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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: The false choice of immigration v. the economy [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-04-19
x RMG Research - More voters trust Democrats than Republicans to handle inflation. 15 point swing towards the Democrats from February.
——
Whom voters trust more to handle...
Inflation: 🔵 D+4 (was R+11 in Feb.)
Economy: 🔴 R+1 (was R+10)
Healthcare: 🔵 D+14
Education: 🔵 D+12… pic.twitter.com/QUH2GM2Cdf — InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) April 16, 2025
The so called immigation lead isn’t all that impressive, especially when you add nuance. For example:
x I think the argument that Ds shouldn’t talk about immigration because Trump/Rs currently poll better on it is off base.
I get the logic of wanting to focus on more fertile ground (inflation/tariffs) but the midterms are 18+ months away.
You can do both & we can win the argument pic.twitter.com/WE9GdZiL2d — Adam Carlson (@admcrlsn) April 18, 2025
James Fallows/Breaking the News:
Dominoes Are Falling. Donald Trump's policy has been ‘flooding the zone,’ throwing out so much, so fast, that no one could keep up. Now people are throwing it right back at him. And fast. -Not even two weeks have passed since millions of people turned out, on April 5, in all 50 states and DC to protest the Trump-Musk demolition of the government. -It was just one week ago, on April 10, that the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 against Trump-team claims in the Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia deportation case. All nine of them—Even Alito! Even Thomas!—decreed that the Trump team needed to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the US from the Abu Ghraib-style captivity in El Salvador. -It was only three days ago, on April 14, that the nation’s oldest and richest university said “Hell, no!” to demands that it become a Trump/Doge vassal state. -And just yesterday, April 16, a US Senator flew to El Salvador to see his wrongly imprisoned constituent. Then, after initial stonewalling by the Trumpite regime in El Salvador, Senator Chris Van Hollen succeeded in meeting Abrego Garcia today, April 17. Which momentum is stronger and swifter? The assault on institutions? Or their defense? We can’t know. But before the day ends (here in California), and in the spirit of real-time resistance chronicles, here are a few highly dissimilar developments that I’ll itemize rather than fully explain.
Robert Tracinski/The UnPopulist:
Trump’s Indiscriminate Destruction of State Capacity Will Lead to a Dysfunctional, Not Cheaper, Government
Americans may rue the unplanned experiment this administration is running on the country People like me—small-government types who were once considered on “the right” but have never reconciled ourselves to supporting Donald Trump—are often asked by our old conservative friends, “What happened to you? Why did you change?” The question invites a grim chuckle, because of course we did not really change; the questioners did. They’re the ones who flipped on free trade, on the separation of powers, on Russia, for crying out loud, and a great deal else. When everyone else is shifting their convictions, it’s amazing how fast you can move just by standing still. Yet it would be strange if the big and unexpected events of the day did not cause us to rethink at least a few things. One way I have changed is that despite always believing in a small and limited government, I have become much more sympathetic to the need for building “state capacity.” At a time when the current administration is busy tearing down the state, pulling its parts out of the walls at random, I have gained a new appreciation for why we need an effectively functioning government.
x No, actually, we shouldn't just let the government violently attack people on the streets and disappear them into foreign gulags. We should try to stop them. — Craig Harrington (@craigipedia.bsky.social) 2025-04-18T14:45:41.657Z
EJ Dionne/TNR:
Trump’s Tariff Madness Is About One Thing: His Thirst for One-Man Rule The tariffs, the treatment of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the DOGE moves—they’re all fundamentally about the same thing. The most conspicuous moment of truth has been for Trump’s supporters in big business and other advocates of a loosely regulated free market. They thought they could get what they wanted out of Trump, mainly lower taxes and less regulation, without having to worry about his very explicit campaign promises to impose tariffs, let alone to do so in a madcap way that now threatens their own wealth. They couldn’t imagine that Trump would happily wreak such havoc in the national and global economies or demolish the entire post–World War II economic system. Why did they miss this? The fact that Trump lies regularly and has few fixed principles has, perversely perhaps, been a source of his political strength. Those who rally to him fool themselves into thinking they can have Trump à la carte. They assume he really means his pledges to policies they like and that he’s lying to the masses when he promises policies they don’t like. All the old nonsense about taking Trump “seriously but not literally” was a way for his apologists to assume he couldn’t really mean the more outlandish things he said. His supporters in business and among the wealthy like to view themselves as gimlet-eyed realists, so the ease with which they were bamboozled is quite remarkable—and is easily measured.
Daniel Nichanian/Bolts:
Another State Restricts Life Sentences for Young Adults Michigan’s supreme court created new protections against life sentences for people up to 20, pushing the line for who gets second chances beyond age 18. The decision adds to the wave of states that are restricting life sentences for young adults. The Washington State Supreme Court issued the nation’s first ruling extending these same protections to youth under age 21 in 2021. Since then, Massachusetts and Washington, D.C., have gone further, guaranteeing a ‘second look’ to anyone who was sentenced into their early 20s. In blurring the bright line traditionally set at 18, these states are redefining the age until which people are presumed to be redeemable in the eyes of the law and shielding more people from extreme punishments.
x Trump admin threats to abandon "peace deal" negotiations would be more worrying if they'd ever shown the slightest interest in actually helping to achieve peace in Ukraine, instead of trying to compel a ceasefire on Russia's terms while grabbing Ukrainian assets. — Ruth Deyermond (@ruth_deyermond) April 18, 2025
Paul Offit/Beyond the Noise:
Understanding RFK Jr. If you want to know why RFK Jr. believes so many weird things, just read his book, The Real Anthony Fauci. Four pages explain everything. RFK Jr. believes many weird things about the causes, treatment, and prevention of infectious diseases. These false beliefs might seem disparate and unrelated, but they’re not. They’re all rooted in a single belief described on pages 285-288 of his book, The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health. In short, RFK Jr. doesn’t believe in the germ theory. He believes in something called the miasma theory. The miasma theory is a long-abandoned medical theory that holds that diseases are caused by poisonous vapors (i.e., miasmata) that are generated by rotting organic matter, such as trash sitting out on the street. According to the miasmists, diseases aren’t passed from one person to another; rather, they are the product of poor hygiene and sanitation.
x Many truckers I've spoken with don't realize how quickly container volumes have collapsed.
Starting in May, port freight out of California will be almost eliminated.
Its going to be a bloodbath in dray, followed by intermodal, and then a collapse in I-20 & I-40 trucking.
https://t.co/q0JFZg2Lbr — Craig Fuller 🛩🚛🚂⚓️ (@FreightAlley) April 18, 2025
David Schuster covers Fox so you don’t have to watch:
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