Before I comment, I need to know the ground rules: Do we need to be optimistic, or can we tell the truth?
I don't knoooooooooooow. What if I can't handle the truth?
He's cratering in the latest polls, and exactly on what are supposed to be his strongest issues
Issue polling has its uses, but it's easy to overstate the relevance. Issues are not presented by the media to voters the way that pollsters present them, and a minority with strong feelings about something can often overrule the milquetoast majority. (See gun control. See Trump, for that matter.)
I don't know, though, if I've seen as much variation among reputable pollsters. Checking in, it looks like today specifically Trump is being crushed -- that's nice to see when the economy isn't bad, and the stock market is recovering nicely.
Nate Silver is telling us that Trump is overall underwater by 21, 16 and 13 points in today's and yesterday's polls, but also plus-six in yesterday's Morning Consult poll.
It looks like at least some of the local trumplets who rely on this labor have got through to Trump - he posted this morning about good workers being taken away from hotels & farms by "our very aggressive policy on immigration," and while of course it was mostly incoherent, it seemed to be distinguishing between workers and criminals, and concluded "Changes are coming!"
Stephen Miller's star on the wane?
If so, just until the headlines get better.
Jamelle Bouie is smarter than pretty much everyone, but I think he loses the thread here. The headline reasonably reflects his argument: "Trump Wants to Be a Strongman, but He's Actually a Weak Man"
What Bouie misses here, I'm thinking, is that Trump is playing a different game than the small-d democrats. Trump isn't sending in troops solely because he wants ICE to be unimpeded. He's sending in troops because he wants people killed. If he doesn't get that in LA, he'll look for it elsewhere.
Popular revulsion is Bouie's concern, but not Trump's. The relevant question is not, "What is the best way to be popular." It's "What is the best way to undermine democracy?" Trump may not have the right answer, but that still remains to be seen.
Bouie cites Trump's own analysis of state violence as a tool:
(Here it should be said that in 1990, Trump praised the Chinese government for its handling of the protests at Tiananmen Square in 1989: "When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it. Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength.")
Bouie might argue that Tiananmen exposed the weakness of the Chinese government at the time, and that's not wrong. But we need to remember how things turned out in China.
I continue to be agog that basically everything is worse for everybody. Unless you're a large polluter, maybe?
Yeah, it all depends how much we meet the moment and protest/freeze him out. Ameromaidan desperately needed.
I think the quickly-escalating protests show a critical mass of people realize if he keeps shooting protestors without pushback, the game will be up.
11: Yeah, and the hardcore Democrats continue to be even more enraged and motivated than the Republicans. That's excellent news in low-turnout elections.
12: Special elections don't excite me as much anymore because we had those looking like good signs almost throughout 2024.
I guess it does make a 2026 blue wave more likely.
Krugman gets at what I was trying to describe in 8.
I think in this particular article Bouie is more engaged in elite persuasion - not a perfect analysis, but haranguing his colleagues "Stop treating this guy like he's invincible!"
16: I think that's right. The other part of it, I think, is that Bouie wants to insult Trump on Trump's own terms. He's weak! He doesn't have the cards!
He poops without restraint and needs a diaper.
16: Further to that, I just posted this on somebody's timeline in The Other Place. I am compelled to admit that the quality of my analysis is ... dubious. But I think I make a point all the same.
When people point out something appalling Trump has done, the response is almost never, "No, that's actually a good thing." It's "somebody else did a bad thing once, too. So this is just who we are as Americans."
I don't believe that. When this fever passes, we will remember that Americans are a decent, honest people who can again lead the world in education, science and the rule of law -- a country that admires people who work hard regardless of their national origin; a country that honors public service and doesn't consider soldiers to be "losers" and "suckers."
To coin a phrase, I believe we will make America great again. I just hope too much damage isn't done in the meantime.
16, 17: Another aspect of this is that Bouie has argued that the National Guard (and maybe other branches of the military) may not follow orders to shoot at civilians. Bouie is from a military family and this could make him either knowledgable or biased.
And guardsmen, or their families, could be reading! Especially officers.
Following orders isn't really the issue. The point is to put military types in a position where they will do something stupid and violent, creating an opportunity to blame the victims and escalate.
ACAB* isn't the whole story, but it's an important factor, and Trump has a talent for putting assholes in a position to take the initiative. I'm going to guess that nobody ordered this nitwit to blast a TV reporter with a rubber bullet while the camera was rolling.
*For you kids who aren't all hip like me, that's All Cops Are Bastards. It applies to the National Guard and Marines, too.
In that context, individuals in the ranks or officership wanting to maintain good order is also something enhanceable.
pf @ 23: I doubt anybody needed to order that nitwith, eh? We all remember the Floyd protests in 2020, right? press getting attacked left-and-right. This is just how the po-po roll.
Our military tend to have far better culture & accountability around use of force than do our police.
Heebie,
On the one hand, indeed, we didn't need to "make our own lives shittier and less healthy and worse, vote for mass economic precariousness and stealth poisoning, etc". We sure didn't.
But now that we have, I think that we should all be hoping for a steeper, worse Depression with more suffering and not less. B/c the idiots who voted us into this living nightmare need to experience as much of it as possible, in as concentrated a dose as possible, with Trump's fingerprints all over it. As quickly as possible.
The salvation of our Republic depends on the infliction of mass suffering on its people. I don't have to like it to recognize that it's true.
And one of the nice aspects of a Trumpcession is that when its policy components collapse (e.g. his tariffs are fully ended), there will likely be a quick rebound, obvious to all.
The economy is the least important part of the damage being done.
Yes, if we go Putin those feedback mechanisms stop working.
Senator Padilla (D-CA) was just wrestled to the ground for trying to ask questions at a Noem press conference.
I was thinking more of just reputational damage and the ability to attract the best from around the world.
And Noem at that conference said before that "We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city."
They're behaving like an occupying army. We'll, uh, see how that works out for them.
32 serves me right for posting that earlier in the more topical albeit older thread.
Anyway https://bsky.app/profile/bonenberger.bsky.social/post/3lrgm3rfjoc2z
I'm still debating emailing a very old friend who was fired by Noem (after having been hired by Noem years before). But it's been fifteen years since I've talked to her.
My worry is that constant propaganda will turn negative public opinion into either neutral or positive views of Trump. They don't seem to need more than a bit of "don't agree with the tactics, agree with the goals" and "yeah but the Democrats are worse" to keep going.
Most of the major national news organizations are now run by pro-Trump leadership, even if it's not full MAGA leadership, and despite many actual reporters not being pro-Trump.
28: Sounds like you are one of them lousy HL Menckenists.
We had some homophobes come out to last night's city council committee meeting in opposition to a proposed statement of support for the LGBTQIA+ community. They were very opposed to the idea of "giving special rights to one group of people" and also something about Sodom and Gomorah.
40 good opportunity to remind them of the true sin of Sodom and Gomorrah, violating the sacred rules of hospitality towards guests (immigrants, refugees)
https://www.discourseblog.com/p/the-only-rule-left-is-the-rule-of
What the fucking fuck?
https://x.com/uapjames/status/1933157104002400752?s=46&t=nbIfRG4OrIZbaPkDOwkgxQ
They've had a single person guarding the monolith since that movie came out and now the secret is out.
That reminds me, Mel Brooks is making a Spaceballs sequel.
The monolith from space was from History of the World, I think.
Welp, I was supposed to go back home next week but it looks like that's off, probably no flights to Israel for the next few weeks. Barry, are you still in NY? Up for a beer while the middle east goes up in flames?
32 is terrible, this
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/06/11/bragg-soldiers-who-cheered-trumps-political-attacks-while-uniform-were-checked-allegiance-appearance.html
is worse.
Sorry for everyone's weekend, but I think you actually have to turn out right now.
50 Awl! I am indeed in NYC and planning on going to this Saturday's No Kings March. I'm definitely up for beers. If not this Saturday just let me know when, email below
Moby @ 33: I concur. I read (in the FT this AM) that Chinese student numbers dropped off dramatically with COVID, and never recovered. Meanwhile
many other developed Asian countries are picking up large foreign student numbers. Now Indians are getting worried about coming here (and honestly,
they should be worried -- many of them are -brown- and that's dangerous AF). And as we shutdown research programs in the sciences, the pull won't
be there either: the well-educated freshly-minted graduates we used to suck into US PhD programs from all over the world -- that's going to end.
I read that in China there's starting to be a bias to stay in China (reinforced by hiring bias). India's always had the IITs, which produce stellar grads;
now they just need to stand up real research programs at the postgrad level. That's no easy, but without the US talent vacuum cleaner, it's certainly
easier to do.
The more so in light of the court ruling.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/la-protests-national-guard-california-1.7560206
The law must be shown to have force behind it.
44: like Han Solo, he has become confused about the difference between a moon and a space station.
50: Yeah, my cousin's husband was in Israel for a conference and just left last week. And my sister and her husband are traveling in France, and when they were planning the trip my sister felt she ought to visit our mom, but for all kinds of reasons really didn't want to go and ultimately decided not to go. I'm sure she's happy about that decision now. And my mom is fine. As usual she says, "The world's gone crazy, but I'm ok".
My 6 was probably wishful thinking. He's now posted about how "all" "21 million" need to be deported. Clearly Miller's hands are still on the tiller and yesterday morning he was just channelling whoever he had spoken to last.