Normally passively waiting for your opponent to fail is a bad strategy in any pursuit, but in US politics it is the best strategy. Certainly, the Democrats need to rely on it because they aren’t doing much .
"And they think that if Trump starts hinting at policies that tank the market, he’ll decide that’s bad and reverse course. Of course, if this is true, you should buy stock now on the assumption that Trump, whatever his instincts or impulses, will act consistently to keep the stock market up."
Reading your "How Trump could succeed" post this statement stuck out. Namely, it seems like at least politically speaking that the Silicon Valley tech titans Trump embrace has basically been a poisoned chalice precisely because Trump only cares about "line goes up" with the stock market and anything that happens to benefit him personally (The two are of course related*. Now reality is AI tech investment was pretty "baked into the cake" whoever won the election. But as has been made clear this AI investment is basically what's causing the stock market to go up basically at all.
Basically, "stock market go up" is why Trump hasn't backed down from his most politically damaging mistakes; the Iran War, the continued arbitrary use of tariffs* and this absurd "cold war" he's started with Canada*. As Matt has noted many times, Trump actually benefits from not having any deeply held policy commitments beyond enriching himself (at least to the extent a normal politician has them) and because he had this iron grip on the party (that may finally be slipping) he basically has unique political maneuvering room to reverse himself 180 style on all sorts of policies. But because "line goes up" mostly due to AI investment, he only mildly/temporarily backs down on tariffs, he doesn't "TACO" on the Iran war and he blows up stupidly trade negotiations with Canada.
The riposte of course is without AI investment and resulting "line goes up" Trump's numbers on the economy are harmed by lack of GDP growth and possibly job losses (I know "Health care" wouldn't in theory be affected by this and this is where basically all job growth is concentrated. But how many fewer jobs are there or more layoffs are there in say construction of data centers without AI investment). But this assumes no knock on effects of Trump actually reversing himself on tariffs, dumb trade wars and the Iran War. How much more money do Americans have to spend on other things if grocery prices and gas prices are lower. How much less pressure is that on inflation and what does that do to interest rates? On the latter point, without AI investment, how much less upward pressure is there on interest rates without massive tech borrowing.
* It's really hard to imagine literally anyone else trying these gambits; Republican or Democrat. Like can anyone even find someone in somewhat adjacent GOP circles who was for tariffs? Maybe more pertinent, it's extremely hard for me to believe that literally anyone (Forget any politicians or elites with any influence) had any sort of deep seated dislike of Canada outside of a handful of older hardcore Boston Bruins fans. Another reminder that so much stuff (including to an extent Progressive overreach) is really "Orange man bad".
The other very bad thing Trump is doing is actual socialism: https://x.com/scottlincicome/status/2102432048208068844. Democrats should own this too—“look Trump is the one who is implementing state control of the economy, when the right accuses us of socialism (or the new preferred term seems to be “race communism”) they’re not against state control but just against equal rights.”
Voters don't care about state control of the economy. They care about people with darker skin getting government benefits. That's what they're screaming about when they scream about socialism.
That and because Socialism/Communism is "godless". Pretty clear to me now that a lot of "normie" embrace of Reaganism in the 80s was tied to the religion angle. Namely the rise of the religious right was more impactful on GOP fortunes 80s onward than maybe is realized. Which too many GOP elites (and Dem elites to be fair) took to mean that mass swaths of the American public actually had deep seated commitments to free market economics.
Part of my "the most underrated story in American life last 30 years is the decline in religious affiliation and religious attachment" thesis.
"I find it disturbing that so many progressive policy entrepreneurs continue to cast Trump’s approach as a model to emulate rather than as a cautionary tale."
Matt is underrepresenting the amount of executive clean-up needed to put federal government back into a place where we can even begin to implement bi-partisan legislation. Through executive actions, firings of competent leaders and replacement with incompetent ones, lack of enforcement, and just overall basic neglect, Trump has stripped out the inner workings of the federal government in a way that will take real time and attention to repair - much of which has to happen at the executive level.
Can we implement bipartisan educational reforms with the DOE basically stripped bare? How do we unwind the bloated ICE machine, filled with unqualified agents, in such a way you can even do the kind of smart immigration policy MY wants? What about changes to Obamacare and Medicaid? What about the FDA? Or the DOJ? Who cares about tax laws, even if we pass them, when we have an inert IRS? What about how Trump has removed research, grants and infrastructure to battle global pandemics? How will we implement better transportation policy after 4 years of Sean Duffy?
It will take a year or two of basic competence and the restoration of a functioning government infrastructure to even begin to tackle the legislation Matt is often talking about, and much of this has to happen at the executive level. This isn't about progressive vs moderate. This is about intelligence vs stupidity ... Building vs a bankrupting ... I appreciate that MY has worked most of his life in politics, but he's underrepresenting the importance of a solid, stable, active, competent executive office here.
Yes, I don’t want Dems implementing socialism but like most of the base I do want to go back to Obama-era policies. To do this they have to be very aggressive and undo a lot of stuff because a lot has been done since then. It will be incredibly disappointing if they do nothing and just basically keep Trump’s policies in place maybe with a woke veneer. At that point it is time to support a left-wing takeover.
I know Matt is warning against some progressive president trying to executive-action their way into Medicare-For-All. But as just one example, look at the chaos caused by Trump's executive action on mail-in voting. It failed, sure, but it had intended effects of casting doubt and confusion and owning media headlines along the way. So what we should borrow from Trump is the "day one" appeal of a president signing bold executive actions that makes the dramatic rounds on social media, if for no other reason than to change vibes from past to future.
I hear Matt’s words, but I fear they are being ignored by the base, which is moving with speed further left.
I would think that someone who wants to win a Democratic primary wouldn't listen to being told to moderate, as this sentence implies.
"Democrats shouldn’t try to harness that same recklessness to progressive ends; they should learn to behave more prudently.”
The base of the Democratic Party wants war, wants maximalist positions taken. The populist fever that gripped the GOP has wandered toward the Democrats. Of all the lessons learned from Trump’s awful behavior and his aggressive norm-breaking habits, they will probably be emulated by the Left.
We are not about to see sober, cool heads take charge. We are about to see retribution. Our internecine wars over power will only get hotter after the midterms. Cooler heads will prevail when an existential crisis hits the US.
I suspect that will be as come closer to the 23% mandated cuts to SS loom, along with a 15% mandatory cut to Medicare Part A. Throw in a monetary crisis as the globe buys less of our treasuries because our political class fails to agree on taxes and budgets.
It has been said over and over again. Both parties want to fight. Notice I did not say both parties want to work to solve problems. They don’t. Our politics is set to get worse. Such is the legacy of Trump.
What exactly does retribution by Democrats in 2029 look like? I'm having a hard time imagining it. It was glacially slow during the Biden admin to the extent there was any, and the Republican Supreme Court is going to tie any Democratic president's hands quite tightly.
A significant part of Biden's failure was the lack of retribution. In much the same way that it is best that shoplifting and other anti-social behavior is deterred through punishment the people with their hands in the till and murdering American citizens need to get theirs.
Maximum retribution is unwise but massive retribution is not; moderation in all things.
Hence why 9FamEx28 embraces moderation and rejects "Yonglemaxxing" as some have proposed! Executing all of the defendants' students would simply be too extreme.
Eh, normies won’t remember once Trump is out of power, just like they shrugged about Jan 6th when that news cycle was over. Pursuing Trumpists many years down the line will be a loser, akin to continuing to yell Orange Man Bad over the last 19 years.
In our modern politics, each side gets its wins, then overreaches when it has power. They don’t read the room. I suspect Democrats will do the same. It is like the veil of “stupid” takes over.
The lesson of the immigration crackdown is to avoid highly visible stuff (border chaos, ICE agents murdering people, students thrown in jail for speech) but no one really gets worked up about behind-the-scenes bureaucratic stuff even if it has a devastating impact on the people targeted. Democrats should take that to heart and don’t let the border get out of control but make it much easier to get a visa for both travel and legal immigration.
I think only the hardline MAGAs like highly visible cruel stuff, but most voters approve of the boring normal stuff where you deport people here illegally when they get arrested for something else, occasionally to workplace raids, etc.
It drives me insane that with Republican majorities and a Republican President there is not actual law-making going on to improve the immigration system. Dems win and all the important improvements go out the window, border gets reopened. There was a chance to create a better system and it's gone. USCIS remains poorly staffed, slow, and the existing system is incredibly overcomplicated and is just another example of government being unable to deliver critical services effectively and rapidly, something AI can perhaps help with if anyone had the courage or knowledge to implement outside the national security agencies.
And of course no reform action on debt, deficits, and the sustainability of the entitlement programs. No one sane likes the IRGC, but what's the strategy for this second war? Midnight Hammer was perfect. Now it's just figuring on the fly. If we want to remove the regime, air power is not sufficient. Very few actual adults adulting in Congress. Yes to fighting extreme gerrymandering and figuring out a way to elect the more moderate among us.
The thing is, even if Trump himself being deeply unserious about public policy was 100% predictable, it's bizarre that congressional Republicans -- who control both houses and have a President who would likely sign anything they passed -- haven't been pushing more legislation to at least force Democrats to publicly vote against it or filibuster it.
The one that most leaps out at me is the Refugee Act of 1980 (codified in relevant part at 8 U.S.C. § 1157), which gives the President unilateral discretion to admit up to 125,000 refugees to the US each year beyond any other statutory limits on immigration. In other words, it's literally an "import poor foreigners" dial! (Obama and Biden maxed out admissions under the program; Trump almost completely eliminated admissions under it by the end of his first term and has set the number at 17,500 per year so far in his second term.)
If you're a congressional Republican why not propose legislation to lower that number to 25,000? If it had been proposed before the "blue wave" looked likely, it might actually have passed and, even if it failed, it would have set up a million attack ads: "Representative Jones voted to allow 100,000 poor foreigners into the United States and be supported by your tax dollars. Call Representative Jones today and tell him that's not how we do things in Pennsylvania."
Surprise no, disappointment yes. Having seen all the executive orders get overturned, I hoped on something like immigration where there is real interest and emotion they might have seen the utility of trying for permanent change. Considering how incompetent Congress is I’m not surprised, but hope springs eternal that they might find their cojones one day and remember what they are and who they (are supposed) to represent.
I refuse to blackpill, and sometimes Congress might realize you can just do things.
The first and second terms of Trump have been quite different, so it wasn't totally crazy to hope for more competence from the second term instead of the same fecklessness as the first term on legislation plus lots of flashy and mostly bad and unpopular stuff done by executive order.
The idea that Democrats should focus on winning supermajorities is just as much a fantasy as any idea Republicans have concocted. Democrats have had exactly one supermajority in the last 50 years, during Obama’s first two years in office. It took everything going well, e.g. an increasingly unpopular incumbent, a financial collapse, and an unpopular war to bring that about. This idea that a stable supermajority is an attainable goal is extremely implausible. And it is just as unlikely that politicians in deep blue areas will attenuate their policy goals to satisfy low information voters in red states who are probably not attuned to policy anyway. True, Democrats should nominate candidates in red states that have a chance to win in those states. But that’s on the candidates themselves. Except in presidential elections it’s not the job of blue state candidates to appeal to red state voters in the hope of attaining a mythical “stable supermajority”.
It's nice to see a Joseph who makes criticisms of Matt that I actually agree with.
The problem with “if you want profound change, win huge congressional majorities” isn't that huge majorities wouldn't be useful, but he's (deliberately?) turning an extraordinarily unusual political circumstance into the prerequisite for doing anything ambitious.
And this issue is much worse for progressives (obviously not Matt's concern); an AOC 2029 admin can't confidently assume another bite at the apple four or eight years later, given the enemies it would inevitably face both inside and outside of the party.
Matt is focused on maximizing durability, minimizing backlash, and preservint the coalition so it can keep winning elections and accumulating incremental gains, but that is very different from maximizing achievable progressive policy change. There is a perfectly coherent argument for accepting more risk to maximize a rare political opportunity, especially because Matt systematically underweights the benefits of actually demonstrating to your supporters that gaining power results in meaningful change.
This doesn't mean “copy Trump”; T2.0 is a useful demonstration that maximalism can be stupid and that it's possible to spend political capital on things with enormous downside and little durable policy benefit, but that suggests a different lesson from Matt's: be selective about maximalism, not necessarily incremental everywhere.
Avoid aggressive actions that are legally vulnerable, easily reversed, economically damaging, or politically toxic without accomplishing much, while focusing on those that create institutions, constituencies, investments, expectations, bargaining power, or facts on the ground that are much harder to undo.
I think the missing possibility in Matt's framework is: build the broadest electoral coalition you realistically can, let candidates adapt to their constituencies, legislate when possible, but recognize that when an minority faction obtains a rare governing opportunity, preserving that opportunity isn't the supreme objective: sometimes the point of acquiring political power is to use it.
I see the lesson of T2.0 as “don't squander a scarce governing opportunity on reckless, low-value maximalism", but that's very different from “avoid maximalism and accumulate bipartisan priorities instead.”
I think the missing piece from both posts or more accurately the missing word is "filibuster".
My suspicion is Matt's response to all of this is this is why elimination of the filibuster should be a goal for American government full stop. Like if you want Congress to take back any sort of control from the Executive Branch, eliminating the filibuster almost certainly has to be a first and most important step.
Basically, that we shouldn't need a once in a lifetime set of contingent circumstances (great candidate, aftershock of a financial crises, displeasure at an endless war) to create conditions for an active Congress to pass all sorts of legislation.
It also in theory should lead to both more moderation AND policy moving in a more progressive direction. Lot easier to be maximalist in your rhetoric and your voting record if all sorts of policies you advocate for or vote for have no chance of ever becoming law. But on the flip side, it also means even incremental change is much more difficult because of how hard it is to pass legislation of any kind full stop. If some health care bill has some real chance of passing, you're much more inclined to say get some provision in the bill that might lead to say some sort of expansion of ACA credits. It's not your ideal, it's not enough, it's not a touchdown, but it's enough for a first down to keep the drive alive.
I should note my lodestar on so so many policy questions and why even though I'm more progressive than Matt these days I'm ultimately with Matt (With lots of objections I've made clear) is Ted Kennedy. Not as a person but legislator. Namely, his biggest political regret was not taking the deal Nixon put on the table for actual universal health care because the deal didn't go quite far enough for Kennedy. But more important was Kennedy thinking "hey we'll just do it later when we we have future Dem President and get what we really want"....which never happened. It's where he learned that you may have ultimate goals you still want to achieve, but you got to take the wins where you can. There are just so many veto points in the system (one of the reasons Matt's cites to get rid of the filibuster, we have plenty of veto points as it is) and the reality of public opinion, structure of the senate and just political system generally being what it is, it's a fool's errand to assume at some future date you'll be able to pass your ideal policy agenda.
I agree. And some on the left discount what it took to achieve the ACA, the most significant expansion of the safety net since Medicare/Medicaid. I suggest Jonathan Cohn's The Ten Year War to improve their understanding.
"Meanwhile, the tariffs as such are not having that large an impact on the overall cost of living."
Matt's probably right that the direct political impact from the tariffs isn't huge, but that's because the costs are mostly hidden. That said, reasonable estimates put the cost of the tariffs in the ballpark of $1100/yr per household. That seems like a pretty large cost of living impact to me.
So while this might not be generating a ton of ongoing direct outrage from voters like the price of gas, the political cost probably still shows up in the general "things cost way too much" zeitgeist that's pulling Trump's support down.
After all, if that tariff cost estimate is even close, tariffs are contributing nearly as much as higher gas and energy prices to the average voter's annual Trump caused cost of living increase.
“I only said the most giant dumpster fire in history MIGHT be okay over a chorus of millions of people predicting exactly what happened. Cookie please?”
Pretty low-effort, low quality snark on your part. One of Matt's greatest strengths as a writer is his ability to review his prior calls, which is a rare and honest quality that allows him to improve. Another one is his ability to realistic about what he thinks might happen, rather than pretending he can predict the future with 100% certainty.
Sorry but nobody gets predictive credit for “max hedge,” especially when the tail of his hedge - “he might do okay, I dunno” - was way wider than pretty much any other analyst.
I’m not saying Matt isn’t a good writer and analyst. I pay to read him after all. It’s just that has done much better in the past. This is not an occasion for back-patting.
I will accept the criticism of the initial comment as excessively snarky.
This piece tries to argue, in part, that the right and progressives lack the center-left's strategic foresight and restraint to implement policies that will be popular with Americans.
I think it's instructive to go back not to the 2024 piece on Trump, but to the Biden era.
Granting the idea that voters were primarily upset about immigration, inflation, and Biden's age, my take is that at least initially, Slow Boring was somewhat supportive of the administration's excesses in all of these areas (at least until it was too late and they became clear failures).
1. On inflation, SB was "team transitory" [1] and was already arguing for slowing down hikes in 2022 [2] with some charts from selected sectors of the economy about how inflation was about to turn around.
2. On immigration, SB lamented the chaos at the border but argued that Biden's strategy (through June 2024!) was prudent: the main impediment was the lack of a "Border Bill" [3]. (Of course, later, Biden somehow managed to close the border without one.)
3. On Biden's age, Matt spent the run-up to the July 2024 debate arguing that these concerns were something of a hoax, and that Robert Hur is a hack (which he still maintains). Later, he wrote a mea culpa, but even still the gist was "My assessment under uncertainty was maximally rational; alas, I was still incorrect."
In retrospect, SB has painted failings on (1)-(3) primarily as the Biden administration being too cozy with progressives (e.g., the worst Biden dead-enders were Bernie and AOC).
Nevertheless, SB was largely in favor of gambling on these issues until it became painfully obvious that they would become liabilities. (Note: This is *precisely* how Trump has failed as well. He does something stupid and then backs down once the polls turn bad, but then it's too late!)
Moreover, if Kamala had won, I think SB would probably look back on pieces about (1)-(3) as evidence of the strategic wisdom of center-left policies.
On 1, I agree that SB pushed the “inflation is transitory” line, but it also very regularly said that while the Obama stimulus in 2009 was too low, Biden had over learned the lesson from that and done too much stimulus. Matt said that repeatedly.
On 2, this is certainly wrong. SB repeatedly said that Biden should be tougher at the border, and definitely was not in favour of the chaos. Yes, of course the border bill would have helped, but no, it wasn’t essential, and I don’t ever recall SB saying otherwise. The third article you link to bears this out.
On 3 I’m not sure SB ever said this was a hoax, although I fully agree that it did not sound the alarm in the way plenty of other commentators did, and was too complacent about Biden’s condition.
This seems like one of those less wrong situations.
Personally I will cop to being initially not skeptical enough on the size of ARPA. It seemed larger than needed after the CARES Act, but the risks seemed asymmetric with Fed policy stuck at ZIRP for 13 years.
But it turned out people already had too much money burning holes in their savings accounts
I appreciate you provided links for your claims, but on immigration you linked to an article where Matt supports closing Asylum loopholes. Where's the link to Matt saying he's fine with letting asylum seekers flood in?
As I said, he lamented the chaos at the border, but I viewed him as largely on board with the Biden admin's messaging strategy: "Yes, this is bad, but our hands are largely tied. We really, really want to remedy the situation, but Republicans are holding back the resources we need." Some quotes from the article:
"What the Lankford-Murray bill (the one Trump urged Republicans to kill earlier this year) did in addition to changing the asylum rules was actually appropriate money to deal with the situation. The problem, from Donald Trump’s standpoint, is that he doesn’t want to deal with the situation, he wants to benefit politically from chaos. So he killed the deal. Biden is going to do the best he can, but Trump is going to try at every turn to make the border as chaotic as possible in order to use it as leverage to beat Biden."
"I always feel like restrictionists turn off significant portions of their brains when they talk about the need to 'secure the border'... saying 'no more asylum claims' doesn’t change the fact that there are only so many border officers and only so many places to hold people."
"Trump claims that if he were in charge, illegal crossings would drop to 2020 levels. But there was eight percent unemployment in 2020!"
In the end, there was no border bill, and nevertheless both Biden and Trump managed to bring border crossings way down. Weird, right?
“the national party leadership has not moved to the center since 2024”
Oh, snap, the out-of-power party didn’t put heavy effort into redefining their agenda during a period where their opposition was winning their next election for them? What a bunch of losers.
Nicely done! From my vantage point here in rural TN, MAGA is still entrenched but there's a general sense that "this ain't working" and "gas prices are too damn high." The national and state Democratic parties are non-existent here. But, if some moderate Democratic senators and governors elsewhere got some traction on real policy and culture war fronts, I think all the disaffected, bewildered moderate Republicans and Democrats here would move in their direction. I can see the possibility of a moderate, pragmatic Democratic presidential candidate getting some traction here and, as a result, providing some hope and oxygen for moderates at the state level to stick their heads up and ask for some votes. But, if any of our serious candidates for president in 28 show any coziness toward the policies and rhetoric of AOC and Mamdani and Piker, this nascent potential will be squandered. No doubt. I hope that the national Democratic party and nationally prominent Dems will have enough sense to give us some cover and some reason for optimism.
How would said moderate Democrat even reach people there?
Whether or not they distanced themself from Mamdani or AOC, there would still be wall to wall coverage of "Look at the people with D next to their name!!!!"
That's a great question. It's hard to know how anyone reaches anyone anymore, especially here. I used to have a clue about how information is disseminated, but I don't now. Facebook still seems like a primary source here, but I avoid it like the plague. I do think more and more folks here are getting information from podcasts and substacks, but I don't know which ones. My center right preacher is a loyal Dispatch reader and so am I. That's cool. Some of my friends read the NYT, but not many. Honestly, I think most of my friends here across the political spectrum simply don't read much news or watch news on TV anymore. I think most people are happy to avoid substantive news and punditry.
Look at Roy Cooper. You basically have to convince people that you won’t hand them over to the rainbow uzi brigade, which is frankly a nearly impossible task.
I’m not saying their views are moored in reality, but I think they view both sides as roughly the same with different sets of favored groups and they don’t trust Dems when they say they’re on their side
I suspect one reason we have seen the rise of anti-immigrant sentiments in Europe and the U.S. is that many citizens feel like leadership is not taking their concerns seriously. Part of this is the pensioner squeeze, the difficulty of buying a home (and thus starting a family), and the idea that everyone but you is somehow being prioritized.
The language of centering “vulnerable persons” has moral salience but excludes/deprioritizes large portions of the electorate. (Let us ignore the fact that many privileged people have exploited this vulnerability label for their own benefit.) Immigrants and asylum seekers enter into this is environment where inflation/cost of living creates a broad squeeze. When politicians are seen accommodating these small segments of the population but ignoring broadly felt problems, many voters react negatively to those incumbent leaders.
I’m not sure it even has to do with priorities, exactly.
It’s always been the case that political messaging is mostly about what the government does for other people. That’s just the nature of having a diverse set of interest groups who demand individual pandering: even broad policies are sold in terms of specific impacts. Before the Internet, you didn’t generally know about this stuff unless you were part of that group (or you subscribed to conservative rags, which were eager to tell who politicians “really” care about). Now, though, there’s always another pot-stirrer with a megaphone ready to make sure you know about it.
Aren't there just more immigrants than almost anyone else has experienced in living memory? All the other things you mentioned could be true, too, but I'd think that's the simplest answer, especially in Europe. If the immigrant population rises from 5% to 20% pretty much anywhere you're going to get some degree of backlash unless they arrive extremely assimilated.
The backlash is concentrated in areas with relatively few immigrants though. The only high-immigration areas that had backlash were the ones near border chaos, not immigration per se. Even now although some Republicans are making an issue of Indians in Texas that still seems to be a minority view among the population at large.
Wrong in two ways: first, this ignores domestic migration. People who would be most likely to generate and lead backlash are the first ones that go, and younger people who have no status quo to backlash against, are the ones who move the most to high-immigrant areas.
2nd - again you missed the whole point. I said the increase in immigrants, and especially those who are farthest from assimilating easily. Places like California or NYC are slowly losing their share of immigration due to generational turnover and relative lack of new immigrants. And the immigrants that come can usually find established second generation communities, which mitigates.
But places like South Carolina, Georgia, South Dakota, Tennessee, etc are seeing massive amounts of immigrants for the first time in living memory.
That is true. But I really think so much of these problems just come down to political elites constantly saying “we prioritize everything but you.” This is a big problem in the EU and is why young people are supporting radical parties more and more.
Sure. I guess where I'd frame it differently is that elites can mitigate things, but the core issue is "lots of new, different strangers are showing up".
I'm really influenced by how global this reaction is. 15 years I was in Eastern Malaysia and multiple people complained to me, unprompted, that they were being swamped by Filipinos. In South Africa there are violent backlashes to Zimbabwean immigrants. And across South America Venezuelan immigrants have become a major election issue in most countries. Is the key factor across these nations the elites' priorities or just the number of immigrants?
OTOH I was in Singapore recently and their national museum had a whole section on immigration; they make like 22,000 new citizens per year, which proportional to population would be almost 2 million in the US. No signs of backlash there even though it’s more crowded so they have more material reasons to backlash…
Maybe it’s just more that immigrants are easy scapegoats when countries are poor or unsuccessful for other reasons and successful countries like Singapore don’t experience it as much despite having much higher levels of immigration?
An entire plank of their government apparatus, and especially their immigration policy, is dedicated to maintaining the racial mix of their 3 main ethnic groups and ensuring that immigrants can assimilate in the existing balancing without upsetting.
Back from the 1920s to 1960s when America effectively had a "western europeans (almost) only" immigration policy there wasn't much backlash either, and I doubt allowing in 10-20 million more brits, irish and germans would have provoked much of one.
Probably because Singapore has tight controls on immigration and are only naturalizing people who score big points on their evaluations. The huge numbers of migrant workers stay migrant workers.
I see your point. The presence of illegal migrants suddenly appearing and disrupting the status quo signals that political leaders are not addressing issues on the ground. This is distinct from the negative reaction to a bunch of strangers suddenly showing up where one resides.
One would think this drives more republicans to support gerrymandering reform. With fewer safe seats, they'd be more beholden to their constituents than the president, and they'd do less dumb stuff.
Orange Man is bad but Orange Man, while at times having a keen eye for weakness, is also dumb and undisciplined. For all the things I've seen in politics in my adult life this would be the first where a president elected primarily on disgruntlement about cost of living specifically took actions designed to raise it, unprovoked, and apparently without understanding very basic things that even Normies grok. Tariffs get passed to consumers. Wars in the ME raise gas prices, especially when the enemy controls critical transit choke points. These are not super complex concepts.
I also appreciate MY's caution on the immigration issue. The American people don't like the really extreme provocations but it's still critical Democrats understand that the dissatisfaction with Trump has neither brought the plurality around to the lefty human rights, no person is illegal view of immigration, nor has it rehabilitated the 'neoliberal' economic case for mass, low skill migration. Which doesn't mean we don't need immigrants, particularly high bang for buck immigrants who are high earners and don't register as a cultural or economic threat to the working class. Democrats have to remember this and have to be willing to stand up to their Groups once in power again. Otherwise we risk a repeat, and maybe one that's worse.
But going back to Trump it really is wild that there has been and I doubt will be immigration legislation. I think at the beginning of 2025 he could have pushed something really aggressive and even a lot of Democrats would have had no choice but go go along with it. But then see my first point. And maybe from Trump's perspective him and his coterie of friends and relations have gotten rich off the whole thing. Perhaps that was the point all along.
Normally passively waiting for your opponent to fail is a bad strategy in any pursuit, but in US politics it is the best strategy. Certainly, the Democrats need to rely on it because they aren’t doing much .
"And they think that if Trump starts hinting at policies that tank the market, he’ll decide that’s bad and reverse course. Of course, if this is true, you should buy stock now on the assumption that Trump, whatever his instincts or impulses, will act consistently to keep the stock market up."
Reading your "How Trump could succeed" post this statement stuck out. Namely, it seems like at least politically speaking that the Silicon Valley tech titans Trump embrace has basically been a poisoned chalice precisely because Trump only cares about "line goes up" with the stock market and anything that happens to benefit him personally (The two are of course related*. Now reality is AI tech investment was pretty "baked into the cake" whoever won the election. But as has been made clear this AI investment is basically what's causing the stock market to go up basically at all.
Basically, "stock market go up" is why Trump hasn't backed down from his most politically damaging mistakes; the Iran War, the continued arbitrary use of tariffs* and this absurd "cold war" he's started with Canada*. As Matt has noted many times, Trump actually benefits from not having any deeply held policy commitments beyond enriching himself (at least to the extent a normal politician has them) and because he had this iron grip on the party (that may finally be slipping) he basically has unique political maneuvering room to reverse himself 180 style on all sorts of policies. But because "line goes up" mostly due to AI investment, he only mildly/temporarily backs down on tariffs, he doesn't "TACO" on the Iran war and he blows up stupidly trade negotiations with Canada.
The riposte of course is without AI investment and resulting "line goes up" Trump's numbers on the economy are harmed by lack of GDP growth and possibly job losses (I know "Health care" wouldn't in theory be affected by this and this is where basically all job growth is concentrated. But how many fewer jobs are there or more layoffs are there in say construction of data centers without AI investment). But this assumes no knock on effects of Trump actually reversing himself on tariffs, dumb trade wars and the Iran War. How much more money do Americans have to spend on other things if grocery prices and gas prices are lower. How much less pressure is that on inflation and what does that do to interest rates? On the latter point, without AI investment, how much less upward pressure is there on interest rates without massive tech borrowing.
* It's really hard to imagine literally anyone else trying these gambits; Republican or Democrat. Like can anyone even find someone in somewhat adjacent GOP circles who was for tariffs? Maybe more pertinent, it's extremely hard for me to believe that literally anyone (Forget any politicians or elites with any influence) had any sort of deep seated dislike of Canada outside of a handful of older hardcore Boston Bruins fans. Another reminder that so much stuff (including to an extent Progressive overreach) is really "Orange man bad".
The other very bad thing Trump is doing is actual socialism: https://x.com/scottlincicome/status/2102432048208068844. Democrats should own this too—“look Trump is the one who is implementing state control of the economy, when the right accuses us of socialism (or the new preferred term seems to be “race communism”) they’re not against state control but just against equal rights.”
Voters don't care about state control of the economy. They care about people with darker skin getting government benefits. That's what they're screaming about when they scream about socialism.
That and because Socialism/Communism is "godless". Pretty clear to me now that a lot of "normie" embrace of Reaganism in the 80s was tied to the religion angle. Namely the rise of the religious right was more impactful on GOP fortunes 80s onward than maybe is realized. Which too many GOP elites (and Dem elites to be fair) took to mean that mass swaths of the American public actually had deep seated commitments to free market economics.
Part of my "the most underrated story in American life last 30 years is the decline in religious affiliation and religious attachment" thesis.
"I find it disturbing that so many progressive policy entrepreneurs continue to cast Trump’s approach as a model to emulate rather than as a cautionary tale."
Matt is underrepresenting the amount of executive clean-up needed to put federal government back into a place where we can even begin to implement bi-partisan legislation. Through executive actions, firings of competent leaders and replacement with incompetent ones, lack of enforcement, and just overall basic neglect, Trump has stripped out the inner workings of the federal government in a way that will take real time and attention to repair - much of which has to happen at the executive level.
Can we implement bipartisan educational reforms with the DOE basically stripped bare? How do we unwind the bloated ICE machine, filled with unqualified agents, in such a way you can even do the kind of smart immigration policy MY wants? What about changes to Obamacare and Medicaid? What about the FDA? Or the DOJ? Who cares about tax laws, even if we pass them, when we have an inert IRS? What about how Trump has removed research, grants and infrastructure to battle global pandemics? How will we implement better transportation policy after 4 years of Sean Duffy?
It will take a year or two of basic competence and the restoration of a functioning government infrastructure to even begin to tackle the legislation Matt is often talking about, and much of this has to happen at the executive level. This isn't about progressive vs moderate. This is about intelligence vs stupidity ... Building vs a bankrupting ... I appreciate that MY has worked most of his life in politics, but he's underrepresenting the importance of a solid, stable, active, competent executive office here.
Yes, I don’t want Dems implementing socialism but like most of the base I do want to go back to Obama-era policies. To do this they have to be very aggressive and undo a lot of stuff because a lot has been done since then. It will be incredibly disappointing if they do nothing and just basically keep Trump’s policies in place maybe with a woke veneer. At that point it is time to support a left-wing takeover.
I know Matt is warning against some progressive president trying to executive-action their way into Medicare-For-All. But as just one example, look at the chaos caused by Trump's executive action on mail-in voting. It failed, sure, but it had intended effects of casting doubt and confusion and owning media headlines along the way. So what we should borrow from Trump is the "day one" appeal of a president signing bold executive actions that makes the dramatic rounds on social media, if for no other reason than to change vibes from past to future.
I hear Matt’s words, but I fear they are being ignored by the base, which is moving with speed further left.
I would think that someone who wants to win a Democratic primary wouldn't listen to being told to moderate, as this sentence implies.
"Democrats shouldn’t try to harness that same recklessness to progressive ends; they should learn to behave more prudently.”
The base of the Democratic Party wants war, wants maximalist positions taken. The populist fever that gripped the GOP has wandered toward the Democrats. Of all the lessons learned from Trump’s awful behavior and his aggressive norm-breaking habits, they will probably be emulated by the Left.
We are not about to see sober, cool heads take charge. We are about to see retribution. Our internecine wars over power will only get hotter after the midterms. Cooler heads will prevail when an existential crisis hits the US.
I suspect that will be as come closer to the 23% mandated cuts to SS loom, along with a 15% mandatory cut to Medicare Part A. Throw in a monetary crisis as the globe buys less of our treasuries because our political class fails to agree on taxes and budgets.
It has been said over and over again. Both parties want to fight. Notice I did not say both parties want to work to solve problems. They don’t. Our politics is set to get worse. Such is the legacy of Trump.
What exactly does retribution by Democrats in 2029 look like? I'm having a hard time imagining it. It was glacially slow during the Biden admin to the extent there was any, and the Republican Supreme Court is going to tie any Democratic president's hands quite tightly.
A significant part of Biden's failure was the lack of retribution. In much the same way that it is best that shoplifting and other anti-social behavior is deterred through punishment the people with their hands in the till and murdering American citizens need to get theirs.
Maximum retribution is unwise but massive retribution is not; moderation in all things.
Hence why 9FamEx28 embraces moderation and rejects "Yonglemaxxing" as some have proposed! Executing all of the defendants' students would simply be too extreme.
Eh, normies won’t remember once Trump is out of power, just like they shrugged about Jan 6th when that news cycle was over. Pursuing Trumpists many years down the line will be a loser, akin to continuing to yell Orange Man Bad over the last 19 years.
This is why 9FamEx28 proposes a bold "First 100 Seconds" program of reform starting at 12:01 PM Eastern, January 20, 2029!
In our modern politics, each side gets its wins, then overreaches when it has power. They don’t read the room. I suspect Democrats will do the same. It is like the veil of “stupid” takes over.
The lesson of the immigration crackdown is to avoid highly visible stuff (border chaos, ICE agents murdering people, students thrown in jail for speech) but no one really gets worked up about behind-the-scenes bureaucratic stuff even if it has a devastating impact on the people targeted. Democrats should take that to heart and don’t let the border get out of control but make it much easier to get a visa for both travel and legal immigration.
I think only the hardline MAGAs like highly visible cruel stuff, but most voters approve of the boring normal stuff where you deport people here illegally when they get arrested for something else, occasionally to workplace raids, etc.
I agree but I struggle a bit, because signalling matters a lot to the people trying to get in.
Nailed it; much like homelessness people just don't want to see it. Make that happen and you're golden.
It drives me insane that with Republican majorities and a Republican President there is not actual law-making going on to improve the immigration system. Dems win and all the important improvements go out the window, border gets reopened. There was a chance to create a better system and it's gone. USCIS remains poorly staffed, slow, and the existing system is incredibly overcomplicated and is just another example of government being unable to deliver critical services effectively and rapidly, something AI can perhaps help with if anyone had the courage or knowledge to implement outside the national security agencies.
And of course no reform action on debt, deficits, and the sustainability of the entitlement programs. No one sane likes the IRGC, but what's the strategy for this second war? Midnight Hammer was perfect. Now it's just figuring on the fly. If we want to remove the regime, air power is not sufficient. Very few actual adults adulting in Congress. Yes to fighting extreme gerrymandering and figuring out a way to elect the more moderate among us.
No insight here, just frustration.
That Trumpian governance turned out to be deeply unserious wrt public policy came as a surprise to you?
The thing is, even if Trump himself being deeply unserious about public policy was 100% predictable, it's bizarre that congressional Republicans -- who control both houses and have a President who would likely sign anything they passed -- haven't been pushing more legislation to at least force Democrats to publicly vote against it or filibuster it.
The one that most leaps out at me is the Refugee Act of 1980 (codified in relevant part at 8 U.S.C. § 1157), which gives the President unilateral discretion to admit up to 125,000 refugees to the US each year beyond any other statutory limits on immigration. In other words, it's literally an "import poor foreigners" dial! (Obama and Biden maxed out admissions under the program; Trump almost completely eliminated admissions under it by the end of his first term and has set the number at 17,500 per year so far in his second term.)
If you're a congressional Republican why not propose legislation to lower that number to 25,000? If it had been proposed before the "blue wave" looked likely, it might actually have passed and, even if it failed, it would have set up a million attack ads: "Representative Jones voted to allow 100,000 poor foreigners into the United States and be supported by your tax dollars. Call Representative Jones today and tell him that's not how we do things in Pennsylvania."
Surprise no, disappointment yes. Having seen all the executive orders get overturned, I hoped on something like immigration where there is real interest and emotion they might have seen the utility of trying for permanent change. Considering how incompetent Congress is I’m not surprised, but hope springs eternal that they might find their cojones one day and remember what they are and who they (are supposed) to represent.
I refuse to blackpill, and sometimes Congress might realize you can just do things.
The first and second terms of Trump have been quite different, so it wasn't totally crazy to hope for more competence from the second term instead of the same fecklessness as the first term on legislation plus lots of flashy and mostly bad and unpopular stuff done by executive order.
The idea that Democrats should focus on winning supermajorities is just as much a fantasy as any idea Republicans have concocted. Democrats have had exactly one supermajority in the last 50 years, during Obama’s first two years in office. It took everything going well, e.g. an increasingly unpopular incumbent, a financial collapse, and an unpopular war to bring that about. This idea that a stable supermajority is an attainable goal is extremely implausible. And it is just as unlikely that politicians in deep blue areas will attenuate their policy goals to satisfy low information voters in red states who are probably not attuned to policy anyway. True, Democrats should nominate candidates in red states that have a chance to win in those states. But that’s on the candidates themselves. Except in presidential elections it’s not the job of blue state candidates to appeal to red state voters in the hope of attaining a mythical “stable supermajority”.
It's nice to see a Joseph who makes criticisms of Matt that I actually agree with.
The problem with “if you want profound change, win huge congressional majorities” isn't that huge majorities wouldn't be useful, but he's (deliberately?) turning an extraordinarily unusual political circumstance into the prerequisite for doing anything ambitious.
And this issue is much worse for progressives (obviously not Matt's concern); an AOC 2029 admin can't confidently assume another bite at the apple four or eight years later, given the enemies it would inevitably face both inside and outside of the party.
Matt is focused on maximizing durability, minimizing backlash, and preservint the coalition so it can keep winning elections and accumulating incremental gains, but that is very different from maximizing achievable progressive policy change. There is a perfectly coherent argument for accepting more risk to maximize a rare political opportunity, especially because Matt systematically underweights the benefits of actually demonstrating to your supporters that gaining power results in meaningful change.
This doesn't mean “copy Trump”; T2.0 is a useful demonstration that maximalism can be stupid and that it's possible to spend political capital on things with enormous downside and little durable policy benefit, but that suggests a different lesson from Matt's: be selective about maximalism, not necessarily incremental everywhere.
Avoid aggressive actions that are legally vulnerable, easily reversed, economically damaging, or politically toxic without accomplishing much, while focusing on those that create institutions, constituencies, investments, expectations, bargaining power, or facts on the ground that are much harder to undo.
I think the missing possibility in Matt's framework is: build the broadest electoral coalition you realistically can, let candidates adapt to their constituencies, legislate when possible, but recognize that when an minority faction obtains a rare governing opportunity, preserving that opportunity isn't the supreme objective: sometimes the point of acquiring political power is to use it.
I see the lesson of T2.0 as “don't squander a scarce governing opportunity on reckless, low-value maximalism", but that's very different from “avoid maximalism and accumulate bipartisan priorities instead.”
I think the missing piece from both posts or more accurately the missing word is "filibuster".
My suspicion is Matt's response to all of this is this is why elimination of the filibuster should be a goal for American government full stop. Like if you want Congress to take back any sort of control from the Executive Branch, eliminating the filibuster almost certainly has to be a first and most important step.
Basically, that we shouldn't need a once in a lifetime set of contingent circumstances (great candidate, aftershock of a financial crises, displeasure at an endless war) to create conditions for an active Congress to pass all sorts of legislation.
It also in theory should lead to both more moderation AND policy moving in a more progressive direction. Lot easier to be maximalist in your rhetoric and your voting record if all sorts of policies you advocate for or vote for have no chance of ever becoming law. But on the flip side, it also means even incremental change is much more difficult because of how hard it is to pass legislation of any kind full stop. If some health care bill has some real chance of passing, you're much more inclined to say get some provision in the bill that might lead to say some sort of expansion of ACA credits. It's not your ideal, it's not enough, it's not a touchdown, but it's enough for a first down to keep the drive alive.
I should note my lodestar on so so many policy questions and why even though I'm more progressive than Matt these days I'm ultimately with Matt (With lots of objections I've made clear) is Ted Kennedy. Not as a person but legislator. Namely, his biggest political regret was not taking the deal Nixon put on the table for actual universal health care because the deal didn't go quite far enough for Kennedy. But more important was Kennedy thinking "hey we'll just do it later when we we have future Dem President and get what we really want"....which never happened. It's where he learned that you may have ultimate goals you still want to achieve, but you got to take the wins where you can. There are just so many veto points in the system (one of the reasons Matt's cites to get rid of the filibuster, we have plenty of veto points as it is) and the reality of public opinion, structure of the senate and just political system generally being what it is, it's a fool's errand to assume at some future date you'll be able to pass your ideal policy agenda.
And they threw it away over healthcare which conventional wisdom says is their best issue!
Given the durability of the ACA, it wasn't really "thrown away".
Sure, though this is basically Tim Walz thought, you burn political capital to achieve policy wins.
I agree. And some on the left discount what it took to achieve the ACA, the most significant expansion of the safety net since Medicare/Medicaid. I suggest Jonathan Cohn's The Ten Year War to improve their understanding.
"Meanwhile, the tariffs as such are not having that large an impact on the overall cost of living."
Matt's probably right that the direct political impact from the tariffs isn't huge, but that's because the costs are mostly hidden. That said, reasonable estimates put the cost of the tariffs in the ballpark of $1100/yr per household. That seems like a pretty large cost of living impact to me.
https://budgetlab.yale.edu/research/state-us-tariffs
So while this might not be generating a ton of ongoing direct outrage from voters like the price of gas, the political cost probably still shows up in the general "things cost way too much" zeitgeist that's pulling Trump's support down.
After all, if that tariff cost estimate is even close, tariffs are contributing nearly as much as higher gas and energy prices to the average voter's annual Trump caused cost of living increase.
Tariffs on vehicles and vehicle inputs have raised prices between $2000 and $8000.
“I only said the most giant dumpster fire in history MIGHT be okay over a chorus of millions of people predicting exactly what happened. Cookie please?”
Pretty low-effort, low quality snark on your part. One of Matt's greatest strengths as a writer is his ability to review his prior calls, which is a rare and honest quality that allows him to improve. Another one is his ability to realistic about what he thinks might happen, rather than pretending he can predict the future with 100% certainty.
Are you doing those things? I doubt it.
Sometimes.
Sorry but nobody gets predictive credit for “max hedge,” especially when the tail of his hedge - “he might do okay, I dunno” - was way wider than pretty much any other analyst.
I’m not saying Matt isn’t a good writer and analyst. I pay to read him after all. It’s just that has done much better in the past. This is not an occasion for back-patting.
I will accept the criticism of the initial comment as excessively snarky.
This piece tries to argue, in part, that the right and progressives lack the center-left's strategic foresight and restraint to implement policies that will be popular with Americans.
I think it's instructive to go back not to the 2024 piece on Trump, but to the Biden era.
Granting the idea that voters were primarily upset about immigration, inflation, and Biden's age, my take is that at least initially, Slow Boring was somewhat supportive of the administration's excesses in all of these areas (at least until it was too late and they became clear failures).
1. On inflation, SB was "team transitory" [1] and was already arguing for slowing down hikes in 2022 [2] with some charts from selected sectors of the economy about how inflation was about to turn around.
2. On immigration, SB lamented the chaos at the border but argued that Biden's strategy (through June 2024!) was prudent: the main impediment was the lack of a "Border Bill" [3]. (Of course, later, Biden somehow managed to close the border without one.)
3. On Biden's age, Matt spent the run-up to the July 2024 debate arguing that these concerns were something of a hoax, and that Robert Hur is a hack (which he still maintains). Later, he wrote a mea culpa, but even still the gist was "My assessment under uncertainty was maximally rational; alas, I was still incorrect."
In retrospect, SB has painted failings on (1)-(3) primarily as the Biden administration being too cozy with progressives (e.g., the worst Biden dead-enders were Bernie and AOC).
Nevertheless, SB was largely in favor of gambling on these issues until it became painfully obvious that they would become liabilities. (Note: This is *precisely* how Trump has failed as well. He does something stupid and then backs down once the polls turn bad, but then it's too late!)
Moreover, if Kamala had won, I think SB would probably look back on pieces about (1)-(3) as evidence of the strategic wisdom of center-left policies.
[1] https://www.slowboring.com/p/transitory-inflation
[2] https://www.slowboring.com/p/the-fed-cant-save-the-economy
[3] https://www.slowboring.com/p/biden-is-doing-the-right-thing-on
I don’t think your recollections are accurate.
On 1, I agree that SB pushed the “inflation is transitory” line, but it also very regularly said that while the Obama stimulus in 2009 was too low, Biden had over learned the lesson from that and done too much stimulus. Matt said that repeatedly.
On 2, this is certainly wrong. SB repeatedly said that Biden should be tougher at the border, and definitely was not in favour of the chaos. Yes, of course the border bill would have helped, but no, it wasn’t essential, and I don’t ever recall SB saying otherwise. The third article you link to bears this out.
On 3 I’m not sure SB ever said this was a hoax, although I fully agree that it did not sound the alarm in the way plenty of other commentators did, and was too complacent about Biden’s condition.
This seems like one of those less wrong situations.
Personally I will cop to being initially not skeptical enough on the size of ARPA. It seemed larger than needed after the CARES Act, but the risks seemed asymmetric with Fed policy stuck at ZIRP for 13 years.
But it turned out people already had too much money burning holes in their savings accounts
I appreciate you provided links for your claims, but on immigration you linked to an article where Matt supports closing Asylum loopholes. Where's the link to Matt saying he's fine with letting asylum seekers flood in?
As I said, he lamented the chaos at the border, but I viewed him as largely on board with the Biden admin's messaging strategy: "Yes, this is bad, but our hands are largely tied. We really, really want to remedy the situation, but Republicans are holding back the resources we need." Some quotes from the article:
"What the Lankford-Murray bill (the one Trump urged Republicans to kill earlier this year) did in addition to changing the asylum rules was actually appropriate money to deal with the situation. The problem, from Donald Trump’s standpoint, is that he doesn’t want to deal with the situation, he wants to benefit politically from chaos. So he killed the deal. Biden is going to do the best he can, but Trump is going to try at every turn to make the border as chaotic as possible in order to use it as leverage to beat Biden."
"I always feel like restrictionists turn off significant portions of their brains when they talk about the need to 'secure the border'... saying 'no more asylum claims' doesn’t change the fact that there are only so many border officers and only so many places to hold people."
"Trump claims that if he were in charge, illegal crossings would drop to 2020 levels. But there was eight percent unemployment in 2020!"
In the end, there was no border bill, and nevertheless both Biden and Trump managed to bring border crossings way down. Weird, right?
“the national party leadership has not moved to the center since 2024”
Oh, snap, the out-of-power party didn’t put heavy effort into redefining their agenda during a period where their opposition was winning their next election for them? What a bunch of losers.
Nicely done! From my vantage point here in rural TN, MAGA is still entrenched but there's a general sense that "this ain't working" and "gas prices are too damn high." The national and state Democratic parties are non-existent here. But, if some moderate Democratic senators and governors elsewhere got some traction on real policy and culture war fronts, I think all the disaffected, bewildered moderate Republicans and Democrats here would move in their direction. I can see the possibility of a moderate, pragmatic Democratic presidential candidate getting some traction here and, as a result, providing some hope and oxygen for moderates at the state level to stick their heads up and ask for some votes. But, if any of our serious candidates for president in 28 show any coziness toward the policies and rhetoric of AOC and Mamdani and Piker, this nascent potential will be squandered. No doubt. I hope that the national Democratic party and nationally prominent Dems will have enough sense to give us some cover and some reason for optimism.
How would said moderate Democrat even reach people there?
Whether or not they distanced themself from Mamdani or AOC, there would still be wall to wall coverage of "Look at the people with D next to their name!!!!"
That's a great question. It's hard to know how anyone reaches anyone anymore, especially here. I used to have a clue about how information is disseminated, but I don't now. Facebook still seems like a primary source here, but I avoid it like the plague. I do think more and more folks here are getting information from podcasts and substacks, but I don't know which ones. My center right preacher is a loyal Dispatch reader and so am I. That's cool. Some of my friends read the NYT, but not many. Honestly, I think most of my friends here across the political spectrum simply don't read much news or watch news on TV anymore. I think most people are happy to avoid substantive news and punditry.
Welp, I guess we should give up then!
Look at Roy Cooper. You basically have to convince people that you won’t hand them over to the rainbow uzi brigade, which is frankly a nearly impossible task.
I’m not saying their views are moored in reality, but I think they view both sides as roughly the same with different sets of favored groups and they don’t trust Dems when they say they’re on their side
What happens to the good people of Tennessee when the rainbow uzis come?
I suspect one reason we have seen the rise of anti-immigrant sentiments in Europe and the U.S. is that many citizens feel like leadership is not taking their concerns seriously. Part of this is the pensioner squeeze, the difficulty of buying a home (and thus starting a family), and the idea that everyone but you is somehow being prioritized.
The language of centering “vulnerable persons” has moral salience but excludes/deprioritizes large portions of the electorate. (Let us ignore the fact that many privileged people have exploited this vulnerability label for their own benefit.) Immigrants and asylum seekers enter into this is environment where inflation/cost of living creates a broad squeeze. When politicians are seen accommodating these small segments of the population but ignoring broadly felt problems, many voters react negatively to those incumbent leaders.
I’m not sure it even has to do with priorities, exactly.
It’s always been the case that political messaging is mostly about what the government does for other people. That’s just the nature of having a diverse set of interest groups who demand individual pandering: even broad policies are sold in terms of specific impacts. Before the Internet, you didn’t generally know about this stuff unless you were part of that group (or you subscribed to conservative rags, which were eager to tell who politicians “really” care about). Now, though, there’s always another pot-stirrer with a megaphone ready to make sure you know about it.
Aren't there just more immigrants than almost anyone else has experienced in living memory? All the other things you mentioned could be true, too, but I'd think that's the simplest answer, especially in Europe. If the immigrant population rises from 5% to 20% pretty much anywhere you're going to get some degree of backlash unless they arrive extremely assimilated.
The backlash is concentrated in areas with relatively few immigrants though. The only high-immigration areas that had backlash were the ones near border chaos, not immigration per se. Even now although some Republicans are making an issue of Indians in Texas that still seems to be a minority view among the population at large.
Wrong in two ways: first, this ignores domestic migration. People who would be most likely to generate and lead backlash are the first ones that go, and younger people who have no status quo to backlash against, are the ones who move the most to high-immigrant areas.
2nd - again you missed the whole point. I said the increase in immigrants, and especially those who are farthest from assimilating easily. Places like California or NYC are slowly losing their share of immigration due to generational turnover and relative lack of new immigrants. And the immigrants that come can usually find established second generation communities, which mitigates.
But places like South Carolina, Georgia, South Dakota, Tennessee, etc are seeing massive amounts of immigrants for the first time in living memory.
That is true. But I really think so much of these problems just come down to political elites constantly saying “we prioritize everything but you.” This is a big problem in the EU and is why young people are supporting radical parties more and more.
Sure. I guess where I'd frame it differently is that elites can mitigate things, but the core issue is "lots of new, different strangers are showing up".
I'm really influenced by how global this reaction is. 15 years I was in Eastern Malaysia and multiple people complained to me, unprompted, that they were being swamped by Filipinos. In South Africa there are violent backlashes to Zimbabwean immigrants. And across South America Venezuelan immigrants have become a major election issue in most countries. Is the key factor across these nations the elites' priorities or just the number of immigrants?
OTOH I was in Singapore recently and their national museum had a whole section on immigration; they make like 22,000 new citizens per year, which proportional to population would be almost 2 million in the US. No signs of backlash there even though it’s more crowded so they have more material reasons to backlash…
Maybe it’s just more that immigrants are easy scapegoats when countries are poor or unsuccessful for other reasons and successful countries like Singapore don’t experience it as much despite having much higher levels of immigration?
Sigh...for real? You're missing the entire point.
An entire plank of their government apparatus, and especially their immigration policy, is dedicated to maintaining the racial mix of their 3 main ethnic groups and ensuring that immigrants can assimilate in the existing balancing without upsetting.
Back from the 1920s to 1960s when America effectively had a "western europeans (almost) only" immigration policy there wasn't much backlash either, and I doubt allowing in 10-20 million more brits, irish and germans would have provoked much of one.
There’s backlash against mainland Chinese immigrants now, who Singapore have to import to keep the racial mix where it is.
Probably because Singapore has tight controls on immigration and are only naturalizing people who score big points on their evaluations. The huge numbers of migrant workers stay migrant workers.
I see your point. The presence of illegal migrants suddenly appearing and disrupting the status quo signals that political leaders are not addressing issues on the ground. This is distinct from the negative reaction to a bunch of strangers suddenly showing up where one resides.
One would think this drives more republicans to support gerrymandering reform. With fewer safe seats, they'd be more beholden to their constituents than the president, and they'd do less dumb stuff.
Orange Man is bad but Orange Man, while at times having a keen eye for weakness, is also dumb and undisciplined. For all the things I've seen in politics in my adult life this would be the first where a president elected primarily on disgruntlement about cost of living specifically took actions designed to raise it, unprovoked, and apparently without understanding very basic things that even Normies grok. Tariffs get passed to consumers. Wars in the ME raise gas prices, especially when the enemy controls critical transit choke points. These are not super complex concepts.
I also appreciate MY's caution on the immigration issue. The American people don't like the really extreme provocations but it's still critical Democrats understand that the dissatisfaction with Trump has neither brought the plurality around to the lefty human rights, no person is illegal view of immigration, nor has it rehabilitated the 'neoliberal' economic case for mass, low skill migration. Which doesn't mean we don't need immigrants, particularly high bang for buck immigrants who are high earners and don't register as a cultural or economic threat to the working class. Democrats have to remember this and have to be willing to stand up to their Groups once in power again. Otherwise we risk a repeat, and maybe one that's worse.
But going back to Trump it really is wild that there has been and I doubt will be immigration legislation. I think at the beginning of 2025 he could have pushed something really aggressive and even a lot of Democrats would have had no choice but go go along with it. But then see my first point. And maybe from Trump's perspective him and his coterie of friends and relations have gotten rich off the whole thing. Perhaps that was the point all along.