Trump’s approval rating is in the toilet already, mostly thanks to his dumb trade war, which seems to be pushing the country toward the recession that was widely predicted but failed to materialize during Biden’s presidency. It’s a giant self-own because all the orange fart cloud had to do was what he did the first time a plurality was irresponsible enough to elect him: sit back and take credit for a predecessor’s work.
Immigration is the one issue where Trump still has significant public support. In recent polls (example at Axios), about half of Americans approve of how Trump is handling immigration.
I suspect that support is thinner than the numbers suggest. It probably depends on how the questions are phrased. If you dig down and ask questions about specific incidents (like shipping non-criminal U.S. residents to foreign gulags) or techniques (targeting law-abiding foreign students for protected speech), public support numbers would likely drop, but that’s just speculation.
A piece by Nick Miroff in The Atlantic on Trump’s upcoming mass deportation plans indicates we’ll find out soon enough. The article says Republicans will increase ICE funding dramatically in a reconciliation bill they’re currently hammering out in Congress:
Using the budget-reconciliation process, Republican lawmakers are now preparing to lavish ICE with a colossal funding increase—enough to pay for the kind of social and demographic transformation of the United States that immigration hard-liners have long fantasized about achieving.
Although GOP factions in the House and Senate have squabbled over the contours of the bill, spending heavily on immigration enforcement has bicameral support. The reconciliation bill in the Senate would provide $175 billion over the next decade. A House version proposes $90 billion.
To put those sums in perspective, the entire annual budget of ICE is about $9 billion.
The Atlantic piece has details on how the administration plans to spend those pallets of cash. It will be a giant cash infusion for private prison outfits and Peter Thiel’s Palantir, which will target undocumented immigrants using data illegally exfiltrated from public agencies by Musk’s DOGE kinderchuds.
The plan also involves local sheriff and municipal police operations as manpower to do an unprecedented roundup targeting anyone who’s out of status and using data analytics to pick them up outside their homes to avoid the need for warrants.
Paul Hunker, who was formerly ICE’s lead attorney in Dallas, likened Trump’s deportation campaign to a gathering wave. “It seems intense now, but wait until five months from now when the reconciliation bill has passed and ICE gets a huge infusion of cash,’’ he told me. “If that money goes out, the amount of people they can arrest and remove will be extraordinary.’’
If these plans come to fruition, there won’t be a community that’s untouched in the country. The MAGA dopes who waved “mass deportations now” signs at rallies will love it (until they have to pay $5 for a tomato), but what about everyone else?
We’ve seen many leopards/faces moments in the past, where people in even the Trumpiest areas were sad and/or indignant about their hardworking immigrant friend being abruptly deported. I don’t think we know how the swing voters who decide elections will react to something on this scale.
Open thread.
On The Road – Elma – Bermuda on the Ultimate Around the World Cruise on Serenade of the and Other Observations
mardam
“Senate would provide $175 billion over the next decade. A House version proposes $90 billion.
To put those sums in perspective, the entire annual budget of ICE is about $9 billion.”
Wait. So the House version doesn’t increase funding at all? And the Senate version only doubles it? Is that really enough to do what the article says it will? Somebody wanna explain this to me?
lowtechcyclist
We shoulda shut down ICE while we had the chance.
If we did. After all, that would have been back in 2022, and Manchinema would have probably blocked any attempt.
Gin & Tonic
@mardam: Did you miss a factor of 10 in your reading?
Suzanne
We always go wrong when we imagine that Most People (normies, Ariana Grande voters, swing voters, whatever) have consistent principles that they hold true even when it’s difficult, that they are deeply offended by hypocrisy or bad behavior. Not to be dark.
mardam
@Gin & Tonic:
You tell me.
Annual budget 9billion
Over the next decade 90billion
9 times 10, carry the naught.
I’m no mathologist. But, yeah. That’s the same thing!!!!
Soprano2
@Gin & Tonic: It says those amounts are over ten years, not every year. If so, then mardam is correct. Something isn’t right about that article.
Mr. Mack
Very curious if anyone else here has seen a screed attributed to Liz Cheney currently making the rounds on FB? I don’t want to link to it (If I knew how) and it’s very long to copy/paste into a comment, but I will if asked.
sentient ai from the future
Well if the dipshit is successful in pushing Powell out of the fed, which he is agitating for, all that extra money will probably only be enough to buy a used Toyota and a 20 pack of flexcuffs.
Betty
@lowtechcyclist: Bill Kristol, of all people, agrees. He said those pushing for its abolition deserve an apology. As for poll numbers. I have seen reports that they drop dramatically when it comes to deporting law-abiding immigrants with families and jobs. The country needs its working immigrants. That message has to reach most. Even Chuck Grassley had to face angry constituents about the Garcia case.
artem1s
Evidence of Life on Distant Planet
If Soutpiel leaves today it will only take him roughly 350,000 years to get there.
Gin & Tonic
Since my son is married to a non-citizen, the increasing nativist hysteria keeps my background anxiety level high.
Gin & Tonic
@mardam: @Soprano2: Oh, thanks. On to my second cup of coffee.
Princess
They’re going to love everything about his immigration policies until it hits their pocketbooks. It hasn’t hit most people’s pocketbooks yet at all. Once people start feeling poor, they’re probably *still* going to love Trump’s deportations and concentration camps, but his overall popularity will still go down. Once people hated the Iraq war enough, GWB’s general approval rating went down, even though his approval rating for the economy stayed high.
Mr. Mack
Never mind, it’s been debunked. I think.
Soprano2
@Gin & Tonic: Plus, they need people to do what they want to do. Maybe that’s why he wants to cause a recession. They also need facilities to hold people in. I’m not sure they can ramp it up as fast as they think. They thought they could deport a lot more people quickly than they could. It’s not as easy to find these people as they think it is. ETA – but yeah, it’s going to be bad. I’m not sure now “normies” are going to react to stories about whole law-abiding families arrested accidentally because they have the “wrong” skin color or speak with an accent.
Soprano2
@Princess: Or wait until their favorite restaurant closes down because they deported the owner and most of the staff. It’s going to be horrific because they enjoy doing this.
Geminid
I think Ms. Cracker is correct as to support for the administration’s deportation policies being thinner than shown by polling. It will likely be to an extent transient.
Right now most people only read about the deportations so they think about this question in abstract terms. But before too long, they’ll be seeing it first hand as valuable members of their communities are swept up and deported.
This raises the question: will ICE hit hard in Texas and Florida? And if they do, what will be the reaction be like among those states’ large Hispanic communities and among the “Anglo” population.
hells littlest angel
I suspect they’ll be resentful at their loss of status, since we won’t be having elections any more.
artem1s
When the sheriffs get involved it’s going to be ‘give up your neighbor or else we’ll send you in their place’. Routine traffic stops are going to turn into swat raids. Everyone who doesn’t carry their ID with them 24/7/265 is gonna be ‘detained’ for questioning. It’s gonna be The Positively True Adventures of the Alleged Texas Cheerleader-Murdering Mom all day long in suburbia.
Betty Cracker
@mardam: Great catch; I don’t know what’s up with that. The author linked a NYT article that also suggests an enormous funding surge. Here’s a gift link, and here’s an excerpt:
We’ll see.
Suzanne
@Princess:
Or their kids’ nanny or their cleaning lady or whatever.
“Most people” just have a fairly narrow aperture, right? They see their small sphere of the world. Everything is abstract and thus not really important until an issue crosses that.
JWR
I haven’t been in the blogloop for much of the day, so these stories may have already been discussed:
And this one:
And finally, last night’s episode of Amanpour & Co should be rebroadcast today @ 9:00 A.M. PDT on PBSWrld. I think this is only the first half of the interview, but it’s good stuff just the same:
Nelle
Open thread request: We will mark our 45th wedding anniversary on April 19 by protesting at the Iowa State Capitol. I’m wordy and want a pithy sign. Can anyone provide some suggestions? I was thinking something about honoring oaths, but then it got too complicated.
It is a fitting way to mark this marriage. I married a man who was fired from a job for reporting overlooked violations of environmental laws. Was told to be quiet and he wasn’t. I knew that he would leave a job when asked to make ethical compromises and I admire him for that. He’s left three government jobs voluntarily, rather than do what was asked (fired in Alaska, left in Illinois, Maryland, and New Zealand). We left the States when Bush was re-elected. I knew I was in for potential frequent moves when I married him. We’ve lived in eight states and two countries. Not a boring life.
(I’ll be checking back. Our two year old grandson, aka “the mob boss,” is about to arrive for the day. Hilarity to ensue and I’ll be playing with magna tiles.)
Tom Levenson
Who is going to take care of everyone’s parents/grandparents (us) as they age into assisted living and beyond?
My experience with my mother-in-law’s care is that everyone from home health aids to the saints who work in memory care is foreign-born.
The ultra-rich won’t suffer (as usual) but you have to be pretty damn far up the income/wealth scale before such unconcern will be your lot.
Baud
The tariff war hasn’t really hit the economy that hard yet. It’ll get worse for Trump, and the rest of us.
Kristine
@Tom Levenson:
Pretty sure their plan is that the women they drive out of the workforce will take over that care. They will then cancel any and all support programs.
H.E.Wolf
[Kristine said it better! Go read her comment.]
WereBear
We’re taught to do that. To police our thinking as well as our behavior. It’s a bad habit I still try to find a way around.
Part of the lure of mindless conformity/cult thinking is how it frees up so much of one’s day.
Just move with the herd, “they” know more than you…
Until the terrible day when it all stops working.
Suzanne
@Tom Levenson:
And still the vast majority are women.
I guarantee that people are just LA LA LA LA LA not thinking about it. I never cease to be amazed by how many people will just…. not think about anything bad happening! They don’t want to imagine it, so they don’t! It’s an unbelievable form of delusion.
WereBear
@Nelle: “Keeping Promises” comes to mind. And congratulations!
Soprano2
@WereBear: So many people think everywhere is like the place they live. Travel helps change that mindset somewhat. It’s why some people I know can’t believe anyone voted for Harris, because they think everyone they know voted for FFOTUS.
BTW, I don’t know if you saw my comment the other day, but I’ve been reading your book and it’s helped me. I use the “Fist of Friendship” with my cats now, and it works! I also discovered that one of my cats is more Gamma and the other one is definitely an Alpha, which explains why it took so long for them to kind of get along. Now they chase each other around in the morning, and there isn’t much growling or hissing anymore, so progress!
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker:
Which, of course, really means something more like “to indefinitely detain a huge number of haphazardly kidnapped people, ranging from undocumented immigrants to legal residents and US citizens, in vast concentration camps, with no concrete charges and a deliberately sparse paper trail, while claiming they’re all gang members and terrorists”.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: The home health care agency I use says they are constantly being asked for male workers to care for men, but they don’t have many.
Deputinize America
I’m saying it now – every protest you attend, have (at minimum) your passport front page with you and maybe the whole thing. Ditto for entering any courthouse.
Don’t give ICE an opportunity to ship you out.
My other observation – the gomers who approve of this the most are in rural and exurban enclaves and never interact with immigrants.
This is America, and what it has always been deep down.
jonas
It’s clear Trump plans to turn CBP and ICE into a “protection unit” under his direct control. I recall there was a German word for that at one time. Look for their brief to expand *way* beyond immigration enforcement in coming years. Remember, they’re already tasked with stopping dangerous “ideas” at the border. With a couple billion more a year, they could be stopping dangerous ideas everywhere.
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: I’m seeing posts on FB about Garcia claiming that it was proven that he was a leader in MS-13 and a wife beater to boot. What I always say is that I believe in due process, that everyone should have it, and that he and others were sent to a horrible prison without it, which is wrong. I don’t want to fight with them about whether these things are true or not, because that’s not the important point. Even people who have done the worst things are supposed to get due process in our system before being imprisoned or deported.
SFAW
@Betty:
And Senator Fish-Mouth’s response was (approximately) “Well, the president of El Salvador isn’t under the jurisdiction of the SCOTUS.”
Yes, Catfish, I’m sure there is no way for the US to get Bukele to do what real Americans (not to be confused with “Real ‘Muricans”) want, if Donny “Oh, I can’t do nothin’, I’m so powerless, but watch me break these laws” Dump decided he wanted Garcia back by the weekend.
Fuck Grassley. *
I was heartened by the response to his bullshit, however.
ETA: *Not limited to Fish-Mouth, of course. If the entire Rethug Partei and their enablers were to get Husnock-ed tomorrow, the world would be a much better place.
Soprano2
With these people that’s the reason they want this to happen, because they want to keep it that way. You might be surprised at how many immigrants there are in some rural areas, which sometimes makes the white people more liable to want these deportations. Some of them feel like their town was “invaded” by these workers, and they don’t like it.
laura
Meet Joe Kent: https://mynorthwest.com/mynorthwest-politics/joe-kent-trump-administration/4039366
If confirmed, and if granted a metric shit- ton of taxpayer dollars, Joe Kent would like to designate certain American “groups” as terrorists, and “terrorists” could be subject to rendition to concentration camps beyond American shores. Currently, Joe Kent believes that both Black Lives Matter and “Antifa” (a non-existent organization) should be so designated as terrorists. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/04/joe-kent-tulsi-gabbard-national-counterterrorism-center-first-amendment-praetorian-robert-patrick-lewis/
For those who continue to not hear what Professor Bigfoot or the 92% of Black Women are saying- about the rise of violent white supremacists and not doing- protesting the administration in the streets this is a reason. Non-citizens are the first, but they will not be the last and anyone designated as a terrorist or terrorist adjacent would be subject to seizure and removal. Let that sink in. This is a white people problem to solve but the majority of white voters continue to vote republican. This old white lady will do her best to continue to shout above the defensive din of “not all white people” and warn of what is coming, and for whom, and beg for defending liberal democracy.
Jeffg166
@Gin & Tonic:
I know a woman who is a Venezuela native who spent her entire life in this country. She married an American, all her children were born here. She’s a permanent resident alien and has been for the last 50, 60, 70 years. I don’t really know. She is now 80. She says she won’t go quietly if they knock on her door.
sab
@Baud: I am so glad we replaced our roof last year ibstead of limping along with patches. Also too the new car.
Professor Bigfoot
I have refused to leave my house without my ID for the last 40 years because, well, this country has been a police state for some of us for a lot longer than that.
Denali5
Are we, the taxpayers, really going to pay to imprison people in foreign countries, as well as deport them? This is really asking a lot, and the current very public case is clarifying the issue.
I too am glad we replaced our roof last year with the help of workers from Ecuador who were trained here and did a very good job. Would not happen now under this administration.
SFAW
@Jeffg166:
Not to step on NotMax’s toes, but:
Obligatory
sab
@jonas: Almost everyone in America lives within 100 miles of an international airport, so we are all within ICE jurisdiction.
Ohio we have Cleveland and Port Columbus. And Toledo is <100 miles from Canadian border.
Princess
@Mr. Mack: I have seen the Cheney screed. I find it unlikely it is by her tbh. It was on a FB site that is in her name but not actually belonging to her.
jonas
Our local paper up here in CNY had an absolutely enraging story about cops coordinating with CPB and ICE to basically collar Hispanic-looking people for minor infractions and if they don’t speak fluent English, call over their colleagues to declare them illegals and ship them off. The other day they arrested a hugely threatening Guatemalan mother of two (one of whom is a US citizen) who had been terrorizing the area with her flagrant brown skin and Spanish.
If only she’d been indicted for billion-dollar white-collar fraud, she could expect a pardon from the president himself. Foolish poor people.
WereBear
@Soprano2: This makes me so happy! Thank you. <3
My trade paperback is available autographed from ME, folks.
I’m diversifying from Amazon into new outlets (Barnes & Noble, Apple, etc) as soon as I build the energy. Which was always planned, but now imperative.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: There are not a lot of men in that kind of home health. There’s definitely men in hospital nursing, but nowhere near parity.
One of the things that a lot of the women nurses I work with tell me is that men patients often “say pervy things” to them while they’re providing nursing care. I wonder if patients would say those things to a male caregiver.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
What makes them think these elected rural sheriff departments are going to put out of business the farmers in their county by rounding up all the farm labor? We already know the answer is no, because sheriffs refused to do that on pot growers and I am pretty sure pot doesn’t poll as well as food. There wouldn’t be ICE in the first place if local law enforcement was willing to do it.
sab
@Soprano2: Re wearbear’s advice. I read her book and it was the reason Dobby, formerly our Demon cat, has for several years been everyone’s happy little buddy and why we have seven cats happy under one roof.
And I was and am a dog person. I had to learn how to relate to cats. It wasn’t instinctively obvious to me.
Michael Bersin
@Nelle:
Practical Dissent: planting seeds
jonas
Oh they do, they just don’t recognize/acknowledge it. Their image of immigrants is the tat-covered gang members Fox News shows all day. They don’t see the dishwasher in their favorite restaurant, the nurse taking care of their mother with Alzheimers, or the guy trimming bushes at their business as aliens. They’re just the hard-working Hispanic people that keep this country humming. But of course now those are precisely the people ICE is picking up. Like BC said, a lot of MAGA is just chuffed about the opportunity to be cruel to poor working people like this, but a lot of swing voters, including not a few Hispanics who voted for Trump, are not going to approve. Like with the tariffs though, the economic fallout from all this is going to take time to register. But it will.
JWR
@Baud:
In the past few days, I’ve noticed this stuff seeping through the cracks on local, all non-Sinclair news. I’ve heard interviews with two SoCal companies, one a fabric designer, and one, a producer of a brand name nail polish. The reporters helpfully point out that while both are All-American companies, they’re both going to be slammed with price hikes anyways.
Also, I saw what I think is a new DHS anti-immigration screed pretending to be a PSA, delivered by Kristi Noem. She says if you’re here illegally, you will be arrested, deported, and never, ever allowed to return, and I can’t help but think that last bit is in reference to the Gulag we’re helping to fill in El Salvador.
This Democracy is in deep doo doo.
Betty Cracker
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Don’t know if you can access the linked Atlantic article, but the author does touch on that issue. The cops he quoted talked more about lack of resources as an impediment rather than other types of objections.
schrodingers_cat
The only immigrants most Americans like are their own ancestors who were immigrants. So yes Orange can continue demonizing them without paying any political price
The people supposedly on our side who began and ended their days for the past 4 years criticizing Biden for faults real and imaginary and encouraging people not to vote. You own this. Congrats.
RevRick
@Suzanne: You’re absolutely right about this being an abstraction for most people, just as government is an abstraction…or climate change…or the matter of increasing manufacturing in the United States. And because such things are abstractions, people are largely free to fill in the blanks with whatever they think that may mean.
So, it becomes easy to demagogue on such issues and offer simplistic solutions. “Get rid of illegals!” “Cut government spending!” “Climate change is a hoax!” “Tariffs will bring back manufacturing jobs!”
Superficially, those slogans make sense. But reality is adamantine. Raise tariffs, and suddenly you tank the stock and bond markets and get cut off from the supply of rare earth minerals. Deport masses of the undocumented, and you end up screwing up important sectors of the economy, such as food production and home building.
We humans like a world we can depend upon, one that operates with a certain regularity. One where when we step on the gas, our car goes faster, and when we step on the brakes, we slow to a stop. So, discontinuities like soaring inflation, soaring crime, a sinking economy, a lawless government freak people out. We find ourselves inhabiting an unfamiliar world, and it’s scary. And scared people do one of two things: they lash out or they look for places to hide.
sab
@Kristine: Haven’t they already defunded Meals on Wheels that feeds and does wellness checks on the elderly homebound? And there hasn’t been much followup media coverage on that.
Emily B.
@Nelle: Wonderful way to mark your anniversary! I’ve been thinking about some signs on a Real Americans theme for my next protest. Because there’s been some debate over the years about who counts as a Real American, but I think the answer is pretty clear now:
Real Americans Respect the Constitution
Real Americans Don’t Abduct Legal Immigrants
Real Americans Don’t Want Kings
Etc. Other suggestions welcome.
Scout211
Crackdowns, crackdowns everywhere.
On Krebs on Security this week:
Trump revenge tour targets cyber leaders, elections
Yesterday Chris Krebs resigned from SentinelOne.. He is preparing to fight back and said, “this is my fight, not the company’s.”
Funding Expires for Key Cyber Vulnerability Database
Doug R
@lowtechcyclist:
Dissolve ICE, rehire any small percentage for CBP that pass the psychological profile.
schrodingers_cat
@Jeffg166: A permanent resident. That’s a Green Card holder. A resident alien is someone on a long term work or student visa.
So she can’t be permanent resident and a resident alien at the same time.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: I’m not gonna believe any such statements on the say-so of Trump or somebody on Facebook.
Everything they say and do is reasoned backwards from predetermined conclusions. It all reminds me of Bronowski’s diagnosis of the Nazis as aspiring to “the knowledge of gods”–just knowing stuff innately without any “test in reality”, like a scientist or a real journalist might do. Trevor Noah observed something similar about Trump’s beliefs years ago. You say a thing, then it’s true and you believe it because you said it. It leads only to destruction.
sab
@sab: Sorry Werebear. Another of my typos misspelled your name above. My mistyping of your nym didn’t even make sense.
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: Spouses of citizens can apply for naturalization in 3 years. Is she applying for naturalization soon?
Doug R
@Suzanne:
Axeshully, we do know. Support for these actions is cratering among “independents”.
https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/15/politics/video/donald-trump-independent-voters-poll-digvid
jonas
They’re definitely doing it in NY. They simply assume that people’s racism and bigotry are robust enough to overcome any discomfort they have about ruining small farms and paying 10x more for fruit and vegetables at the grocery store. In parts of Upstate, they’re not wrong.
Matt McIrvin
@Doug R: They don’t just need to oppose the policies, they need to be willing to vote for Democrats, which is another thing entirely. Assuming the vote even matters. I suspect that Trump’s narcissism will actually keep him from being too eager to overturn elections that don’t involve him. But I don’t know.
WereBear
@sab: Our local papers had headlines on the front page. They know their audience.
Alce _e_ardillo
@Betty: And we’re not even talking about the citizens who will inevitably be swept up in the drive.
JWR
I seem to remember this being discussed already, but the DOGE whistleblower was on the PBS News Hour last night, and this NPR story fills in the gist:
jonas
I read somewhere a while back that after Roy Cohn, the biggest influence on shaping Trump’s attitude toward life and business, if you can call it that, was Norman Vincent Peale.
WereBear
@jonas: Science of Propaganda adherents, all of them. Whether they knew it or not.
jonas
This. It’s heartening to see thousands turn up for those rallies with AOC and Bernie blasting Musk and the oligarchy, but unless that translates into voting for Democrats, nothing will change.
Alce _e_ardillo
@jonas: Maybe in St Lawrence county, or Franklin, but I’m not convinced it will fly in the Mohawk valley.
Alce _e_ardillo
@jonas: or not voting Republican.
schrodingers_cat
@jonas: He is trying to engineer a split in the party. Something he has been trying since he first ran for President. I don’t trust him after what he did to HRC.
jonas
@Alce _e_ardillo: The thing is, it’s not so much the farmers and growers themselves who are voting for these local thugs — it’s mostly the irregularly-employed racist rednecks and more well-to-do businessmen who really don’t have a clue about what it takes to run a farm. They *think* they’re the salt of the earth, but they’re really just the common clay of the New West, if you know what I mean.
Soprano2
@WereBear: It makes me happy, too. I wish I had known this stuff a long time ago. I’m not done with it yet, so I have more to learn. <3
Soprano2
@JWR: One thing most people don’t seem to realize is that they consider people seeking asylum to be here illegally, even though they’re not.
Bill Arnold
On Immigration, Trump Is Weaker Than He Seems – At least on paper, voters like cracking down on illegal immigration—but the power-drunk White House is overreaching. (The Bulwark, WILLIAM KRISTOL, ANDREW EGGER, AND JIM SWIFT, APR 16, 2025)
Specifically, the subarticle:
“On Immigration, Go on Offense”, by William Kristol
which ends with:
Old Man Shadow
I don’t think they give a fuck.
Well, I’ll qualify that by saying that they don’t give a fuck unless it happens to a close relative. Then they might give a fuck and admit the leopard ate their face too.
I do think they’ll give a fuck when tourism dollars just plummet even more, when food prices skyrocket and general inflation and unemployment are high, and wages remain low because employers will have all of the power, but whether or not they can actually connect the dots from the consequences to the causes correctly is another matter.
Gin & Tonic
@schrodingers_cat: I believe that is already in the works.
Baud
schrodingers_cat
@Bill Arnold: Orange 2.0’s next step will be to attack legal immigration. He is already deporting students and scholars (F-1 and J-1 visa holders) next step will be to curtail OPTs and CPTs and go after H1 visas. And he will get support for it from Sanders and the horseshoe left.
Harrison Wesley
@Bill Arnold: Bill Kristol, American revolutionary? We do live in interesting times.
schrodingers_cat
@Gin & Tonic: Good. Wishing her and your family all the best.
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: I don’t believe it either, but it’s fruitless to argue with them about that because they’ll post the documents that have already been debunked and say “see, he’s a violent criminal. Who wants him here?”. I never address that, I only address the fact that he was sent to a prison without any due process or proof at all, and that our country affords everyone some due process. We shouldn’t be putting anyone in a foreign prison without proof. If they had only deported him we wouldn’t even be talking about this.
Baud
@Soprano2:
I like that approach.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Gee, there’s that Theil dude again. Funny how he has his hands, well really his money, in soooooo many things that are picked up on both sides of the aisle.
jonas
@Soprano2: There’s that, but I think the perception is more that over the past couple of years, migrants have been using asylum as a loophole to get let into the country, after which they have no intention of leaving, regardless of whether their claims are upheld. ICE is acting on the presumption that anyone who came here in the last four years did so fraudulently and extra-judicially deporting them before their cases have been heard.
jonas
Aye, there’s the rub — as a great writer once put it.
Alce _e_ardillo
@jonas: “You know, morons.”
jonas
@Harrison Wesley: Kristol’s been a vocal Never Trumper for a long time now. As before, however, his prognostications about the imminent demise of MAGA have been characteristically wrong.
syphonblue
We actually do have polling numbers for immigration specifics, and they’re not pretty for the administration. People generally think immigration is broken, and they generally want a fix for it.
They just don’t want Trump’s fixes for it.
“Deport undocumented immigrants who have lived in the US for more than 10 years: -37
Deport undocumented immigrants who are parents of US citizens by birth: -36
Deport undocuments immigrants who have no broken laws in the US except for immigration laws: -18
Deport immigrants who are living in the US illegally even if they have lived here for a number of years, have jobs and no criminal record: -14
Using Guantanamo Bay to detain thousands of migrants: -4”
Gee if only people had been warned of Trump’s policies before they voted for him!
https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/trumps-immigration-agenda-isnt-popular
UncleEbeneezer
@Old Man Shadow: They will care about THAT RELATIVE, but it still might not be enough for them to change their stance on the policy itself or their voting.
tobie
@Suzanne: The people I know who get most riled up about immigration have almost no contact with immigrants. That’s not a surprise. Hate is based on ignorance. But they feel the pressure that immigrants will steal their jobs. Most own small businesses in the home trades (painting, roofing, landscaping, HVAC etc.). Years ago, Anne Laurie posted about the Poujadistes in France. That’s what MAGA is: small town petits bourgeois revolting against modernity.
ETA: Has Anne Laurie been posting of late? I may have missed something so am worried.
Eunicecycle
@Suzanne: my daughter is a nurse and men definitely say pervy things to her.
Melancholy Jaques
@Suzanne:
It isn’t popular here to point that out, but we are supposed to be the reality-based community.
tobie
@schrodingers_cat: I just read that a S Korean Asst Prof of math had his green card revoked. This is the second msthematician I’ve heard of in a week who had his visa canceled. Both are abroad now. I guess we don’t want people to learn math.
Soprano2
@jonas: Yeah, I said that later that these people think all asylum-seekers are here illegally. The ironic thing is that they don’t care about repairing that system to speed it up and get people’s cases heard faster, because they don’t think anyone deserves asylum here. I suspect the average person doesn’t feel that way.
Xenos
@Baud: was watching the financial news reporting strong numbers for Q1. Great for the market!
Do they have the memory capacity of a goldfish? The tarriffs were announced April 2!
SFAW
@jonas:
I vaguely recall Kristol indicating (or maybe announcing) his support for Hillary, and thinking “Oh, shit, she’s going to lose.”
Because when has he ever been right about anything?
Xenos
@Soprano2: I think it must be constantly said they 47’s goons are not deporting people to CECOT, but are extrajudicially rendering them to an oubliette.
OK, maybe we need a puncher way of saying that. Let them deny CECOT is a death camp.
trollhattan
@lowtechcyclist:
IMO it’s even more basic than that: Homeland Security should be broken into its component bits as pre Bush Wowah on Terruh. Why the hell are Coast Guard and ICE housed under the same tent?
Hey, a guy can dream.
TONYG
@artem1s: There’s also the question of what will be a “valid ID”. Given the Trump administration’s rejection of birthright citizenship, even a valid birth certificate will not longer be proof of citizenship. The authorities will scientifically judge citizenship on the basis of empirical criteria like skin color.
Delicate Butterfly
The American economy depends on having a pool of workers whose precarious immigration status depresses wages. That is the American dream.
Debbie(aussie)
Please forgive me if this has already been discussed. But is there any attempt to use Neimoller’s words; first they came for……. From things I read here and else where , history is not a strong suit of the average USian. But this is real and is happening now. Everything that is happening in the US frightens me, and I live on the other side of the world. I am especially scared for you all. And feel utterly useless. Please take care.
trollhattan
@Old Man Shadow:
“Swing voters” seem to be an invention of politics reporting rather than an actual measurable cohort. Plus, the average Jane and Joe don’t GAF about politics, so how are they going to answer a poll about politics?
Stay-at-home voters are very real and a very real problem. Cali dropped 2 million between ’20 and ’24.
terraformer
If all this happens even close to what’s described, at some point, immigration will largely stop or be a fraction of what it is today. That’s what they want. But also, once that point is reached – they still have these new prisons, and they still have many, many more ICE agents and others supporting them
They will need to find something to maintain their relevance – and to fill those nice, shiny and new prisons.
Guess who’ll be next?
trollhattan
@Doug R:
So odd the DOGErs seem to have forgotten all about them.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Delicate Butterfly:
And before that, an economy that depended on a pool of enslaved workers that depressed wages.
Some things have never, effectively, changed.
Citizen Alan
@Xenos: Oubliette is not on the 6th grade vocabulary list. Call them concentration cams.
Geminid
@trollhattan: There are swing voters, maybe not many. They left tracks last year when Ruben Gallego, Jackie Rosen, Tammy Baldwin and Elissa Slotkin won Senate races in states Harris lost. I think 13 Democratic House candidates won in districts Trump carried.
tam1MI
@Suzanne: We always go wrong when we imagine that Most People (normies, Ariana Grande voters, swing voters, whatever) have consistent principles that they hold true even when it’s difficult, that they are deeply offended by hypocrisy or bad behavior. Not to be dark.
The “light” side of this argument is that people are capable of changing their minds. This underpins things like the fight for trans rights – getting people to change their minds to agree with us about an issue important to us.
New Deal democrat
@syphonblue: Thanks for posting that information, along with the link.
Basically, when it comes to immigration, most Americans want the Rule of Law enforced, but also the Rule of Equity, the latter of which comes down to us via 1000 years of British common law.
The bullet point version of this is, people feel we simply can’t let everyone who wants to come here, or is a queue jumper, in. But once people are in, if they’ve built up sweat equity by things like paying taxes, holding a job, not committing any serious criminal offenses, and raising a family, they should be allowed to stay. The same applies to Dreamers who have only known the US as their real home.
Congress has utterly failed to embrace the Rule of Law + Equity for almost 30 years.
coin operated
@Suzanne: Former male Army nurse here. Female patients can be just as pervy. Especially the older ones who’s give-a-damn has been permanently disabled.
schrodingers_cat
@tobie: What was the reason given?
Suzanne
@Doug R: My point is that there’s a lot of things that people don’t agree with happening right now, and they may answer a poll indicating that they don’t support or approve of those things….. but until it actually changes their behavior, that opposition is pretty soft.
tobie
@schrodingers_cat: The Houston case has something to do with the Asst Prof having recently been a grad student. Presumably he completed his degree and got a job.
https://www.chron.com/news/article/university-houston-professor-visa-20277555.php
Delicate Butterfly
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Yep
Old Man Shadow
@terraformer: Transpeople, gay people, queer people, Black people, professors, teachers, librarians, pastors that don’t follow the state approved Evangelical religion, union leaders, protestors, addicts…
The Blood god always needs more blood.
Suzanne
@tam1MI:
Agree! I actually agree with this wholeheartedly! An important consideration about what changes a lot of people’s minds, though, is all that stuff we categorize as “vibes”.
I think changed hearts/minds lead to changed laws, not the other way around. So all that “soft power” stuff matters a lot, IMO.
Suzanne
@coin operated: Gross. I’m sorry.
YY_Sima Qian
Unintended consequences & collateral damage from the trade war:
schrodingers_cat
@tobie: Immigration status is complicated and now DHS will be using every technicality to deport people.
Chetan Murthy
@Debbie(aussie): We use it on the left all the time. It is the (correct) argument that even if you’re a little transphobic, now is not the goddamn time — be a 100% ally FFS, b/c they’re just the ones who got picked first. It’s the basis of the Chris Rock bit about “they came for the terrorists, and I was down with that; the came for the muslims, and I was down with that; they came for the immigrants, and I started listenin’ real good, ‘cos blacks and Jews couldn’t be far behind, that train is never late!”
But I don’t think it works on conservatives. As we discuss here from time-to-time, one of the things conservatives seem to be unable (more likely: unwilling) to comprehend, is that bad things that happen to other people matter before they happen to themselves. It’s a basic character flaw. In a way, it is the basis of the “face-eating leopards” meme. Which is yet another example of Niemoller’s Confession made vivid and relatable, but …. again, they’re immune, it would seem.
schrodingers_cat
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I wouldn’t compare enslaved people to immigrant workers.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: That’s why I emphasize the idea of due process when I see someone posting about immigration. Most people think things should be fair, and aren’t happy about someone being shipped to a prison without any evidence that they’re actually a criminal. I believe that makes them think about it.
Shakti
On socials I see white guy lawyers who are not immigration lawyers saying they’re telling their friends from other countries not to come here for tourism or to visit.
I think of the Miles Taylors, the Crystal Mintons of the world, often.
There’s a lot of people who think they can control where that spite goes and a lot of people who are motivated by spite to get up in the morning.
I think about how these tendrils are going to spread through every aspect of people’s lives — well people will notice, the little things — the little escapist hobbies, the daily treats.
]
schrodingers_cat
Well and David Hogg now at the DNC has found the enemy and it is moderate Ds who are supposedly too old for him. Another BS bro chaos agent trying to attack the Ds from within.
Soprano2
@Chetan Murthy: These are people who cannot put themselves in someone else’s shoes. They believe that could never happen to them because they wouldn’t do “x” thing that they think caused it.
J. Arthur Crank
@Bill Arnold:
Leave it to Trump to fuck up the law of gravity (he has already fucked up the “Bill Kristol is always wrong” law of Nature). If gravity is no longer an inverse-square law, then we are screwed since Newton showed that closed orbits (for a two body system) are only possible if gravity is an inverse-square law force (decreases with distance) or a Hooke’s Law type force (linearly increases with distance).
Shakti
My very non serious prediction is that some kind of “centrist” will propose “immigration reform” — which in practice will mean copying the immigration system of the United Arab Emirates, with everything that implies.
They’ll rebrand it somehow — but I am not sure how well that’ll work out for the people who think America is only theirs –even if it is adopted.
schrodingers_cat
@Shakti: It will be from the horseshoe left wing of the party. BS of VT for example has a Congressional record that has him voting against almost any relief for people on work visas.
cain
Basically, they will make the country toxic to the point that they won’t be able to import doctors, and other folks where that will be a gap. Every industry is going to lose. Every one.
They plan on changing what a citizen is. That means why bother being here then? I’ll just go back to my country of origin.
schrodingers_cat
@cain: I thought you were born here.
YY_Sima Qian
Nvidia is another casualty caught in the middle of the rapidly escalating Sino-US trade/tech war. US export controls is threatening its vital revenue stream from the PRC market & continued relevance to the PRC market. The ongoing PRC effort to de-risk from US tech is doing the same thing. So Jansen Huang had to attend the US$ 1M a plate dinner a Mar-a-Lago (& who know how much more), apparently to no avail. Now he is in Beijing waxing lyrical about Nvidia’s commitment to the PRC market, probably also to no ultimate avail.
Nvidia will have to pray the transshipment route through Singapore & Taiwan will remain open, & the Trump Administration will probably be too incompetent to shut the routes off.
Citizen Alan
@schrodingers_cat: everyone on the right desires to treat immigrant workers like slaves. Some of them have already been talking about, making it a crime to be an illegal immigrant and use that to get around the thirteenth amendment proscription against slavery by using the exception for “punishment for a crime.”
schrodingers_cat
@Citizen Alan: Chattel slavery as practiced in the American south was heinous and I don’t think anything else is comparable.
Harrison Wesley
@schrodingers_cat: Is David Hogg the guy whose claim to fame is that he didn’t get shot at Parkland?
schrodingers_cat
@Harrison Wesley: Yep
tam1MI
@schrodingers_cat: David Hogg now at the DNC has found the enemy and it is moderate Ds who are supposedly too old for him.
I am in “wait and see” mode on what David Hogg is doing. If he wants to go after the Dems dragging us down like Sucky Chuckie Fuckin’ Schumer or Nancy Pelosi or Dick Durbin or Kirsten Gillibrand I say more power to him. If he goes after “moderates” like Jon Ossoff I’ve got a problem with him.
schrodingers_cat
@tam1MI:We don’t have the luxury of intraparty warfare when facism is staring us in the face.
Matt McIrvin
@Shakti: Universal is on the verge of opening a gigantic, lavish new theme park in Orlando–it’s in previews and getting rave reviews; it’s absolutely the most ambitious such project in the US in decades. The blow to international tourism and the prospect of a deep recession with rising costs for everything has to be making them shit a brick. J. K. Rowling turning toxic was already a problem (it has yet another Harry Potter land, originally planned as a Fantastic Beasts tie-in, but interest in that is noticeably lowest of all of its “worlds”).
Baud.
Baud
@tam1MI:
How does that work? DNC officials can weigh in on primaries as long as we like who they’re going after?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Good point.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@tam1MI:
Hogg doesn’t appear to be aiming at Dems like Ossof, instead its Dems like mine, DeGette, in a D+29 district who you wouldn’t know existed even during campaign season.
I’ve not payed any attention to Hogg but this piece was good:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/david-hogg-james-carville-lawsuit-b2735217.html
Carville yammering about suing Hogg and calling him “a contemptible little twerp.”
Gotta admit, anybody who gets that reaction outta fucking Carville might, just might, have something going for him.
Paul in KY
@Nelle: Trump sucks balls (Elon’s)!
Scout211
I agree with this 100%.
So that is why I am often confused when you post comments that criticize the “horse shoe left.” Isn’t that the same thing that you are criticizing Hogg of doing? Complaining and criticizing other Democrats?
I am confused.
Paul in KY
@Deputinize America: England, where alot of our ancestors came from, was known to be especially xenophobic.
Professor Bigfoot
@WereBear: Ordered! Now I can read the rest of this thread. ;)
(Simon, Baxter, Lillibet and Silvie all send thanks. 😸
gvg
@Soprano2: Some of them may think they can force their children to come back and take care of them or the family business.
Chetan Murthy
@tam1MI: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/04/15/david-hogg-dnc-vice-chair-to-spend-big-to-take-down-safe-democratic-incumbents-00292535
Leaders We Deserve, which Hogg co-founded in 2023, announced plans on Tuesday to spend $20 million in safe-blue Democratic primaries against sitting House members by supporting younger opponents. In an interview with POLITICO, Hogg said the group will not back primary challenges in battleground districts because “I want us to win the majority,” nor will it target members solely based on their age.
Baud
@Chetan Murthy:
Do you think DNC members should do that? Would you defend an “establishment” DNC member getting involved in primaries like this?
Maybe this happens a lot, but I’m not aware of it.
Professor Bigfoot
@jonas: And as long as the Democrats are the party of “hoes, Jews, and Negroes,” they will NOT vote for Democrats.
Geminid
@Scout211: My take on the “Horseshoe Left” is that those people are not in fact Democrats. Some of them brag about that. I wouldn’t say Bernie Sanders is part of the Horseshoe Left. The prople I’m talking about will tell you that Sanders is a sellout, a “sheepdog.”
Professor Bigfoot
NARRATOR: “They could not.”
laura
@schrodingers_cat: Man, the brush back and tut tutting I got for the temerity of suggesting giving him the velvet rope, step right past the base, and sit in the big chair. In conclusion, fuck that guy and Bernie who are actively attempting to split the democratic party.
Paul in KY
@SFAW: I thought the same thing!
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: Slaves under the rule of Justinian had many more rights.
schrodingers_cat
@Scout211:
I am not a DNC official
Unlike Hogg and the left end of the horseshoe I am not eager to throw black people and other minorities under the bus. Nor do I distill all our problems by regurgitating some stale economic talking points.
If you still think that Hogg and I are the same, nothing I say is going to convince you otherwise. So just mute my comments.
Aziz, light!
@schrodingers_cat: David Hogg has been naysaying Democrats since he first became an activist. He is well-intentioned but young, and easily swayed in his thinking by lefty purists.
Geminid
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: We really don’t know who Hogg’s group is going after because they haven’t yet said. But I think you are correct about Ossoff; he’s the youngest Democratic Senator and I think Hogg has said they going after older Dems.
Hogg sbould quit his DNC position if he wants run an organization backing primary candidates. I’d say that no matter what kind of candidate he backs or opposes. The party passed over other people as or more caplable as David Hogg when he was picked as Vice Chair. He can resign and make way for one of them.
And Hogg should disclose what his new organization pays him and its other top earners. But I think anybody who raises money for political candidates or causes should do that. Maybe Mr. Hogg will set a good example for the rest of them.
Full disosure: I’ve had no use for Hogg since he responded to Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola’s loss last year with, “Good riddance.”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@terraformer: The war on drugs answers your question; no, the idea is the war is never won.
schrodingers_cat
@Aziz, light!: He does not belong on the DNC, if he is going to ratfuck Ds.
Baud
@Geminid:
I hadn’t heard that before. Disqualifying.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So, how did a Republican get on the DNC?
schrodingers_cat
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: By being white, male and young.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@gvg: I think that’s definitely a thing. Elder MAGAs feel like they should have control over their adult children.
tam1MI
Dem committees already weigh in on primaries to some extent (although ultimately, the voters decide). And no elected official has a God – given right to their seat. If, in 2022, a David Hogg type had announced they were financing a primary challenge to Krysten Sinema, would anybody here have squawked?
Chetan Murthy
@Baud: YES! YES! In a normal political party, elected members must toe the party line. American parties are coalitions, not really parties. This is part of how a coalition sorts itself out. Otherwise the only way is thru aging and death. And we don’t have time for that.
Baud
@tam1MI:
Yes, that’s their job. Often to protect incumbents.
Hogg is a DNC VP. Do people in that role on their own interfere in primaries? If Hogg isn’t doing anything unusual, fine. But I think he is.
Maybe, maybe not, since dislike of her may have outweighed institutional integrity.
Baud
@Chetan Murthy:
That’s fine. If some establishment centrist DNC official tears into AOC, I’m sure no one will say that’s untoward behavior.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: If he wants to primary incumbents he needs to resign from the DNC.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
A DNC official that wants to independently support incumbents should also resign from that position.
I don’t think its helpful to have each DNC official deciding for themselves which which of the party’s candidates are deserving of support.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Agreed.
RevRick
@Debbie(aussie): It’s important to note that Niemoller spoke these words after he himself was arrested and thrown in a concentration camp. The only thing that saved him from Bonhoeffer’s fate was that he was a WW1 war hero.
Dirk Reinecke
@JWR: and not one of them assisted the mobility impaired elderly bystander that they had knocked to the ground.
Everybody who knows them should be ashamed of them and how lacking they are in humanity
Shakti
@schrodingers_cat: I could definitely see that because there’s a definite nativist streak that runs though that wing who would sell it as humane compared to what’s going on right now.
But also I do think there will be a contingent of Republicans who’ll want to rebrand as centrist or moderate or sensible who’ll want cheap, educated labor. Well, educated enough. It’s not like the US are going to go back and reinvest in education or infrastructure and that takes time to see results.
It will be sold as bipartisan.
Americans actually loves disempowered labor (the cheapness is a huge bonus but secondary). As I understand it, the UAE system has immigrants from construction to engineers but completely discourages people from settling there. Any rights they have are limited and those can be yanked at will [the UAE is notorious for withholding passports.] I met an adjunct in Georgia who kept talking about how great Dubai was and how much money he had and I asked him, if it was so wonderful why did you and your father leave and…he explained.
Rebranding for these American public will be difficult b/c the racism is mask off [racism; eh — but having a work visa and having somebody randomly decide GULAG FOR YOU is very different] and unfortunately a large number of people seem to like it/be ok with it; and enticing people to come on a limited basis like this will be difficult if such things like tariffs are in existence [which cuts way into remittance]. But more to the point, this current behavior by the US government would make people wary of coming here even short term, even with a massive PR campaign and other gestures.
ETA: I’m sorry I sound so cynical and jaded. And nothing has happened to me!
tam1MI
For those thinking there is no precedent for David Hogg having a side hustle while he works for the DNC, turns out there is:
From POLITICO in 2012:
Kosh III
“We’ve seen many leopards/faces moments in the past, where people in even the Trumpiest areas were sad and/or indignant about their hardworking immigrant friend being abruptly deported. ”
I found this article about what happened when Ala-fraking-bama tried it.
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/alabama-trump-immigration-deportation-hb56?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=87281&post_id=157619594&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=e0op4&triedRedirect=true
tam1MI
And then there’s this:
Baud
@tam1MI:
DNC committee members are a large diverse array of folks, including elected officials. They can do what they want and support who they want.
Hogg is a DNC officer in the organization. Different role.
Baud
@tam1MI:
Did that PAC get involved in primaries?
tam1MI
@Baud: Did that PAC get involved in primaries?
I am working off my cell phone at present, so I can’t do too deep a dive. What I do know – it’s common knowledge – is that the Democratic campaign committees “gets involved” to some extent in primaries in favor of incumbents, even when they really shouldn’t. Henry Cuellar and Bob Menendez are two notorious examples of this.
Look, to be clear, I am not coming out in full throated support of this. I am taking a wait-and-see attitude. If Mr Hogg turns out to be a typical Bernie bro going after good, hard-working Dems who happen to be moderates, well then I’ll be the first to say fuck him. If he is confining himself to going after the likes of Schumer and others who refuse to stand up against Trump, I’m not going to gainsay him.
Baud
@tam1MI:
I’m opposed to individual DNC officers picking sides in primaries, especially when it comes to fundraising. It’s debatable whether the organization should pick sides, but I don’t think the officers should.
If that’s something that happens regularly, than I won’t single Hogg out. But my view isn’t tied to Hogg’s specific strategic choices about who to support.
Anyway
Not just the UAE this is the practice in all the countries in the middle east – Saudi Arabia, Qatar etc.
Geminid
@tam1MI: I looked at the Open Secrets report on Henry Cuellar’s 2024 primary donors specifically to see if the DCCC had given him money and could not find any. I know people here have said they did but that does not make it true.
tam1MI
I agree with you on the greater issue of DNC officers running PACs on the side and the like. They shouldn’t. But if it has been SOP for years that it’s OK to do that, that it’s awfully close to selective punishment that it’s only when David Hogg does it that it becomes a crying scandal.
Baud
@tam1MI:
You haven’t shown me that anyone else has run a PAC for purposes of primaries. I don’t care about PACs that support Democrats over Republicans.
Chetan Murthy
@Baud: If AOC votes with fucking Trump, I’d -expect- it.
tam1MI
@Baud: You haven’t shown me that anyone else has run a PAC for purposes of primaries. I don’t care about PACs that support Democrats over Republicans.
As I said above, I am currently working off my cell phone, and therefore not in a position to do a deep dive.
At the end of the day, however, this debate is kind of meaningless. David Hogg is moving ahead with this plan, and there is not much we can do to stop him.
Miss Bianca
@tam1MI: No Democrat is dragging us down the way Republicans are. NONE. Threatening to primary Dems who are too “moderate” or whatever is a page right out of Elon Musk’s shitty book. No thanks.
Go back to advocating for sensible gun laws, David, and stop acting like am avatar of your surname.
Chetan Murthy
Jesus FUCK, the DNC has been supporting incumbents in primaries FOREVER. It’s a major bone of contention for us -actual progressives- that they do it. They fucking support Henry Fucking Cuellar FFS. Sure, if the DNC -never- gets involved in primaries, I get what y’all are bitchin’ about. But otherwise, you’re just unhappy that your conservadems will get some competition. Boo fuckin’ hoo.
RevRick
@Chetan Murthy: The DNC does not get involved in primaries. The DCCC is the Democratic organization that is responsible for House candidates. David Hogg may campaign against candidates in deep blue districts, but he isn’t doing it on behalf of the DNC. And he certainly can’t use DNC funds to do so.
tam1MI
He’s not.
Baud
@Chetan Murthy:
He should resign from the DNC if he wants to compete with the DNC, assuming they do get involved in House primaries.
@tam1MI:
You’re right. I can’t stop anybody. I can just speak out if I don’t agree with them.
Baud
@Chetan Murthy:
I’m not creating different rules for people I like. If Hogg gets to do this, then does every other DNC official.
tam1MI
And also go without pants. 😉😉😉
Geminid
@Chetan Murthy: Are you sure the DNC supported Henry Cuellar in his 2022 and 2024 primaries? I’m not sure the DNC even makes primary endorsements.
I know a couple people in House leadership positions endorsed Cuellar, and James Clyburn made a campaign appearance with Cuellar but like I said above, I could not find any contributions from the DCCC. I know people keep saying the DCCC supported Cuellar but I think they are repeating misinformation.
I found out something else about Cuellar, though. Going into his 2024 primary campaign, anti-abortion groups National Right to Life and Susan B. Anthony List gave him a 5 and 0 out of 100 rating. The abortion rights group NARAL rated him in the 70s. That was low for a Democrat, but I did not find any Republicans rated over 50. The NRA rated Cuellar “C.”
RevRick
@Geminid: There is a yawning chasm between the most conservative Democrats and the least conservative Republicans.
Citizen Alan
It seems painfully naive to me to think that even carrying a valid ID around will do any good. What are you going to do when the cop who’s decided he hates you for you for some reason declares that your valid ID looks fake to him, confiscates it, and ships you to the detention center anyway?
Kayla Rudbek
@jonas: that reminds me of a recent Ars Technica article about 14 reasons why the Trump tariffs won’t bring manufacturing back to the USA: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/04/14-reasons-why-trumps-tariffs-wont-bring-manufacturing-back/
Kayla Rudbek
@trollhattan: yeah, the Coast Guard is military and should be back under DoD, CBP to be broken up into Customs and Immigration
Matt McIrvin
@Citizen Alan: “You’re an illegal alien.” “Look, I’m a citizen, I have a passport!” *yoink* “No you don’t.”
Kayla Rudbek
@New Deal democrat: even the ancient Romans allowed the auxiliaries to earn Roman citizenship by military service. The USA is less progressive than the ancient Romans on this.