U.S. strikes and covert operations could continue, calibrated to punish spoilers and protect preferred partners, but avoiding the scale of occupation.

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Monroe Doctrine 2.0?

Whatever the future, what seems clear for now is that the anti-Maduro operation can be seen by supporters and critics alike as a kind of Monroe Doctrine 2.0. This version, a follow-up to the original 19th century doctrine that saw Washington warn European powers off its sphere of influence, is a more muscular assertion that extra-hemispheric U.S. rivals, and their local clients, will not be permitted to have a say on America’s doorstep.

This aggressive signal is not limited to Caracas. Cuba and Nicaragua, already under heavy U.S. sanctions and increasingly reliant on Russian and Chinese support, will read the Venezuelan raid as a warning that even entrenched governments are not safe if their politics don’t sufficiently align with Trump. Colombia, notionally a U.S. ally yet currently led by a left-leaning government that has railed against the U.S. Venezuela policy, finds itself squeezed.

Smaller and midsized states, too, will take note — and not just those in Latin America. Panama, whose canal is critical to global trade and U.S. naval mobility, may feel renewed pressure to move toward Washington and police Chinese inroads in ports and telecommunications. Canada and Denmark, via Greenland, will hear echoes in the Arctic.

In the meantime, for Venezuelans, there seems to be yet another turning of the screw by the U.S., with a bare-minimum guarantee of insecurity and precarious limbo for the foreseeable future.

An image circulated over media the weekend of Jan. 3 and 4 was meant to convey dominance: Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, blindfolded and handcuffed aboard a U.S. naval vessel. Shortly after the operation that seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, President Donald Trump announced that the United States would now “run” Venezuela until a “safe, proper and judicious transition” could be arranged.

By Monica Duffy Toft
Tufts University

(THE CONVERSATION) — An image circulated over media the weekend of Jan. 3 and 4 was meant to convey dominance: Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, blindfolded and handcuffed aboard a U.S. naval vessel. Shortly after the operation that seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, President Donald Trump announced that the United States would now “run” Venezuela until a “safe, proper and judicious transition” could be arranged.

The Trump administration’s move is not an aberration; it reflects a broader trend in U.S. foreign policy I described here some six years ago as “America the Bully.”

Washington increasingly relies on coercion – military, economic and political – not only to deter adversaries but to compel compliance from weaker nations. This may deliver short-term obedience, but it is counterproductive as a strategy for building durable power, which depends on legitimacy and capacity. When coercion is applied to governance, it can harden resistance, narrow diplomatic options and transform local political failures into contests of national pride.

There is no dispute that Maduro’s dictatorship led to Venezuela’s catastrophic collapse. Under his rule, Venezuela’s economy imploded, democratic institutions were hollowed out, criminal networks fused with the state, and millions fled the country – many for the United States.

But removing a leader – even a brutal and incompetent one – is not the same as advancing a legitimate political order.

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Force doesn’t equal legitimacy

By declaring its intent to govern Venezuela, the United States is creating a governance trap of its own making – one in which external force is mistakenly treated as a substitute for domestic legitimacy.

I write as a scholar of international security, civil wars and U.S. foreign policy, and as author of “Dying by the Sword,” which examines why states repeatedly reach for military solutions, and why such interventions rarely produce durable peace.

The core finding of that research is straightforward: Force can topple rulers, but it cannot generate political authority.

When violence and what I have described elsewhere as “kinetic diplomacy” become a substitute for full spectrum action – which includes diplomacy, economics and what the late political scientist Joseph Nye called “soft power” – it tends to deepen instability rather than resolve it.

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More force, less statecraft

The Venezuela episode reflects this broader shift in how the United States uses its power. My co-author Sidita Kushi and I document this by analyzing detailed data from the new Military Intervention Project. We show that since the end of the Cold War, the United States has sharply increased the frequency of military interventions while systematically underinvesting in diplomacy and other tools of statecraft.

One striking feature of the trends we uncover is that if Americans tended to justify excessive military intervention during the Cold War between 1945–1989 due to the perception that the Soviet Union was an existential threat, what we would expect is far fewer military interventions following the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse. That has not happened.

Even more striking, the mission profile has changed. Interventions that once aimed at short-term stabilization now routinely expand into prolonged governance and security management, as they did in both Iraq after 2003 and Afghanistan after 2001.

This pattern is reinforced by institutional imbalance. In 2026, for every single dollar the United States invests in the diplomatic “scalpel” of the State Department to prevent conflict, it allocates US$28 to the military “hammer” of the Department of Defense, effectively ensuring that force becomes a first rather than last resort.

“Kinetic diplomacy” – in the Venezuela case, regime change by force – becomes the default not because it is more effective, but because it is the only tool of statecraft immediately available. On Jan. 4, Trump told the Atlantic magazine that if Delcy Rodríguez, the acting leader of Venezuela, “doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.”

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Lessons from Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya

The consequences of this imbalance are visible across the past quarter-century.

In Afghanistan, the U.S.-led attempt to engineer authority built on external force alone proved brittle by its very nature. The U.S. had invaded Afghanistan in 2001 to topple the Taliban regime, deemed responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. But the subsequent two decades of foreign-backed state-building collapsed almost instantly once U.S. forces withdrew in 2021. No amount of reconstruction spending could compensate for the absence of a political order rooted in domestic consent.

Following the invasion by the U.S. and surrender of Iraq’s armed forces in 2003, both the U.S. Department of State and the Department of Defense proposed plans for Iraq’s transition to a stable democratic nation. President George W. Bush gave the nod to the Defense Department’s plan.

That plan, unlike the State Department’s, ignored key cultural, social and historical conditions. Instead, it proposed an approach that assumed a credible threat to use coercion, supplemented by private contractors, would prove sufficient to lead to a rapid and effective transition to a democratic Iraq. The United States became responsible not only for security, but also for electricity, water, jobs and political reconciliation – tasks no foreign power can perform without becoming, as the United States did, an object of resistance.

Libya demonstrated a different failure mode. There, intervention by a U.S.-backed NATO force in 2011 and removal of dictator Moammar Gadhafi and his regime were not followed by governance at all. The result was civil war, fragmentation, militia rule and a prolonged struggle over sovereignty and economic development that continues today.

The common thread across all three cases is hubris: the belief that American management – either limited or oppressive – could replace political legitimacy.

Venezuela’s infrastructure is already in ruins. If the United States assumes responsibility for governance, it will be blamed for every blackout, every food shortage and every bureaucratic failure. The liberator will quickly become the occupier.

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Costs of ‘running’ a country

Taking on governance in Venezuela would also carry broader strategic costs, even if those costs are not the primary reason the strategy would fail.

A military attack followed by foreign administration is a combination that undermines the principles of sovereignty and nonintervention that underpin the international order the United States claims to support. It complicates alliance diplomacy by forcing partners to reconcile U.S. actions with the very rules they are trying to defend elsewhere.

The United States has historically been strongest when it anchored an open sphere built on collaboration with allies, shared rules and voluntary alignment. Launching a military operation and then assuming responsibility for governance shifts Washington toward a closed, coercive model of power – one that relies on force to establish authority and is prohibitively costly to sustain over time.

These signals are read not only in Berlin, London and Paris. They are watched closely in Taipei, Tokyo and Seoul — and just as carefully in Beijing and Moscow.

When the United States attacks a sovereign state and then claims the right to administer it, it weakens its ability to contest rival arguments that force alone, rather than legitimacy, determines political authority.

Beijing needs only to point to U.S. behavior to argue that great powers rule as they please where they can – an argument that can justify the takeover of Taiwan. Moscow, likewise, can cite such precedent to justify the use of force in its near abroad and not just in Ukraine.

This matters in practice, not theory. The more the United States normalizes unilateral governance, the easier it becomes for rivals to dismiss American appeals to sovereignty as selective and self-serving, and the more difficult it becomes for allies to justify their ties to the U.S.

That erosion of credibility does not produce dramatic rupture, but it steadily narrows the space for cooperation over time and the advancement of U.S. interests and capabilities.

Force is fast. Legitimacy is slow. But legitimacy is the only currency that buys durable peace and stability – both of which remain enduring U.S. interests.

If Washington governs by force in Venezuela, it will repeat the failures of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya: Power can topple regimes, but it cannot create political authority. Outside rule invites resistance, not stability.

Growing up in the 1970s, I took for granted the trash piles along the highway, tires washed up on beaches, and smog fouling city air. The famed “Crying Indian” commercial of 1971 became a symbol of widespread environmental damage across the United States.

(THE CONVERSATION) — Growing up in the 1970s, I took for granted the trash piles along the highway, tires washed up on beaches, and smog fouling city air. The famed “Crying Indian” commercial of 1971 became a symbol of widespread environmental damage across the United States.

That’s why the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, energized the nation. In the largest single-day public demonstration in U.S. history, roughly 10% of the population took to the streets to shout together: “Enough is enough!”

Republican and Democratic politicians alike listened. Over the decade that followed, all the nation’s foundational environmental laws were passed with strong bipartisan support – the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act and more.

These laws are taking a beating at the moment, including from the Environmental Protection Agency – the federal government agency created in 1970 to protect the environment. The agency’s own leader, Lee Zeldin, boasted of “driving a dagger straight into the heart” of environmental regulations. President Donald Trump regularly derides environmental laws as job killers and government overreach.

But the conditions that made these laws necessary have largely been forgotten. This environmental amnesia allows critics to focus entirely on costs while ignoring the laws’ very real benefits and achievements.

I’m an environmental law professor, so I was excited to learn recently about the Documerica project, courtesy of a wonderful article by writer Gideon Leek. It shows in clear photographic evidence how dirty the U.S. used to be and wakes people up to how much better the environment is today.

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An inspired origin

Environmental protection was a bipartisan effort in the 1970s: The EPA was created by President Richard Nixon, a Republican. The agency’s first leader was Bill Ruckelshaus, a Republican congressman from Indiana.

Inspired by the famous photographs of Depression-era farmworkers commissioned in the 1930s by the Farm Security Administration, Ruckelshaus’ newly created EPA commissioned a nationwide photo record. The goal, as Leek put it, was to “provide the EPA with a great deal of qualitative environmental data, create a ‘visual baseline’ against which to judge their efforts, and introduce the agency to the country through art.”

In its few short years of operation, from 1972 through 1978, the Documerica project produced over 20,000 photographs of rivers and farms, highways and city streets. The photos provide a vivid window into the state of the U.S. environment in the 1970s. Now, looking back, they highlight the progress made in the decades since, a demonstration of environmental laws’ successes far more powerful than graphs and statistics.

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Solid waste

As a kid, every Sunday my father and I would load the back of our station wagon with trash barrels and drive to the town dump – literally a hole in the ground. My dad would back up to the edge of the pit, and I would enthusiastically run out for what we called “The Olympic Trash Throw!” pouring the barrels’ contents down to where a bulldozer rumbled back and forth, compacting the trash while gulls circled overhead.

To say America’s landscape was littered in the 1970s is not merely poetic phrasing. Waste disposal was a matter of local law, and illegal dumping was commonplace. Drums of pesticides and chemicals could be sent to the local dump along with tires and just about anything else people and companies wanted to get rid of. When the dump was full, it was covered with topsoil and became open land, ready for recreation or building construction.

One place where this happened was Love Canal, a neighborhood near Niagara Falls, New York. A dump holding decades of chemical drums from the Hooker Chemical Co. was lightly covered and sold to the town for just $1. The town was grateful. A neighborhood was built on the land.

Only when people noticed high levels of miscarriages and cancer clusters among the residents – and saw oozing waste – did opinion change.

In 1976, Congress passed the Resource Conservation Recovery Act, which was the first law that tracked waste materials from their creation to their disposal and set tough standards for how to dispose of them. But by then, decades of unregulated waste disposal had contaminated sites all over the country. The contaminants, toxicity and people responsible were often unknown.

Four years later, the 1980 law known as “Superfund” set standards and assigned financial responsibility for cleaning up hazardous waste sites. The law created a multibillion-dollar fund that could pay for the cleanups and required potentially responsible parties to reimburse the government or clean up the sites on their own.

Faced with requirements to track their waste and heavy fines if the disposal resulted in hazardous sites, companies paid much more careful attention to their waste disposal. No one wanted to pay for cleaning up a Superfund site.

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Water pollution

I had the misfortune in 1978 to capsize while sailing a boat on the Charles River in Boston. My shame turned to a dermatologist’s visit when I broke out in rashes the next day. You fell in the Charles at your peril.

Environmental advocates weren’t kidding when, in the 1960s and 1970s, they declared “Lake Erie is a dead lake” because of all the industrial pollution pouring into its waters. An oil slick on Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River famously caught fire in 1969, but it was actually the 12th time the river had burned in a century.

Just as with dumps on land, all kinds of waste was being disposed of in rivers, lakes and harbors. There was a federal law in place, but it was ineffective and relied on states to set limits and enforce them.

The Clean Water Act of 1972 sought to create a national standard, requiring companies that wanted to discharge waste into waterways to get a federal permit and use the best available technology to reduce the amount and toxicity of what they did dump. The act also provided billions of taxpayer dollars to upgrade sewage treatment plants so they didn’t just dump untreated sewage into the water.

The ambitious goal was to end water pollution entirely and make all of the nation’s waters safe for swimming and fishing within a decade. Those aspirational goals for the country’s waters still have not been fully met, though Ruckelshaus used to quip that at least they are not flammable.

Even more telling, the Charles River and other urban rivers that people avoided in the 1970s now boast all manner of recreation, with little or no risk of rashes even while swimming.

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Air pollution

Perhaps the most obvious improvement since the 1970s has been in air quality around the U.S.

The horrible smog around Los Angeles is well known. But many other cities were blanketed in polluted air that led to respiratory illnesses and millions of early deaths across the nation over the decades. In Pittsburgh it was only half-jokingly said that you had to floss your teeth after breathing.

The Clean Air Act of 1970 was the first law to require the EPA to set uniform nationwide standards for air quality to protect the air people breathe. In short order, lead was phased out of gasoline, catalytic converters were required on cars, acid rain was ended, and the sources of smog were stringently regulated. An EPA study found that the benefits under the law exceeded costs by a factor of more than 30 to 1 and in 2020 alone prevented over 230,000 early deaths.

I could go on with photos and stories about laws from the 1970s that protected wetlands, conserved open space, reduced pesticide use, increased recycling and made many other changes to how Americans treat our lands and waters.

But it all boils down to two simple facts. First, with the exception of greenhouse gases, which have been effectively unregulated, every major measure of environmental health has improved significantly over the past five decades. And second, those improvements all occurred during times of strong economic growth, with inflation-adjusted gross domestic product increasing fivefold.

Calling these laws “job killers” misses the point entirely. They created jobs and stopped environmental killers. The laws now being demonized are the very reason the Documerica photos are images of the past, not the present. Environmental laws and regulations have their costs, to be sure, but these photographs still hold visceral power: They show just how far the nation has come and what is at risk if we forget.

Donald Trump joked in 2016 that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” and not lose support. In 2024, after two impeachments and 34 felony convictions, he has more or less proved the point. He not only returned to the White House, he turned his mug shot into décor, hanging it outside the Oval Office like a trophy.

By Brandon Rottinghaus
University of Houston

(THE CONVERSATION) — Donald Trump joked in 2016 that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” and not lose support. In 2024, after two impeachments and 34 felony convictions, he has more or less proved the point. He not only returned to the White House, he turned his mug shot into décor, hanging it outside the Oval Office like a trophy.

He’s not alone. Many politicians are ensnared in scandal, but they seldom pay the same kind of cost their forebears might have 20 or 30 years ago. My research, which draws on 50 years of verified political scandals at the state and national levels, national surveys and an expert poll, reaches a clear and somewhat unsettling conclusion.

In today’s polarized America, scandals hurt less, fade faster and rarely end political careers.

New York’s Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey’s Jim McGreevey both resigned as governors due to sex scandals, only to run again this year for mayoral posts. Both lost. Cuomo sought to replace New York Mayor Eric Adams, who never stepped down despite being indicted – with charges later dropped – in a corruption case that engulfed much of his administration.

The adulterous state attorney general from Texas, Ken Paxton, survived an impeachment vote in 2023 over bribery and abuse of office and is now running for the U.S. Senate. The list goes on – proof that scandal rarely ends a political career.

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When scandals still mattered

For most of the previous half-century, scandals had real bite.

Watergate, which involved an administration spying on its political enemies, knocked out President Richard M. Nixon. The Keating Five banking scandal of the 1980s reshaped the Senate, damaging the careers of most of the prominent senators who intervened with regulators to help a campaign contributor later convicted of fraud.

Members of Congress referred to the House ethics committee were far less likely to keep their seats. Governors, speakers and cabinet officials ensnared in scandal routinely resigned. The nation understood scandal as a serious breach of public trust, not a potential fundraising opportunity.

But beginning in the late 1990s and accelerating throughout the Trump era, something changed.

According to my dataset of more than 800 scandals involving presidents, governors and members of Congress, politicians in recent decades have survived scandals for longer periods of time and ultimately faced fewer consequences.

Even at the presidential level – where personal legacy should, in theory, be most sensitive – scandals barely leave a dent. Trump and his supporters have worn his legal attacks as a badge of honor, taking them as proof that an insidious swamp has conspired against him.

This isn’t just a quirk of modern politics. As a political scientist, I believe it’s a threat to democratic accountability. Accountability holds politicians, and the political system, to legal, moral and ethical standards. Without these checks, the people lose their power.

To salvage the basic idea that wrongdoing still matters, the nation will need to figure out how to Make Scandals Great Again – not in the partisan sense but in the civic one.

As a start, both parties could commit to basic red lines – bribery, abuse of office, exploitation – where resignation is expected, not optional. This would send a signal to voters about when to take charges seriously. That matters because, while voters can forgive mistakes, they shouldn’t excuse corruption.

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A tribal cue, not an ethical event

Why the new imperviousness?

Partisanship is the main culprit. Today’s voters don’t evaluate scandal as citizens; they evaluate it as fans. Democrats and Republicans seek to punish misdeeds by the other side but rationalize them for their own.

This selective morality is the engine of “affective polarization,” a political science term describing the intense dislike of the opposing party that now defines American politics. A scandal becomes less an ethical event than a tribal cue. If it hurts my enemy, I’m outraged. If it hurts my ally, it’s probably exaggerated, unfair or just fake.

The nation’s siloed and shrinking media environment accelerates this trend. News consumers drift toward outlets that favor their politics, giving them a partial view of possible wrongdoing. Local journalism, formerly the institution most responsible for uncovering wrongdoing, has been gutted. A typical House scandal once generated 70 or more stories in a district’s largest newspaper. Today, it averages around 23.

Evaluating surveys of presidency scholars, I found that economic growth, time in office, war leadership and perceived intellectual ability all meaningfully shape presidential greatness. Scandals, by comparison, barely move the needle.

Warren G. Harding still gets dinged for Teapot Dome, a major corruption scandal a century ago, and Nixon remains defined by Watergate. But for most modern presidents, scandal is just one more piece of noise in an already overwhelming media environment.

At the same time, partisan media ecosystems reinforce voters’ instincts. For many voters, negative coverage of a fellow partisan is not a warning sign. As with Trump, it can be a badge of honor, proof that the so-called establishment fears their champion.

The incentive structure flips. Instead of shrinking from scandal and behavior that could once have ended careers, politicians learn to exploit it. As Texas governor a decade ago, Rick Perry printed his felony mug shot on a T-shirt for supporters. Trump’s best fundraising days corresponded directly to his criminal court appearances.

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Making scandals resonate

Even when the evidence is clear-cut, the public’s memory isn’t.

Voters forget scandals that should matter but vividly remember ones that fit their partisan worldview, sometimes even when memory contradicts fact. Years after Trump left office, more Republicans believed his false claims – about the 2020 election, cures for COVID-19 and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot – than during his presidency. The longer the scandal drags on, the foggier the details become, making it easier for partisans to reshape the narrative.

The problem isn’t that America has too many scandals. It’s that the consequences no longer match the misdeeds.

But the story isn’t hopeless. Scandals still matter under certain conditions – particularly when they involve clear abuses of power or financial corruption and, crucially, when voters actually learn credible details. And political scientists have long known that scandals can produce real benefit. They expose wrongdoing, prompt reforms, sharpen voter attention and remind citizens that institutions need scrutiny.

So, what would it take to Make Scandals Great Again, not as spectacle but as accountability?

One step would be to rebuild the watchdogs. Local journalism could use investment, including through nonprofit models and philanthropy.

Second, it’s important that ethics enforcement maintains independence from the political actors it polices. Letting lawmakers investigate themselves guarantees selective outrage. At the same time, however, political parties could play a role in restoring trust by calling out their own, increasing their own accountability by lamenting real offenses among their own members.

Political scandals will never disappear from American life. But for them to serve as silver linings – and, ultimately, to protect public trust – the conditions that give them meaning require restoration. That could foster a political culture where wrongdoing still carries a price and where truth can pierce through the noise long enough for the public to hear it.

Colorado passed first-in-the-nation legislation requiring warning labels on gas stoves in June 2025. These warnings are similar to what is required by cigarette labeling laws.

(THE CONVERSATION) — Colorado passed first-in-the-nation legislation requiring warning labels on gas stoves in June 2025. These warnings are similar to what is required by cigarette labeling laws.

The required labels urge consumers to educate themselves about the air quality implications of indoor gas stoves and direct consumers to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment for information on the health impacts. This could have a substantial impact, as government agencies estimate that about one-third of Colorado’s households use gas as their primary cooking source.

The law went into effect on Aug. 6. The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers is now suing Colorado and is asking a federal court to temporarily block the law from being enforced while the case proceeds. The parties are awaiting a hearing on this request.

I’m a legal scholar with expertise in First Amendment law. I research and publish papers focusing on laws, such as the new Colorado statute, that compel businesses to disclose information to consumers.

In my opinion, in opposing warning labels, the gas industry and its trade association are weaponizing the First Amendment to undermine a commonsense regulation that aims to keep residents safe and informed.

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Warning labels in the U.S.

Walk down an aisle in any toy store and you’ll see tags alerting parents to the risk of choking. Flip over your prescription medication and you can read its side effects and interactions with other drugs. In the grocery store, food products have labels bearing information about calorie and sugar content to help consumers make healthier decisions.

Often taken for granted, these warning labels provide critical information to protect Americans’ health and safety. Perhaps the most recognizable warning labels can be found on cigarette packages, required in the U.S. since 1965, to inform customers about the health harms of smoking. Despite the fact that warning labels on cigarettes have saved millions of lives, the tobacco industry fought tooth and nail against them to keep consumers in the dark. Since that time, federal, state and local laws requiring businesses to make truthful factual disclosures about their products have become commonplace.

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Colorado lawsuit

In its lawsuit, the gas industry invokes the First Amendment’s compelled speech doctrine. This doctrine prohibits the government from forcing people to make ideological statements they don’t actually believe, such as reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.

In 2018, in National Institute of Family and Life Advocates v. Becerra, the U.S. Supreme Court greatly expanded this rule and opened the door for challenges to government efforts to require businesses to disclose truthful statements of fact. The court held that the government cannot compel businesses to disclose factual information if it is “controversial.”

Of course, it would be hard to find a manufacturer who does not think such disclosures are controversial, given that businesses are likely to disagree that their products are dangerous. If a subjective claim that a disclosure is controversial is all it takes to strike a law down, many such laws are vulnerable to legal attacks.

Interest groups representing the tobacco industry, the gas industry and others have seized on this opportunity to dismantle what most people understand to be routine labeling requirements. For example, companies have filed lawsuits challenging federal laws requiring companies to disclose that they use “conflict minerals” and local laws requiring beverage manufacturers to disclose that drinking sugar-sweetened drinks “contributes to obesity, diabetes and tooth decay.”

In its lawsuit, the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers, a trade association that lobbies on behalf of the home appliance industry, argues that Colorado’s law compels gas stove manufacturers to place warning labels on their products that it believes contain “scientifically controversial and factually misleading” information around gas stoves.

However, abundant evidence shows that cooking with a gas stove releases pollutants that harm human health. Multiple studies have shown that burning methane gas produces nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde and benzene that can worsen respiratory illnesses such as asthma and increase the risk of cancer.

Furthermore, in 2022, the American Medical Association recognized that gas stove use can increase household air pollution, the risk of childhood asthma and asthma severity. The same year, the American Public Health Association recommended putting warning labels on gas stoves as an official policy position.

Public health advocates contend that the gas industry has known about the health harms of gas stoves for decades, but that the industry has repeatedly attempted to paint its products in a better light.

A 2023 expose by The New York Times, for example, revealed that the gas industry paid toxicologist Julie Goodman to downplay the health impacts of gas stoves. Just eight years earlier, Goodman provided testimony on behalf of tobacco companies. A judge described her testimony on tobacco as “contrary to consensus of the scientific community.”

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Risk to consumers

If the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers’ claim succeeds in court, it could, in my analysis, make it much easier for companies to fund biased research or bring in experts to argue that something is not well-established science.

For example, a drug manufacturer could hire an expert to dispute the side effects of a drug. Food producers might claim their experts disagree with the science underlying nutrition and calorie information required by government regulation. Even manufacturers of everyday items such as lawnmowers or toasters could hire experts and proclaim that their products pose no safety harms.

Everyday people would bear the brunt of harm from the invalidation of warning label laws. These people currently have the right to know critical health and safety information before buying any product. If we let corporate interests undermine regulations such as warning labels, I believe we will no longer be able to inform the public about commonsense steps they can take to protect their health.

In 2026, some of the most memorable food trips no longer revolve around white tablecloths or hard-to-get reservations. Instead, they unfold outdoors, in fields, forests, rivers and village kitchens, where travelers get involved in the process of how meals come together.

In 2026, some of the most memorable food trips no longer revolve around white tablecloths or hard-to-get reservations. Instead, they unfold outdoors, in fields, forests, rivers and village kitchens, where travelers get involved in the process of how meals come together. The draw is not just what lands on the plate, but the feel of gathering ingredients, cooking alongside locals and eating where the food actually comes from.

That shift is changing what earns bucket-list status. These experiences happen in short windows, require patience and reward curiosity. They invite travelers to slow down, get their hands dirty and accept that weather, geography and tradition shape the best meals. As food becomes the reason to travel rather than an afterthought, destinations around the world are offering deeper, more participatory ways to eat.

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Hurtigruten and Huset: Arctic cuisine from coast to Svalbard

A Hurtigruten cruise paired with time in Svalbard follows Nordic cooking as it changes latitude. Along the Norwegian coast, onboard menus are shaped by the route itself, drawing on seafood, dairy, game and preserved ingredients sourced from producers in the ports the ship calls on.

Hurtigruten’s Sámi culinary ambassador, Máret Rávdná Buljo, plays a vital role in shaping the approach, helping anchor menus in Indigenous food traditions that emphasize preservation, seasonality and respect for Arctic ingredients. The line’s dedicated fall food and drink sailings extend that philosophy ashore, combining nights onboard with stays at partner farms and distilleries to show how regional food systems actually function.

For travelers continuing to Svalbard outside the Dark Season, when daylight returns and access to ingredients widens, a meal at Huset adds a sharper Arctic focus. The restaurant’s tasting menu is built around high-Arctic sourcing, including reindeer, wild birds, seafood and foraged elements, presented through a multi-course format that reflects place and constraint rather than abundance. Together, the shipboard menus and Svalbard dining create a throughline that connects Norway’s coastal foodways with the realities of cooking at the edge of the Arctic.

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Shakti Himalaya: Cooking and foraging on foot

Shakti Himalaya approaches food slowly, one step at a time. On guided walking holidays through the Indian Himalayas, meals are crafted from what guests can encounter along the trail, from village farms to wild herbs gathered at altitude. Cooking fits naturally into the day, unfolding between walks rather than appearing as a scheduled event.

Much of the experience centers on Tibetan Chef Yeshi, whose plant-forward Himalayan cooking captures both tradition and location. Guests bake bread with locally milled wheat, forage for wild herbs and learn how to prepare chai in village kitchens. 
These moments are simple and direct, using food to understand the land and the people who live in it.

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Costa Mujeres, Mexico: Resort dining that travels the world

In Costa Mujeres, food travel stays close to home base. Purpose-built resorts appeal to food-focused travelers by offering a wide range of restaurants on property, making it easy to move from Italian to Mediterranean to sushi without leaving the grounds. The appeal is variety without friction, with each venue designed to deliver a distinct experience.

Yucatán ingredients and Caribbean seafood appear throughout modern Mexican cuisine, including at María Dolores by Edgar Núñez at ATELIER Playa Mujeres, which is a Michelin Guide-recommended restaurant. For those willing to venture a bit farther, nearby Cancún offers a contrast with family-run spots like La Casa de las Mayoras, also Michelin recommended, where handmade tortillas and traditional dishes offer a quieter, more personal experience.

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Bhutan: Cooking with the land at Gangtey Lodge

At Gangtey Lodge, guests can join village families for activities such as buckwheat sowing or harvest and potato digging, then carry those ingredients back to the lodge kitchen. Cooking follows naturally, guided by what has been gathered rather than a fixed menu.

Hands-on experiences include making “puta,” or traditional buckwheat noodles, along with cooking sessions at the lodge. Foraging for wild ingredients, herbal tea gatherings paired with local snacks and the lodge’s multi-sensory Tasting Rituals deepen the connection, using food to tell the story of land, labor and daily life.

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Iceland: Catch-to-table fly fishing and dining with a private chef

At the Blue Lagoon in Iceland, food experiences extend beyond the resort walls. Guests staying at one of the Blue Lagoon’s hotels can add a full-day fly-fishing excursion in South Iceland, turning a wellness-focused stay into something more tactile and immediate.

Your day begins on cold rivers with an expert guide, where sustainability influences every decision. Guests release salmon, while Arctic char may be kept and later prepared by a private chef at a nearby lodge. The personalized meal that follows is the heart of the experience, made using the catch of the day and local ingredients, with the Blue Lagoon serving as a starting point rather than the destination.

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Italy: Truffle hunting from forest to table in Piedmont

At Casa di Langa in Piedmont, truffle hunting stays active and hands-on. Guests head into the surrounding woods with local “trifolao,” or truffle hunters, and their trained Lagotto Romagnolo dogs, learning how scent, soil and timing guide the search for white and black truffles in season.

The experience continues well after the hunt ends. Casa di Langa’s Truffle Concierge helps guests clean, preserve and ship their finds, while offering guidance on local markets and festivals. The day concludes in the kitchen, where freshly unearthed truffles are prepared, with dining at Fàula Ristorante serving as the natural endpoint.

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Asia: InsideAsia culinary travel in Japan and South Korea

InsideAsia designs its food-focused journeys through Japan and South Korea around structure and context rather than restaurant lists. Its 14-night A Taste of Japan and South Korea itinerary takes travelers through both countries with food shaping each stop along the way.

In Japan, that includes an izakaya night in Tokyo, a hands-on cooking class in Kanazawa and a temple stay on Mount Koya with traditional shojin-style meals. In South Korea, the focus shifts to street-level and regional food. Highlights include pocha tent dining in Seoul, time in Jeonju, a UNESCO City of Gastronomy, and visits to coastal cities such as Busan and Yeosu. InsideAsia also offers a standalone Culinary Korea itinerary, along with tailored trips through Japan.

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Stirred Travel: Weeklong culinary immersion in Europe

Stirred Travel designs its culinary weeks to give guests sustained access to chefs, producers and regional kitchens within a single destination. Each week takes place at one heritage property in a specific region. Guests participate in hands-on cooking classes, share meals with the chef, join guided market visits and tour local producers, and dine at standout nearby restaurants.

Meals are relaxed, and guests often enjoy them al fresco, with dinners paired to regional wines chosen for character and quality. Whether the setting is Andalusia, Alentejo, Veneto or Provence, the focus stays on learning a region’s food deeply over the course of the week, rather than sampling it in passing.

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Las Vegas: Michelin’s return signals a new food moment

Las Vegas is stepping back into the global food spotlight with the return of the Michelin Guide as part of a new Southwest edition covering Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah. The last Las Vegas guide appeared in 2009, when 17 local restaurants earned Michelin stars.

Inspectors are already in the field ahead of the 2026 ceremony, reflecting how much the city’s dining scene has changed. Growth now extends beyond casino dining rooms, as new neighborhoods and approaches shape what visitors encounter. For food-focused travelers, Las Vegas offers a front-row seat to a city redefining itself under renewed attention.

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The last course

Taken together, these trips suggest a quiet recalibration of what makes travel feel worthwhile. The appeal lies less in spectacle and more in access, in being invited into kitchens, fields and forests where food takes form long before it is served. As food tourism continues to evolve, the meals that linger may be the ones that ask travelers to slow down, participate and accept that the most memorable experiences are often earned, not presented.

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Jennifer Allen is a retired chef turned traveler, cookbook author and nationally syndicated journalist; she’s also a co-founder of Food Drink Life, where she shares expert travel tips, cruise insights and luxury destination guides. A recognized cruise expert with a deep passion for high-end experiences and off-the-beaten-path destinations, Jennifer explores the world with curiosity, depth and a storyteller’s perspective. Her articles are regularly featured on the Associated Press Wire, The Washington Post, Seattle Times, MSN and more.