But that’s only one half of the equation. What are the possible effects of the Birthright Citizenship Executive Order?
children of non-citizen aliens do not receive American citizenship.
As you say, extremely unlikely to be upheld by the courts, and impractical given the way births are recorded in the US, anyway.
increased rhetoric against non-citizen aliens and persons with skin tones associated therewith in the popular mind.
decreased willingness or even ability of such people to appeal to authorities when needed
These last two effects are much less tangible, but seem a lot more serious. Basically, the Order has no effect on citizenship but does a bang-up job of shoring up institutional racism, which is harder to dismantle (see: history, 1965–2025).
The MAGA base isn’t reachable and so doesn’t matter.
The problem is swing voters.
Fewer government workers likely sounds good to them.
Attempting to be color blind probably sounds good to them.
Slashing foreign aid sounds good to them.
The idea that immigrants lower wages, by competing for jobs, sounds correct to them, even though the opposite is true.
I’m not sure what they really think about gender transition, but less of it probably sounds good to them.
Now, inflation doesn’t sound good to them. The China tariff increase will hurt MAGA, as will the end of being able to get stuff mailed to you tariff-free:
I still think that the majority of voters don’t really know what actions he has taken. We have a serious messaging problem in this country and I have no idea how to resolve it.
Which is why I don’t believe in “swing voters”; just right wingers who lie about it. Look at your own list; all they care about is hurting people, and they consistently take the side of the extreme right. Just like MAGA.
And a difference that makes no difference is no difference.
Trade maybe, but allies? Impossible. The US has now acquired the reputation of being an unreliable and untrustworthy partner and such a reputation will be very hard to escape. I am very afraid that the world’s disdain is permanent.
Sure, maybe he gets trounced in the midterms and a Democrat president is elected in a landslide in 2028, and makes great efforts to normalize things again. But then in 2032, JD Vance or one of Trump’s sons gets elected.
If you are a foreign country, you have to be concerned about the US. If Trump was one-and-done and had gone to jail as the law said he was supposed to, and was blocked from being able to serve as president for orchestrating an insurrection as the law said he was supposed to, then maybe the world might have seen the years between 2016-2020 as a fluke. But seeing him get reelected and be even more bonkers the second time around, you can’t write that off as a blip. A blip doesn’t repeat itself, and you have no guarantee it won’t again, and perhaps be even worse next time.
They want to break the federal government; “accidentally” wrecking its computer systems would be an effective way to do that. Can’t pay out Social Security if the files on whom it’s owed to are all gone.
And Bernie Sanders probably believes that migrants lower wages, or at least he used to.
And they aren’t sure of the items on the list the way the actual Trumpers are.
And they don’t like autocrats, especially Elon.
Do I see a problem with keeping keeping progressives and Obama/Clinton/Reluctant Trump voters in the same tent? Sure, today, but something might come up that unifies them against MAGA. Maybe inflation. If social security direct deposits are even a wee bit late, as you just suggested is possible, that’s it. (Although someone at SSA and Treasury is surely smart enough to do extra backups with Musk around.)
I don’t believe that they are “reluctant Trump voters”, or that they “don’t like autocrats”. They are just unwilling to own their actions. They wanted an autocrat and so voted for one. They are just MAGA but dishonest about it.
Bleak as this sounds, there’s a non-zero chance of it being accurate. “Bottom” is Trump using extralegal means to either grant himself a third term or to cancel the 2028 election altogether.
I’d like to think that it can’t happen but when POTUS and the governing party decide otherwise, who will stop them?
I’m concerned about the 2026 elections, whether if polling looks bad for the GOP we’ll have a “crisis” that requires suspending elections “for the duration.”