I know that I am out there. I am a consistent Democratic Party base voter.
I have had it with ICE. It’s got to go. It is a rogue organization, made up of low-rent hires, that has been allowed to terrorize people in American cities. The cruelty and atrocities – they have not earned the benefit of the doubt.
But, I realize that my position on them, can be seen as that far end. So, I’m not going to condemn Democrats who aren’t willing to go as far as I am, just as long as they are willing to commit to what they believe would be serious reforms.
Greg Sargent has been thinking on this topic:
Greg Sargent
@gregsargent.bsky.social
· 4h
The extraordinary courage of people who are documenting ICE atrocities in places like Minneapolis, at great personal risk, are also achieving something else: They’re changing the public’s mind about immigration. We have a rare opportunity here. 1/(new piece)
newrepublic.com/article/2059…Greg Sargent
@gregsargent.bsky.social
· 4h
To this day, reporters marvel at GOP governors who bussed migrants to cities. But JB Pritzker and Gavin Newsom have flipped the script: By encouraging people to document ICE atrocities, they’ve helped create the basis for a revitalized opposition politics. 2/Greg Sargent
@gregsargent.bsky.social
· 4h
JB Pritzker’s chief of staff tells us that people appalled by ICE brutality badly wanted to join the fight. So Pritzker encouraged people to start recording. This takes seriously the role of information warfare in the age of Trump, enlisting ordinary people in it. 3/Greg Sargent
@gregsargent.bsky.social
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Behind all this is a deeper argument among Dems over how persuasion really works: The consultant class theory versus those who argue that the consultants are not seriously reckoning with the scale of today’s information challenges.I try to lay this out here. 4/
Greg Sargent
@gregsargent.bsky.social
· 4h
I think the events of the last year strongly favor taking the state of the info environment more seriously. When ordinary people and elected Dems drew attention to some of the worst Trump/Miller atrocities, Trump’s approval on immigration fell, and kept falling. 5/Greg Sargent
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Polls that ask respondents if they support deporting people with jobs/no criminal records show solid majority opposition. My theory is that all the attention to ICE has sharpened the distinction in people’s minds between removing criminals vs noncriminals. 6/Greg Sargent
@gregsargent.bsky.social
· 4h
I think it’s also time to revisit the theory of those who interpreted Trump’s 2024 win as evidence of a durable cultural turn against immigrants, a theory associated with David Leonhardt. Much of what we’re seeing now badly complicates that theory. 7/Greg Sargent
@gregsargent.bsky.social
· 3h
This theory holds that most Americans agree that Trump was *in some sense right* about the ill social/cultural impacts of immigration. I think it’s clear now that majorities do not share this view. So let’s revisit the theory and come up with something better. 8/Greg Sargent
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MAGA worldview holds that immigrants threaten national “social solidarity,” as JD Vance put it to Douthat. Trump’s win persuaded some that majorities see it that way. But polls and the events of the last year suggest majorities reject that basic understanding. 9/Greg Sargent
@gregsargent.bsky.social
· 3h
I say ICE horror has awakened people’s awareness of their social/econ ties to immigrants. That gives Ds an opening to restate case for path to legalization+making legal immigration easier+plus asylum/enforcement concessions.This piece suggests a way to do it. 10/
https://bsky.app/profile/gregsargent.bsky.social/post/3meqyko6d5c2o
Here is the link to the complete article.





















































