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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: It's the economy, stupid, and don't break it on purpose. [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-03-12
Theodore R Johnson/Washington Post:
Why buyer’s remorse is boiling over in congressional GOP town halls Republican constituents are pushing back on Trump’s policies and their representatives. Some of the snark for the constituents with buyer’s remorse is satisfaction at their comeuppance. But part of it is also a hope that the majority will come away wiser and choose better leaders. As one old classmate of mine put it in response to a video of screaming Republican voters, “Some people gotta touch the stove for themselves.” It’s the same idea behind the counsel from some in the party to the Democratic caucus: Step aside, bite your tongue and let the country learn its lesson the hard way.
x New: Medicaid enrollment of children, people with disabilities, seniors, and adults by Congressional district. Here are the districts with the most Medicaid enrollees: pic.twitter.com/qsBRKabOwx — Larry Levitt (@larry_levitt) March 11, 2025
Wall Street Journal:
Wall Street Fears Trump Will Wreck the Soft Landing The economy’s pilot has a new message: Fasten your seat belts “On Friday, I would have said I thought the administration was worried about their policies really slowing down the economy, and they were trying to lay the groundwork for the narrative that they inherited a weakening economy,” said Michael Strain, head of economic-policy studies at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute. More recent comments seem to have gone beyond that. “Now, there’s almost a sense that if something goes wrong in the economy, then that’s fine,” said Perkins. “That’s making people quite nervous because if you get to the point where you are pushing the economy into a recession, there is no guarantee that that’s just going to pass quickly.”
Jonathan Landay/Twitter via Threadreader:
The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives voted on Tuesday to block the ability of Congress to quickly challenge tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump that have rattled financial markets. The 216-214 vote, largely along party lines, delays lawmakers' ability for the rest of the year to force a vote that could revoke Trump's tariffs and immigration actions. Reuters link
x A top economics reporter goes off script on national TV: “I am going to say this at risk of my job, but what President Trump is doing is insane.” — Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen.bsky.social) 2025-03-12T03:10:39.111Z
Brian Beutler/Off Message:
Be Prepared Trump is sabotaging the economy, but we shouldn't assume public opinion will follow automatically. We may not see recession, we may not see inflation, we may not see the dreaded combination of the two. But we’ll be incredibly lucky to avoid all three. And if any occur, we’re going to test the power of MAGA propaganda techniques. Can concerted lying convince enough people to deny the existence of economic hardship, or celebrate it, or blame it on Democrats, such that it doesn’t become a political drag on Trump? For all the brain poison MAGA propagandists pump into our information environment, these early signs of discomfort suggest they know the truth of the matter. Which means they’re conscious of the coming deception: they’ll blame Biden and foreigners and liberals and Jews for causing economic pain, and circle their wagons around Trump, fully aware of their own lies.
Christina Pagel/Diving into Data & Decision making:
Censor, purge, defund: how Trump is following the authoritarian playbook on science and universities I have mapped 35 of the Trump administration's attacks on science and universities to the authoritarian playbook - and consider what it means for attacks still to come This isn’t chaos—it’s a deliberate war on science and academic freedom. In just six weeks, the Trump administration has slashed research budgets, purged health and scientific agencies, censored research, and threatened universities. Making a list of the actions taken since January 2025 reveals distinct patterns. Just as the administration’s actions as a whole are following an authoritarian playbook, so are the specific ways they are attacking science. I’ve displayed 35 distinct actions in the Venn Diagram below (table of actions with links), grouped into three main categories: Control of science to align with state ideology;
Undermining the independence of universities / suppressing dissent;
Maintaining geopolitical / economic goals.
x Trump’s highest rating is on immigration, lowest on tariffs: pic.twitter.com/KmGGcyVaQM — Ben Pershing (@benpershing) March 12, 2025
Jill Lawrence/The Bulwark:
The Road from ‘Citizens United’ to Trump, Musk, and Corruption A ‘naïve’ Supreme Court delivered lawless greed and cruelty. We’ll have to save ourselves, if we can. THE CORRUPTION OF FIVE YEARS AGO is almost trivial compared with the corruption of today. Gridlock and dysfunction are still with us, blocking many priorities supported by voters, but now “there is nothing that isn’t for sale,” Muller told me, and reeled off a few choice outrages: Trump’s personal investment in crypto and public steps that will enrich him, his family, and wealthy friends; an unprecedented thirteen billionaires in Trump’s cabinet, with all the potential that entails for conflicts of interest and insulation from the impact of their policies; and Musk’s “unfettered access” to the government and the private data of tens of millions, as he fires, freezes, and cancels his way through one agency after another, allegedly to slash costs. At the same time, Musk himself is flush with government grants and contracts, and is aggressively pursuing more of them—from the Federal Aviation Administration (where he has insinuated his Starlink internet system into its operations although the FAA’s existing Verizon contract doesn’t expire until 2038) to the Commerce Department’s $42 billion rural broadband access program (which rewrote its rules last week to make Starlink eligible).
Mark Jacob/Stop the presses:
When the media take MAGA liars at their word Whether it’s cluelessness or complicity, it’s toxic to democracy. Journalism’s bad habits and gullibility have been badly exploited by the right. One especially embarrassing example came last October when Politico wrote a story headlined “Trump team preps list of banned staffers” about how a second Trump administration supposedly would refuse to hire people involved in the radical Project 2025. At the time, Trump was desperately trying to distance himself from Project 2025, which was a loser with the voting public. “Clearly people working on Project 2025 are blacklisted,” an unidentified Trump insider told Politico. But, surprise, surprise: Project 2025 authors are now in key positions in the Trump regime. Russell Vought is director of the Office of Management and Budget, aggressively undermining the power of Congress. Tom Homan is “border czar,” terrorizing immigrant communities and threatening cities that don’t submit to his will. John Ratcliffe is CIA director, helping Trump betray Ukraine and cozy up to Russia. Brendan Carr is Federal Communications Commission chair, in charge of harassing the news media. They took power with the help of Politico.
x McGovern: Prices are going up, inflation is up, groceries are up. I saw eggs for $10 recently. Used car prices are up, other than Teslas. Those seem much cheaper these days for some reason. — Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) 2025-03-11T16:42:54.034Z
This is to remind people Jim McGovern is still there, and so are other Democrats:
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