Will Bunch/Philadelphia Inquirer:
Trump’s abuse of the military to control civilians, as tanks roll into D.C., is where this was always heading.
The insurrectionist Bragg surely would have been heartened when Trump used his powerful platform to rally an entire army against democratically elected public officials like California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass — and when the uniformed troops of a once-proudly-apolitical U.S. Army answered with thunderous applause.
Like everything else about Trump’s strongman regime, the cheers had been manufactured. Military.com later reported that the chiseled forces of the storied 82nd Airborne Division behind Trump’s podium had been picked in part for their right-wing political views and also — according to one email obtained by the news site — to satisfy our allegedly 224-pound (lol) president with “no fat soldiers.” (Yes, Donald Trump’s Tinder ad for his dream-date U.S. soldier essentially read, “No fatties.”)
All of this is a battle in the court of public opinion. Sen. Padilla’s protest was part of it.
Anita Chabria/Los Angeles Times:
First they came for the immigrants. Then they took down our Latino senator
Sen. Adam Schiff, our other California senator, came to his colleague’s defense, demanding an investigation.
“Anyone who looks at it — anyone — anyone who looks at this, it will turn your stomach,” he said. “To look at this video and see what happened reeks — reeks — of totalitarianism. This is not what democracies do.”
Political pundit Mike Madrid pointed out how personal this issue of immigration is to Padilla.
Padilla is the son of Mexican immigrants, Santos and Lupe Padilla. He went into politics in 1995 because of the anti-immigrant Proposition 187, the California measure that knocked all undocumented people off of many public services, including schools. He’s been a champion of immigrant communities ever since.
“Hard to describe how angered and passionate Senator Alex Padilla is — I’ve known him for 25 years and never seen anything like this,” Madrid wrote online. “He’s a living example of how Latinos feel right now.”
x
By now, we've all seen the video of Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) being forcibly removed and handcuffed for asking a question during Kristi Noem's press conference.
But what Noem said just moments before the video was taken is "classic authoritarian red-baiting," points out @davidcorn.bsky.social.
— Mother Jones (@motherjones.com) 2025-06-12T23:26:46.412Z
Also part of it is the social media spread of families, not criminals, being kidnapped by ICE. See New York Times:
This Is How the Protests Could Break Trump’s Deportation Machine
But the movement to resist ICE and record the inhumanity of ICE is rippling outward, and Americans are seeing it on their social media feeds. In San Antonio, a video shows a woman pleading for her release as agents in plain clothes detain her outside a courthouse. “Please, my children are in school!” she screams. “My children!” Near that same courthouse, a visibly shaken young boy tries to comfort his mother during her arrest. “Mom, I’m here,” he says, fighting tears as she collapses in distress.
It’s our job to make clear to the public that “this is not what you voted for”, to use a phase that annoys many on this site. Don’t be annoyed at the concept. Use it.
Tom Nichols/The Atlantic:
The Silence of the Generals
As President Donald Trump crossed a dangerous line at Fort Bragg, the brass failed to speak out in the Army’s defense.
He mocked former President Joe Biden and attacked various other political rivals. He elicited cheers from the crowd by announcing that he would rename U.S. bases (or re-rename them) after Confederate traitors. He repeated his hallucinatory narrative about the invasion of America by foreign criminals and lunatics. He referred to 2024 as the “election of a president who loves you,” to a scatter of cheers and applause. And then he attacked the governor of California and the mayor of Los Angeles, again presiding over jeers at elected officials of the United States.
He led soldiers, in other words, in a display of unseemly behavior that ran contrary to everything the founder of the U.S. Army, George Washington, strove to imbue in the American armed forces.
Jose Pagliery/NOTUS:
Trump’s DEI Crackdown Meets a Roadblock Thanks to Clarence Thomas
The Supreme Court justice delivered a conservative blow against minority initiatives — but may have kneecapped the current DOJ crackdown on DEI.
The Trump administration’s crackdown on DEI in academia and the business world is about to hit a roadblock that was created by none other than Justice Clarence Thomas in a little-noticed Supreme Court decision last month.
Thomas undermined the Justice Department’s ability to use the False Claims Act to prosecute cases based on political or cultural preferences baked into government contracts, like minority hiring requirements. That just so happens to also be the very method that the White House has telegraphed it plans to use to forcefully eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at schools and companies that receive federal money.
Max Burns/The Hill:
Trump’s military occupation of LA is just the beginning
President Trump’s sharp descent into authoritarianism in Los Angeles has bent our collective reality like a funhouse mirror. On Monday, the president authorized deploying another 2,000 National Guard troops to the chaos-stricken city, adding to the 2,000 National Guardsmen and 700 Marines he already activated. The scene now looks more like Kirkuk than the West Coast.
Trump has teased more and bigger action to come, including deploying additional troops to other major cities and threatening to arrest California Gov. Gavin Newsom. “I think it would be a great thing,” he told Fox News’s Peter Doocy. Trump’s major escalations suggest he isn’t backing down this time. The president wants a made-for-television summer crisis, and he is determined to get one.
Quinnipiac Poll:
Majority Of Voters Oppose GOP Budget Bill, With Just 67% Of Republicans In Support, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds
Trump Job Approval: 38%, His Handling Of Russia - Ukraine War Lowest Among List Of Issues
Thirty-eight percent of voters approve of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president, while 54 percent disapprove. In Quinnipiac University's April 9 poll, 41 percent approved, while 53 percent disapproved.
Voters were asked about Trump's handling of seven issues...
- immigration issues: 43 percent approve, 54 percent disapprove, with 3 percent not offering an opinion;
- deportations: 40 percent approve, 56 percent disapprove, with 4 percent not offering an opinion;
- the economy: 40 percent approve, 56 percent disapprove, with 4 percent not offering an opinion;
- trade: 38 percent approve, 57 percent disapprove, with 6 percent not offering an opinion;
- universities: 37 percent approve, 54 percent disapprove, with 9 percent not offering an opinion;
- the Israel - Hamas conflict: 35 percent approve, 52 percent disapprove, with 13 percent not offering an opinion;
- the Russia - Ukraine war: 34 percent approve, 57 percent disapprove, with 10 percent not offering an opinion.
Paul Waldman/The Cross Section:
Don't Let Polls Poison Your Brain
What both centrists and progressives too often misunderstand.
We’ve gone through a lot of political ups and downs in the last two decades, but this remains true: For Republicans, polls are a starting point that tells them what they need to change — not about themselves, but about the world — and what they should work around. For Democrats, polls too often form the bars of that cage they build around themselves.
Both the centrists and the progressives are convinced that their policy preferences are the more popular ones, and if only Democrats would advocate for those positions, success would inevitably follow. They both marshal data to make their case, and there are so many polls and studies out there, and the evidence is complex enough, that if you want to you can construct a seemingly persuasive case for either position. Americans want single-payer health care, if you ask the question the right way. But they also want tough policies on crime — again, if you ask the question the right way.
Gregg Nunziata/The Bulwark:
The Danger of Trump’s Clash with the Conservative Legal Movement
Their alliance transformed the judiciary—at a high cost. Now, as the partnership cracks up, a conservative critic of Trump warns of what’s in store.
The conservative legal movement made a deal with the GOP nominee. He pledged to nominate originalist jurists, including by taking the unprecedented step of publishing a list of prospective options for the Supreme Court. In exchange, much of the conservative legal movement supported his candidacy. Following his surprise election, many seasoned veterans of the conservative legal movement staffed his administration and soon worked productively with others on the outside to deliver on Trump’s pledge.
The success of the judicial project, however, came at a deep civic cost. The conservative legal movement’s fixation on the judiciary led many of its members to ignore (or worse, excuse) the degradation of the other two branches of government and damage to constitutional norms and values. While there were many notable exceptions, much of the movement, particularly in circles closest to power, held their tongues. A community built on principles became increasingly transactional, and Trump learned that he could get away with quite a lot of constitutional arson without losing the support of self-described constitutional conservatives.
Cliff Schecter on Donald Trump in LA and what to do about other places:
