Happy Saturday everyone. It’s been a hard week. But we know what we are up against now. Yes there is malevolence, betrayal, profound cowardice, autocratic fantasies and Nazi salutes, but there is also madness, idiocy, narrow margins/no mandate, overreach and buffoonery.
Yesterday I sat down with one of America’s leading immigration lawyers and policy experts, David Leopold (bio), an old friend from decades of fighting the immigration wars. You can find our discussion above. I asked David to explain to the Hopium community what he thinks Trump is actually doing right now across the US, who is really being targeted. The answer, so far, is that Trump is working to remove millions of non-criminal migrants, including many who came to the US legally and are not today undocumented or out of status. The “targeting criminals first” is a poll tested lie to obscure the real goal of these operations which is to reduce the overall immigrant population in the US, legal and undocumented, regardless of the economic impact of taking millions of workers out of an economy already at full employment. We talked about how prices will rise now for groceries, health care, child care, construction, restaurants and hotels; how US citizens will end being detained in the raids, and held potentially for weeks or months; how many of these who are being targeted were called “essential workers” by Trump during the pandemic, and praised for keeping our country going in a time when wealthy Americans could retreat to their second homes; how no part of America will be more adversely effected then rural, Republican areas in red states; and how a backlash, given the wide scope of the targets and the disruptions they will cause is likely to generate a backlash in the public and with American business and ag leadership.
Yesterday I wrote about how Trump’s agenda appears intent on re-igniting inflation and raising prices for working Americans. Tariffs, middle class tax increases, reduction in subsidies for health insurance and other vital services that will make them more expensive, the strategic removal of millions of workers from our workforce will together raise prices for everyday people all to cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy. It’s an obscene triumph of the new oligarchy who can afford/absorb modest prices increases. “More for us, less for you” appears to be the early motto of Trump the sequel. It’s an extraordinary betrayal of the core promise Trump made to all of us in the campaign.
As David and I discuss the reason that nothing like this new Trump immigration reign of terror has been ever been tried before because it is from a governing and policy perspective reckless, crude, expensive, impractical, inconsistent with the American creed and likely to create a public outcry. The White House began the day yesterday trumpeting their use of large, scary military planes to get these people out of here. Here is how one of those planes made out:
It’s a reminder that Trump the sequel is will be more often than not be equal parts malevolence/fascistic fantasies and impulsive idiocy/buffoonery.
Trump 2.0 is a profound, ongoing betrayal of America, and everything that has made this remarkable nation the most powerful and prosperous in the world. It is why we must fight. As dark as all this is, we cannot for one moment forget that what Trump is doing is wrong; he and his project remain deeply unstable and his coalition narrow and fractious; he is embracing deeply unpopular actions; he is old, impulsive, reckless and clearly in decline; and extremists and ideologues are often far better at bread and circuses than governing.
So please watch my discussion with David and see these new articles by Greg Sargent and Catherine Rampell for more background. I will be bringing David and others on the immigration front lines here into our discussions frequently in the days ahead.
From Rampell’s Washington Post essay:
Donald Trump promised to crack down on illegal immigration, a vow many Americans support. But so far, his administration has been much more fixated on punishing legal immigrants — by threatening to raise their taxes, expatriate their kids and block them from the United States altogether.
From Sargent’s New Republic essay:
It’s now clear that the White House has two major goals to accomplish with its anti-immigrant propaganda. They are in tension with each other. One is to depict Trump fearsomely vanquishing all those dark hordes marauding northward who no longer dare breach our border now that he’s in charge. The other is to portray a nation that—despite Trump’s unassailable strength and power—remains forever under unrelenting invasion, thus legally justifying sweeping new powers to crush the remaining invaders and other assorted enemies within.
Hegseth, Senate Cowardice, Raising Our Game and More - Last night the Senate approved the nomination of the worst person nominated for a serious position in our government in the modern era of American politics. It’s tragic, infuriating and a reminder that we are going to have more losses than wins in the coming months but must keep working through it all. I am grateful to all of you who worked against Hegseth over these past few weeks. It is work that needed to be done. This week there will be hearings for 2 more of the Unacceptable 4 - Kennedy and Gabbard. Let’s rest up this weekend and come back at it on Monday.
This week we talked a lot about how our family needs to raise its game and quickly become an effective and ferocious opposition. We explored “raising our game” in my interviews with Rep. Eric Swalwell and David Hogg; in my presentation to all of you on Wednesday night; in my recent post and video, “Raising Our Game, Building The Next Thing, Going 24/7/365;” and now, this morning, in a new Deep State Radio podcast I recorded with David Rothkopf and Tara McGowan (not endorsing the title btw):
As I sit back this morning and asses this challenging week, I am left with one overarching take away - there is an urgency to Leaders Schumer and Jeffries, and the main party committees, the DNC with new leadership and the DSCC and DCCC, to start creating a big new thing that harnesses the energy and capacities of the millions of Dem supporters/volunteers; the new pro-democracy media ecosystem; the new more muscular Democratic grassroots; the tens of thousands of elected Democrats across the country and turns it into a capable and effective opposition force. That the Senate Democrats believed they could challenge these outrageous Trump nominees by fighting it out in the hearings is dangerous and almost comical old think. Trump is doing enormous harm to the country. We need to fight like hell everyday. To do so we must re-imagine, re-invent and forge ourselves into some new and far more powerful than what we had. There is urgency to this work, and it is time now for both Leader Schumer and Leader Jeffries to build a new Congressional infrastructure that can put all of us to work along with them on behalf of our democracy, our freedoms and our future. There is great urgency to raising our game.
Like this. Here’s Governor Newsom “greeting” President Trump yesterday in Southern California:
Let us end today with the most inspiring moment of the week - Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde asking for Presidential mercy for “the people in our country who are scared now” including
the people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meat packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals,
They may not be citizens or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals. They pay taxes and are good neighbors. They are faithful members of our churches and mosques, synagogues, wadara, and temples.
I ask you to have mercy, Mr. President,on those in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away, and that you help those who are fleeing war zones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here. Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we all were once strangers in this land.
Unless something dramatic happens over the weekend expect your next Hopium post on Monday. We all need a bit of rest and I have an exciting local football team - The Commanders - to root on tomorrow! - Simon
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