Tuesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, January 27, 2026
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59 comments
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About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science and former College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
Follow Steven on
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BlueSky.
Any Democrat calling for defunding ICE needs to STFU. That is overreach. Call for firing Noem, call for prosecuting the agents involved in the shooting, call for strict limits on ICE including retraining, higher hiring standards, an end to the masks and a return to warrants, call for an end to political targeting of Blue cities, but not the D word. That would be snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Voters still want the border to be tight and they still want actual criminals deported.
@Michael Reynolds:
Don’t defund ICE. Abolish it.
@Kathy: That’s something only radical leftists say.
Bovino will be leaving Minneapolis shortly, per NBC.
Melania is calling for unity in Minneapolis, also per NBC.
And the National Guard handed out coffee and doughnuts to the anti-ICE protesters.
@CSK:
Clueless idiots always calling for what’s already there.
@Kathy:
Do you want to send the message that Democrats are for open borders? Does that strike you as a winning message in the mid-terms? If one Mexican comes over the border and rapes or kills the politics of this turn on a dime. We are not on a triumphant march here, we are on a knife’s edge.
Don’t make life decisions at 3:00 AM, and don’t make political decisions in the heat of passion.
Dems political response re: ICE/BP. Yesterday David French had a few good starting points
To which I’d add, make the training program that ICE and the BP had prior to the felon returning, legally binding. And Noem’s head on a plate. Yesterday I was thinking Bovino, but he’s been thrown under a bus, being sent back to CA (I believe his original duty post) and expected to retire. That is, he’s been fired.
Dems don’t want to turn this into a defund/abolish debate. Both ICE and the BP need reform, but that’s something for when they have a majority.
@Michael Reynolds:
So the Senate Dems’ refusal to fund DHS is overreach?
Wow, OK.
Shorter Michael Reynolds:
That’s one hell of a way to piss on the people whose votes you need in a couple of months, while also undercutting one’s core message that this shit is not normal.
I don’t see how that would work.
But at least your evident confidence in making that statement is based on some credible polling, I guess?
@Michael Reynolds:
I missed the part where I’m solely responsible for high level US policy decisions. Hell Week must be hitting harder than I thought 🙂
I do favor open borders, coupled withe economic and political integration.
@Michael Reynolds:
DHS was created in response to 9/11. IIRC, the year of creation of ICE was 2003, and the US did not have open borders before that, it had other bodies such as Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).
DHS/ICE was a bad idea, obviously, one that needs to be revisited with some organizational changes, elimination of ICE included.
Tone deaf.
Veterans react to killing of VA nurse Alex Pretti by federal agent
Calls to defund and abolish DHS will not go well, but Democrats can and should demand accountability. DHS has been given more money that some countries spend on their militaries. The ROI is not good (where is DOGE when you need it? /snark).
For example, ICE claims to have arrested 400 people so far in Maine. Four of them were wanted on criminal charges. FOUR. The daily updates keep harping on those four arrests. So, a 1% success rate in finding those hardened criminals. They have hundreds of agents in state right now. That is a really crappy ROI.
DHS needs a total overhaul. It starts with them not getting a massive budget for these extreme fck ups. Frame it in terms of accountability. Trump’s numbers on immigration have reached a new low, BUT this is an issue where disconnected Americans quickly revert to type.
@Michael Reynolds: This is not a time for tinkering around the edges. ICE is a cancer.
If we’re worried about messaging and appearances, we could institute reforms at ICE that essentially abolish and re-create it, but keep the same name.
Also, I’m not sure the “‘abolish ICE’ means Dems are for open borders!” line is going to work anymore. Everyone has seen what ICE has become.
@drj:
If you polled Hispanic voters right now, today, I’d bet you wouldn’t get to 50% for abolishing ICE. If Trump dials it down, by November that number will be half that. And those are votes we already have. Whose votes do you think we pick up by making impotent calls for abolishing ICE? Show me the voters. Paint me a picture of the new votes we’ll get 8 months from now if we don’t get more killings. The enemy is going to adjust, they are already adjusting.
People still want to control the border and they are not going to get into the nuance of this agency or that. We’re going to do #Defund again? Seriously? Don’t dial everything up to 11 because you’re pissed, and don’t virtue signal by taking the most extreme position. I’m sick of emotional displays, I want to fucking win, not get high on my own righteousness.
@Mikey:
No, they haven’t. Just like ‘everyone’ did not see that we needed to defund police.
Here’s a very recent poll:
46% to abolish, 41% don’t. And that’s with mushy middles on both sides and a big undecided group.
That is in the heat of the moment, and the moment will very likely cool. People vote economics first, everything else second. So you have to look at what additional votes we’d actually get over and above money voters. This is a fight at the margins.
It also ain’t gonna happen, because among GOP’s 8% strongly support abolishing and 11% kinda sorta do, and 60% strongly oppose along with a mushier 13%. So which GOP congresspeople are joining in on abolishing? What do you think the odds are of overcoming a veto?
OTOH, we could probably get legislation on limiting ICE’s reach. Not emotionally satisfying, but I DGAF about emotion, I care about power.
@Michael Reynolds:
Agreed.
They should be calling to Abolish ICE or Repeal and Replace ICE, or Convict ICE.
“Defund” is too fucking weak a slogan.
@Michael Reynolds:
As @charontwo points out, ICE did not exist until 2003. CBP would still exist.
However, I think this is the juncture at which discussions derail. You seem to be discussing campaigns/messaging/Shittyamericanism vs. those discussing policy.
People are really riled up over Alex Pretti, much more than Renee Good.
“WaPo Gift”
Heading:
@Michael Reynolds:
The problem with “defund the police” is that the police are general law enforcement with a huge number of responsibilities.
ICE has a specific function and hasn’t been around forever. We still have CBP. We could abolish ICE as it currently exists and revert to just CBP or create something new.
This is not the same as the police–especially since it is kind of hard to argue that ICE taking over the streets of Minneapolis is protecting the border.
I can accept that “defund the police” was not the most politically smart slogan, although I still think you give it way too much weight. Remember when Eric Adams was the answer to Dems looking soft on crime?
Were I in Democratic leadership, I’d pull together a list of demands:
No more face masks
All required court documents in order first
Follow/respect due process
Require evidence of training from all agents
…and so on. Basically a demand list that is everything they’ve been doing wrong. Tell them they don’t get any funding until they agree to stop acting like unlawful goons. This goes one of two ways: one, they cave and stop, or two, they insist on their tactics and they lose funding.
Make the excesses that everyone has witnessed the central demand, and tie their existence to fixing that sh!t.
@Michael Reynolds: Before Saturday, I’d have generally agreed with you, but the murder of Alex Pretti has reached people who don’t usually pay much attention to politics.
From the WaPo story charontwo linked to:
So, last summer, Congress passed a bill that gave a huge increase to ICE’s budget. This allowed what is happening now. What is happening now is 3000 untrained, unfit goons sent to do a job that 100 professionals could do.
So yeah, “Defund ICE” is just fine. Those guys need to be sent home. We did fine without them for many years. We can enforce our borders in another way.
Remember, we live in a time of hyperbole.
@Michael Reynolds:
I get it – you’re not in the US. Support for ICE is tanking hard and FAST, a poll from 3 days ago might as well be from the Reagan administration. Fox News is has anchors saying ICE was a bad idea. The day the shooting video came out, 48% of Americans supported abolishing ICE. That number is going to poll MUCH higher very soon.
@Mikey: I think that Pretti has caused more uniform outrage than Good because (a) he didn’t have a moving car and (b) the administration’s attack on his legal gun possession splintered a particular Trump-supporting demographic.
I agree with French, but I would add de-militarize ICE. In addition to being masked, the agents suit up like special operation troops making a raid on the Taliban in the mountains of Afghanistan when they are only police performing ordinary police functions. Moreover, for the most part what they are doing is not particularly dangerous. Contrary to Noem’s assertions, except in the rarest of instances the people being arrested are not the worst of the worst or even particularly dangerous. These are not master criminals or drug kingpins being arrested but dishwashers and gardeners. Do you need grenades and automatic weapons to fend off dish towels and weed whackers? Put the agents in blue suits, give them a whistle and night stick and make them act like police on the beat.
India, EU sign ‘mother of all’ free trade agreements
While the felon fiddles the world moves on.
@Jay L. Gischer:
Sure. But for some reason, somewhere between 35-60% of Americans don’t think we were doing fine without them.
I use that wide range, because…polling. But also because my guess is that some of those people would likely answer differently depending on the day the question is asked. The rest have internalized unauthorized immigration as a crisis and are in perma-unreason mode.
@Joe:
I think because of what he had been doing – helping a woman who had been pushed to the ground – plus who he was, an ICU nurse, plus him and the woman both being pepper sprayed.
Plus all the pictures we have seen of pepper sprayed people being held on the ground, close up to their faces.
The whole thing is just so over-the-top egregious.
“Tim Snyder”
@Sleeping Dog:
America’s great strength for the past 80 post WW2 years has been its reputation for predictability and reliability, now gone and not coming back. Trust is hard to gain, easy to lose.
@Sleeping Dog: the rise of the middle powers…
https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2026/01/27/middle-powers-hedge-against-u-s-under-trump-reboot-global-trade/
The UK and Germany are reaching out to China, too.
Abolishing ICE shouldn’t be controversial, Project 2025 recommended abolishing ICE, and DHS. If I keep reading maybe I’ll find something else I agree with.
OK, what Ken Cuccinelli, who wrote the DHS section, wants to do is break up DHS, reassigning constituent agencies elsewhere and combine CBP and ICE. Still OK in principle, and he wants ICE agents to get regular police training. From there on it’s pretty much full fascism, including the massive funding and personnel increases enacted in the OBBBA. Cuccinelli notes the dates of formation of DHS, which he regards as a failed large bureaucracy, while carefully avoiding mentioning who, of which Party, created it. But I still agree with abolishing it.
This is interesting. Or was it expected once Trump’s attention span has been exceeded? Or for internal Venezuela consumption?
Venezuela’s acting president says she has had ‘enough’ of US orders
@charontwo:
My wife is knitting a red knit cap with a long tassel. The knitting site identifies it as a resistance symbol, one worn by Norwegians early the German occupation, before the Germans outlawed it. And it echoes the “pussy hats” of the Million Moms march.
@Joe:
(c) He was a white straight dude.
The murder of Good was itself somewhat of a turning point because she was white, blonde, and American born-and-bred, and it did fall into the common pattern where Americans don’t notice a problem until it happens to a white person. But her being a woman married to a woman gave them a way to otherize her. Pretti’s murder was not any more obviously unjustified, and the admin’s lies weren’t any more egregiously in conflict with the video evidence everyone saw.
As for the gun angle, if a right-wing revolt against the GOP for not following their claimed principles was ever a likely outcome, it would have happened a long, long time ago. The entire conservative movement in America is built squarely on lies, and has been for more than a half-century. Virtually none of the principles they claim to uphold are in any way whatsoever a reflection of true beliefs–they never believed in states’ rights, judicial restraint, patriotism, family values, small government, fiscal responsibility, law-and-order, or being pro-life. These were never anything more than empty slogans that were used to mask the things they really cared about–family values meant bashing the gays and putting women back in the kitchen, law-and-order meant putting down civil-rights protests, patriotism meant never questioning a GOP administration’s violent and militaristic actions, domestically or abroad. As for the NRA, they have never truly stood up for a black or brown person’s unfettered right to carry a toy gun, let alone a real one, without having to worry about being put down by an officer who saw them as a threat. The entire supposed worldview of these people is a complete sham and fraud, and has been for almost the entirety of Trump’s life. That’s why it’s hard for me to take seriously the claim that the Trump Admin’s mistake was to tread on the NRA’s supposed values.
It doesn’t seem like the best time for a joke, but here goes:
I was invited to a costume party. I didn’t go. The next day, I called everyone and asked them how they liked my Epstein Files costume.
@Kathy: Nah, your joke is well-timed. Almost forgot the current president is a creepy pederast and belongs in prison for statutory abuse of underage teens.
(j/k I never forgot.)
@Michael Reynolds: That seems like what NYT might say, given their centrism and aversion to anything that might actually excite Democrats. @Steven L. Taylor: has a point. The killings in MN have lit up the electorate. Homan, Noem, Lewandowski, whoever emerges on top, will tell ICE to be on their best behavior until election day. How do we keep Good and Pretti in everybody’s faces for nine months? That’s meant as a constructive question, not a challenge. But maybe take it as a challenge. You’re a skilled, successful creative. How do we do it? What policy do you recommend? Maybe a few punchy speech lines and a couple of bumper stickers.
@Kylopod: Bravo.
People are headlining the statements from the NRA and other gun groups. Those statements strike me as pretty weak tea. Given a few weeks guidance from FOX/GOP they’ll have no trouble rationalizing this away and continuing to canonize Rittenhouse and fund GOPs. After all, the alternative is Demoncrat gun grabbers.
@gVOR10:
Get a bill through Congress that either puts a tight leach on ICE, or repeals and replaces the agency with something more rational and as tightly leashed, and name it the Renee Good and Alex Pretti Act.
@Kathy: Unlikely to pass with GOP majorities. But well worth proposing and forcing them to defend ICE while keeping the issue salient.
@Sleeping Dog:
@charontwo:
Something at TNR re: that:
“The New Republic”
…
…
@charontwo:
Back during the felon’s first term, Krugman did a deep dive into the dollar as a reserve currency, when there was talk of abandoning it. After outlining the benefits, he went on to say that with high probability continue to be, mostly due to inertia and the lack of a palatable alternative.
China has floated the idea of replacing the dollar with a basket of currencies, including the USD, which has appeal, but beyond the Euro, Yen, CnD, AusD and USD, too many of the currencies in the basket have pretty opaque financial systems. What’s changed from when Krugman wrote that article is that the US deficit has ballooned and there is no interest in reining it in. Between now and 2030, it’s estimated that the US will add $2.2T to the existing debt.
While the felon’s antics are worrisome, the real danger is that he succeeds in usurping the Fed’s independence and the dollar’s value collapses. The dollar has been slowly trending down from a peak in October, 2023 till January, 2024, when the drop accelerated.
The danger is that Hemingway’s dictum of going bankrupt slowly and then all at once will come true. The fall will be an avalanche that when evident will be too late to stop.
Kristi Noem Calls On Minneapolis Residents To Stop Obstructing Murders
@Sleeping Dog:
I wonder how a dollar crash would affect the value of stocks. After all, that’s where most of the oligarchs’ wealth resides.
The Good and Pretti Act, or GAPA.
I’m all for effectively getting rid of ICE, but this is a case where semantics matter and I’m with Reynolds here. “Defund” was a messaging disaster we don’t need to repeat–even on the left there was disagreement over whether it meant get rid of police departments entirely or shift things like mental health to other responders. Any slogan that its proponents can’t get their own side to agree with is a messaging loser.
I don’t know what the right terminology is, but I know Defund is the wrong one. We will instantly lose a ton of people who will write the left off as once again just favoring completely open borders and criminals over citizens. It doesn’t matter that its BS–politics IS messaging. Sure the actual bill should defund and restrict, but don’t let that become the slogan. It’s a known loser.
Reform ICE? Make ICE Follow the Constitution? The Good and Pretti Act semi-joke above for the acronym? More creative people than me can and should do better. But for God’s sake don’t give more proof than D’s have the better ideas but zero clue about actually winning voters by going with Defund and allowing the low-information voters that make up the bulk of the electorate to roll their eyes and tune out.
@Steven L. Taylor:
It wasn’t ICE that murdered Alex Pretti. It was CBP.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Alex_Pretti
USBP is a division of CBP.
So, “Defund ICE,” “Abolish ICE,” etc are all too weak. We have an alphabet soup of fascist agencies with overlapping responsibilities.
Solving this problem is an exercise left to the reader.
(I’ve got nothing, or at least nothing I can say with any confidence — DHS’s purpose was to prevent the next 9/11 by looking at data across agencies, and there’s likely a better way of implementing that than a bunch of fascists assaulting cities and states because the President doesn’t like the Governor)
@gVOR10:
We don’t. Outrages burn hot and then they cool off. If the election were next week, we’d have something. But as I said upstream, the enemy will adapt, has already started to adapt. They’ll dial it down and in a week or two there will be some new outrage that Democrats think will be a magic bullet. The shootings won’t even move Hispanic voters – the enforcement itself will do that, to some extent, the harassment, the friends deported, the family members detained, that will linger long after two dead white progressives are forgotten.
I wish this were not the case, I’m not happy about saying it, but if Epstein didn’t do it, this won’t. It will certainly add to a pile of things, details of which will be forgotten, and that big pile of shit does weigh Trump down. But it’s the pile, not any one incident.
We need to stop thinking the answer is, ‘See how bad Trump is?’ and realize we need to give people a cause they want to join. We need to show them a future. We need a positive message that transcends MAGA. Hope for what can be, not just more disgust about what’s happened. Mamdani did not win on anger at Eric Adams, he won on plans for real improvements in people’s lives. If we take back the White House in 28 the inaugural address cannot be ding dong the witch is dead.
Here’s something: come up with a plan to protect job losses from AI. Solve a problem, allay a fear, boost confidence.
@Kathy:
Oh, probably like October 29, 1929. The falling dollar would result in a massive increase in interest rates. Think of all those adjustable mortgages that will hit their max adjustment and any number of business loans that have no circuit breaker and will spike to the market rate.
Currently the US debt is ~125% of GDP, if tax rates returned to what they were in 2016, the increase would continue, but be nominal. For those of us who would like to see a Western Europe style safety net and support for the middle class, we would need to not only tax the rich and reform the tax code, but tax the middle class at a rate similar what Europeans pay.
On lighter news, the Steelers have hired a new head coach, and broken a pattern stretching back to 1969.
The new hire is Mike McCarthy.
To begin with, he’s 62. His three predecessors, Noll, Cowher and Tomlin, were all in their 30s when hired. He’s also a veteran head coach, having held the job with the Packers (where he defeated Pittsburgh in a Super Bowl), and the Cowboys. His predecessors had been assistant coaches before being hired.
With any other team, I’d assume McCarthy was a temporary hire to rebuild the team, not meant to last as long as three years unless he proved exceptionally good. The Steelers, though, stick with their head coaches a long long time (see only 3 head coaches in the past 57 years). But starting in his early 60s, I can’t see McCarthy having that long a career in his latest team.
How well will he do? that’s why they play a whole season: to find out. and in the case of a new coach, it may be as long as three seasons.
@Sleeping Dog:
As I understand it, while European pay higher tax rates, they don’t pay nearly as much as Americans do for healthcare, child care, and higher education.
The 1995 peso crash in Mexico did a real number on interest and mortgage rates. Far worse than during the hyperinflation period in the 80s. At least then, salaries were revised monthly to account for inflation. Worse yet, that’s when the government decided to charge VAT on unpaid interests, and on fees (like late payment fees).
@Kathy:
It’s true that Europeans pay much less for those things, but they are more willing to pay the taxes that support those services, not so much in the US.
As if LLM chatbots weren’t bad enough already, the acting director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency fed ChatGPT sensitive contracting documents. Apparently more than once.
The info is not classified, but it’s not meant for public distribution either.
He hires only the people who best kiss the orange ass.
Random end of the day miscellany:
– Rep. Ilhan Omar was attacked at her town hall meeting tonight by a lunatic who squirted something in a syringe at her.
– She is the second Black Democrat to be physically assaulted in the last week
– Meanwhile, federal immigration officers tried to enter the Ecuadorian consulate in Minneapolis. (This guy has the correct reaction.) A consulate, like an embassy, is considered to have significant immunity under international law (not quite foreign soil, but…close).
@gVOR10:
I’ve never been clear on this. Does “pussy” refer to lady parts or kitty cats??? .Or both????
Hands down winner for worst domestic flight of the year
Russian airline IrAero swaps a passenger plane for a cargo plane. Has passengers sit on folding seats surrounding the cargo.
@Kathy: Ha, having taken US military cargo flights long ago (“Space Available” = mostly free) I’ve done similar. The worst was the “European Eagle” C-130 turboprop (loud) that made a circular route around US European bases, that was knee to interlocking knee and a porta-pottie on a pallet in the back (Jump-seats). I did Ramstein Germany to Mildenhall UK. Last time I went to Ramstein (2002 on a “fact finding mission” = not an inspection) it was on Lufthansa (code share Delta) 747 cattle car at 100% full (massively overbooked). Miserable. Left 2-3 hours late and the meals was served the specified 2 hours after take off = wake up everyone at midnight EST. One guy died during the flight (was traveling to Germany for medical treatment) – next to a coworker – they covered him with a sheet and it was a slight delay on deplaning at Frankfurt. Our hotel in Ramstein was Feng Sui (sp?), no right angles, odd.
@Kathy:
That sounds swell.
@Richard Gardner:
Back during the Shah’s day I flew Space A on an Iranian C-130 from McGuire to the Azores. Freezing cold, jump seat, had to bring your own inflatable life vest – because that’ll help in the middle of the Atlantic. My favorite part was being seated between two big hash marks showing where the propellers would tear through the fuselage, should one come off. The Iranian AF loadmaster explained that in the event of a water landing we should climb out onto the left wing because the right wing was for crew.
Still better than Spirit Airlines.