The Biden admin (no idea if Biden himself was involved) literally sued Texas to stop Texas from enforcing border law. This same admin also essentially redefined "asylum" to be economic asylum rather than "I'm afraid that if I go back to my country I'll be killed" which is how people typically thought of asylum.

You can absolutely think that what's happening now is an overreaction, un-American, gross, illegal, and morally wrong.

But if you're unwilling to try and understand how it's possible that over half the country voted for someone who would enact policies that lead to what we're seeing now, you're simply not paying attention.

If you just want to see the people who voted for this as "the enemy" and "evil" you're basically doing the same tribal "othering" that's lead to these outcomes you don't like.

Is that ugly and uncomfortable? Yes, absolutely. Will things get better by ignoring it? Absolutely not.

I'm not sure this is the correct perspective on voting. Voters are often passionate about one or two key issues - crime, Israel v Palestine, cost of living, immigration policy, coal towns, Ukraine, military spending, or whatever is most important to them.

If they voted for Trump it doesn't mean they agree with him on immigration and crime. They just have to think it's less important than the positions they do agree with. An effective argument to win over those voters isn't "you're evil and should have better opinions," it's "immigration policy is important too and this one is really bad, plus Trump is doing a bad job on your pet issues."

I was told here CharlieXcX would deliver the election.

The votes move in cycles

The most sure method any of us can individually enact to help to ensure that our favored candidate is not elected is to declare that it doesn't matter, and then just give up and not vote.

This method is literally an example of nihilism.

The dems' huge screwup was abandoning the working and middle classes, instead choosing to be "The Other Party For Billionaires, But With Different Identity Politics".

I was looking at yearly immigration numbers and there is variation in the reporting, which is to be expected, but from what I can see, the census bureau sees a fairly stable number of immigrants (undocumented and otherwise) year over year from 2010-2025, and many sources agree, although CATO intstitute indicates a rather large increase (around %40) in this time period.

Can you please share some information as to why you feel the 21-3 numbers to be destabilizing?

The reason for increasing Venezuelan immigration is most likely the TPS act from 2019 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuela_TPS_Act_of_2019 )

I am an internet person, but I am aware of your general career and hold some personal respect for you which is why I am asking you fairly directly for your information. Correcting my knowledge is truly my goal and to be very blunt, I am sensitive to the issues of immigration (all types). Personally, my main concern with my country's treatment of this issue lies in the preservation of due process for these people who are seeking to become my countrymen. It doesn't surprise me that they might desire freedom and self-determination, which is something that I readily empathize with. It is important to me to treat people fairly and with dignity in civil society and especially regarding our government, and this includes citizens who are troubled by it. As such I am very interested in realizing an accurate portrayal.

That makes sense, and I agree with your assessments about the voting population's priorities. But maybe the inflation / immigration aspects were much more intertwined than we realized.

Maybe (being very generous to him) Biden didn't do a tradeoff between inflation vs employment... maybe the gamble was that increased immigration would boost the economy enough that citizens were not as bothered by the immigrants.

In other words, the very valid "its' the economy stupid" theory would imply that if people can comfortable provide for themselves and their families, they'd be less bothered by what they saw as competition for jobs.

Unfortunately time was not on their side, and inflation did not drop fast enough.

But there might be another angle. An interesting aspect of the economic sentiment and inflation hysteria preceding the election was that data showed that the majority of Americans thought they themselves were doing well, but other Americans were suffering. So the statistical reality was much better than the statistical perception.

This is one reason that led to the term "vibecession" -- data belied the sentiments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibecession

Many have credibly attributed this phenomenon to all the algorithm-driven ragebait content on social media, and certain news media channels (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibecession#Media_influence_an...)

But maybe we still underestimate the size of that effect: it exploited a critical flaw in an otherwise successful economic strategy -- its reliance on "the outsiders." During the time things were improving but still painful, the perception of these outsiders could be exploited to distract from the improvements happening and foment a backlash.

Note it could very well have just happened by accident, but if not... that shows the power of mass perception. The events happening with media platforms leading up to the election may have been (and still are) much more consequential than we realize.

Losing in 2026 barely matters. Existing dem leadership has no desire to end the filibuster, which means we get one bill a year that is full of technocratic approaches. The Trump administration, backed by the supreme court, is accruing more and more power to simply ignore the will of Congress. Even if the dems get some guts and defund ICE, the Trump administration has already demonstrated that it is happy to just illegally distribute or withhold funds wherever it likes.

The only way out of this is replacing dem leadership in congress with people who give a shit, winning the presidency in 2028, killing the filibuster, and then going on a serious denazification effort to restructure our institutions so that this sort of shit can't happen. Court packing. Total dismantling and rebuilding of federal law enforcement. Recreating a functional congress.

- 74% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say the Trump administration is doing the right amount to deport immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally. Another 12% say it’s doing too little and 13% say it’s doing too much.

- Nearly nine-in-ten Republicans approve of sending additional U.S. troops to the border (88%) and increasing deportations (86%). More than six-in-ten strongly approve of these actions.

- 80% of Republicans approve of cutting federal funds to cities and states if they do not cooperate with deportations

- 72% of Republicans approve of suspending asylum applications, with 38% saying they strongly approve.

Sure, but in a healthy society, such extreme opinions should never even be close enough to a minority large enough to be elected into power. Hopefully, anyway.

In the USA, we have come to expect a certain level of formality, transparency, and adherence to due process when it comes to how law enforcement operates. Or, at least that's what we tell ourselves the standard is. Granted, we've been backsliding in this department for decades, which really started accelerating during the War On Terror. It's not new with this administration. But, we have strayed a long, long way away from the idealized "uniformed cop visibly walking the beat on the street."

The whole "masked plainclothes men jumping out of an unmarked van, dragging someone off the street into the van, and swooping away" thing is what the villains in the movies did, not the good guys.

These aren't stings. They're in body armor and masks patrolling the streets without badges.