guestpost by wonkie
I’ve been thinking. There’s a lot of discussion on Bluesky of the “Dems don’t fight” type. The Democratic party is at a low point in opinion polling, probably because of the image of Dems as not fighters. There’s a feeling that the times demand a different sort of rhetoric from Democrats.
I’ve also been thinking about how to talk to MAGAS and MAGA adjacents.
I think it’s worth exploring how to communicate with MAGAs because, even when King Pussygrabber strokes out on the toilet at three in the morning, we won’t be over the madness. We will still have the MAGA voters, the Republican party’s commitment to the election tactics of Othering and engineered polarization, and the extensive well-funded Republican hate/fear propaganda bubble (Faux, etc) which, for many people, substitutes for news and shapes their voting behavior.
So my question is: Are MAGAs born or made? Yes, I know the dichotomy doesn’t exist in nature because the human experience is too messy for that. However, I do think there are people who are more toward the born side while others are made, and I think it may make a difference in how we pull people out of the fear/hate propaganda bubble and reduce the engineered polarization.
By born, I mean those people who seem to have an innate predisposition for “othering”. Goebbels used what he called “the thrill of horror” to appeal to these people. So did Caroline Calloway when she wrote materials for Charlie Kirk. Turning Point USA Writer Says It’s “Designed To Scare People” Boogeyman stories have been a staple of Republican political discourse for decades, “The War on Christmas” being a comparatively innocuous example compared to the current “Portland is on fire! Antifa is terrorizing the city!!!” There seems to be people who just fall for this shit naturally. Maybe the opportunity to be thrilled with the horror at the Other makes their life seem like a heroic fight against evil—and all from the safety of their couch. All they have to do is watch Faux and feel the thrill!
Caroline Calloway, the young woman in the link above, seems to be more of a “made” person. She grew up in a religious conservative family and was recruited into Saint Charlie of Free Speech for Conservatives Only (TPUSA. Dare I compare them to the Red Guard? There are similarities) at 17. Her role was to write hate literature designed to give that thrill of horror of the Other–meaning Black men and Democrats—to young white people.
Sadly for Turning Point, they lost their propagandist when she went to college and studied poli sci. Exposed to the wider world and some reality therapy, Caroline had a “crisis of faith”, left TPUSA, and is no longer a conservative.
How did that happen? In her case, learning about systems of governance and experiencing people outside of the framework of her upbringing, combined with her ability to examine herself and to change, led her to recognize that her deepest values lay outside the bubble of conservatism as she experienced it. She valued fairness, freedom of speech for everyone, the common good, civility, empathy. She didn’t learn those values at college; she already had them before she got there. Her change came when she realized that Charlie Kirk, TPUSA, and the Republican party all exist in contradiction to those values. That left the door open for her to walk out of the bubble and toward the Democrats.
This, of course, is why Kirk’s organization targets universities. He, and the heirs of his hate propaganda business, aren’t interested in free speech and are only secondarily interested in recruitment of young people. Their goal is to prevent anyone who grew up in the bubble from escaping through exposure to life outside the bubble while at a university. Hence, Kirk’s watch list of professors to be driven out of their jobs for thought crimes. And the beat goes on: Rutgers professor known as ‘Dr Antifa’ shares plans to relocate to Europe.
I don’t think it really matters that much if Trump is around to be the Dear Leader of MAGA or not. When he is gone, there will still be a whole Republican party that enabled him to the max and the hate/fear propaganda bubble will still be poisoning our political discourse.
So how do we communicate to break through the bubble? I don’t know what will work, but I know what doesn’t work: the traditional Democratic approach of being politely reasonable in discussion of policy based on the polite pretense that Congressional Republicans are capable of acting in good faith and the traditional “rise above them” response to Republican slanders, while outsourcing the more bluntly truthful discussion to Raw Story. The conventional “wisdom” was that Dems should appear moderate and reasonable to retain credibility with the MSM and pundits like David Brooks.
The result is a milquetoast speaking style where the content of the remarks is obscured by professorial language and a passionless affect. Schumer does this all the time.
Fuck that shit.
When someone needs to be told to fuck off then tell them to fuck the hell off.
I think we need to communicate moral outrage and patriotism forcefully while openly attacking Republican tactics. Start the Truth and Reconciliation with loud, clear, unequivocal truths about the Republican party leaders’ behavior and actions. Expose them. Contradict them. Mock them. Attack them.
It feels to me like Tim Walz was on the right track with his line about weirdness. (How ‘Republicans Are Weird’ Caught Fire Thanks to Tim Walz) There was a lot of concern trolling about that from the msm and some Dems about that. Oh no, no, no, Democrats must be polite and rise above etc. Plus there was Republican outrage. (Democratic party’s ‘Trump is weird’ strategy rattles Republicans) But I believe that when Dems say things that trigger an attack of hysterics on the part of Republicans, then they have probably hit a nerve and should repeat whatever they said louder. The decision to drop the “They’re weird” attack was, I think, a mistake.
More of this, please:
Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said, “Healthcare for illegal aliens” is the new “immigrants are eating cats and dogs in Springfield. The Republican Playbook is simple: make up a baseless lie, repeat it every chance you get, hope and pray that everyone blames Democrats for the crisis you created. Republicans don’t want to govern. They want to rule.”
He doesn’t politely explain a Dem POV—he calls Republican politicians racist liars, exposes their bad faith, and clearly explains their malicious trickery. He asserts the bare truth in terms that anyone can understand.
Or this: Pritzker warns against Trump sending troops to Illinois in raging speech:
‘Jackbooted thugs’ Over the top talk? Nope: An ICE agent rammed a woman’s car, shouted abuse at her and shot her—and then lied about who rammed who. There’s a video! There’s also a video of ICE agents murdering an immigrant and don’t forget the helicopter raid on an apartment building and the zip tied children. We need to call things by their real names—no toning down for the sake of appearing moderate. Stop worrying about pleasing the NYT editors and Politico. Put the truth out there, bluntly.
Or this: ICE Barbie (Kristi Noem Triggered by Man in Chicken Suit on Portland Trip). I like the characterization of Neom as a humorless poseur who shouts about antifa terrorists when she sees a man in a chicken costume. Mockery is a good tool for exposing bad faith.
The “kitchen table issues” are moral issues and should be talked about that way. “Lives are at stake. Republicans need to fund health care. Their plan is immoral.” (cf Facebook)
Will this jar the “born” people to abandon the Republican hate/fear propaganda? I don’t know. There’s a subset of the Republican base that gets a vicarious thrill out of what they see as displays of power. If there is any way to communicate with them, it will have to be by displaying power back at Republican leaders. Besides, it’s a moral imperative to stand up to thugs and bullies. Can Democrats jar people like Caroline into a recognition that their good values are contradicted by the patterns of behavior shown by most Republican leaders and organizations? Maybe. There are Republican voters who value fairness; have respect for the law; dislike bullies and thugs; don’t want government of, by and for the superrich; and don’t want to be aligned with unconstitutional behavior. The Republican leaders have engaged in false advertising about their entirely imaginary moral superiority for decades while Democrats talked about policy on the assumption that policy was understood to arise from values. It’s way past time for Democrats to claim morality LOUDLY AND OVERTLY and to put issues into a moral framework. Do that, and the Carolines of our society will have a way out of the fear/hate propaganda bubble.
I think we need to give the Overton Window of acceptable discourse a good hard yank in the direction of Dems being bad asses when it comes to word choice and phrasing. We’ve endured decades of Republican engaging in slanderous lying while Dems held themselves and were held by the media to a higher standard. I think we need to remain truthful, but polite? Moderate in tone? Fuck that shit.
Someday, hopefully, we’ll go through a truth and reconciliation phase. Let’s get that started by shouting the truths out loudly and clearly
* I doubt the folks saying that are really gonna want to live in a world where it’s “all torn down”.
BIllionaires and centi-billionaires excepted. They have, as the colloquial expression goes, fuck you money. They’ll be fine no matter what.*
I’m sure that they think that. But how fine they will be is likely to depend on whether they manage to flee the country in time. Because, if they stay and it’s all torn down, they are going to present an irresistible target.
Sure, they can hire guys with guns to defend them. But the thing is, those guys with guns are going to want to be paid. AND they are going to want somewhere to spend that pay. If it’s all torn down, that’s going to be problematic.
I agree: what Pro Bono said. And on his last bullet point, about the SCOTUS, it’s going to be interesting to see if this makes any difference (my guess is not, but I suppose it could give a bit of cover in case any of the disgraceful 6 is starting to feel uncomfortable)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/us/politics/originalism-trump-supreme-court-unitary-executive.html?unlocked_article_code=1.tE8.z6ee.Bseton8hbgR1&smid=url-share
. The call a thug a thug post was about how DEM POLITICIANS need to speak, not individual MAGA voters , The communication needs to be directed toward independents, new voters, nonvoters, people who previously haven’t followed politics much etc to keep them from failing for the Noise Machine bullshit.
Yes, it is true that the cult isn’t ideological of philosophical in nature. It is the result of decades of smears, defamation, lies, and other “Othering” techniques intended to polarize for the purpose of creating a base that will vote R no matter how bad R policies are out of a conviction that everyone who isn’t an R is an existential threat to real true good American values. Remember wedge issues? Framing complex issues as simplified good versus evil dichotomies? Republican party leaders did that purposefully to convince Republican voters that the Democratic party had bad values and was a threat to their good values. While Rove was creating polarization through good/bad framing . other Republicans were spreading outright defamation such as the Swift Boat Liars. It was all Othering. Tactical, not philosophical. And the hate and fearmongering directed by the Republican party toward the rest of America has been going on for years and years and years.
Of course the whole time the Republican party/Faux/etc propaganda network was in high gear, the propagandists used faux victimization whenever anyone criticized them. How dare anyone call the Swift Boat Liars liars? How dare anyone criticize the content produced by Limbaugh, Coulter, Malkin. That’s cancel culture! It has been normal for decades for elected Republicans to engage in the promotion of hate and division while Dems were not supposed to object because to do so was supposedly to be engaging in divisiveness.
If people want to spend time talking actual policy with MAGA voters they can do so and maybe they will be able to break through sometimes. But the evidence of voting patterns shows that r voters usually vote R even when they are aware that they are voting for policies they oppose. Heck they kept on voting R even when their majour news sources Faux and Newsmax were revealed as liars. They even re-elected TRump even though Trump instigated a violent attack on Congress. Most R voter vote R no matter what. Some examples: in an interview with the head of the farmers’ soybean special interest group, the head said that Trump’s tariffs were bad but he’d vote for Trump again. Walz spent time talking to white union guys who nodded and agree on lots of issues but said they were voting for Trump. Biden bailed out union pensions, supported strikes, raised union wages, and lost the white male union vote. I read an interview with a R pol from Louisiana who was mourning the toxic wastes that had been spread around the state by floods. He told the reporter that he knew the state party was bad on environment issues, but he had to vote R because Republicans, he said, were Christians.
Othering is when a group of people is smeared with a false negative generalization. Kirk was othering when he said that white people were targeted for attack by roaming bands of black men. Elected Republicans nationwide are othering now when they say the No Kings Day even is a “hate America” event. Othering is when the Republican party decided to claim to be “pro-life” as opposed to the babykilling Democrats.
Othering is so common from Republicans and their media that it is normative. And no it is not othering them to say that–because othering is a false generalization, not an accurate one.
So how should a Dem politician run for office in this toxic polarized society created by Republican propaganda? Step one is to communicate reality clearly to the people not in the cult. Give voters a choice and make the choice obvious. Do it with humor as when Dem Sen Wyden said that Cosplay Cop Kristie was afraid of a man in a chicken suit or do it with moral outrage like Pritzker or stand up in public and say, in effect, bring in on while flooding the zone with lawsuits like WA Governor Ferguson. But do not treat propaganda from the Republicans as if it is good faith ideas for discussion.
Every other President in my lifetime has represented himself as serving in the interests of all Americans: this one is for his people only.
He’s not even doing that, at least if equate “his people” with people who voted for him. His tariff war is seriously damaging for a variety of farmers. Cutting the ACA market subsidies will do particular damage in red states that haven’t expanded Medicaid. The Medicaid cuts are going to exacerbate the financial problems facing rural hospitals.
When I was on the budget staff for my state’s legislature, from time to time I heard members from rural areas say, “The Front Range urban corridor has declared war on rural Colorado.” My job was understanding the state’s cash flows. I was always tempted to say, “No, they haven’t. You’ll know they’ve declared war when the subsidies for your schools, roads, health care, electricity, and phone service stop.”
Give me a shiny plane and I’ll let you build a base in Idaho.
The request for a training facility was made in 2017, shortly after the Obama administration approved selling current versions of the F-15 Strike Eagle to Qatar. Like most military base construction, there’s a ton of hoops to jump through. Not long ago the final environmental impact statement was finished, so they announced the training facility. Badly. Horribly. Using terms that don’t describe things accurately.
Singapore already has a training facility at the same air base for their F-15 pilots and mechanics. And a facility at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona for their F-16 pilots and mechanics. Both planes are supersonic; neither Singapore nor Qatar are big enough (in square miles) to support a supersonic practice range. Mountain Home is close to the Utah Test and Training Range, and Luke to the Nevada Test Site, where low-level supersonic flights are allowed. And it’s easier to house a few of the exact planes you’re buying in the US than try to ferry some in over great distances.
The request for a training facility was made in 2017
Noted, and a fair call. I stand corrected.
What are your thoughts about the unilateral defense agreement with Qatar?
bc: Criticizing a side for “othering” by what seems to be to be “othering” of another sort isn’t a winning proposition.
Criticizing Nazis for “othering” Jews by politely refraining from “othering” Nazis is surely a losing proposition — if the audience is mainly Nazi supporters. People might support the Nazis for all sorts of reasons other than Jew hatred, you see.
I’m sorry to tell you, bc, that those of my fellow Americans who are indifferent to, never mind approving of, the Gestapo tactics of Dear Leader’s brown-shirted (literally!) masked thugs will always be “others” to me. If they choose to shrug off fascism, how would you advise people like me to reason with them?
Whatever your advice might be, I say this much is true: they are more likely to listen to you than to me. We godless America-hating soshulist anit-fascists are automatically suspect. Assuming you are anti-fascist yourself, maybe you should caution them about “othering”. Maybe you can point out to them that the fascism is part of a package deal with the tax cuts for billionaires (and whatever else) they voted for. If it turns out that doing that gets you “othered” by them, welcome to the club.
–TP
Pro Bono:
I don’t think your comments are as much wrong as ignoring the full picture.
1) Immigration. Immigration was higher in Trump’s first term than in Bidens. Ackman is wrong.
Immigration was higher? By what metric? Legal or illegal? I think naturalizations were higher under Trump in his first term, but illegal border crossings in the south were way up under Biden as soon has he changed remain in Mexico. He hid some of those by granting parole where it had not been granted before. And Biden changed course right before the election. See more here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2024/02/11/trump-biden-immigration-border-compared/
2) Trump in his first term showed himself to be indifferent to the national debt. Ackman is wrong.
I guess it depends on who you read. I do think there is some truth here (Trump being somewhat indifferent in the first term), but I think Biden was far worse than Trump. Frex:
https://www.heritage.org/debt/commentary/the-lefts-7-trillion-lie-biden-far-outpaces-trump-racking-the-national-debt
7) The USA has been a net fossil fuel exporter since 2019. Ackman is wrong.
Well, there is a difference between coal, LNG and crude oil, right? The US is still a net crude oil importer. It was headed down until 2020.
I have a few questions about blog format that you mentioned bc, so I hope I can ask you later about that, but I did want to point out one thing
I guess it depends on who you read. I do think there is some truth here (Trump being somewhat indifferent in the first term), but I think Biden was far worse than Trump.
I’m guessing that COVID spending could be debited 50/50 to Trump and Biden, but the article doesn’t mentions the CHIPs act or the Infrastructure Investment act. Also, I had to look, but another program that significantly increased debt was the PACT act
https://www.va.gov/resources/the-pact-act-and-your-va-benefits/
One has to wonder how all these things are going to fare after the DOGE CF.
So yes, all of these things increased the debt under Biden, but you can’t wave your hand and have the underlying issues disappear. That heritage page is pretty disingenuous, imo.
<i>What are your thoughts about the unilateral defense agreement with Qatar?</i>
I’m going to lift up Michael’s comment to the front page, with some comments from me. I think it is a very interesting topic and one that might bring out a lot of discussion.
It seems weird to me to be discussing whether or not Omelas was in better shape under Biden or under Trump when the part of the story that is being ignored in order to make this response is that Trump has decided that too few children have been tortured in order to make Omelas great, and that Biden was a pussy for having not had the courage to grab more kids to torture in order to launch Omelas into high gear towards greatness.
Oh, and everyone else in the world sucks compared to Omelas and needs to jump on the kid torturing regime ASAP or else their countries are going to sink just like Omelas under Biden.
What are your thoughts about the unilateral defense agreement with Qatar?
Is there an alternative? No one else will lease us enough space for the air base we operate there. Parking a carrier in the Persian Gulf is at least impractical, and may not be able to fly everything we fly out of Qatar. Iran has already launched missiles at Qatar once because of our presence. That one was face-saving, but if you were Qatar, wouldn’t you want a “we’ve got your back” guarantee in the event of real attack? Even more pressing, perhaps, since Iran signed security agreements with Pakistan, who has nukes and ballistic delivery systems that can reach Qatar.
bc:
1) Legal immigration was lower under Biden than Trump. As to the effects of Biden’s “open border policy” on illegal immigration: there were none, because there was no such policy.
2) Trump was and is keen on deficit-funded tax cuts. Biden was keen on deficit-funded spending. Biden at least was spending the money to boost an economy which had been depressed by COVID (and it worked). Neither should be attractive to a deficit hawk.
7) Yes, the US is a net exporter of natural gas, a net importer of oil. But the oil imports are not because of reduced domestic production – it reached a record high in 2023 (the last year I’ve found data for).
6) (I left this out before because I didn’t know about it). So far as I know, shoplifting is not a federal matter – it’s nothing to do with the president.
I imagine we could get somewhere near a consensus on these things, if we discussed them for long enough. And that at most it would support Ackman’s preference for some of Trump’s policies where they favour the things Ackman likes, such as burning fossil fuels. And we could go through the whole list similarly.
The one thing I clearly agree with him about is his distaste for the Ds’ nomination of Biden in 2024. That’s a reason to vote for the obviously dementing Trump rather than Harris?
One more jab: (3) is ridiculous – he voted for Trump because Biden implemented the withdrawal from Afghanistan which Trump had committed to?
“I think Biden was far worse than Trump.”
When is it appropriate for a nation to borrow? What is accomplished with the money that is borrowed?
The feds spent a lot of money under Biden. We took on a lot of debt. And for that, we came out of the COVID pandemic with a robust economy, much more so that peer nations. Big investments in infrastructure.
Trump is loading the country up with debt in the interest of making Trump’s 2017 tax cuts permanent. Qui bono? I mean, we’d all like more cash in hand at the end of the month, but what are we cutting to make that happen? If you’re making a middle class wage and you end up with an extra 3% a year, but your local hospital closes and your health insurance premium doubles and your public infrastructure in general goes to shit, are you better off?
And FWIW, the highest level of debt-to-GDP ratio in recent years was first quarter of 2020 – 132.8%. Who was POTUS then? Also FWIW, I don’t have a problem with the national debt spiking up 1Q 2020 because we were in the middle of a freaking plague. Nonetheless, those are the numbers.
When the nation borrows, what is done with the money? Are we investing in the future? Or are we starving the public sector and assuming the public sector will just pick up the slack? And if so, will it?
“No one else will lease us enough space for the air base we operate there.”
Thank you Michael. That makes sense, and I appreciate your calling it out.
As to the effects of Biden’s “open border policy” on illegal immigration: there were none, because there was no such policy.
This statement just beggars belief. Biden invited the border rush during his campaign. He ended the Remain in Mexico program on day one. He refused to finish construction of the wall. He ordered no deportations in the first 100 days. His administration (Mayorkas) stated that the unlawful presence was not by itself a basis for an enforcement action. Forget the law. Mayorkas expanded parole unlawfully, extending it well beyond the statutory framework. CBP Mobile One anyone? Asylum lost its meaning. We all saw it. This was the top issue for a lot of voters.
I don’t understand why you are playing cute with this one, Pro Bono. You acknowledge legal immigration was larger under Trump. Great. The issue is not legal immigration, which most Americans find unobjectionable and welcome.
As for Afghanistan, it was the execution of the withdrawal, as you likely know. There was a way to do it safely. Biden had a date in mind and stuck with it. He owns it.
Russell:
When is it appropriate for a nation to borrow? What is accomplished with the money that is borrowed?
Totally valid questions. I was simply focusing on “indifference to deficits.” And I think Biden was a mixed bag. I don’t cast much if any blame on the COVID spending bills themselves, whether by Biden or Trump. But BBB was such a grab bag. I didn’t mind the pure infrastructure components. The resulting IRA was anything but its name. That was simply too much given the huge amount of spending on COVID, IMHO. And that’s even before one considers the green pork.
“There was a way to do it safely. Biden had a date in mind and stuck with it. He owns it.”
First, there was? Care to share how it might have been done safely?
Second, Biden didn’t have a date in mind. Trump (before he left) had established the date. Biden was stuck either totally reworking the pullout, or trying to execute what he was handed. In retrospect, he should have abrogated the pullout agreement Trump had made, and created a viable plan. And just accepted the fact that he would be totally trashed for doing so.
Did it go badly? No question. But from where I sit, Trump owns it. Or would, if he ever accepted responsibility for anything.
Non-partisan discussion of Biden’s border policies.
The summary is that Biden went back to policy before Trump, which hadn’t much differed between Republican and Democratic administrations. Calling that an “open-border policy” is not factual.
So if you like Trump, yes, you’ll think Biden wasn’t cruel enough. But you wouldn’t switch from your previous support for Democratic candidates because Biden agreed with the presidents you’d previously supported.
Wjca summed up my own response about Afghanistan. The only thing I’d add is that blame could be assigned not just to Biden, not just to Trump, but also to Bush II who got us into that war without a clear mission.
Were we after Al Qaeda? The Taliban? Were we there just to eliminate a threat to the US? Or are we going to transform Afghanistan into a modern liberal republic?
I’d add Rumsfeld, who had his own vision and agenda for “modernizing the military” which ended up leaving the effort short on resources.
And I’d add all the war mongering creeps in the Bush II administration who took 9/11 as their free pass to invade Iraq.
So, all of them.
And if you want to keep the (D) vs (R) score even I’ll add Carter, who funded and armed the mujahadin – the proto-Taliban – to stick it to Russia.
That’s about 50 years of history landing in Biden’s lap. It was a mess, because everything about our engagement with Afghanistan has been a mess. He did well to get us the hell out of there.
On a different topic, I’m all in favor of “green pork”. The fossil industries have had a stranglehold on our public energy policy for decades, they are going to do everything they can to make sure every freaking ounce of fossil fuel that is still in the ground gets extracted and burned, because most of the book value of those companies is based on doing exactly that.
We’ve passed several milestones in the advent of our new climate, and we don’t appear to be making much progress in slowing any of that down. The market does not appear to be getting it done, so I’m fine with the public sector – government – stepping in.
YMMV, that’s how I see it.
His administration (Mayorkas) stated that the unlawful presence was not by itself a basis for an enforcement action.
People LIke Me always make this point when immigration comes up, but since I am a Person LIke Me, I guess I’ll make it again.
Being in the United States without some kind of legal status is a civil, not a criminal, violation.
Law enforcement, at all levels, needs to prioritize where they will direct their efforts. Resource are not infinite, so choices have to be made.
Here is a discussion of the policies instituted under Mayorkas:
https://www.valverdelaw.com/unlawful-status-alone-should-not-be-the-basis-for-an-enforcement-action-under-new-guidelines
The purpose of the guidelines is to provide direction to ICE to help them prioritize who they will pursue, and why. The guidelines state that enforcement should be directed toward people who *pose a threat* to the public.
Mayorkas further observes, correctly, that there are 11 million undocumented people in the US. I hope we can all agree that it’s not practical to find and deport 11 million people. So choices have to be made.
Go after people who are a threat.
I live very close to large immigrant communities. For a number of years, I lived in the Point neighborhood in Salem MA, which was then and still is a largely Dominican community. I attend a church that has about a 60% Latino congregation. I’ve volunteered at a local food bank whose clientele includes Dominicans, Brazilians, Haitians, Russians and other Eastern European folks. Also plain old white bread Americans who need access to free or cheap food.
I am aware of the issues around immigration, aware in general of the problems it creates, and also aware of how we benefit from immigrants.
The sticking point for immigration – the place where it is hugely problematic, rather than just one of several issues to deal with – is at the southern border. Because it’s closer to the countries that many migrants come from, and because people can basically just walk there.
I absolutely understand that the issues facing someone living in a border area in TX or AZ or CA are different than the issues facing me. I’m surrounded by migrants, but they aren’t wandering homeless through my neighborhood in large numbers. Or any numbers.
It’s a problem of a different quality.
My understanding is that the Biden policies exacerbated the problem *at the southern border*. Maybe exacerbated it a lot, i don’t have numbers. If you want to blame him for that, I will recognize that as a fair point. He did take steps to remedy that, as you point out “because of an election”. He recognized he was vulnerable there.
And Trump prevented those changes from taking place. Because of an election.
Politicians’ minds are concentrated by elections. Not ideal, but that’s the reality.
The approach Trump and Miller are taking right now is creating holy f***ing havoc where I live. People afraid to leave their homes, afraid to send their kids to school, afraid to go to work. Not just illegal people, but literally anybody brown, anyone who speaks Spanish or speaks English with an accent.
People who were born in this country, and who have lived all their lives here. Afraid to go out of the house. Because ICE under Trump and Miller are a freaking terroristic goon squad.
Illegals are seized, citizens are seized, anybody who looks like they might possibly by Latino.
I sometimes attend a standing weekly demonstration at the local ICE facility in Burlington MA. It’s basically an office building, with no facilities for holding people. The agreement ICE has with either the leaseholder or the town (not sure which) is that nobody will be held overnight, or at least for more than a day.
People are held there for many days. Weeks in some cases. They sleep on a concrete floor with a Mylar blanket. Many in one big room, with one toilet that offers minimal privacy. No place to shower. No medical facilities. No kitchen.
Undocumented people, people who are not citizens but have legal status, and citizens. All picked up and held in this shithole.
ICE has been unresponsive to requests from the town to inspect the facility. They have refused entry to members of Congress.
They are an unaccountable violent militarized goon squad.
I’m sympathetic to folks who live in southern border areas. I have family that lives in a southern border area, and they often feel that things are out of control.
But what Trump and MIller are doing is not making things any better. It’s freaking mayhem.
Long post, sorry for that. Need to get some of this crap off my chest.
May be apropos to the current discussion:
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/70966/what-is-a-reactionary-centrist-does-uk-have-them
This being just a taste, not the sum total of what I think is apropos. Again, worth a read.
Washington Examiner had an article today about an imaginary group supposedly teaching people how to use vandalism against ICe in Chicago. There is a Facebook page put up by someone with people making suggestions along those lines ( an ICE operation? Is anyone actually dumb enough to advocate crime on FB?) but the actual groups doing training are very scrupulous about document only–do nothing that could justify an arrest. Kid Twat is quoted in another article bemoaning unAmerican youth. There was another Kirk-deification piece about those mean Dems who aren’t being sufficiently worshipful of Saint Charlie of Free Speech for Conservatives. This is Goebbels-style propaganda and it is a multiple times a day occurrence every fucking day and has been for decades.
But if I call it out for what it is, supposedly I’m being as bad as or the same as the haters.
Fuck no.
Maybe the Republican party wouldn’t have degenerated into the corrupt, fascist, anti-Constitutional front for religious extremists and oligarchs that it is today if the rest of us had spent the last twenty-five years LOUDLY DENOUNCING THEIR FASCIST PROPAGANDA instead of trying to be “reasonable” while politely engaging in discussion of issues.
wonkie – Maybe the Republican party wouldn’t have degenerated into the corrupt, fascist, anti-Constitutional front for religious extremists and oligarchs that it is today if the rest of us had spent the last twenty-five years LOUDLY DENOUNCING THEIR FASCIST PROPAGANDA instead of trying to be “reasonable” while politely engaging in discussion of issues.
…or if the “concerned republicans” had actually been critical of the alt-right and had chosen to ally with the centrist democrats rather than choosing to conciliate their radicals and blame the “radical liberals.”
There’s a whole lot of quiet complicity enabling this lawless administration, and all of this hindsight is blame shifting.
A final thought, or comment, about immigration.
A lot of places in the world are stressed, for a lot of different reasons. Poverty, environmental issues caused by climate change, war and general anarchic violence.
We’re very lucky to live where we do.
All of the above is going to result in people wanting to emigrate. To go somewhere else where they will not be subject to violence, not be desparately poor. Not be miserable in any of a thousand ways.
All of that is not necessarily new, but the scale of it is likely to change. Is, in fact, changing. And there are a lot more ways to get from one place to another now.
We need an intelligent immigration policy. One that recognizes the realities named above. One that recognizes the value of immigrants to this country. One that isn’t rooted in the mythology of white supremacy – that recognizes that “real Americans” come, and have always come, in all colors creeds and nationalities.
One that is sane and humane. One that is enforceable without descending into a police state, which is where we are, right now.
It’s where we are, right now.
People are gonna try to come here. The overwhelmingly vast majority of them – overwhelmingly – want to come, work, and make a decent life.
That is how most of us ended up here.
We let a bit more than a million folks a year into this country as lawful permanent residents. That’s generous! A lot! Especially by international standards.
But it’s about 3% of the population. We could increase that significantly and not get close to “they’re gonna replace us” levels.
It’s an issue that IS NOT going to go away. Folks are going to migrate, because if the alternative is getting killed or starving, you will take your chances.
So we need to find a constructive way to deal with that. One that does not require masked anonymous agents in full military kit breaking into homes and smashing car windows to grab random people because they are brown.
Which is what we do now.
Do we really want to live like this?
The church I attend locks the doors during services because ICE is perfectly likely to march in and start grabbing people. It’s not an overreaction, it’s a realistic assessment of where we are right now.
Is this how we want to live?
But it’s about 3% of the population.
I think that should be 0.3% (1 million per 340 million).
Well, still better than the billions of illegals and illegal votes in California alone that His Orangeness used to rant about. 😉
I think that should be 0.3% (1 million per 340 million)
Argh. Yes, you are correct!
The 3% is the number of undocumented aliens in the US – in recent years somewhere around 11+ million, growing to about 14 million now.
https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2025/08/21/u-s-unauthorized-immigrant-population-reached-a-record-14-million-in-2023/
That number sounds like a lot, but if I follow it all correctly it includes folks who may not have been granted permanent residency but who are protected from deportation for any of a variety of reasons.
Those folks, who actually are trying to “come here the right way” according the the policies in place when they came, make up about 40% of the 14 million. A lot of the policies that grant them protection from deportation were instituted by Biden, and are being removed by Trump. So who knows what will happen to them.
Net/net, as your correction indicates (thank you!), we grant permanent legal residency – a green card, with permission to live and work here – to about one-third of one percent of the overall population.
We’re not in danger of being replaced, or overwhelmed with sneaky illegal votes. There are places in the country that *are* stressed by the levels of immigration we see now – I live in one – but in most places even that is not an issue. Or at least is being managed effectively.
Trump doesn’t like brown people. Miller doesn’t like brown people. So they want to throw the brown people out. And they are hiring / have hired a bunch of out of control yahoos to make that happen.
That’s where we are at.
This seems like the best thread to mention the group texts of Young Republicans. In the spirit of wonkie’s original subject, high-profile Democrats should be pointing this out to the non-MAGA electorate. This is the progeny of the beknighted Charlie Kirk, who was demonstrably a white Christian nationalist despite his superficial “civility.”
This is who they are – by choice. Saying so is not othering. It is truth.
hsh, do you have a link?
Here’s one from your side of the pond, GftNC.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/15/young-republicans-racist-group-chat-messages-leaked