Autocracy is Popular
While critics warn of fascism, the public is thus far backing Trump's immigration crackdown.
President Trump’s decisions to federalize the California National Guard and to reinforce them with Marines in response to relatively minor outbreaks of violence have been roundly condemned by everyone from California governor Gavin Newsom to LA mayor Karen Bass. NYT opinion columnist Michelle Goldberg is beside herself, declaring, “This Is What Autocracy Looks Like.“
Since Donald Trump was elected again, I’ve feared one scenario above all others: that he’d call out the military against people protesting his mass deportations, putting America on the road to martial law. Even in my more outlandish imaginings, however, I thought that he’d need more of a pretext to put troops on the streets of an American city — against the wishes of its mayor and governor — than the relatively small protests that broke out in Los Angeles last week.
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If you saw all this in any other country — soldiers sent to crush dissent, union leaders arrested, opposition politicians threatened — it would be clear that autocracy had arrived. The question, now, is whether Americans who hate tyranny can be roused to respond.
Many people have speculated that the confrontation in Los Angeles will play into Trump’s hands, allowing him to pose as a champion of law and order bringing criminal mobs to heel. Maybe they’re right; Trump is a master demagogue with a gift for creating the scenes of conflict his supporters crave.
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Public opinion, however, isn’t set in stone, which is why it’s important for everyone who has a platform — politicians, veterans, cultural and religious leaders — to denounce the administration’s authoritarian overreach. Administration officials like Stephen Miller are pushing the idea that Los Angeles is “occupied territory,” as evidenced by the foreign flags some protesters are carrying. Americans who still have hope for democracy should be saying, as loudly and as often as they can, that this is an insultingly stupid lie to justify a dictatorial power grab. Maybe it will turn out that the truth is no match for right-wing propaganda, but if that’s the case, we were already lost.
The President calling out the Guard to quell violent protests is hardly unprecedented. But, despite the shared proximity, these aren’t exactly the Rodney King riots. Nor are local officials blatantly flouting federal court orders, as they were in Little Rock and Tuscaloosa.
Calling out the Marines, while perfectly legal, strikes me as performative. There’s just no obvious tactical reason to use them for this task. Theatrically, though, it will come across as “tough,” at least to his supporters.
For now, the performance seems to be paying off.
CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten said on Monday that President Donald Trump’s approval rating on the issue of immigration has skyrocketed among the American electorate.
Trump’s current net approval rating is above water at +1 point, which surged by 20 points since June 2017, Enten said, citing his own aggregate data. Trump on Saturday deployed the National Guard to combat riots that erupted across Los Angeles stemming from ICE arrests of illegal immigrants.
“[Trump’s net approval rating] has gone up like a rocket,” Enten said. “Compare now versus eight years ago during Trump’s first term. Look at this, in his first term, Trump was way, way, way underwater at -21 points. But look at this, he’s up [by] over 20 points now in the aggregate, he is in positive territory at +1 point on his net approval rating. Some other polls even have it a little higher than that.”
“There is no issue on which Trump is doing so much better than he was in his first term more than the issue of immigration,” Enten continued.
A majority of Americans, 54% and 51%, approve of Trump’s mass deportations and of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents searching their communities to locate illegal immigrants, a CBS News poll released on Monday found. Enten added that a majority of Americans who are “directly connected” to the events going on in Los Angeles, California, approve of Trump’s actions to combat illegal immigration.
“It’s not just on the broad issue of immigration where Trump is doing well, it’s on the specifics. When you dive in on the issues, Trump is above 50% and his actions are above 50%, at least it comes to those most directly connected to what’s going on right now out in Los Angeles,” Enten said.
It’s true. While Trump’s job approval is slightly underwater (-2.1%) in the RealClearPolitics polling aggregate, he’s at +4.5 on immigration.
And Enten is right: the numbers have swung sharply in Trump’s favor quite recently:
That the polling was similarly popular in March, swung the other way in April, and swung back in May confounds me. Maybe the negative swing was a reaction to the Kilmar Abrego Garcia matter, which has faded from public consciousness?
My suspicion is that a show of force to enable ICE agents to round up illegal immigrants will continue to play well so long as the presence of said force acts as a deterrent. If they start gunning protestors down in the street, public opinion will swing quickly.
Goldberg is undoubtedly right that we would perceive the rhetoric coming from Trump and those close to him quite differently if it were coming from a Latin American or African country. But we’re so used to his bluster that most just shrug it off. Salena Zito‘s observation, “the press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally” still holds true almost a decade later.
It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power and proneness to abuse it which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. ~ Excerpt from President George Washington’s Farwell Address to the Nation
So the inference here is that T’s overall numbers would be more underwater if the public were less focused on immigration. Which implies he will keep trying to make immigration as much of an issue as he can manage. Can he do this without damaging the economy? We may find out.
I think we need to stop using words like “skyrocketed” to describe swings that are still in the single digits and that amass to only barely majority support.
I also think that the likelihood continues to be that any president in the current polarized enviroment is likely to have core support for any issue around 40%ish.
I would be more impressed with a result wherein the result was +10% or more, as that would suggest some likely Dem voters were approving as well.
I am also not surprised that there are people who are reacitng positively to the general headline: “President Sends National Guard to Quell Violence” when what marginal news watchers have probably seen video of the same guy throwing a rock and the same Waymo on fire over and over and over.
People also have a terrible capacity to judge how widespread these things are or aren’t.
There are more people in LA County than in Virginia, for example.
On the flip side, it is worth noting, sadly, that yes, autocracy is popular with a lot of people. At least when the autocracy is aimed at someone else and is allegedly increased order. People like order–it is generally the thing that helps mass publics support authoritarianism, at least at first.
“Those who would give up Essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
Benjamin Franklin
@Steven L. Taylor:
As I understand it those fellows in 1930’s Germany didn’t become unpopular in Germany. Stopping them required outside force. Outside force that isn’t coming to help us here in the 21st Century.
Trump’s America is filled with dumb people who want to teach smart people a lesson or two about the wisdom of being an idiot and a bigot. Whatever happens, that ain’t happening. I have nothing to learn from 49% or 51% or whatever of the country who supports Trump.
Things are bad and bleak. Every time there’s a bit of an uprising, supposedly wise people drag out non-violence and King. King’s vision of non-violence imagined an effect. It wasn’t approval ratings or poll numbers, but actually causing America to give up violence as a nation. But is that going to happen if protestors are peaceful? Come now…The same people telling a protestor it’s bad to hit a cop who just fired a rubber bullet at them for no reason are equally busy trying to pinpoint exactly how many kids a drone strike can take out in exchange for one ‘terrorist’.
Democrats have to put up or shut up. They can’t beat Trump or out fake him on authoritarianism. If you think immigration is a threat, you’re kinda dumb. There’s no wisdom, no insight, nothing. Trying to be insincere like Obama being against gay marriage is not going to work against Trump.
@Modulo Myself:
And the American people? Are we helpless infants? Do we ever have to do anything ourselves — any responsibility to do, think, or say anything of our own accord — or do only “Democrats” have agency?
The American people should maybe listen the next time a black woman repeatedly warns them that Trump intends to send the military after “the enemy within.”
Instead, we got this:
Opinion – Kamala’s newest lie: Trump will send the army after you (Yahoo!)
Based on the polling provided, the most we can infer is that the Trump Administration’s (until now) lower-profile round up of immigrants had been popular. I’m curious to see if that remains as troops are moved into Los Angeles. Of the polling provided, only one–the most recent–cover the events of this past weekend. That one shows a marked decline in support (tie) compared to polls taken before this past weekend (+4, +14, +3).
Homan: Newsom arrest talk ‘blown out of proportion’ (The Hill)
What happened to the MAGA tough guy act? Newsom is awaiting his martydom, the regime shouldn’t TACO this.
Why limit it to Latin America and Africa. Think of all of the countries that have used the military to suppress protests/dissent. China, Russia, much of the Middle East, Philippines, all of the Asian countries with an authoritarian government. Think of all of the countries in which you would be willing to live and not many, if any, deploy the military to control minor disturbances.
Steve
Rapist Trump’s masked ICE brownshirts are arresting non-criminal migrants in the act of complying with their duty to report, are illegally blocking members of Congress from conducting oversight, and have assaulted a nationally-respected union observer, shamefully so.
Not that one’s opposition to fascist creep should hinge on polling.
There is so much wrong with all of this but I will limit my response to the claim that if shootings of unarmed civilians start it will negatively affect Trump’s ratings. Not long ago I re-read the details of the Kent State shootings. They were actually pretty strongly supported by the general public. In polls only about 10%-15% of people blamed the Guard troops and thought they were wrong. Note that these were white, American born college students. They looked at everyone who was shot and if memory serves the closest one was about 30 yards away and some in the 100 yard range. At that distance no Guard troops were at risk from unarmed protestors unless you had Nolan Ryan as a protestor and no one was paying attention. In the present case the protestors being shot are likely to have brown foreigners among them. My prediction is that while most Democrats will find shooting civilian protestors abhorrent it will further increase Trump’s popularity. The base will be ecstatic.
Steve
No more mister.blogpost.com has a post today with immigration polling number from various sources that at a minimum project a different view than than those here, but Taylor is right, polling numbers bouncing around is pretty typical, and the issue right now is a 40-40-20 issue like so many things in the country, and a lot of answers depend on methodology. I do agree that if soldiers start gunning civilians, perceptions will change but like the post says, I get that the military in LA is theatrical and performative. It is not like they will arrest undocumented immigrants and their presence probably makes things more difficult for ICE: who wants to go to Home Depot with a bunch of soldiers milling around? However, even a multi-month presence of the military in LA will have a deleterious effect on the economy. Ironically, it is not inconceivable to think that the military presence will lead to more store closings than the protests.
@DK: Yes, people other than Democrats have agency. Sadly, they are currently using it to support Trump’s actions in LA. But also yeah, national-level Democratic Party leaders are at the intersection of Put Up and Shut Up.
Waiting for buses that aren’t coming. “Put up or shut up” is the flip side of the “it’s easy, just turn the argument…” cryptocurrency being sold by another savant here.
@DK: Who doesn’t like tacos? They’re even on the happy hour menu at the cigar lounge/dive bar that Luddite and I patronize.
@just nutha: Restaurant recommendations?
And are you a corn or flour tortilla guy? Hard or soft shell?
Well, that is what Antifa and a few other of the groups want. And they will be out in the long planned June 14 ‘No Kings’ protests hoping to take advantage of that cover to provoke violence. But, of course, those “gunning down” could be local or state police who are not under federal control but under the control of the mayor and governor. What then? Blame Trump?
One things different now is federal prosecution. The FBI has already identified one masked attacker who broke up and threw cinder blocks. and put him on the most wanted list. Once real consequences hit the rioter realization, such as 5 years for spitting on federal officers, then the cover protestors will thin out leaving those needing arrest and prosecution out in the open.
“It’s the economy, stupid.”
That’s what will bring El Taco down.
Eventually.
It takes time to slow down or crash a nation’s economy, absent some massive blow like a devaluation, a banking crash, a real invasion, massive war, etc.
It will take the tariffs, uncertainty, larger deficit, and larger debt a few more weeks to crash the economy. The second quarter ends in 20 days, and the GDP numbers may not be as good as the first quarter’s.
Unless there’s a bond market crash first.
That’s the only way people will turn en masse against El Taco.
We are where we are because when we had the Congress and the WH we did nothing about illegal immigration. When rational people fail to do their jobs it falls to irrational people to do it.
That aside, American hypocrisy, especially MAGA hypocrisy about Mexico is enough to make you choke. We offer work, at sub-par pay and who gets jammed up? The poor bastard nailing sheetrock, not the employer. Never the employer. Never the largely White, Republican employers.
It’s a parallel to our disgustingly self-absolving attitude toward drugs. It couldn’t be our fault for offering Mexicans billions of dollars for drugs. No, no it’s their fault, all their fault. Our idiot president fantasizes about using military power against the cartels. Ignoring the reality that the cartels aren’t the problem, the cartels existed to manage complex supply chains for bulk weed and cocaine. But the drug problem now is Mom and Pop mixing up Fentanyl in a kitchen sink. Not quite seeing what the 101st Airborne are supposed to do about that.
MAGAts deserve a special Nobel Prize for hypocrisy. The most dishonest voters is US history.
@DK: I never eat tacos out anymore. Too expensive in chichi restaurants-ville. At home, I mostly do combo corn/flour.
@Michael Reynolds: +1 your first paragraph, and not just the last administration.
@Michael Reynolds:
Except try to work out a bipartisan agreement that Republicans spiked at the last minute to strengthen Trump’s “Dems are weak on border security” campaign pitch.
Thanks for playing. (And what does it tell you when Cookie is agreeing with you? Seriously.
)
@Michael Reynolds: Except that we have had a substantial undocumented population for decades.
It took a demagogue to elevate the xenophobia and racism to this level.
Let’s be clear on why we are where we are.
Dudes have been hanging out in Home Depot parking lots looking for day labor for decades and there have been no massive protests nor National Guard deployments.
I am happy to have a conversation about our national failure to create adequate immigration policy, but let’s not pretend like that is the core problem.
I really really dislike CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten. It’s not that I disagree with the numbers or data but his manner of overly dramatic portrayal with adjectives like “skyrocket”, arm waving and body gestures to emphasize his comparisons.
Of course, I also don’t put much stock in public polling.
It’s real easy to be a “tough” guy on the phone or an anonymous on-line poll. It’s quite another thing to actually vote – or to go to a protest.
Have their been any locally initiated pro-immigration rallies?
Even in my small community there have been rallies/protests in support of undocumented that have committed no felony, but have been good neighbors and friends.
@just nutha:
Indeed, a backstabbing move we should have been able to jam down their throats. But what were we to say that wouldn’t – in the imaginations of progs and libs alike – piss off Hispanic voters? We couldn’t play the ‘X Mexican illegal murders Y person and it’s the fault of Republicans’ game. Can we? We can’t play to anyone beyond our own silo. So we shout, ‘the GOP killed the bill!’ to an audience consisting entirely of ourselves.
As it turns out our concern for the Hispanic vote was evidently misplaced. White strategists decided they knew how Hispanics felt, but were not right. Hispanics swung toward the orange asshole who wanted to build a wall, despite our earnest efforts to correct them on their use of gendered nouns.
And how about the decades before the GOP killed the bill in 2024? Let’s not pretend that we had any interest in dealing with an issue that was guaranteed to eventually blow up in our faces. We should have, and could have, stated bluntly that we have a right as a nation to control our borders, and we will put a stop to it, starting with the criminal employers who make it worthwhile to cross the border. And when the GOP refused, we shove that down their throats as MS-13 plus big business. But before the GOP had a chance to refuse, you and I both know it would have been tabled by Dems like the aggrieved Mr. Newsom, who has his own billionaires to answer to.
@Michael Reynolds: According to migrationpolicy.org, the total number of undocumented immigrants is 11 million, a number that has remained surprisingly static for many years. The border itself is like a separate country with its own culture with millions crossing both ways each day. It is true that in the last couple years the number of immigrants substantially grew due to war, drugs and global warming. The “true” total number could be a couple million more than found by the institute due to recent factors, but nowhere near the 20-40 million one keeps reading in right wing outlets. The recent immigration surge does represent a failure by the Biden administration but its impact on the country was grossly distorted by the media. The bottom line is that the issue is quite manageable but for the histrionics of the right wing media and it’s snow flake base. PS- Hispanics don’t like gendered pronouns (with good reasons- it is literally anti-Spanish) but most haven’t heard of the matter and those that have just ignore it. It is a nothingburger with a small side of insult.
@Steven L. Taylor:
HW managed to not respond to Reagan’s amnesty with fascism. Clinton didn’t nationalize the national guard in response to HW’s failure to curb illegal immigration. Dubya somehow managed not to follow the Clinton-era rise in undocumented with troops in the streets. Obama deported 4+ million without calling to arrest governors because Bush’s immigration push sputtered. After Trump failed to pass an immigration bill or make Mexico pay for the useless and unfinished wall-to-nowhere, Biden deported 3+ million without gutting 5th Amendment due process.
It actually is the case that Democratic electeds are not the only American adults with agency, and that Trump is responsible for his own amoral acts. Ditto certain usual suspect American voters, and their indefensibly bad political decisions. (Much as many find it easier to scapegoat Biden rather than do the hard work of a) examining their subcultures’ glaring ethical and moral deficits or b) confronting the bigots in their orbit — so that they might join 85% of black and LGBT voters in making the easy non-difficult choice to vote against unqualified, incompetent white supremacists and $4 trillion Big Ugly Bill deficits.)
@Michael Reynolds:
This is a place where I don’t think the bothsiderism is really warranted. The reality is, due to Congress being structurally set up to add friction to the creation of new legislation, the fault ultimately lies at the feet of Congressional Republicans for scuttling (or botching) every serious attempt at immigration reform going back 20+ years to GWB. Here’s just a selection of examples of this:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/immigration-reform-failure-congress-timeline-rcna64467
The most blame I can lay at Democrat’s feet is their decision during Trump 1 not to support any legislation that was tied to the border wall. I do think that was a mistake:
That said, both those issues happened during a period when Republicans had the majority in the House and the Senate and still couldn’t pass their President’s key legislation. So that’s why I included “botch” above.
@Raoul:
Only if you buy the rightwing narrative that, in a time of declining birth rates, immigrants are prima facie bad for America, when the opposite is true.
Hence why Reagan amnestied illegal immigrants, HW welcomed them, Dubya tried to amnesty them, Trump didn’t pass any immigration bill during his first failed presidency, and then blocked Biden’s bill.
Even today, the fascist MAGA regime remains focused on provacative, headline-grabbing, performative anti-brown cruelty, while importing white South Africans and declining to sic ICE on red state farmers or reign in Chamber of Commerce members who exploit the cheap labor.
Republicans know the economy benefits from immigration, legal and illegal. But they also have to give their rabid base of gullibles and deplorables the requisite cruelty and hatred, to distract from the Koch/Thiel plan to strip 14 million Americans of healthcare and give trillions in corporate socialism to the oligarchy.
And that’s why ICE is terrorizing Downtown L.A. instead of Iowa agribusiness. When conservatives want to stop illegal immigration, they will make it a punishable crime to employ the undocumented. The right is never going to do that. This is the gist of America’s fake and phony immigration debate.
@Kathy: Autocracy will be popular as long as it is seen as bringing order and prosperity.
“Luckily” the people Trump put in charge of making sure the trains run on time don’t believe in train tracks.
@Matt Bernius:
This x 1,000
@DK:
Amen to this!
@Bobert:
Opps, brain malfunction, I intended to say
“Have their been any locally initiated pro-DEPORTATION rallies?”
My personal experience is that when the neighbors of undocumented get to know them as just regular folk who are working to better their circumstances, the neighbors tend to support them.
@steve:
Kent State is just around the corner from me. I can’t say what the national consensus was at the time, but locally it was not supportive of the ill-trained, overly anxious guardsmen. If anything, after the investigation, the community (those of us that lived through it) are repelled by the thought of guardsmen or the military being used to control protests.
I don’t think it will increase Trump’s popularity, as in causing more Dems or Independents to support him, rather it will encourage/delight the deplorable’s enthusiasm for culling the “others” from society.
The George Floyd protests of 2020 hurt Trump’s approval ratings (at least polling data); this may have cost him the election later that year. He must be aware of this. The American people like toughness, especially the fantasy toughness that the pseudomasuline keyboard warriors purvey, but when Trump is President, American cities burn. That is not a good message for him.
BTW, my interactions with spanish speaking people in menial jobs have made me respect their work ethic.
I think Michael Reynolds is basically right about this.
And I think it’s a bit crazy to equate the public wanting order and laws followed with autocracy. The vast majority of humans (not just Americans) like stability and basic fairness. Democrats have long operated under the assumption that Hispanics are broadly supportive of de facto open border policies, and it turns out this assumption was and is wrong.
I’d just add that the protesters are not exactly helping themselves. The imagery of protesters destroying property, attacking police (not just ICE), all while waving flags from other countries, is really stupid if the goal is to win public support.
The fact is that the Biden administration did a terrible job of managing immigration, going from positive territory to -31 points by the end of his term. Trying to spin that as racism and not bad policy isn’t a recipe for Democrats to improve on this issue in the future.
Now, to placate the usual suspects, none of this is a defense of what Trump is doing. However, it appears that many Americans are willing to accept certain excesses, mistakes, and overreach in exchange for increased immigration enforcement, and that’s a reality that has to be dealt with, not waved away.
@Gustopher:
They might, if the train stops at the nearest brewery, or drug den.
We expect authorities to use discretion regarding law and order. Look at the speed limit–it’s almost more dangerous to follow the speed limit if everyone is allowed to go 20 mph above. Same with alcohol. You’re not allowed to drink in many public places, and yet as long as you put your booze in a thermos or paper cups and behave reasonably, the cops will leave you alone. Discretion is where tons of prejudice and abuse enter, of course. Cops chose to bust black people for driving while black or hanging out while black. We have begun, as a society, to try to handle that. But the entire of law and order rests on a huge gray area of behavior.
There’s a certain type of person who can’t grasp this at all. With the parties, when the GOP still had its moderate/WASP wing, there was an understanding of the quiet anarchy of daily orderly life. But that’s gone. The backbone of the party doesn’t get the quiet anarchy of daily life. They’re threatened by it.
Trump’s a criminal, but he doesn’t get it, which is what makes his criminality so appealing to the party. These are people who will never see the similarities between the cops letting you go right by while doing 15 over and not ‘enforcing’ immigration law. It’s made immigration (illegal or not) impossible to receive, because one side thinks of it as a speed limit/alcohol issue, whereas the other has turned it into an existential referendum.
Perhaps some useful data on deportations, 1993-2024
I’ll grant Democrats neither boast about nor exaggerate their numbers.
Anecdotal, but nearly all the construction Latinos I know who were rather fond of Trump in the last election (their attitudes in general are all but indistinguishable from those of blue-collar whites) are, at this moment, deeply frightened and outraged by the ICE dragnets. It has become clear to them they are indiscriminately rounding up brown people. There is a clear fear that themselves or their wife or kids could be detained for being brown at any moment, despite their legal status.
I will be looking for polls of Latino support for the GOP in the next election. I suspect there will be a shift from recent trends.
@dazedandconfused:
Then they have come home to the correct political party, as natural rightwingers, unconcerned until personally affected.
Latinas for Trump founder now condemns White House deportation agenda: ‘Not what we voted for’ (The Independent)
My sister in Christ, this is quite literally what you voted for. Biden already deported 3+ million bad apples, who did they think MAGA mass deportation would target? Did they think Trumpers see them as white, or…?
@Matt Bernius: I think that you’re missing MR’s main point: the Democrats were in possession of the power ring at the time and shoulda used it. Just like in
comic booksthe old days before conservatives got so uppity.There seems to be a LOT of people who forget that one of the biggest problems in the immigration situation is that BUSINESSES like to have illegal labor. They can pay substandard wages and have them work in horrific conditions because who is going to complain?
There are a lot of reasons immigration reform fails, but let’s not forget to follow the money. It’s not all bleeding heart blah blah blah.
@Andy:
I think that by now we have seen that Americans want order far more than they want laws followed. And they want “fairness” for themselves more than actual fairness.
There’s no great urge to ensure that police are following the law in these protests. 2020 in Seattle, the BLM protests were met with a police riot, and we saw that happen in a lot of other cities and states.
In LA right now, we’ve had police deliberately target reporters and shoot them directly with rubber bullets. There is no outcry across America to hold these officers accountable.
I care less about a Waymo being set on fire, allegedly by protesters*, than about government actors hurting people for funsies. But it turns out that I’m an outlier that way.
*: tear gas is flammable, the electric cars tend to have a burning problem with the batteries in general, and the police are also using flash grenades — I would want to see camera footage. Luckily the Waymo’s are rolling surveillance machines, so we should get that footage. And it’s not like there aren’t a shitload of cameras around elsewhere.
@Andy:
Error evidence does not exist. Sure some people will talk a good game about fairness but what they really mean is whatever benefits them. Proof = MAGA/trump voters and their support of illegal and barbaric measures committed by their ‘god king’ Trump.
I will concur that people do like stability hence the support of authoritarians throughout human history.
I completely agree that too many democratic party members take Hispanic support for granted and they shouldn’t. Because Hispanic people like all people are selfish and greedy. I’ve met dozens of second generation illegals who want to kick all the illegals out. Fuck you I got mine being the common denominator in those people.
“de facto open border”. Come on man you’re way better than this. Your statement is 100% contradicted by reality. You could NEVER just walk in and out of the USA without meeting federal legal requirements. This is such a stupid statement I can’t even believe you made it. Yet you did.
Clinton deported more people than any republican. The CATO institute labeled Obama the “Deporter-In-Chief” in 2013 because he was “over-enforcing immigration laws”. Biden pushed for an immigration reform bill in 2021 but was shut down by the GOP. Biden tried again in 2023 with the Bipartisan border Security Bill. Surely you remember that one as it was supported by the border patrol and republicans in congress…. Right up until Trump said no and the GOP sank that bill too.
But yeah sure the Democratic party is 100% OPEN BOARDERS!@!!!
Yes make sure to blame all protestors for the actions of a few assholes in one intersection…
I do agree with you on the concept that the violence is not helpful I’m not sure how the protestors can do anything about the random assholes showing up to cause issues.
Or the GOP owned media did such a great job of lying to the American public that it moved the needle? Just look at the early reporting of the protests in LA. I swear every video and picture I saw on TV and social media was that same intersection with the same waymo on fire yet the talking heads talked like the entire city was on fire. The media is here to make money and dramatic outrage brings clicks and eyeballs.
Yes a good portion of Americans were willing to support fascism and Hitler in the 30s too…
“A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals, and you know it.”
This isn’t something new as evidenced by Franklin’s famous quote.
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
People have ALWAYS been willing to throw away freedom for the illusion of safety and security…
@Matt:
My take on the overall immigration policy on the right is “Throw everyone out and don’t let anyone else in.” Anything less than that is “open borders.”
@DK:
… written by Derek Hunter, a policy guy at Heritage
Sure looks like Kamala was exaggerating, right?
Who knows what the hell is going to happen at Trump’s Soviet Style military review and salute to himself birthday parade?
@Matt:
This. Republicans have tanked every serious, thorough effort to fix the immigration system. Because Republican donors need to exploit the cheap labor and Republican politicians need to exploit the issue for votes. Trump explicitly admitted as much in tanking Biden’s border bill. A bill which, by the way, is still needed and still better policy wise than anything coming out of the current administration — according to Republican senator Lankford of Oklahoma.
But Americans who should know better fall for it; that lack of discernment has made us a mess relative to peers.
@Gustopher:
You’re right: there’s no great evidence Americans want order or fairness. One, we’ve twice elected a Republican chaos agent. Is America much more orderly now — with tariff trade war chaos, looming Big Ugly Bill healthcare cuts and $4 trillion yearly deficits, military deployed against US citizens, and mass layoffs rippling through government — than under Joe Biden? Was Trump’s COVID upheaval, BLM unrest, and Jan 6 terror attack more orderly than life under Obama? No.
Is it fair that Trump declined to deploy the military to stop his cop beating thugs on Jan 6 — and instead lionized, pardoned, and released them? No.
Fair that Americans who leaped to (correctly) identify the Colorado attacker as a terrorist — since he’s brown and Muslim named — still refuse to call Trump’s Jan 6 thugs ‘terrorists,” because they’re white? No.
Is it fair that Trump deported legal asylum seeker Andre Romero to a foreign torture camp without due process? No. Fair that non-criminal migrants are being terrorized while in the act of complying with their duty to report? No.
And yet Trump’s approval rating, while historically mediocre, still hovers in the mid to high 40s.
I do think Americans are high on our own supply, lying to themselves and the world about their ethics and values. Many are not ready to publicly admit to fix their conscious and subconscious affinity for Trump’s unfair, racist, and destabilizing acts that serve a newly radical white supremacy and incompetent patriarchy.
This denial will continue to hold the US back in the 21st century.
@DK: Immigration is also the gift that keeps on giving in terms of the theater they can generate in the RW media with it. Doubly so now that they’ve given the Abortion gift horse away.
I have a completely different take on deportation after Hispanics decided to roll with Trump in 2024. Let their illegal relatives get rounded up. Choose better in 2028 if you want a different policy.
There is simply no way to protect the most vulnerable people from collateral damage until at least the mid-terms. Immigration is not a hill to die on–no one wants to come here now anyway.
Showing the real human costs of this stupidness and exploitation Republican coalition fissure are the best bang for the buck. Immigration and Protests keep the coalition united which is why Trump will keep going to this well.
I find it incomprehensible and disorienting that the President of the United States can publish deranged fairytales like this:
without it being greeted with universal derision. Then again I find many things incomprehensible and disorienting about the wealthiest and most powerful major power in history which also manages to be full of people consumed with grievances about imaginary unfairness.
@Gustopher:
Violence begets violence.
If one is mainly interested in a rhetorical game of whether police vs protester violence is worse, then that is generally a losing game if you are OK with protester violence or stay silent about it but want maximal punishment for police violence.
@Matt:
Yes, humans tend to consider “fairness” in terms of their own self-interest, very often without realizing it. I’m sure you realize this isn’t something unique to MAGA, right?
The fairness issue is a question of people following the rules for coming to the US. Immigrant citizens have shifted 40 points to Trump on this issue. What’s your answer to their question of fairness?
Consider the view of the people who have to make the dangerous, difficult, and expensive trek to reach America. These are people, unlike you and I, who have actual stakes and skin in the game, including their lives. When Biden got elected, millions of them assessed that their material chances of getting to the US, being granted asylum, or being able to get in, materially improved. And so they came.
You say my statement is 100% contradicted by reality? The decisions of millions of migrants who saw an opening with the Biden administration is the actual reality, not rhetorical games.
And I think you may be confusing the meaning of “de facto,” which is not the same thing as verbalized intentions. I think it’s true that the Biden admin and Democrats (unlike what the GoP claims) didn’t want millions of people gaming the asylum system, or coming across the border causing chaos, but intentions matter much less than actions.
Much of this statistical deception that stems from changing definitions of what “deporting” means. Obama’s “deporter in chief” is an example of this. And Clinton left office a quarter century ago. The political landscape is a lot different now.
I like Biden and have a generally positive view of his administration on the things I care about. And yeah, he had a “comprehensive immigration reform” proposal in 2021 like most every other President. But the opposition wasn’t just from the GoP. That bill never got a vote, even in the Democratic-controlled House. Democrats could have forced a filibuster in the Senate, but didn’t bring it up there either. It never got past the proposal stage. So Democrats made zero effort on this proposal. Gee, I wonder why?
Biden did not “try again” in 2023. The 2023 bill was all about Ukraine and not immigration. GoP Senators demanded immigration reform as the price of their support for Ukraine funding. Democratic Senators (and Biden) acquiesced to that demand to get Ukraine funding. It was never clear if that bill would pass the House, and many Democrats in the House did not like the immigration provisions. But then Trump came in, like usual, and nuked the whole thing. The GoP Senators who demanded immigration reform reversed course because they are cowards in the face of Trump.
That speaks ill of the GoP and what spineless turds they are. But the reality is that wasn’t some grand Democratic proposal on immigration that they supported – it was Democratic Senators caving to GoP demands in order to secure Ukraine funding.
No one believes you if you claim it’s just a few bad apples, but make no effort to remove those apples and only complain about what the cops do in response (see several comments in this thread for examples).
That’s just the reality of how optics work. Normies don’t buy that gaslighting that the violent ones aren’t representative of your noble cause. It doesn’t help when lots of prominent Democrats complain only about the cop and Trump’s response, and stay silent on the troublemakers on their own side (again, see several comments in this thread).
The harsh reality is that in the modern media environment, one gets tarred with the worst excesses of what the most extreme on one’s side chooses to do. You remember Charlottesville? There were actually a lot of peaceful protesters there. Didn’t prevent them from all being painted with the brush of the worst extremists. Same with any of the 2020 protests.
Just to be clear, that’s not a value judgment, but my assessment of the reality of how the optics of protesting works today.
The GoP-owned media? This is 2025. No one owns the media. The legacy media is still dominated by liberal-leaning voices, except for Fox. And Fox gets about 1% or less of the American public watching.
Blaming the GoP media for “moving the needle” – I’m sorry, I don’t want to be a dick, but it’s just an ignorant view of how things work.
It’s not the 1930s anymore. Sure, there is always going to be some portion of the population willing to support authoritarians – that has always been the case. What is the point of this argument?
Historically, that is not universally true. If it were true, then the time for debate is over, and you and I should both be getting guns and killing people. But let me guess, you’re not actually willing to do that, are you?
@Andy:
Police using the power of the state to commit assault upon the people with impunity is far, far worse than anything the protesters have done. They are ostensibly trained to handle crowds, work in stressful situations and de-escalate.
We give the government a monopoly on the legal use of force. When an officer casually raises their gun to shoot at a reporter on air, there are no excuses for it. It’s better that it’s a rubber bullet, but still inexcusable.
https://bsky.app/profile/4fouls.bsky.social/post/3lr5wypmxns2r
They do it because they know they will never be held to account. Did he fear for his life or safety? Was the reporter advancing on him? No.
When the police beat someone to the ground and then bring a horse to trample on that person, that is worse than some rando setting a Waymo on fire
Well, it has now spread to Santa Ana, AZ and Chicago.
I do have to say though, nothing says peaceful and “we’ve got this under control” like looting.
@DK: Yup the GOP is once again fully in control of all branches of government and suddenly immigration reform no longer matters…. again…
@Andy:
I never once claimed it was limited to MAGA. I just used them as an example because they are a group of +50 million people that is easily identifiable. I even went on to clearly state that all people are selfish and greedy further down my post. Some people are just better at realizing it and nullifying it.
I already pointed out that I’ve met dozens of people whose parents immigrated illegally in to the USA yet demand no others be allowed. Just because their parents or they got in illegally doesn’t mean they have any sympathy for their fellow humans. Once again greedy and selfish behaviour on a mass scale.
I can’t find any details of that poll so it’s basically about useless to discuss. Leopards been eating a lot of faces though among the Latinos for Trump and other similar groups…
I say show me actual data and “trust me bro” or Fox news and the right wing infotainment universe doesn’t count. The official numbers over the last few decades do not tell the story you’re making.
I would also point out that the migrant caravan that FOX and the news media freaked out about for a while was started by facebook posts that were full of outright lies. They’ve tried to do this a couple more times over the years but never got the same response. So reality doesn’t matter to the desperate just the hope and a comforting lie.
Would like to take a moment to point out that the reason those people are in such bad situations is because of the USA’s adventures in the area back in the 80s. Everyone loves to pretend that nothing happened there and it’s just some weird thing causing people to want to leave…
Okay then lets do this.
de fac·to
/ˌdā ˈfaktō/
adverb
adverb: de facto; adverb: defacto
in fact, or in effect, whether by right or not.
“the island has been de facto divided into two countries”
adjective
adjective: de facto; adjective: defacto
denoting someone or something that is such in fact.
“a de facto one-party system”
It appears you are using words you don’t understand. Because your claim of open borders was not a fact.
You are a funny person for claiming the immigration bill had nothing to do with immigration. You know despite the border patrol, the GOP and everyone else calling it an immigration bill and the bill itself containing lots of language about immigration and various reforms. Try again certainly applies as this was the second attempt at immigration reform.
Your hangup on the Ukraine stuff shows your desperation to avoid giving Democrats or Biden any credit for trying. Your bias is on full display here bro.
Weird how people keep believing that it’s always the bad apples when it comes to certain groups like right wingers or cops or white college people rioting after a win/loss. Jan 6th was just a few bad apples. The cops killing people for no valid reason are just a few bad apples. Gee I wonder why?
Once again how are groups of random people supposed to “remove” the bad apples? Cops could purge their bad apples via the system they are part of. There’s no such organization or system for the people protesting.
AHAHAHAHAHA OMG are you serious? OVER 90% of US media is owned by 6 companies. Most of the newspapers published in the USA are owned by 7 companies. Five companies directly own over 50% of ALL local television stations in this country. The consolidation of media began in earnest when the Telecommunications act of 1996 passed. You ever see that video on facebook of like +30 different news stations saying almost the exact same thing? That was Sinclair doing Sinclair things. These megacompanies owned by billionaires have been pushing news stories nation wide on a local TV station level.
You’re outright delusional if you believe that 99% of media is left wing. The above mentioned media companies are owned by corporations run by billionaires or outright owned via billionaires directly holding stock.
Modern mass media has never been left wing.
Well being a naturally conservative minded individual I see that humanity has a tendency to do the same things over and over the last 2000 or so years. So I draw upon that wealth of information to see what we’re likely to do today.
A casual look into human history will result in you seeing hundreds of examples. If you can’t be bothered to learn a bit about history then I can’t help you here. Even modern history has examples from WW2 and after galore.
What I’m willing to do is irrelevant to the conversation. You clearly don’t know me if you think I need to get anything.
Oh since I have your attention. I’d like to point out that the NTSB report on the Dali has completely supported everything I said. The report is even more damning than I was…
@Gustopher: A daily reminder that rubber bullets are “less lethal”. I’m tired of people labeling them as “non lethal” because they can be very lethal.
@Ken_L: I laugh as hard as I can every time I read one of these Trumpisms, but I’m only one cracker.
@Connor:
Nothing says “law and order” like a rapist president inciting a terror attack on Congress, then pardoning and releasing the terrorists — before disappearing people into foreign torture prisons without due process, in defiance of his own judicial appointees.
Still waiting for you to provide evidence for your assertion that Kilmar Abrego Garcia visited El Salvador 100 times. Don’t think you can slither back in past that.
@Gustopher:
I agree with you that illegal use of force by government authorities ought to be punished. Full stop.
At the same time, that isn’t an excuse for protester violence. Throwing bricks through the windshields of moving vehicles can kill someone – it’s happened before and resulted in criminal charges.
Furthermore, at the political level, protester violence is almost always counterproductive. It’s just dumb to downplay it or excuse it. And gives police a lot more latitude to use the kinds of force you’re complaining about, which the public sees as more justified than if the protests weren’t violent.
@Matt:
You’re not providing data for your assertion either, but here you go as one relevant example. Note how things spike once Biden takes office and his admin materially and rhetorically loosens the restrictions. And then note how it crashed a year ago when Biden (finally) issued an executive order after realizing immigration was hurting his election chances.
You can try to spin it however you want, but the reality is that the public thought the administration was not doing enough on immigration, those perceptions were largely accurate, and voters punished Democrats as a result.
You’re missing the point. Democrats were not looking for an immigration bill in 2023, they were looking for Ukraine funding. Senate Republicans said the way we’ll give Democrats Ukraine funding is if they give in to demands on immigration, and Senate Democrats agreed to that demand. Senate Democrats did not go to Republicans looking to do an immigration bill in 2023. The bias on full display here is you ignoring the facts of how this proposal came about by attempting to turn it into some kind of Democratic driven initiative.
One can start by stopping making excuses for them. Democrats and Democratic leaders can do what Fetterman is doing and say unequivocally that violent protest is not legitimate and not effective.
The point here is that (IMO) the purpose should be entirely about effectively swaying the public against what the Trump administration is doing. Allowing violent protests and excusing them does the opposite.
The “media” is much more than cable and TV news and what’s left of the newpaper industry. What I mean by “no one owns the media” is that most media comes from many more sources now. Information flow is massively more diverse than it used to be, which is exactly why so much traditional media is failing as a business model.
A lot of this is generational. My kids don’t consume any of the media you mention, for example. At the other end, it’s generally only old people and partisan cranks who watch cable news.
In short, the media is a lot more diverse than you’re making it out to be, and claiming that the GoP controls it enough that they are moving the needle is doubtful in the best case. It’s certainly a claim that requires more evidence than your mere assertion.
You pointed out that some people in the US supported Hitler. And I agreed that’s true. And I said there are always going to be some number of people who support authoritarians. The same is true today. That’s basically a constant that ebbs and flows. The question is, so what?
People make Hitler comparisons constantly, so much so that few bother to take them seriously anymore.
And yes, one can find “hundreds” of examples of the constant that some number of people like authoritarians. That is easy. But learning from history requires more than lazy comparisons to Hitler – it involves understanding not only similarities, but also the differences.
@Andy:
https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/biden-deportation-record
What restrictions were “materially loosened”? Data clearly shows that Biden deported/expelled more immigrants than Trump did. I don’t really know what citations you want as this is publicly available data that you can see yourself with a short google search.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/22/us/trump-biden-immigrants-deportations.html
Biden was already WAY ahead of trump from day one. Your statement about Biden’s executive order is contradicted by reality. Biden’s border also saw a massive increase in outright rejecting amnesty/asylum cases at the border FROM DAY ONE.
Nothing you said is near the truth.
Yeah and the public in the 80s thought that satanic daycare centers were stealing children and sacrificing them to satan. Something like 30% of the public thinks the earth is flat. Just because the majority of the public thinks something doesn’t mean it’s the truth. Especially when you have Fox news types arguing in court that they have no obligation to tell the truth and winning.
Diamonds are considered rare and expensive. That’s an outright lie too but it’s “common sense” because of a many decades long sophisticated program of propaganda. WHen you have a handful of companies owning the vast majority of all media in the USA this kind of stuff is even easier to do.
That’s odd because I can find a list of immigration bills introduced in 2023 by democratic party members. Such as this one. https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/house-bill/3194
and
S.1208
S.2606
In the first few weeks of Biden being inaugurated he issued an EO on Immigration.
https://immigrationforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Biden-Administration-Exec-Actions-Jan-Feb.pdf
Which BTW part of that EO seeks to address the issue of the source/cause of the migrations/caravans.
I have to be careful how many things I link because otherwise my post will be blocked.
Holy shit dude I could provide links galore of other Democratic party members saying that violent protests are not legitimate. Do a simple google search for fuck’s sake and stop relying on whatever little bubble you live in for information. BTW Fetterman has been a scumbag going back to his Mayor days. The only only reason he got elected is because the other choice was “DR OZ”.
Kind of hard to do that when all the media is blasting the same intersection 24/7 claiming all of LA is burning down. I know people who live in LA the issue was literally two intersections long.
Except poll after poll shows people getting their information from a select few media outlets. Hell there’s a post ON THIS VERY BLOG THAT CONTRADICTS YOU. That media of course is owned by a small number of mega corps and billionaires…
Joe Rogan being a major source of “news” for the newest generations is absolutely terrifying. That dude regularly brings on people who spew outright lies and never challenges them.
The biggest difference between Biden and Obama vs Trump is that Biden and Obama’s priority were criminals and national security threats. Trump’s first priority on the other hand was to kick out the people following the rules. Trump’s people have expanded that priority to include construction, agricultural, and factory workers now.