As a Democrat, I found the DNC’s strategy of screeching that Trump is a fascist to be over the top to the point of being cringe. But the footage of Pretti being shot execution-style in the back while restrained by numerous federal agents, and their reasoning is that they were threatened that he was exercising his 2nd Amendment rights…. completely insane. If Trump does not reign in the behavior of ICE and clearly articulate that American citizens including Pretti have the right to bear arms, he is not only going to quickly lose the respect of his base but risk a civil war. Maybe not like a 1860s style of civil war, but Minneapolis is looking a lot like 1980s Belfast.
I've always thought that tossing around the term "fascist" is the first cousin to a reductio ad Hitlerum, and it's better to stick to the facts--especially when you have them in hand!--over name-calling.
Now sadly Trump is opening a new sales opportunity to keep up I know a moderately distasteful analogy. but in 2024 it was the wrong sales pitch for an electorate.
As authoritarianism goes, they are bunglers - these things when surrounded by cellphone cameras that will provide ample video that Looks Very Bad are the sorts of things that in real regimes do set-off revolts and so competent authoritarians do seek to avoid (thus night-time snatch and grab highly preferable).
ETA: it makes me think of the Napoleonic era quote often attributed to Talleyrand (in re the assasination/execution of a certain legitimist opponent to Napoleon, "Worse than a Crime, A Blunder.")
Yep, I still genuinely don’t think Trump wants to be a Stalin/Mao/etc style of authoritarian, I think he just wants to be remembered as a strong leader and change-maker. He’s not particularly conservative and has shown willingness to pull back on right-wing positions when they’re proven unpopular (eg abortion). If he’s smart (a sizable if), he will temper his position on immigration too. Or at the very least do an Apprentice-esque “You’re fired” to the ICE agents responsible for Pretti’s murder.
I do think it's relevant that immigration is one of two major policy issues (the other being trade) where Trump is a true believer rather than merely adopting whatever position's most immediately expedient. So he might be more reluctant to pivot on that when the political winds change.
Well I could be wrong, I think he’s a true believer in that he wants immigration laws to be enforced and the border secured, but I don’t think that includes ICE agents conducting executions of American citizens in the street.
I think he truly believes that, while the current spate of messy ICE operations is a worse outcome than all the immigrants leaving voluntarily, it's a better one than them remaining in the country (and that he applies this even to most immigrants who are here legally).
I never thought it was over-the-top, but it undermined their credibility just a tetch to call Trump a fascist while simultaneously telling us that the best way to defeat said fascists was to run a presidential candidate whom 86% of Americans thought too old for the job.
Nate, don't say "Good did ignore an order to exit her car" without context. The video obviously had multiple agents screaming at her with conflicting orders simultaneously. Definitionally, she had to ignore one order or another.
And ignoring an order to leave the car isn't a crime that deserves execution in the street, nor should they have prevented doctors from administering lifesaving aid, nor should the officer called her a fucking bitch, nor should he have fired multiple shots through the open side window as the car was passing even if the guy might have been near the front of the car when she started moving.
Nate was merely pointing out that this slightly complicates the analysis; he was not claiming that this precludes a finding that the shooting of Good was unjustified.
Saying that it was "a chaotic and unpredictable situation" is a reasonable way to describe that. Claiming she "ignored orders" is ridiculous. Like, four different armed people screamed different things at her simultaneously.
I've always wondered what would have happened if Good's Pilot, after she was killed, had run over a pedestrian or hit a car that was driving, instead of the parked car it eventually hit. Or hit another ICE officer.
Also, an important (and underreported) part of the story is that Renee Good is was alive and had a pulse for at least 8 minutes after the shooting, and medics were there at the sight of the shooting trying to give her urgent care, but ICE agents blocked their access and refused to let them treat her injuries. Renee Good might have survived if it weren’t for the deliberate obstruction of ICE agents after the shooting.
Also, a few days after the shooting, another group of ICE agents yelled, “You gotta stop obstructing us, that’s why that lesbian b*tch is dead” at protestors/observers. So based on ICE’s own words, it sounds like they murdered Renee Good out of spite, and possibly out of homophobia, instead of self-defense. https://www.reddit.com/r/stpaul/comments/1qcx3x8/you_gotta_stop_obstructing_us_thats_why_that/
My inner Matt Yglesias is telling me that Nate is asking the wrong question here. The question Nate is asking is, "do most Americans think the Republicans are doing the right thing on immigration?", and he makes a good case that the answer is no. The question he doesn't ask in this piece is, "according to most Americans, which party comes closer to doing the right thing on immigration?". Yglesias argues that the answer to *that* question is "the Republicans", because as much as Americans disapprove of the stuff Nate writes about here, they disapprove *even more* of the kind of laxity that they expect the Democrats to engage in.
Therefore, goes the argument, the best case for Democrats is if the electorate ignores the immigration issue entirely and instead pays attention to issues like health care where Democrats are trusted more than Republicans. So playing up issues like ICE running amok harms Democrats *even if the Republicans' net favorability on this issue is underwater*.
I don't know how confident I should be in this analysis, but it's something to think about.
Yglesias is broadly correct about this, but he would also say that there are limits. There is a point at which the public will prefer Democrat toxic empathy to Republican evil. I think the butchering of Renee Good and Alex Pretti have moved us past that threshold. If Democrats are disciplined about this and embrace a moderate position, they have a legitimate opening here.
I hope you are right, but this would be enough of a departure from how things have gone up until now that I'd want to see polling data specifically backing this up (which the data in this post doesn't do) before I believe it.
Increasingly "immigration" is not the issue. But just "should the government be allowed to roll into a blue city and wreak havoc because they don't like them"
In a world where Trump is the current president, has had his approval on this issue crater, and is also going meaningfully further than previous Republican administrations, I don't think it's that important in the present-day political context that there's still an issue advantage for "Republicans" vs "Democrats" generically. It's potentially a good reason for caution on the issue in a future Democratic administration (rather than taking a Trump backlash for granted), but shouldn't be a reason to not fight back on the issue right now.
My suspicion is that this is similar to how Republicans still would poll than Democrats better on "national security" issues in 2006-2008. This illustrated that there was still some residual "we trust the right-wing party more to be tough" sentiment, but it ultimately didn't benefit Bush much, because he specifically was viewed as incompetent, and his failures both on the war and on other issues meant that fence sitters wouldn't give him benefit of the doubt anymore. And ultimately, Democrats were on solid ground in nominating an anti-Iraq War candidate, and while McCain had more "not like Bush" credibility than some other Republicans (a better opportunity for distance from the unpopular lame duck president than current Republicans are likely to seek out in 2028), at the end of the day, he still supported the now-unpopular war and was big picture tied to a discredited political party.
That’s not the question. The public reacts to what it’s currently experiencing. Border crossings is no longer an issue. The issue is overreach and cruelty. The pendulum always swings too far.
Again, it's not impossible in principle that the latest round of antics went too far and wiped out this edge, but I'd need to see data showing that this has in fact happened.
First, it takes a while for things to register with the public. Second, the situation in Minneapolis is a significant ramp up and obvious departure from border control. Third, the data is in. The polls show that it has registered.
All the polls showing Trump’s approval on the issue of immigration, broadly and on the question of whether ICE has gone beyond too far. Especially look at the strongly held approval vs disapproval and within that at the independents. Every poll I’ve seen. Take your pick.
The entire argument I'm making here is that approval-vs.-disapproval numbers don't establish that one party has the advantage over the other on a given issue.
Trump is underwater on immigration and deportations, but above water on border security. The question of which party is more trusted on immigration is even, while border security massively favors Republicans. That's some good evidence that, as long as the discussion is about what ICE is doing, it will be good for Democrats. Just maybe stay away from discussion of Biden or the southern border. It isn't really part of the current topic anyway.
The data in that article indicates that, even after you factor out "border security" as a separate issue, Republicans are still more trusted than Democrats on immigration policy, albeit just barely.
Yes, I was counting the -1 result as even since it's well within the margin of error. I still think an even issue where Trump is underwater is a good issue for Democrats, at least in 2026. Democrats don't have to run against Trump directly, just "vote for me as a check on Trump's power".
A different message will be required in 2028, unless the situation changes.
That seems a bit odd to me—surely to make the case for change you have to point at issues where most voters actively prefer the alternative?—but at this point I'm not especially confident in anything and maybe it works out that way.
Midterms aren't "which party do you want to run the country?" Midterms are "do you want the president's party to continue their program?" That's why I specified 2026. Most people won't think about if they want Dems in charge when they're casting their ballots. An issue with no trust advantage for either side, but where the president himself is very underwater, is going to favor the out party.
I think you’re making a sharp observation here wrt Trump admin in a sense that while Trump often doubles down on stupid stuffs, he still has some capability to back off when he realized he fucked up while likes of Stephen Miller, Pete Hegseth, JD Vance and whoever’s running DHS X account (who prob is at a Nazi mor or less) only know to double down…
Except for the Nazi name-calling, I agree with you. Many of Trump's subordinates are out of control. Add Noem and her minion Bovino who keeps overriding Tom Homan (perhaps the only adult in the room) to your list.
well nazi name calling specifically applies to the one running X account, who def posts actual codeworded stuffs... I do not insinuate Stephen Miller, Pete Hegseth and JD Vance as Nazi per se... (and as for Stephen Miller though, i think it is very shameful that he engages in this while his ancestors escaped literal Nazi and were accepted to this country...)
The Nazi name-calling comes from a bunch of codeword stuff that's been posted that indicates an affinity to the modern Neo-Nazi movement as well as the 1930s-1940s German Nazi movement.
yeah thaks that's what I meant by nazi name calling (and as elaborated above, it is specifically for whoever running the DHS account)
and why they claim to be America First while fetishizing a German ex autocrat is beyond my brain... lol (and also, I wonder how many of them know anything above "Hitler was actually good" - I can bet $100 that 90% of them believe Hitler to be the founder of the party)
Presumably, if Trump more-than-passingly decided that it was a good idea under the circumstances to back down on this issue, he wouldn't allow his subordinates to post tweets doubling down on it.
This presumes that Donald Trump is in minute-to-minute effective command of his executive branch, and I think there are reasons to question whether this is true.
(President Grandpa just yells at shadows sometimes. Sad.)
Really good point. Trump is responsible for all of this but there are reasons to doubt that he has a handle on everything that’s happening. The job is too much for him. And he gutted state capacity and put bigoted idiots in charge of NHS.
Yeah I think you’re right on that here- I think the distinction to be made here is “does he feel strongly about correcting the course” vs “doesn’t feel like doubling is a good idea” and I wonder trump is in the second.
And seeing Noem’s comment where she said “shootings should not have happened”, I kinda wonder even she started to feel that way to an extent (like after all she *was* a politician) while likes of Hegseth and Miller do not…
The Republican gaslighting on the Pretti killing is insane. Anyone can look at the various videos and see that it was a straight up murder. Even before they shot a defenseless man in the back repeatedly you can seem them beating the absolute crap out of him for daring to protect a woman.
Of course the response was completely predictable. Everyone knew they would completely lie about the incident and call him an aggressive terrorist. We know that none of the murderers will face any accountability. We know this will lead to another similar murder in the near future.
If openly murdering peaceful protesters in the streets doesn't turn Americans against Trump I think our democracy is truly lost.
The simplest thing for Dems to do is decouple the ICE issue from the immigration issue.
Wedge away "border security" from "should armed thugs get to attack protestors". As in "we can have robust immigration enforcement that doesn't involve killing citizens, violating civil rights, and kidnapping little kids". As a political message, the administration / ICE is basically giving this to them.
Sane countries that are democracies often tolerate silly "gestures" like sanctuary cities - which I note I do not myself think are good but really are not the explainer of the illegal immigration issue (that would be the idiotic Biden first years stance re the exploitation of refugee claims plus lax border, and then add to not actually using existing internal tools like job status checking(
This has zero relevance to Federal agents committing a shooting reminiscent of, to use the Trumpy term, "third world shithole" enforcement squads. Like Hamas goons going around masked.
I'm making to make a wild guess that you aren't equally outraged about the fed's unprecedented refusal to cooperate with local officials when they kill someone in their city.
I believe this is an ongoing illustration of the point Daniel Drezner made back in September 25: "The Weakness and Incompetence of American Authoritarianism, And why it needs to be continually highlighted." (https://danieldrezner.substack.com/p/the-weakness-and-incompetence-of) - competent even wanna be authoritarian regimes know they need a certain level of general populalrity.
Trump, Miller are not genuinely competent (thank God for that).
We even have "mainstream" conservative media like National Review and Erick Erickson expressing serious concerns over Trump's desire for Greenland as well as how ICE is handling immigration enforcement. Heck, NR is starting to bring up impeachment and 25A.
We may be nearing the point where Trump "loses Cronkite and Middle America", if we're not already there.
Of course, if the Dems want to take advantage they need to play their hand well, and stay away from extremism like "no human being is illegal". Otherwise they will continue to make the GOP look less insane.
Trump isn't losing anyone who was on his side. The childlike antics of the Left are losing people who generally sit out elections. Removing all illegals is what we voted for, and the moronic antics of the leftist agitators are not going to change our minds, regardless of how many of them choose to suicide by cop.
All those polls are from a time before the Dem grift of bribing illegals with US tax dollars became apparent to all. Wait until Waltz and Frey and Ilhan are in prison and see what the polls say then. Besides - there is a path to citizenship for unauthorized residents right now. Take the very generous offer to get paid to self-deport. Get in line with everyone else trying to get into America legally, and wait your turn. Eventually you might get a chance to become a citizen that way. Otherwise you have no hope. Trump is doing the right thing here, as usual. There is no way for the radical left to win this fight, the only question is how many of them will foolishly suicide-by-cop themselves before they give it up.
I remember all the polls saying Trump had no chance of winning in 2016, 2020 AND 2024 - and yet he won all three!! Feel free to rely on the polls all you like, doesn't bother me at all.
Oh - and everything I said was true. Have a nice day!
Like it or not - 2020 was stolen. The fact that you think it is laughable shows just how much of a bubble you live in. Some day you will wake up, I hope.
Trump's immigration policies and more importantly, actions, are waaay beyond the pale.... calling them unacceptable is a bull shit euphemism ...Trump should go back to where he came from...
Where did "poorly-trained ICE officers roaming city streets" come from? While there are concerns that rapid hiring and compressed training has eroded the quality of ICE agents, all the ones involved in killings were highly trained and experienced. And how does any peace officer enforce the law without "roaming the streets."
I see irrationality on both sides. Enforcing laws will cause some innocent people to be harassed and even some killed. This is particularly true when the targets of enforcement are embedded among the population, and include some violent criminals, and the law is locally unpopular. If you don't like the harassment and killings, change the law, don't close your eyes and imagine enforcement without pain.
On the other hand, the Minnesota killings and other brutalities are clearly unjustified. They shouldn't have happened. That doesn't mean officers are murderers, like pilots and doctors, police officers' mistakes can lead to deaths. But it does mean you should rethink whether enforcement is worth it, and whether tactics and rules of engagement should change.
I wish people would see this as an issue for all secret police forces, not just ICE. Public police protect and serve the public by investigating complaints of things like robbery or assault (or a body in the case of murder).
Secret police do not have complaining victims or bodies, they're enforcing government wishes against citizens. That requires them to use paid or coerced informers, mass surveillance, entrapment, sting operations, no-knock warrants with stun grenades and other unpleasant tactics that erode civil rights. It brings them into contact will large numbers of non-criminals, some of whom are abused or die.
While public police often act as if they work for prosecutors, in theory they are neutral in court and they usually have strong local democratic control. ICE not only works for prosecutors, it is the prosecutor, and it is insulated from local control.
I am not sure enough attention is being directed to the fact that DHS is obstructing any meaningful investigation of how these two American citizens were killed in plain daylight on a public street. DHS will do all of the investigation itself and let us know? I wouldn't be surprised if all of the relevant guns have already been destroyed and internal communications scrubbed. This is outrageous.
As a Democrat, I found the DNC’s strategy of screeching that Trump is a fascist to be over the top to the point of being cringe. But the footage of Pretti being shot execution-style in the back while restrained by numerous federal agents, and their reasoning is that they were threatened that he was exercising his 2nd Amendment rights…. completely insane. If Trump does not reign in the behavior of ICE and clearly articulate that American citizens including Pretti have the right to bear arms, he is not only going to quickly lose the respect of his base but risk a civil war. Maybe not like a 1860s style of civil war, but Minneapolis is looking a lot like 1980s Belfast.
I've always thought that tossing around the term "fascist" is the first cousin to a reductio ad Hitlerum, and it's better to stick to the facts--especially when you have them in hand!--over name-calling.
Beyond Cringe - it was ineffective to reach people not-aready-convinced.
It wasn't per se "wrong" (although Trump's general incompetence in authoritarianis as highlighted by Dan Drezner [https://danieldrezner.substack.com/p/the-weakness-and-incompetence-of] mitigates) but it was ineffective - Selling to the alreayd sold.
Now sadly Trump is opening a new sales opportunity to keep up I know a moderately distasteful analogy. but in 2024 it was the wrong sales pitch for an electorate.
As authoritarianism goes, they are bunglers - these things when surrounded by cellphone cameras that will provide ample video that Looks Very Bad are the sorts of things that in real regimes do set-off revolts and so competent authoritarians do seek to avoid (thus night-time snatch and grab highly preferable).
ETA: it makes me think of the Napoleonic era quote often attributed to Talleyrand (in re the assasination/execution of a certain legitimist opponent to Napoleon, "Worse than a Crime, A Blunder.")
Yep, I still genuinely don’t think Trump wants to be a Stalin/Mao/etc style of authoritarian, I think he just wants to be remembered as a strong leader and change-maker. He’s not particularly conservative and has shown willingness to pull back on right-wing positions when they’re proven unpopular (eg abortion). If he’s smart (a sizable if), he will temper his position on immigration too. Or at the very least do an Apprentice-esque “You’re fired” to the ICE agents responsible for Pretti’s murder.
Oh Trump no, he hasn't any such coherence. His mental model is like him in charge of his shambolic family company. Nothing more complex than that.
Miller... well that's another matter.
I do think it's relevant that immigration is one of two major policy issues (the other being trade) where Trump is a true believer rather than merely adopting whatever position's most immediately expedient. So he might be more reluctant to pivot on that when the political winds change.
Well I could be wrong, I think he’s a true believer in that he wants immigration laws to be enforced and the border secured, but I don’t think that includes ICE agents conducting executions of American citizens in the street.
I think he truly believes that, while the current spate of messy ICE operations is a worse outcome than all the immigrants leaving voluntarily, it's a better one than them remaining in the country (and that he applies this even to most immigrants who are here legally).
Think 12 year old boy. With access to a military.
I never thought it was over-the-top, but it undermined their credibility just a tetch to call Trump a fascist while simultaneously telling us that the best way to defeat said fascists was to run a presidential candidate whom 86% of Americans thought too old for the job.
As Nate said, these are Democrats, after all.
Nate, don't say "Good did ignore an order to exit her car" without context. The video obviously had multiple agents screaming at her with conflicting orders simultaneously. Definitionally, she had to ignore one order or another.
And ignoring an order to leave the car isn't a crime that deserves execution in the street, nor should they have prevented doctors from administering lifesaving aid, nor should the officer called her a fucking bitch, nor should he have fired multiple shots through the open side window as the car was passing even if the guy might have been near the front of the car when she started moving.
You don't have to equivocate on everything.
Nate was merely pointing out that this slightly complicates the analysis; he was not claiming that this precludes a finding that the shooting of Good was unjustified.
Saying that it was "a chaotic and unpredictable situation" is a reasonable way to describe that. Claiming she "ignored orders" is ridiculous. Like, four different armed people screamed different things at her simultaneously.
I've always wondered what would have happened if Good's Pilot, after she was killed, had run over a pedestrian or hit a car that was driving, instead of the parked car it eventually hit. Or hit another ICE officer.
That's one of many reasons why the use-of-force doctrine for almost every LEO says not to shoot into moving vehicles.
As the old saying goes, you can't outrun a Motorola.
Also, an important (and underreported) part of the story is that Renee Good is was alive and had a pulse for at least 8 minutes after the shooting, and medics were there at the sight of the shooting trying to give her urgent care, but ICE agents blocked their access and refused to let them treat her injuries. Renee Good might have survived if it weren’t for the deliberate obstruction of ICE agents after the shooting.
Also, a few days after the shooting, another group of ICE agents yelled, “You gotta stop obstructing us, that’s why that lesbian b*tch is dead” at protestors/observers. So based on ICE’s own words, it sounds like they murdered Renee Good out of spite, and possibly out of homophobia, instead of self-defense. https://www.reddit.com/r/stpaul/comments/1qcx3x8/you_gotta_stop_obstructing_us_thats_why_that/
My inner Matt Yglesias is telling me that Nate is asking the wrong question here. The question Nate is asking is, "do most Americans think the Republicans are doing the right thing on immigration?", and he makes a good case that the answer is no. The question he doesn't ask in this piece is, "according to most Americans, which party comes closer to doing the right thing on immigration?". Yglesias argues that the answer to *that* question is "the Republicans", because as much as Americans disapprove of the stuff Nate writes about here, they disapprove *even more* of the kind of laxity that they expect the Democrats to engage in.
Therefore, goes the argument, the best case for Democrats is if the electorate ignores the immigration issue entirely and instead pays attention to issues like health care where Democrats are trusted more than Republicans. So playing up issues like ICE running amok harms Democrats *even if the Republicans' net favorability on this issue is underwater*.
I don't know how confident I should be in this analysis, but it's something to think about.
(Yglesias also had a good post years ago on the "Overton window" idea and how to differentiate good vs. bad applications of it: https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-myth-of-the-overton-window)
Yglesias is broadly correct about this, but he would also say that there are limits. There is a point at which the public will prefer Democrat toxic empathy to Republican evil. I think the butchering of Renee Good and Alex Pretti have moved us past that threshold. If Democrats are disciplined about this and embrace a moderate position, they have a legitimate opening here.
I hope you are right, but this would be enough of a departure from how things have gone up until now that I'd want to see polling data specifically backing this up (which the data in this post doesn't do) before I believe it.
Increasingly "immigration" is not the issue. But just "should the government be allowed to roll into a blue city and wreak havoc because they don't like them"
Exactly right
In a world where Trump is the current president, has had his approval on this issue crater, and is also going meaningfully further than previous Republican administrations, I don't think it's that important in the present-day political context that there's still an issue advantage for "Republicans" vs "Democrats" generically. It's potentially a good reason for caution on the issue in a future Democratic administration (rather than taking a Trump backlash for granted), but shouldn't be a reason to not fight back on the issue right now.
My suspicion is that this is similar to how Republicans still would poll than Democrats better on "national security" issues in 2006-2008. This illustrated that there was still some residual "we trust the right-wing party more to be tough" sentiment, but it ultimately didn't benefit Bush much, because he specifically was viewed as incompetent, and his failures both on the war and on other issues meant that fence sitters wouldn't give him benefit of the doubt anymore. And ultimately, Democrats were on solid ground in nominating an anti-Iraq War candidate, and while McCain had more "not like Bush" credibility than some other Republicans (a better opportunity for distance from the unpopular lame duck president than current Republicans are likely to seek out in 2028), at the end of the day, he still supported the now-unpopular war and was big picture tied to a discredited political party.
That’s not the question. The public reacts to what it’s currently experiencing. Border crossings is no longer an issue. The issue is overreach and cruelty. The pendulum always swings too far.
As recently as October—which was long after Trump cracked down on border crossings and started engaging in various unpopular forms of overreach and cruelty—Republicans still held a significant edge on immigration: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/10/30/how-americans-see-the-parties-on-key-issues/pp_2025-10-29_views-of-republican-democratic-parties_2-03/
Again, it's not impossible in principle that the latest round of antics went too far and wiped out this edge, but I'd need to see data showing that this has in fact happened.
First, it takes a while for things to register with the public. Second, the situation in Minneapolis is a significant ramp up and obvious departure from border control. Third, the data is in. The polls show that it has registered.
Mind linking me to the relevant data?
All the polls showing Trump’s approval on the issue of immigration, broadly and on the question of whether ICE has gone beyond too far. Especially look at the strongly held approval vs disapproval and within that at the independents. Every poll I’ve seen. Take your pick.
The entire argument I'm making here is that approval-vs.-disapproval numbers don't establish that one party has the advantage over the other on a given issue.
Check out this G Elliot Morris article from a few days ago. https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/new-poll-trump-slips-on-immigration
Trump is underwater on immigration and deportations, but above water on border security. The question of which party is more trusted on immigration is even, while border security massively favors Republicans. That's some good evidence that, as long as the discussion is about what ICE is doing, it will be good for Democrats. Just maybe stay away from discussion of Biden or the southern border. It isn't really part of the current topic anyway.
Edits for wording and clarity.
The data in that article indicates that, even after you factor out "border security" as a separate issue, Republicans are still more trusted than Democrats on immigration policy, albeit just barely.
Yes, but border security is not a bug issue now. The anger is on ICE activities. Angry people vote.
Yes, I was counting the -1 result as even since it's well within the margin of error. I still think an even issue where Trump is underwater is a good issue for Democrats, at least in 2026. Democrats don't have to run against Trump directly, just "vote for me as a check on Trump's power".
A different message will be required in 2028, unless the situation changes.
That seems a bit odd to me—surely to make the case for change you have to point at issues where most voters actively prefer the alternative?—but at this point I'm not especially confident in anything and maybe it works out that way.
Midterms aren't "which party do you want to run the country?" Midterms are "do you want the president's party to continue their program?" That's why I specified 2026. Most people won't think about if they want Dems in charge when they're casting their ballots. An issue with no trust advantage for either side, but where the president himself is very underwater, is going to favor the out party.
Exactly so!
I think you’re making a sharp observation here wrt Trump admin in a sense that while Trump often doubles down on stupid stuffs, he still has some capability to back off when he realized he fucked up while likes of Stephen Miller, Pete Hegseth, JD Vance and whoever’s running DHS X account (who prob is at a Nazi mor or less) only know to double down…
Except for the Nazi name-calling, I agree with you. Many of Trump's subordinates are out of control. Add Noem and her minion Bovino who keeps overriding Tom Homan (perhaps the only adult in the room) to your list.
No way to run a railroad.
well nazi name calling specifically applies to the one running X account, who def posts actual codeworded stuffs... I do not insinuate Stephen Miller, Pete Hegseth and JD Vance as Nazi per se... (and as for Stephen Miller though, i think it is very shameful that he engages in this while his ancestors escaped literal Nazi and were accepted to this country...)
The Nazi name-calling comes from a bunch of codeword stuff that's been posted that indicates an affinity to the modern Neo-Nazi movement as well as the 1930s-1940s German Nazi movement.
Here, Edited in:
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/01/16/trump-labor-nazi-slogan-social-media.html
https://x.com/DHSgov/status/1955011982488228231
The following two posts are "fashwave" style.
https://x.com/dhsgov/status/1987250187384099019
https://x.com/DHSgov/status/2006379912543064168
yeah thaks that's what I meant by nazi name calling (and as elaborated above, it is specifically for whoever running the DHS account)
and why they claim to be America First while fetishizing a German ex autocrat is beyond my brain... lol (and also, I wonder how many of them know anything above "Hitler was actually good" - I can bet $100 that 90% of them believe Hitler to be the founder of the party)
Presumably, if Trump more-than-passingly decided that it was a good idea under the circumstances to back down on this issue, he wouldn't allow his subordinates to post tweets doubling down on it.
This presumes that Donald Trump is in minute-to-minute effective command of his executive branch, and I think there are reasons to question whether this is true.
(President Grandpa just yells at shadows sometimes. Sad.)
I suppose we can't rule out the possibility that he yelled at Miller after the fact for posting that tweet—but I'd bet against it.
*DHS
Really good point. Trump is responsible for all of this but there are reasons to doubt that he has a handle on everything that’s happening. The job is too much for him. And he gutted state capacity and put bigoted idiots in charge of NHS.
Yeah I think you’re right on that here- I think the distinction to be made here is “does he feel strongly about correcting the course” vs “doesn’t feel like doubling is a good idea” and I wonder trump is in the second.
And seeing Noem’s comment where she said “shootings should not have happened”, I kinda wonder even she started to feel that way to an extent (like after all she *was* a politician) while likes of Hegseth and Miller do not…
The Republican gaslighting on the Pretti killing is insane. Anyone can look at the various videos and see that it was a straight up murder. Even before they shot a defenseless man in the back repeatedly you can seem them beating the absolute crap out of him for daring to protect a woman.
Of course the response was completely predictable. Everyone knew they would completely lie about the incident and call him an aggressive terrorist. We know that none of the murderers will face any accountability. We know this will lead to another similar murder in the near future.
If openly murdering peaceful protesters in the streets doesn't turn Americans against Trump I think our democracy is truly lost.
The simplest thing for Dems to do is decouple the ICE issue from the immigration issue.
Wedge away "border security" from "should armed thugs get to attack protestors". As in "we can have robust immigration enforcement that doesn't involve killing citizens, violating civil rights, and kidnapping little kids". As a political message, the administration / ICE is basically giving this to them.
What sane country tolerates sanctuary cities?
Do immigration laws have meaning for don’t they?
Can those laws have integrity without deportation?
What does this have to do with people getting shot 10 times in the back while being held down after they recorded a video on their phone?
This has very little to do with immigration enforcement anymore
It looks more like ICE being used to punish Democratic cities for opposing the administration.
This is what one calls a red herring.
Sane countries that are democracies often tolerate silly "gestures" like sanctuary cities - which I note I do not myself think are good but really are not the explainer of the illegal immigration issue (that would be the idiotic Biden first years stance re the exploitation of refugee claims plus lax border, and then add to not actually using existing internal tools like job status checking(
This has zero relevance to Federal agents committing a shooting reminiscent of, to use the Trumpy term, "third world shithole" enforcement squads. Like Hamas goons going around masked.
I'm making to make a wild guess that you aren't equally outraged about the fed's unprecedented refusal to cooperate with local officials when they kill someone in their city.
Same people who look at the data.
Sanctuary cities are better able to enforce local laws.
Do some research.
What sane country tolerates summary executions of citizens in the street?
I believe this is an ongoing illustration of the point Daniel Drezner made back in September 25: "The Weakness and Incompetence of American Authoritarianism, And why it needs to be continually highlighted." (https://danieldrezner.substack.com/p/the-weakness-and-incompetence-of) - competent even wanna be authoritarian regimes know they need a certain level of general populalrity.
Trump, Miller are not genuinely competent (thank God for that).
We even have "mainstream" conservative media like National Review and Erick Erickson expressing serious concerns over Trump's desire for Greenland as well as how ICE is handling immigration enforcement. Heck, NR is starting to bring up impeachment and 25A.
We may be nearing the point where Trump "loses Cronkite and Middle America", if we're not already there.
Of course, if the Dems want to take advantage they need to play their hand well, and stay away from extremism like "no human being is illegal". Otherwise they will continue to make the GOP look less insane.
Trump isn't losing anyone who was on his side. The childlike antics of the Left are losing people who generally sit out elections. Removing all illegals is what we voted for, and the moronic antics of the leftist agitators are not going to change our minds, regardless of how many of them choose to suicide by cop.
Surveys consistently show a large percentage of the country would like a path to citizenship for long term unauthorized residents.
You might have voted to remove all "illegals", but you are a fringe voter.
All those polls are from a time before the Dem grift of bribing illegals with US tax dollars became apparent to all. Wait until Waltz and Frey and Ilhan are in prison and see what the polls say then. Besides - there is a path to citizenship for unauthorized residents right now. Take the very generous offer to get paid to self-deport. Get in line with everyone else trying to get into America legally, and wait your turn. Eventually you might get a chance to become a citizen that way. Otherwise you have no hope. Trump is doing the right thing here, as usual. There is no way for the radical left to win this fight, the only question is how many of them will foolishly suicide-by-cop themselves before they give it up.
You are spouting right wing fiction on all sorts of things.
https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/american-support-legal-immigration-reaches-new-heights
I remember all the polls saying Trump had no chance of winning in 2016, 2020 AND 2024 - and yet he won all three!! Feel free to rely on the polls all you like, doesn't bother me at all.
Oh - and everything I said was true. Have a nice day!
Hahahah.
Won all three. That is a hoot. Thanks.
You are definitely disconnected from reality.
Like it or not - 2020 was stolen. The fact that you think it is laughable shows just how much of a bubble you live in. Some day you will wake up, I hope.
Trump's immigration policies and more importantly, actions, are waaay beyond the pale.... calling them unacceptable is a bull shit euphemism ...Trump should go back to where he came from...
Where did "poorly-trained ICE officers roaming city streets" come from? While there are concerns that rapid hiring and compressed training has eroded the quality of ICE agents, all the ones involved in killings were highly trained and experienced. And how does any peace officer enforce the law without "roaming the streets."
I see irrationality on both sides. Enforcing laws will cause some innocent people to be harassed and even some killed. This is particularly true when the targets of enforcement are embedded among the population, and include some violent criminals, and the law is locally unpopular. If you don't like the harassment and killings, change the law, don't close your eyes and imagine enforcement without pain.
On the other hand, the Minnesota killings and other brutalities are clearly unjustified. They shouldn't have happened. That doesn't mean officers are murderers, like pilots and doctors, police officers' mistakes can lead to deaths. But it does mean you should rethink whether enforcement is worth it, and whether tactics and rules of engagement should change.
I wish people would see this as an issue for all secret police forces, not just ICE. Public police protect and serve the public by investigating complaints of things like robbery or assault (or a body in the case of murder).
Secret police do not have complaining victims or bodies, they're enforcing government wishes against citizens. That requires them to use paid or coerced informers, mass surveillance, entrapment, sting operations, no-knock warrants with stun grenades and other unpleasant tactics that erode civil rights. It brings them into contact will large numbers of non-criminals, some of whom are abused or die.
While public police often act as if they work for prosecutors, in theory they are neutral in court and they usually have strong local democratic control. ICE not only works for prosecutors, it is the prosecutor, and it is insulated from local control.
I am not sure enough attention is being directed to the fact that DHS is obstructing any meaningful investigation of how these two American citizens were killed in plain daylight on a public street. DHS will do all of the investigation itself and let us know? I wouldn't be surprised if all of the relevant guns have already been destroyed and internal communications scrubbed. This is outrageous.