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More and More Americans Want to Abolish ICE
Even before the Minneapolis shooting, polls showed public support for dropping Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Jan 11, 2026
In polling conducted on January 8, YouGov showed that American public opinion has turned sharply against Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This polling was conducted on the same day Renee Good was killed during an ICE operation in Minneapolis, so it does not fully incorporate the public outrage generated by this event.
Fully 52% disapprove of how ICE is doing its job (42% strongly disapprove), while 39% approve. Furthermore, 51% say that ICE’s tactics are “too forceful," while just over 1 in 4 (27%) say they are “about right.” A 44% plurality (30% strongly approve) approve of “recent protests against ICE.”
Support for ICE’s work is clustered strongly among Republicans (53% strongly approve, 27% somewhat approve). Democrats give ICE failing grades by an overwhelming margin (72% strongly disapprove, 13% somewhat disapprove). The most significant finding in the YouGov poll is that a 56% majority of Independents (44% strongly, 12% somewhat) disapprove of ICE.
To put this issue in perspective, in February of last year YouGov polling found that ICE had a plus 16-point approval rating.
As more people see video from the Good killing, public opinion will continue to shift.
Axios points out that support for abolishing ICE has dramatically increased.
- In September 2024, just 19% supported abolishing the agency, according to survey data from research firm Civiqs, while 66% opposed.
- This month, 42% support abolishing the agency and 49.5% oppose.
- Abolishing ICE has become a consensus view among Democrats, per the Civiqs data, with 69% of Democrats now supporting the idea.
As more people see video from the Good killing, public opinion will continue to shift. In response to the White House reaction, we may see more Republican support for ICE. An equally likely conclusion is that ICE will hemorrhage support from Independents.
Despite what President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance say, the polling data clearly shows that the majority of Americans are not on the side of ICE, but are with those putting their lives on the line to protest ICE’s aggressive actions.
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New Polling Shows That the Bottom Has Fallen Out for Trump’s Economic Job Performance
These numbers are so dramatic that they argue for a reboot of the Trump administration’s economic messaging.
Dec 12, 2025
Polling released by the AP/NORC on December 11 shows that the bottom has fallen out for President Donald Trump on his job performance on the economy. Just under a third (31%) approve of Trump’s work on the economy. This is a nine-point drop and is the lowest that the AP/NORC has recorded in either Trump’s first or second terms. Fully 80% of Independent voters give Trump negative scores on his economic stewardship. As you could have guessed, Democrats are nearly unanimous in giving Trump failing grades on the economy (93%). What is quite significant is that 29% of Republicans give Trump failing grades on the economy.
Voters’ perceptions of the economy are also very pessimistic. Overall, 68% say that the economy is in poor shape. Both Democrats (84%) and Independents (80%). Republicans offer a more mixed picture (56% good, 44% poor).
The most significant part of the AP/NORC findings is not Trump’s scores on the economy as they have been poor for some time. What is striking is that on his two signature issues of crime and immigration, Trump fares very poorly. Fully 60% of voters disapprove of Trump’s work on immigration including 70% of Independents. Trump’s grades on immigration are boosted by his GOP support (80% approve, 19% disapprove).
Only in relative terms, does Trump fare better on the issue of crime. Forty-three (43%) approve. Two-thirds (66%) of Independents give Trump failing grades on the economy. As was the case with immigration, Trump’s scores on crime are boosted by his strong support among Republicans (80% approve, 19% disapprove).
If the Trump administration is looking at the data honestly, they must be troubled that Independents and Democratic are on question after questions almost in alignment on their negative assessment of Trump’s job as president.
There is literally no good news for Trump or for that matter the GOP in the AP/NORC polling. These numbers are so dramatic that they argue for a reboot of the Trump administration’s economic messaging. Trump’s ratings on crime and immigration are a real problem, but what really threatens Trump are voters’ perceptions of his economic stewardship. Trump won the presidency in large part because voters thought that he would do a better job on the economy than Vice President Kamala Harris.
Rather than change course on the economy, the Trump administration seems likely to continue to blame the Biden administration for the state of the economy. There is nothing in polling data that would indicate that this will work. Furthermore, Trump’s remarks in Pennsylvania on December 9 also indicate that he is not aware or willing to accept voters’ perceptions of his handling of the economy. This is a clear warning sign of a Democratic landslide in 2026.
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The NYT's Myopic Analysis of Trump’s Polling Misses the Story by Centering His Base
Focusing only on GOP voters distorts Trump’s real standing, and his party's chances heading into the midterms.
Oct 02, 2025
The New York Times is an incredibly reliable source for anyone seeking to understand the world we live in. In addition, the Times’ polling partner Sienna College is one of the best and most accurate polling organization. So, I was shocked by the analysis in an article “After Volatile Summer, Trump’s Approval Remains Low but Stable, Poll Finds” by Shane Goldmacher and Ruth Igielnik. In their article, Goldmacher and Igielnik argue that:
President Trump’s efforts to send National Guard troops to big cities, punish media organizations, and pressure universities and private businesses are all unpopular with voters. But the continued torrent of policies and tactics has not further weakened Mr. Trump’s overall standing, according to a new poll from The New York Times and Siena University. Instead, Mr. Trump continues to retain the support of roughly nine out of 10 Republican voters. The net result: an unpopular president with an unchanged approval rating of 43 percent.
Now, in all fairness, the Times’ reporting is technically correct. However, it misses the real point: Independent voters have abandoned US President Donald Trump. Saying that Trump is unpopular, but his approval rating is stable is like saying that a student is getting a C minus grade, but he or she has not fallen to a D plus. Let’s look a little deeper into the Times/Sienna College polling.
As the Times reported, 68% of Republican voters strongly approve of Trump’s job performance. On the other hand, 86% of Democrats and 50% of Independent voters strongly disapprove of Trump’s job performance. Furthermore, just under 1 in 3 of Trump’s base, white non-college voters (31%) strongly disapprove of Trump’s job performance.
Overall, 45% of registered voters say that Trump has made the economy worse while 32% say better and 20% are not sure. A 48% plurality of Independent voters think that Trump has made the economy worse. As other polling has found, Trump’s standing with Hispanic voters continues to drop. The Times/Sienna polling finds that fully 58% of Hispanic voters think Trump has made the economy worse.
Rather than drawing the conclusion that “Trump’s polling is bad, but stable,” the Times could have concluded that: “Fully 43 percent of registered voters strongly disapprove of Trump’s performance on his key signature issue of immigration.” The second paragraph of the Times story could have easily argued that “Just 39 percent of Independents approve of Trump’s job performance on immigration.”
Another key point that the Times missed was that among Independent voters, a 49% plurality say they would vote for the Democratic candidate for Congress, while 39% say the GOP and 12% are undecided. While the 2026 midterms are a long time for now and lots of things cad and will happen, a 10-point advantage for a generic Democrat is a substantial advantage.
Thus, while it may be true that Trump’s poll numbers have stabilized, they have stabilized at a very low level. Voters are critical of Trump’s stewardship of the economy and far from impressed on his key signature issue of immigration. In what may be the most important piece of data from the Times/Sienna polling, looking toward the 2026 midterm election, Independents are giving the Democrats a substantial advantage.
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In Response to GOP Gerrymandering, O'Rourke Calls for Dems to 'Match Fire with Fire'
"I think Democrats in the past too often have been more concerned with being right than being in power," O'Rourke said in a CNN interview. "We've seen Republicans only care about being in power regardless of what is right."
Jul 21, 2025
As Republicans move forward with an aggressive effort to gerrymander Texas in the coming year, former Rep. Beto O'Rourke called on Democrats Sunday to "match fire with fire" in blue states.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said last week he'd follow through on a proposal from President Donald Trump, press legislators to re-draw congressional maps to maximally favor Republicans in the Lone Star State through a highly unusual mid-decade redistricting push.
The effort may net the GOP another five seats in the 2026 midterms. Trump has suggested Republicans push their advantages in "other states" as well, including Ohio.
In response, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he'd attempt to subvert California's independent state redistricting commission—which seeks to draw maps as fairly as possible—to instead pursue a maximum partisan gerrymander to favor Democrats.
Democrats have tended to be at the forefront of efforts to eliminate partisan redistricting. O'Rourke, a Democrat, has previously called for his state of Texas to have its districts drawn not by political parties but by an independent nonpartisan commission.
But in an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper Sunday, O'Rourke said that while he still disagreed with gerrymandering on principle, as long as Republicans are willing to use it, Democrats need to be willing to play the same game.
"I think Democrats in the past too often have been more concerned with being right than being in power," O'Rourke said. "We've seen Republicans only care about being in power regardless of what is right."
Asked about Newsom's efforts in California, O'Rourke said, "We have to be absolutely ruthless about getting back in power."
He called on Democrats in other blue states to press their advantages as far as possible too.
"In California, in Illinois, in New York, wherever we have the trifecta of power, we have to use that to its absolute extent," he said.
Should Newsom's effort to get around California's redistricting commission succeed, it could net Democrats an additional five to seven seats in the House. With Republicans clinging to just a three-seat majority, it could prove decisive.
However, the plan is a long shot. In 2010, California voters elected to enshrine the independent commission into the state constitution.
Newsom has said that when it comes to stripping the commission of its power, "it's all on the table," including calling a special session of the state legislature and introducing another ballot measure to the public, which he said he thinks they'd win.
He also said there were "other avenues" to consider, like having the legislature draw districts "in between" censuses.
Newsom described this as a legal gray area, since the constitutional amendment only requires the independent commission to create new maps after each census, but says nothing about its role in redistricting mid-decade. However, Dan Vicuña, a redistricting expert at the watchdog group Common Cause, told The Guardian that such an effort was "not lawful in any way."
Newsom said that Republicans, who don't have to worry about redistricting commissions in the states they control, "are playing by a different set of rules."
"From my perspective, if we're going to play fair in a world that is wholly unfair, we may have the higher moral ground, but the ground is shifting from underneath us, and I think we have to wake up to that reality," said the California governor.
The governors of Illinois and New York, meanwhile, have stayed mum on the question of whether they may attempt similar attempts at aggressive redistricting.
Illinois has no rules against partisan gerrymandering and its maps are already heavily weighted in Democrats' favor following the most recent redistricting effort in 2021.
New York's maps are only "slightly" weighted in favor of Democrats and could be made more lopsided. During the most recent redistricting session, which was the subject of a lengthy court battle, Gov. Kathy Hochul agreed to maps that left the seven seats controlled by Republicans intact.
There, the legislature can draw maps, but they must be approved by an independent redistricting committee.
According to reporting by CNN Sunday, Democrats are nevertheless looking into possible efforts to maximize their advantages in New York and other states like New Jersey, Minnesota, and Washington.
In response to Trump's effort to expand Republicans' seats, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) renewed calls for "fair maps" throughout the country, though he declined to comment on Newsom's efforts.
Jeffries is reportedly meeting with Hochul about the possibility of making the maps more "fair," by which he may mean maximizing the Democrats' advantage. This would likely necessitate dispensing with the independent redistricting commission, as Newsom hopes to do.
"If Republicans want to play by these rules, then I think that we shouldn't have one set of rules for one and the other set of rules for another," Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) told CNN. "I think we need to even the playing board."
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Former President Biden Has 'Aggressive Form' of Prostate Cancer
Biden, 82, is the oldest person to have held the office of the presidency.
May 18, 2025
Former U.S. President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer, according to a Sunday statement from his personal office.
"Last week, President Joe Biden was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule after experiencing increasing urinary symptoms. On Friday, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone," according to a statement sent to CBS News and other outlets. "While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management."
A Gleason score, a grading system for prostate cancer, ranks the seriousness of cancer from six, which is considered "low-grade" cancer, to 10, which is considered "high-grade" cancer.
Biden has kept a relatively low profile since exiting the 2024 presidential race last summer following a disastrous debate performance in June that generated widespread concern about his fitness to serve as the Democratic candidate.
Since then, reports about this decline have continued to surface. On Friday, Axios released audio of Biden's interviews with Special Counsel Robert Hur, who investigated his handling of classified documents from before he took office in 2021. In the audio recordings of the interviews, which took place in October 2023, Biden has a difficult time remembering key dates and details.
Earlier in May, Biden did a television interview during which he refuted the notion that he suffered serious mental decline during his final year in office.
Democrats have continued to deal with the fallout of around Biden's departure from the race and reports regarding his mental acuity, with some fielding tough questions about their awareness of his decline before he decided to drop out.
U.S. President Donald Trump and Biden are the two oldest presidents to ever be sworn in, with Trump besting Biden by a few months when he was sworn in this past January. Biden, who is 82, is the oldest person to have held the office of the presidency.
Elected officials in both parties, including Trump, offered Biden well wishes and messages of support on Sunday.
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Even Republicans Want Trump to End US Support for the Gaza War
A new poll reveals that nearly 50% of GOP voters would back a withholding of military assistance to Israel in order to bring the carnage to a halt.
May 05, 2025
American voters want an end to the war in Gaza and for President Donald Trump to withhold U.S. aid, if necessary, to pressure Israel to end it.
During last year’s campaign, Trump promised big changes in U.S. Middle East policy. He said that the Gaza war never would have happened had he been president; promised he would end it; boasted it was his pressure that forced Israel to accept a cease-fire; and then, as president, proposed the evacuation of Palestinians from Gaza to make way for a Riviera-like resort. Just before the 2024 election, we polled U.S. voters and found overall support for ending the war and using U.S. aid to Israel as leverage to press them to end the occupation of Palestinian lands and end the war in Gaza. This was true for strong majorities of Democrats, with some Republicans also agreeing.
We are now more than three months into President Trump’s second term, and Israel has ended the cease-fire, renewed its bombing campaign, instituted anew the mass forced “relocation” of civilians, and reimposed the blockade of food and medicine to the Palestinian population in Gaza.
While substantial majorities of Democratic voters and Independents have long parted ways with Israel over the Gaza war and the occupation, Republicans and their evangelical Christian base are now also losing patience with Israeli policies.
Last week, in a new poll we repeated these same 2024 questions. The overall results were about the same, but with one significant difference. Three months into his term in office, not just Democrats but President Trump’s own Republican voter base also want him to take a tougher stance to pressure Israel to change its behaviors.
This was one of the key findings in the poll released April 30 by the Arab American Institute Foundation. The foundation commissioned John Zogby Strategies to poll 1,000 American voters to assess their attitudes toward the Trump administration’s policies toward Israel’s war in Gaza.
What comes through quite clearly is that between November 2024 and April 2025 the overall responses did not change significantly. What has changed is that Israel is losing favor with Republicans, who now want President Trump to take a stronger stance to rein in Israel’s behaviors. This, however, does not translate into a lack of GOP voters’ support for the president’s domestic policies on allegations of antisemitism, crackdown on universities, and deportation of students involved in pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests.
Here are the findings:
The poll finds that voters’ sympathy for Israel remains somewhat higher than for Palestinians. But by a significant 46% to 30% margin, American voters feel that U.S. Middle East policy is too one-sided in favor of Israel, with 39% of Republicans agreeing and 37% disagreeing. This represents a substantial shift from 2024 when only 33% of Republicans agreed that policy was too pro-Israel against 43% who said it was not.
By a 2 to 1 margin, American voters also agree that President Trump should “apply greater pressure on Israel to end its occupation of Palestinian lands and allow Palestinians to create an independent state of their own.” While this agree-disagree ratio largely tracks last year’s results, the major difference in this year’s findings is the substantial increase in Republicans who agree that the president should apply such pressure on Israel. In 2024, the agree-disagree split for Republicans was 37% to 40%. Now 49% agree that greater pressure should be applied as opposed to only 29% who disagree.
When asked whether the U.S. should always provide unrestricted aid to Israel or should restrict such aid if Israel “continues to operate in a way which puts civilian lives at risk in Gaza and Lebanon,” this year's overall results were essentially the same as last year’s. Twenty-three percent (23%) are in favor of unrestricted aid, while 53% are opposed.
A plurality of American voters also agree with the decisions of the International Court of Justice finding that Israel’s war in Gaza is tantamount to genocide and the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes.
The bottom line in these initial results is that while Americans remain sympathetic to Israel, they continue to be opposed to Israeli policies and want the president, whether a Democrat or a Republican, to use U.S. aid as leverage to change Israel’s actions. And importantly, now a plurality of GOP voters, including those who self-identify as “born again Christians,” also want the president for whom they voted to crack down on Israel’s policies of bombing civilians and occupying Palestinian lands.
The responses, however, are different when it comes to measuring voters’ assessment of President Trump’s handling of the domestic fallout of the war in Gaza. Pluralities disagree with the administration’s decisions to deport student visa holders for their involvement in pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests (saying that they “are antisemitic and pose a threat to the foreign policy of the United States”) or to cut funding from several universities charging that they have not agreed to demands that they do more to fight allegations of antisemitism. But there is a deep partisan split on these issues, with Democrats and Independent voters overwhelmingly opposed to the administration’s actions, and Republicans (including voters who are “born again”) strongly supportive of President Trump’s policies.
What comes through in all of these results is that while substantial majorities of Democratic voters and Independents have long parted ways with Israel over the Gaza war and the occupation, Republicans and their evangelical Christian base are now also losing patience with Israeli policies. What we don’t know is whether their change in attitude is due to greater frustration with Israeli behavior or whether it is that, with a Republican now in the White House, Israel is seen as making the job of the president more difficult. In either case, what the poll makes clear is that if President Trump has the will to act to rein in Israel, he will have substantial support from both parties to do so.
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Khanna Sounds Alarm as 4,100+ Factory Workers Laid Off Amid Trump Tariff Chaos
"Imagine if federal worker unions and Democratic Party officials showed up at the plant gate of a company that was about to close its doors," said one labor advocate recently. "Why aren't the Democrats doing this?"
Apr 06, 2025
Congressman Ro Khanna is raising the alarm about mass layoffs in the U.S. economy resulting from President Donald Trump's failed economic policies. Over 4,000 factory workers lost their jobs this week due to firings or plant closures.
On Thursday, automaker Stellantis, citing conditions created by Trump's tariffs, announced temporary layoffs for 900 workers, represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW). "The affected U.S. employees," reported CNN, "work at five different Midwest plants: the Warren Stamping and Sterling Stamping plants in Michigan, as well as the Indiana Transmission Plant, Kokomo Transmission Plant and Kokomo Casting Plant, all in Kokomo, Indiana."
In a social media thread on Saturday night, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.)—a lawmaker who has advocating loudly, including in books and in Congress, for an industrialization policy that would bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States—posted a litany of other layoffs announced recently as part of the economic devastation and chaos unleashed by Trump as well as conditions that reveal how vulnerable U.S. workers remain.
"This week," Khann wrote, "19 factories had mass layoffs, 15 closed, and 4,134 factory workers across America lost their jobs. Cleveland-Cliffs laid off 1,200 workers in Michigan and Minnesota as they deal with the impact of Trump's tariffs on steel and auto imports."
"We need jobs and currently at this time, the majority of the companies that we work with and represent our members at are not hiring." —Mark DePaoli, UAW
For union leaders representing those workers at Cleveland-Cliffs, they said "chaos" was the operative word. "Chaos. You know? A lot of questions. You've got a lot of people who worked there a long time that are potentially losing their job," Bill Wilhelm, a servicing representative and editor with UAW Local 600, told local ABC News affiliate WXYZ-Channel 7.
The United Auto Workers says the layoff fund set aside for those losing their jobs won't last long and find them new jobs of that quality will not be easy. "Our first concern will be to look around at all the companies where we have members and see if we can find jobs," said the local's 1st vice president, Mark DePaoli. "I mean, jobs are going to be the key. We need jobs and currently at this time, the majority of the companies that we work with and represent our members at are not hiring."
The pain of workers in families in Dearborn, as indicated by Khanna's thread, is just the tip of the iceberg. In post after post, he cataloged a stream of new layoffs impacting workers nationwide and across various sectors:
- Poultry distributor Perdue Farms laid off 433 workers this week in Monterey, Tennessee.
- As part of mass layoffs to the US branches, tractor manufacturer John Deere laid off 9 workers from its Ankeny, Iowa, facility. The company has also voiced concerns over the impact of Trump's tariffs on production.
- Semiconductor manufacturer Summit Interconnect closed in Santa Ana, California, costing 74 people their jobs. Congress needs to invest in manufacturing to guide the U.S. into leading semiconductor manufacturing.
- Automotive and industrial power transmission manufacturer Bando USA Inc. cut 65 jobs from their facility in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
- Coal manufacturer Wilson Creek Energy LLC cut 332 jobs after closing their plant in Friedens, PA. Another 93 workers were cut when the Grantsville, Maryland plant closed.
- In Sumner, Washington pipe manufacturer Advanced Drainage Systems closed, costing 54 employees their jobs.
- Electrical equipment manufacturer Sensata Technologies closed in Carpinteria, California, resulting in 57 employees losing their jobs. The company is closing to offset the rising costs of inflation.
- In San Jose, California, electronics manufacturer InvenSense Inc. laid off 55 people due to new market conditions in the broadening tech industry.
- Battery manufacturer Quantumscape Battery Inc. laid off 53 workers in San Jose, California, as part of a restructuring effort.
- Medical device manufacturer Biosense Webster Inc. cut 9 jobs when it permanently closed its Los Gatos, California, facility.
- Biotech manufacturer ImmunityBio, Inc. laid off 9 employees from its El Segundo, California, facility and one from its facility in Culver City, California.
- Food processor Del Monte Foods, Inc. in Hannaford, California, cut 378.
- In Agawam, Massachusetts, bakery wholesaler Connecticut Pie, LLC DBA Diana's Bakery laid off 229 workers.
- Poultry plant AlaTrade Foods laid off 165 employees at its Phenix City, Alabama, facility.
- Food products manufacturer, Rich Products Corporation laid off 139 workers after closing its Santa Fe Springs facility in California to offset rising costs.
- In Townson, Maryland, sports apparel manufacturer Fila USA, Inc. laid off 112 workers. The company also laid off 18 employees from their facility in Curtis Bay, Maryland.
- Engineering services company, S&B Engineers and Constructors, Ltd. in Kingsport, Tennessee, cut 112 workers.
- In Bridgeview, Illinois, 88 workers lost their jobs when sustainable packaging company Smurfit Westrock closed.
- Chemical manufacturer Syzygy Plasmonics, conducted layoffs in two Houston, Texas, facilities, cutting 68 jobs total.
- Packaging products manufacturer Pregis closed in San Antonio, California. Forty-five people lost their jobs.
- In Longview, Texas, construction supplies manufacturer S & B Engineers and Constructors cut 43 jobs.
- Board game manufacturer, Edaron, LLC closed in South Hadley, Massachusetts, cutting 24 jobs.
- In Holliston, Massachusetts, cannabis manufacturer Pharma Cann laid off 19 workers.
- Medical management facility, Prime MSO, LLC closed in Encino, California, costing 6 people their jobs.
With public sector workers being fired in massive numbers nationwide due to the blitzkrieg unleashed by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, private sector workers are no strangers to mass layoffs within a U.S. economy dominated by corporate interests and union density still at historic lows.
Les Leopold, executive director of the Labor Institute who has been sounding the alarm for years about the devastation associated with mass layoffs, wrote recently about how the situation is even worse than he previously understood. On top of existing corporate greed and the stock buyback phenomena driving many of the mass layoffs in the private sector, Trump's mismanagement of tariff and trade policy is almost certain to make things worse, triggering more job losses in addition to higher costs on consumer goods.
In order to combat Trump, Leopold wrote last month, "Democrats should take a page from Trump and put job protection on the top of their agenda. As tariffs bite and cause job destruction, the Democrats should show up and support those laid-off workers."
Instead of simply calling Trump's tariffs "insane," which many rightly have, the Democrats "should call them job-killing tariffs," advised Leopold. "As prices rise, they can blame Trump for that as well."
With Trump's economic policies coming into full view, the picture is bleak for businesses large and small—and that means more pain for workers.
As Axios' Ben Berkowitz reported Saturday. "When everything gets more expensive everywhere because of tariffs, that starts a cycle for businesses, too — one that might end with layoffs, bankruptcies, and higher prices for the survivors' customers," he explained. "The cycle is just starting now, but the pain is immediate."
The "big picture," Berkowitz continued, is this:
The stock market is not the economy, but if you want a decent proxy for Main Street businesses, look at the Russell 2000, a broad measure of the stock market's small companies across industries.
—It's down almost 20% this year alone.
—That in and of itself doesn't make a business turn the lights off, but it says something about public confidence in their prospects.
—"The market is like a real time poll ... this is going to impact all businesses in one way or another undoubtedly," Ken Mahoney of Mahoney Asset Management wrote Friday.
Khanna's Democratic colleague in the House, Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas, said the impacts of Trump's tariff and austerity policies are very real and already felt in his district as he roasted Trump for having a reported golfing weekend as the global economy reels and American workers and retirees suffer:
In Sunday comments to Common Dreams, Leopold wanted to know where Khanna and other Democrats were last year when John Deere laid off a thousand workers.
"What do the progressive Democrats have to say about the tens of thousands of mass layoffs that take place each month? Radio silence," he said. "It would be useful if they had a policy that addressed Wall Street induced mass layoffs rather than just opposing tariffs, but I wouldn't bet on that."
On the question of silence and who, ultimately, will stand up for American workers—whether in the public or private sector—it's not clear who will emerge as a true defender or what forces would galvanize to truly represent the interests of the nation's working class.
"Imagine if federal worker unions and Democratic Party officials showed up at the plant gate of a company that was about to close its doors to finance hefty stock buybacks for its billionaire owners," Leopold wrote in early March. "A show of support for their fellow layoff victims and a unity message aimed at stopping billionaire job destruction would be simple to craft and easy to share. It would be news."
"Why aren't the Democrats doing this?" he asked.
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As Trump and Cabinet Thrash Climate, Coalition Demands Dems Hold the Line Against Big Oil Immunity
"What's at stake here isn't just who pays for climate disasters—it's whether our democracy allows powerful industries to simply rewrite the rules when justice catches up to them," said the communications director at Make Polluters Pay.
Mar 13, 2025
Over 190 groups are urging Democrats in Congress resist any attempts by Big Oil to evade potential legal liability amid the growing number of legal and legislative efforts aimed at holding major polluters accountable for their role in the climate crisis.
In a Thursday letter addressed to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), the groups urge Democratic lawmakers "to proactively and affirmatively reject any proposal that would shield fossil fuel companies" from those efforts.
A quarter of U.S. residents live in a state or locality that is "taking ExxonMobil and other major fossil fuel companies to court to hold them accountable for this deception and make them pay for the damage their climate lies have caused," according to the letter. Maine, for example, became the eighth U.S. state to sue major oil and gas companies for deceiving the public about their products' role in the climate crisis.
The letter signatories include a long list of green groups such as the Center for Biological Diversity and Extinction Rebellion US, as well as the American Association of Justice and other nonprofits.
The Supreme Court on Monday denied a request by a coalition of Republican state attorneys general aimed at preventing oil and gas companies from facing these types of lawsuits. Trump has also vowed to block climate litigation aimed at Big Oil.
In their letter, the groups also point to a number of efforts, some successful, to pass what are known as "superfund laws," which force privately owned polluters to help cover the costs of protecting public infrastructure from climate-fueled threats. Oil and gas companies have lobbied against the passage of these laws.
"What's at stake here isn't just who pays for climate disasters—it's whether our democracy allows powerful industries to simply rewrite the rules when justice catches up to them," said Cassidy DiPaola, communications director of Make Polluters Pay—one of the letter's signatories—in a Thursday statement.
"Lawmakers must decisively reject any attempt by the fossil fuel industry to evade accountability and ensure both justice today and the right of future generations to hold polluters responsible for decades of deception," DiPaola continued.
The letter references episodes when "fossil fuel companies and their allies" tried to "secure a blanket waiver of liability for their industry."
In 2017, a carbon tax plan spearheaded by a group of Republican statesmen and economists proposed stopping potential lawsuits against oil companies and other corporations that release greenhouse gases, and in 2020, the fossil fuel industry tried to quietly include a liability waiver for itself in a government Covid-19 relief package, according to the outlet Drilled.
The letter also highlights that 60 Democratic House members urged leadership to categorically oppose efforts to "immunize polluters" in response to the latter effort.
"We have reason to believe that the fossil fuel industry and its allies will use the chaos and overreach of the new Trump administration to attempt yet again to pass some form of liability waiver and shield themselves from facing consequences for their decades of pollution and deception," the letter states. "That effort—no matter what form it takes—must not be allowed to succeed."
The demand from these groups comes amid broader attacks on climate and environmental protections from the Trump administration
On Wednesday, the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a series of actions to roll back environmental regulation impacting issues ranging from rules on pollution from power plants to regulations for vehicles.
On his first day in office, Trump signed executive orders withdrawing the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement and initiated plans to open up Alaskan wilderness to drilling and mining.
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Sanders Has a Message for Working-Class Trump Supporters: 'They're Going After You'
"Focus not on what Trump says, but on what he does," said the senator from Vermont.
Feb 18, 2025
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, has multiple messages for supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump.
For one, "focus not on what Trump says, but on what he does," Sanders said in a clip of an interview that he posted on the platform X on Tuesday. Sanders also said that supporting billionaire Elon Musk's attacks on the federal government is incompatible with being an "honest conservative" and believing in the U.S. Constitution.
"If you are an honest conservative [and] you believe in the Constitution of the United States, you do not believe that the richest guy in modern history can go around unilaterally cutting programs that were authorized by Congress," he said.
Musk, who was tapped to lead the Department of Government Efficiency by Trump, has helped carry out a broadside against multiple federal agencies with the aim of slashing spending and personnel. Efforts by DOGE to infiltrate federal agencies have been met with multiple lawsuits, though a federal judge on Tuesday decided not to block Musk and DOGE from accessing federal data systems at several executive branch agencies, in a blow to a legal effort brought by a group of Democratic state attorneys general.
What's more, Sanders said, Trump is going to "cut programs that you and your families need... Your families may not be able to get the healthcare that they need. Your mother may not be able to get into the nursing home that she has to get into because Medicaid pays a substantial part of that."
Last week, House Republicans unveiled a draft budget resolution on that calls for $4.5 trillion in tax breaks that would disproportionately benefit the wealthy, which if enacted would likely be offset by steep cuts to Medicaid, food assistance, and other programs.
In sum, "if you're a Trump supporter and you're a working-class person, understand that they're going after you," Sanders concluded.
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'This Is a Start': Senate Democrats Hold Floor Overnight to Protest Vought Nomination
Democrats "should be blowing past McConnell-level obstruction in a way that makes it look like business as usual," said one commentator.
Feb 06, 2025
Democrats took turns speaking on the floor of the U.S. Senate into the early hours of Thursday morning in a show of opposition to President Donald Trump's pick to lead the White House budget office and the new administration's lawless broadside against key federal agencies—an assault led by unelected billionaire Elon Musk.
Facing growing pressure to use every tool available to obstruct an administration that they have characterized as authoritarian, Democratic senators are expected to take up all 30 hours of debate on Russell Vought, a right-wing extremist and Project 2025 architect who is poised to take charge of the Office of Management and Budget.
Unless Democrats give in and grant unanimous consent (UC) to end debate—as they've done with other Trump nominees in recent days—a vote on Vought's confirmation won't take place until Thursday evening. As of this writing, the Democratic speeches are still going.
"Americans voted each of us into office to fight for them," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said after speaking on the Senate floor for an hour late Wednesday. "They do not expect us to roll over and play dead."
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) used his floor speech to spotlight what he described as Vought's plan to "gut programs for working families" and "give massive tax giveaways to billionaires."
Watch @SenJeffMerkley lay out Project 2025 Architect and OMB Director nominee Russell Vought’s three-step plan to:
Gut programs for working families
Borrow trillions and run up debt
Give massive tax giveaways to billionaires pic.twitter.com/2oasfZJvfv
— Senate Democrats (@SenateDems) February 5, 2025
For experts and activists who have been urging the minority party to put up a fight in the face of Trump and Musk's destructive rampage through the federal government, the marathon protest against Vought's nomination was a positive sign—but not at all sufficient.
"This is a start but, to be clear, still nowhere close to maximum obstruction," Andy Craig, an election policy fellow at the Rainey Center, wrote on social media. "No UC, on anything. No unrecorded votes, on anything. No waiving rules, on anything. Fight even on adjournments. Quorum calls every time you can. Make every dilatory motion in the books and new ones you just made up."
"If you're not miserable every day with long hours and tedious constant votes, you're not making them miserable, either," Craig added. "Make them miserable."
While Democrats don't have the votes in the Senate to tank Trump nominees, they can severely derail the chamber's day-to-day functions in many ways. The progressive advocacy group Indivisible lists a number of them:
- Deny a quorum to completely freeze Senate business. If Republicans don't have 51 votes on the floor, Democrats can walk out, preventing the Senate from doing anything at all.
- Force Republicans to waste time by making them repeatedly prove they have a quorum instead of passing harmful legislation or confirming extremist judges.
- Make governing a miserable experience for Republicans by keeping them tied up in procedural delays instead of letting them cruise through their agenda.
- Any senator can object to a unanimous consent request, forcing Republicans to take the slowest and most painful route to pass anything.
- Blocking UC forces roll-call votes, debates, and delays on even the most basic motions, eating up hours (or days) of floor time.
- It kills fast-track confirmations. Many of Trump's judicial nominees sailed through last time because Democrats didn't force votes on each one. This time? Make them work for it.
"The easy way to think about this is when you're going and talking to your Democratic senator, you say 'Hey, imagine you are Mitch McConnell in the minority, and then do what that asshole would do,'" Indivisible co-executive director Ezra Levin said at a rally earlier this week.
But Craig argued late Wednesday that Democrats "should be blowing past McConnell-level obstruction in a way that makes it look like business as usual," including by breaking Senate rules.
"Mitch didn't do even 1% of what could be done by a minority determined to keep the Senate grinding in circles getting absolutely nothing done," Craig wrote.
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