President Donald Trump on Monday showed his first signs of retreat since surging federal immigration agents in Minnesota late last year — replacing the leader of the crackdown on the ground and signaling new willingness to cooperate with the state’s Democratic elected officials.
He’s not being pro anything here, other than himself.
Reports citing sources inside the White House are indicating that Trump is absolutely fuming over how badly the events in Minnesota are playing with the general public. He’s keenly aware of how bad the polls are, and what it means for him if the GOP gets wiped out in the midterms. He fantasizes about cancelling the elections, but he’ll already have been told, repeatedly, that he can’t actually do it, and vote fraud will only get them so far if the left actually show up in November.
He wanted a big show of force in Minnesota that would juice up his base and have all the Liberals running scared. Instead he got two dead white people on national TV, Minnesota turning into an epicentre of national resistance, and even people on the right raising questions. Meanwhile Bovino and Noem lied their way into obvious traps by setting up false narratives that were instantly debunked by video footage, and then made it even worse by suggesting they don’t care about 2A rights. The whole thing is a PR disaster, and Trump (or someone in the room with him) has enough functioning braincells to recognize that much.
Bovino is being made to retire, Noem is getting passed over for Homan, and Trump’s plan here is obviously to try to reset. He’s not going to back off the authoritarian tactics or the anti-immigrant rhetoric and actions, but he’ll likely try to pause for a bit, recoup, and hope that resistance settles down. Maybe tell ICE to go find some brown people to kill, since the white folks don’t mind when that happens.
I really think it was the 2A special interest groups suddenly showing disloyalty that spooked the MAGA regime. They can’t get away with rigging the midterms if the 2A groups aren’t at least turning a blind eye.
I hope Chris Madel dropping out implies that big donors don’t want to be associated with the republicans right now. I really don’t buy his conscience for his kids schtick.
It’s both things that are spooking GOP donors; the 2A stuff (unbelievably stupid thing for them to say, given their base) and the two dead white folks. That shit doesn’t play with Republican voters. They cheer for authoritarian bullshit because they firmly believe it will never affect them. Two white people getting executed in the street in less than a month is making the white suburban middle class feel seriously spooked.
As a cop in the US you can murder brown people all day every day. White voters will always find a way to justify it in their minds. Even when they think it was bad, they’ll still accept it in return for whatever they think they’re getting. But you can go killing whites. That was their biggest mistake.
Insert Heath Ledger “Suddenly everyone loses their minds” bit here.