Shooting a woman on what has essentially been every newscast for the past 4 days is not going to turn out well for either ICE, Trump, or Vance. Not one person working for Republicans or Trump has been able to explain why the ICE agents even stopped on this street much less confronted Good. There was enough time before the shooting for everyone to see that the agents started off being bullies and ended up killing someone for no reason.
In some of my social circles, abolishing ICE is now the moderate position. The more radical position is de-Nazification on the 1945 model, with Nuremberg style tribunals for the ringleaders (and not just for the ICE atrocities but also for e.g. the Caribbean fishing boat murders).
I know it may seem distasteful and extreme to poll about this, but you'd do a service to Democratic strategists and politicians between now and 2028 if you attempted to gauge the level of support for this. Even though it'd likely be a minority, and concentrated in the bluest cities and those that have been most direct victims of ICE occupation, it'd be a useful signal of just how angry the base is, and just how dissatisfied it may be with what might yesterday have been a strong response but today comes across to many as a half-measure.
"Extreme". SIN and other stand-up, reliable sources of information these days almost seem to 'hide' behind that word. Why don't Americans say it out loud: c-r-u-e-l. ?? Why don't Americans own what their country is doing to its own people?
Please read Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine". This plan has been ongoing since at least the early 1970's. The only difference is now they are doing it to US.
I have. It's a stunning work, and, yes, hard to take. I wholeheartedly agree that the sadism and planning for this destruction/takeover has been decades long. Americans don't do "decades long", tragically. That, too, is part of the planning.
A really good essay. Immigration has been Trump’s main ideological weapon, and it’s backfiring on him. As extreme as he is, he needs (or wants) popular support for some reason. If that were not the case he, Noem, and Vance would not have worked overtime to create false narratives about what happened.
I pray my fellow Democrats don't fall in to the "abolish ice" trap. Immigration enforcement on the purple/red campaign trail is a winning hand for Republicans.
ICE needs to be abolished, and a completely new border protection group established that works lawfully. Remember that border protection got its big boost after the September 11 attacks, when it was discovered that attackers had overstayed visas. I would separate Customs Enforcement out, the way it once was. Then, we need to put together a border policy that is reasonable, with a group that reasonably enforces it.
The Democratic Policy should be to abolish the current ICE and to build an enforcement agency that is not predicated on violence.
There’s nothing in ICE’s authorizing statute that compels or enables it to do these things independently of the administration running it. Sure, campaign against ICE. But practically speaking: don’t be under the illusion that any organization you replace it with cannot also be weaponized in the exact same way by the exact same monsters.
Who is in charge is what matters, not the specific organization of law enforcement around deportation. ICE under Obama and ICE under Trump 2 are different things. So the name and structure are a lot less important than the people running it. Hell, some of the worst abuses right now are coming from outside of ICE — Border Patrol, ATF, DEA, and others have all been deputized into this mission.
What you say is accurate and applies to every institution. As I write this comment, I am thinking about what the current regime has done to the Department of Justice. The question for when we kick out the Republicans is how do we rebuild these institutions with sufficient safeguards to prevent this kind of weaponization? That will require us to reimagine all our institutions. The founders of this country assumed a basic level of morality and ethics in those who would be elected to leadership. However, even the best of leaders, which we do not have in the current regime, can still be tempted to cross the lines. In the past, the system checked attempts to cross the line. However, that system has been re-written to aid the violations.
I think about this with DOJ multiple times a week. I think it is one of the defining challenges for the next Dem administration. These norms are very difficult to rebuild once you’ve shattered them — because there will be an impulse to play by the same rules that Trump did with DOJ. And we can’t do that, but we also can’t unilaterally disarm and have a non-partisan DOJ when the Dems are in power and a partisan DOJ when the GOP is in power. It’s really important for a functioning liberal society to have institutions that people can trust that are separate from politics. This is one of those things where the answer might be “we just simply can’t let them win elections again.”
It does not help when the corporate media gave wide publicity to Republican charges of weaponization of the DOJ of the Biden administration. That DOJ was trying to investigate and punish J-6 insurrectionists, who were, as Glenn Kirschner has said the "boots" of the insurrection, but waited far too long to turn its focus to the "suits" of the insurrection.
Yeah they tried to handle it like a RICO case where you work your way up to the boss. He should have been investigated by a special prosecutor announced on Jan 20, 2021. Maybe scotus still gives him “immunity” but I’d like to have seen that counterfactual tested! I think Covid happening concurrently really changed the political calculus of the administration. They felt like 100% of political capital needed to be spent on a relief/economic package a vaccine supply problems— which were what they were elected to solve.
"Abolish", no. That will produce backlash that will cost us elections. Ben is right. (Remember the lasting damage from "defund the police", even though only about 10 people ever supported that?)
Republicans are weak in rationality and long-term thinking, strong on emotions and knee-jerk reactions.
While I understand the sensitivity of "abolish," I am uncertain that ICE as it is currently configured, and with its institutional cruelty, can be reformed. The man who shot Rene Good is a ten-year veteran of ICE and a member of its special teams. We are going to need to raze ICE and build a new system in its place with a new name.
We have a perfectly fine agency, Customs and Border Patrol, that can do and did the job for many years, under Democrat and republican administrations. They have authority AT THE BORDER, everything else is simply part of trump's build the wall type grift.
Opinions influenced by political partisanship, ethnicity and media consumption seem to start with a desire for confirmation of pre-existing prejudices and little concern for objective, validatable/validated truth. As with ICE in Minneapolis, where subjective opinions are presented as absolute facts by Noem, Vance etc. So, should a majority of Americans want to scrap ICE following the killing of Renee Good, it will show how unfiltered facts (the videos of the incident) can still move the public opinion needle in a post truth world.
Excellent stuff, as always. A minor quibble though re what the Trump Admin expected to happen. While Trump likely expected and probably thinks Americans would love his deportation policy, violence and all, I doubt Stephen Miller did. Miller's fascism has been in the open lately. To Miller popularity is not relevant only strength through violence. The ICE agent who murdered Good was recording her before he murdered her. We haven't seen the video. I'd wager Miller has and is watching on repeat.
Fascism is literally a counter movement to the Enlightenment, to things like logic. The only logic they adhere to is violence. That's not to say they can't be logical, they can be ruthlessly logical. What is saying is that ascribing a motive to their actions other than power through violence is likely misreading them.
More relevant data linking support for Ice to individuals who regularly vote in off year elections and those who do not regularly vote would be very informative this year?
Rather than lump us all together as "Americans," I'd like to see breakdowns of white, Black, Hispanic/Latino, etc., and whether/how the views of those demographics have changed over time. I'm guessing that the murder in broad daylight of Renee Nicole Good, and the publicity around it, is getting through to many white people who weren't moved by previous ICE abuses.
If you look at the cross-tabs of a recent NYT Siena poll on immigration, you can see that approval for Trump's immigration policy is driven by non-college whites. All other groups, black, Latino, and college-educated whites, disapprove.
I understand your interest in nuance and can appreciate wanting to get into crosstabs on it, but I think a much more important break down would be on household income, instead of ethnicity or race.
That would be useful for sure, but "much more important"? Doubt it. Household income isn't independent of ethnicity and race (and region of the country), and much depends on what constitutes a "household."
Just curious if people living more paycheck to paycheck or who are more likely to have ICE in their ‘hood feel differently about ICE than more affluent people.
"People living more paycheck to paycheck" aren't equal under the laws and customs of this country. Much depends on color and ethnicity, not to mention what state they live in.
Not exactly a strength in numbers issue (although I'm sure Elliott could do some interesting work to combine sources to estimate numbers like numbers of US citizens erroneously incarcerated by ICE).
Based upon conversations I've had, they're being gaslit into thinking that most of the people they're rounding up are violent criminals. Google Gemini says:
"A small percentage, often around 5-7%, of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests involve individuals with prior violent crime convictions, with most arrests being of non-criminals or those with minor offenses like traffic violations, though figures vary slightly by reporting period and source, highlighting a trend towards more arrests of people with no criminal record. "
Based on numbers i have seen in Morris' various columns, roughly 30% of voters are MAGA or MAGA adjacent. That's who is ok zip-tying kids and support 100% of everything Trump/Miller are doing.
They didn't bet anything re:public opinion, the plan all along has been to use IcE and DHS more broadly as the president's personal domestic military police to keep him in office after he loses the election.
https://reframingamerica.substack.com/p/a-call-to-freeze-ice
How about a chart showing the cost of immigrants to the country verses the year of trump's billions spent in deportation efforts?
Shooting a woman on what has essentially been every newscast for the past 4 days is not going to turn out well for either ICE, Trump, or Vance. Not one person working for Republicans or Trump has been able to explain why the ICE agents even stopped on this street much less confronted Good. There was enough time before the shooting for everyone to see that the agents started off being bullies and ended up killing someone for no reason.
When we have an extreme and unelected Nazi running ICE, why would anyone be surprised that ICE tactics resemble Hitler's?
Trump isn't running any of this. He's being fed positive pap while his handlers get away with murder.
Impeach Hegseth and Noem and arrest Miller. Trump is a dying man powerless to get anything done any more.
In some of my social circles, abolishing ICE is now the moderate position. The more radical position is de-Nazification on the 1945 model, with Nuremberg style tribunals for the ringleaders (and not just for the ICE atrocities but also for e.g. the Caribbean fishing boat murders).
I know it may seem distasteful and extreme to poll about this, but you'd do a service to Democratic strategists and politicians between now and 2028 if you attempted to gauge the level of support for this. Even though it'd likely be a minority, and concentrated in the bluest cities and those that have been most direct victims of ICE occupation, it'd be a useful signal of just how angry the base is, and just how dissatisfied it may be with what might yesterday have been a strong response but today comes across to many as a half-measure.
"Extreme". SIN and other stand-up, reliable sources of information these days almost seem to 'hide' behind that word. Why don't Americans say it out loud: c-r-u-e-l. ?? Why don't Americans own what their country is doing to its own people?
How about" intentionally cruel and hateful"? The resulting chaos is the point.
Quite so, up to a point. As sadists, they dig the harm and seek it.
Please read Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine". This plan has been ongoing since at least the early 1970's. The only difference is now they are doing it to US.
I have. It's a stunning work, and, yes, hard to take. I wholeheartedly agree that the sadism and planning for this destruction/takeover has been decades long. Americans don't do "decades long", tragically. That, too, is part of the planning.
A really good essay. Immigration has been Trump’s main ideological weapon, and it’s backfiring on him. As extreme as he is, he needs (or wants) popular support for some reason. If that were not the case he, Noem, and Vance would not have worked overtime to create false narratives about what happened.
It feeds his ego. See the powerful post today on Paul Krugman's Substack.
I pray my fellow Democrats don't fall in to the "abolish ice" trap. Immigration enforcement on the purple/red campaign trail is a winning hand for Republicans.
ICE needs to be abolished, and a completely new border protection group established that works lawfully. Remember that border protection got its big boost after the September 11 attacks, when it was discovered that attackers had overstayed visas. I would separate Customs Enforcement out, the way it once was. Then, we need to put together a border policy that is reasonable, with a group that reasonably enforces it.
The Democratic Policy should be to abolish the current ICE and to build an enforcement agency that is not predicated on violence.
There’s nothing in ICE’s authorizing statute that compels or enables it to do these things independently of the administration running it. Sure, campaign against ICE. But practically speaking: don’t be under the illusion that any organization you replace it with cannot also be weaponized in the exact same way by the exact same monsters.
Who is in charge is what matters, not the specific organization of law enforcement around deportation. ICE under Obama and ICE under Trump 2 are different things. So the name and structure are a lot less important than the people running it. Hell, some of the worst abuses right now are coming from outside of ICE — Border Patrol, ATF, DEA, and others have all been deputized into this mission.
What you say is accurate and applies to every institution. As I write this comment, I am thinking about what the current regime has done to the Department of Justice. The question for when we kick out the Republicans is how do we rebuild these institutions with sufficient safeguards to prevent this kind of weaponization? That will require us to reimagine all our institutions. The founders of this country assumed a basic level of morality and ethics in those who would be elected to leadership. However, even the best of leaders, which we do not have in the current regime, can still be tempted to cross the lines. In the past, the system checked attempts to cross the line. However, that system has been re-written to aid the violations.
I think about this with DOJ multiple times a week. I think it is one of the defining challenges for the next Dem administration. These norms are very difficult to rebuild once you’ve shattered them — because there will be an impulse to play by the same rules that Trump did with DOJ. And we can’t do that, but we also can’t unilaterally disarm and have a non-partisan DOJ when the Dems are in power and a partisan DOJ when the GOP is in power. It’s really important for a functioning liberal society to have institutions that people can trust that are separate from politics. This is one of those things where the answer might be “we just simply can’t let them win elections again.”
It does not help when the corporate media gave wide publicity to Republican charges of weaponization of the DOJ of the Biden administration. That DOJ was trying to investigate and punish J-6 insurrectionists, who were, as Glenn Kirschner has said the "boots" of the insurrection, but waited far too long to turn its focus to the "suits" of the insurrection.
Yeah they tried to handle it like a RICO case where you work your way up to the boss. He should have been investigated by a special prosecutor announced on Jan 20, 2021. Maybe scotus still gives him “immunity” but I’d like to have seen that counterfactual tested! I think Covid happening concurrently really changed the political calculus of the administration. They felt like 100% of political capital needed to be spent on a relief/economic package a vaccine supply problems— which were what they were elected to solve.
"Reform", yes.
"Abolish", no. That will produce backlash that will cost us elections. Ben is right. (Remember the lasting damage from "defund the police", even though only about 10 people ever supported that?)
Republicans are weak in rationality and long-term thinking, strong on emotions and knee-jerk reactions.
While I understand the sensitivity of "abolish," I am uncertain that ICE as it is currently configured, and with its institutional cruelty, can be reformed. The man who shot Rene Good is a ten-year veteran of ICE and a member of its special teams. We are going to need to raze ICE and build a new system in its place with a new name.
We have a perfectly fine agency, Customs and Border Patrol, that can do and did the job for many years, under Democrat and republican administrations. They have authority AT THE BORDER, everything else is simply part of trump's build the wall type grift.
We "had" a fine agency. That is in the past. The current one we "have" is not a perfectly fine agency.
Glad to see Republicans starting to change opinion. Would be interested to know the income bracket of the ones changing opinion.
Opinions influenced by political partisanship, ethnicity and media consumption seem to start with a desire for confirmation of pre-existing prejudices and little concern for objective, validatable/validated truth. As with ICE in Minneapolis, where subjective opinions are presented as absolute facts by Noem, Vance etc. So, should a majority of Americans want to scrap ICE following the killing of Renee Good, it will show how unfiltered facts (the videos of the incident) can still move the public opinion needle in a post truth world.
Excellent stuff, as always. A minor quibble though re what the Trump Admin expected to happen. While Trump likely expected and probably thinks Americans would love his deportation policy, violence and all, I doubt Stephen Miller did. Miller's fascism has been in the open lately. To Miller popularity is not relevant only strength through violence. The ICE agent who murdered Good was recording her before he murdered her. We haven't seen the video. I'd wager Miller has and is watching on repeat.
Fascism is literally a counter movement to the Enlightenment, to things like logic. The only logic they adhere to is violence. That's not to say they can't be logical, they can be ruthlessly logical. What is saying is that ascribing a motive to their actions other than power through violence is likely misreading them.
Said it before, saying it again.
Heil Miller! Heil Trump!
More relevant data linking support for Ice to individuals who regularly vote in off year elections and those who do not regularly vote would be very informative this year?
Rather than lump us all together as "Americans," I'd like to see breakdowns of white, Black, Hispanic/Latino, etc., and whether/how the views of those demographics have changed over time. I'm guessing that the murder in broad daylight of Renee Nicole Good, and the publicity around it, is getting through to many white people who weren't moved by previous ICE abuses.
You can find the crosstabs through the link embedded in “flash poll.” The approval breakdowns are as follows:
• White, 45–46
• Hispanic, 30–61
• Black, 19–64
Thanks! I'm not a bit surprised by how much closer the White tallies are than the Hispanic or the Black.
If you look at the cross-tabs of a recent NYT Siena poll on immigration, you can see that approval for Trump's immigration policy is driven by non-college whites. All other groups, black, Latino, and college-educated whites, disapprove.
I understand your interest in nuance and can appreciate wanting to get into crosstabs on it, but I think a much more important break down would be on household income, instead of ethnicity or race.
That would be useful for sure, but "much more important"? Doubt it. Household income isn't independent of ethnicity and race (and region of the country), and much depends on what constitutes a "household."
Just curious if people living more paycheck to paycheck or who are more likely to have ICE in their ‘hood feel differently about ICE than more affluent people.
"People living more paycheck to paycheck" aren't equal under the laws and customs of this country. Much depends on color and ethnicity, not to mention what state they live in.
"70% of Americans oppose zip-tying children during raids"
I'm very concerned about the 30%.
Too bad there wasn't a poll question about dropping ICE agents from Blackhawks onto apartment buildings.
As DHS is not transparent about detentions (who, how long, where, # of erroneous detentions), a source that has been helpful to me is Cato: https://www.cato.org/immigrationhttps://www.cato.org/immigration
Not exactly a strength in numbers issue (although I'm sure Elliott could do some interesting work to combine sources to estimate numbers like numbers of US citizens erroneously incarcerated by ICE).
Based upon conversations I've had, they're being gaslit into thinking that most of the people they're rounding up are violent criminals. Google Gemini says:
"A small percentage, often around 5-7%, of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests involve individuals with prior violent crime convictions, with most arrests being of non-criminals or those with minor offenses like traffic violations, though figures vary slightly by reporting period and source, highlighting a trend towards more arrests of people with no criminal record. "
My MIL still thinks that's all they're doing. She also only watching Newsmax.
Based on numbers i have seen in Morris' various columns, roughly 30% of voters are MAGA or MAGA adjacent. That's who is ok zip-tying kids and support 100% of everything Trump/Miller are doing.
They didn't bet anything re:public opinion, the plan all along has been to use IcE and DHS more broadly as the president's personal domestic military police to keep him in office after he loses the election.
When will a nonlinear effect occur and repig support will snap?