3 Comments
User's avatar
Sam's avatar

I moved away from Southern California for college but a lot of my heart is still there. I've since married into a Mexican family. I have top-shelf bias here on what should be done and on how it should be messaged.

With all that said. This isn't a strategic-level issue. Maybe people on a tactical level are deciding that they don't want their friends and family to be whisked away by people they know will mistreat them and not give them their promised rights.

Let's dream about a good way to package that and admit there might not be one. But as someone who doesn't live there anymore, I have nothing but support for almost all the people involved. Maybe some political leadership showing that support wouldn't win an election but would support people who need it all the same. It's not my place to decide both that the broader project of liberalism is separable from their current issues and that the broader project of liberalism is better served by ignoring them.

Expand full comment
Lukas Bird's avatar

You’re right. It’s a trap. Trump knows TDS grips Democrats. Thus, he engineers public spectacles to deeply discredit them. March out a learning disabled boy of color at the SOTU address (the very symbol of Woke) and watch congressional Democrats sit on their hands in protest. Spectacle! Engineer street riots through provocative ICE raids and watch Democrats repeat “mostly peaceful” nonsense and stand up for due process for Venezuelan gang members and rapists and then the Mexican flag waiving street rioters sho burn American flags. Spectacle! Our POTUS is a reality TV trained, narrative shaping, Omarosa villain-making master of Kayfabe spectacle. Democrats treat politics as their civic religion. Trump treats politics like Mr. McMahon treats Wrestlemania: spectacle! Two very different forces playing very different games with public opinion. I know Trump haters always mock him (as they did Reagan) as an ignorant simpleton incapable of 3D chess - but he runs circles around us ALL in the reality of 2025 politics - cresting spectacle!

Expand full comment
Sam's avatar

It might be less of a problem if so many of those close to Trump didn't also treat politics as a civic religion. That is, the respect you have for the spectacle of Wrestlemania is different from the respect you have for the hand of a surgeon saving a life. But people look at the spectacle and try to explain it in terms of the surgeon, which is how you get conflicting messaging from within the administration on tariffs or DOGE goals or stances on the Ukraine war or whatever.

Expand full comment