US Politics

[Gregory Matthews]

U.S. Politics:  today often includes discussion related to our borders and immigration.  Such reminds me of the four Alien & Sedition acts that were passed by Congress in 1798, and their enforcement which ultimately resulted in damage to the Federalist Party that had proposed those laws.  Sometimes we can learn from our history.  One suggestion I will suggest is that better legislation springs from proposals that unite people.

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35 minutes ago, Gregory Matthews said:

Sometimes we can learn from our history.  One suggestion I will suggest is that better legislation springs from proposals that unite people.

And sometimes or maybe even most of the time it seems we don't learn from the past!!

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America's tectonic shifts

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

America witnessed tectonic shifts in politics and society in 2024 that will reshape elections, business, culture and the nation for years to come, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write in a "Behind the Curtain" column. X displaced Fox News as the most powerful platform for Republicans. Elon Musk and tech billionaires emerged as lasting, public forces in U.S. politics. Traditional media power waned and fragmented profoundly. Immigration and energy debates shifted in a decidedly conservative direction. A loose bipartisan consensus on China and domestic industrial policy hardened. Unfathomably high deficits are largely irrelevant to both parties. Hispanic voters are the most potent, fastest-growing swing group in U.S. politics. Why it matters: The future of politics and information will never be the same. It'll play out on new platforms — featuring new, powerful billionaires and info stars, fighting over a reordered political landscape in which misinformation thrives. Republicans will be as focused on the working class as Democrats. Democrats will be as focused on big business and the wealthy as Republicans. ? The big picture: Neither party seems likely now, or anytime soon, to stake a dominant claim to a clear majority. So this era of volatility and razor-close elections will only raise emotions — and the stakes. Column continues below. ? Part 2: 8 shock waves   A child in a Trump mask at a victory parade in West Palm Beach, Fla., yesterday. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images It's easy to be fatigued by the nastiness, name-calling and numbing smallness of day-to-day politics, Jim and Mike write. But don't lose sight of the durable changes that will reorder how you get informed, how you do business, where new jobs will be created, and how America will secure itself: The new right. The information ecosystem — especially, but not exclusively, on the right — looks nothing like it did when the 2024 campaign began. Gone are the days of Fox dominance. Instead, Musk's X and personality-dominated podcasts, led by Joe Rogan, will be the new power centers. All of this is unfolding on X, where the stars of the right-wing constellation congregate. Dems are bemoaning the lack of a liberal equivalent. The tech power surge. Not long ago, billionaire tech entrepreneurs wanted nothing to do with politics — and especially with Republicans. This changed radically and durably as Musk, David Sacks, Joe Lonsdale, Marc Andreessen and many others went full Trump. They calculated that politics is downstream from information, and inserted themselves aggressively into the new media ecosystem. Mark Cuban and Reid Hoffman did the same for Vice President Harris. But Silicon Valley is notoriously liberal, so that was less revolutionary. Shards of glass. How you get news and information shattered into scores of pieces based on your age, politics, income and information dependency. This will make a common reality increasingly elusive — and change how consumers get informed, candidates campaign, and businesses grow or decline. The net result: Traditional media grows weaker and less relevant by the month. Conservative shift. It was hard to distinguish the substantive difference between Trump and Harris on future immigration and energy policy.  (Harris, of course, didn't go as far as Trump's plans for a massive deportation push and ending birthright citizenship.) Harris and many Democrats shifted with the country's mood and needs. They now want to lock down borders, tighten asylum rules, and get tougher on illegal immigration. And many now understand that with rising energy needs — and lingering concerns about inflation — America will need more oil, gas, sun and probably nuclear power. A shared enemy. Everyone seems to agree China represents our biggest threat, militarily and economically. A broad consensus formed to crank up export controls, outbound investment restrictions, technology transfer limits and tariffs, covering more sectors over time. America first. Both parties also see domestic industrial policy as vital to combating China and winning the race for AI and energy dominance. Gone are conservative concerns about government picking winners and losers, or messing with markets. Watch for more U.S. spending to increase energy production, chips and AI-adjacent technologies, and any supply-chain weaknesses. Deficits be damned. This might be the biggest sleeper risk both parties knowingly completely ignore. Soak this in: The U.S. spends more on defense than the next nine countries combined. This year, for the first time in history, interest payments on the federal debt, $870 billion, exceeded our $822 billion in military spending. The overall federal debt has more than doubled in the past 10 years, to nearly $36 trillion. Few in elected office care. Hispanic surge. Hispanic people represent 46% of New Mexico's oil and gas workforce at a time when progressives are pushing a transition to renewables. Third-plus-generation Mexican Americans are getting more independent as the college-oriented Democratic message fails to resonate. Consider: Close to one-third of workers in construction are Latino, and only 20% of Latino men ages 25-29 have college degrees. Republicans are gaining ground by default. But Trump tariffs and mass deportations could hurt U.S.-born Latinos and create a backlash. The bottom line: The past campaign often felt small on the surface. But make no mistake: The shifts underneath it were seismic. Axios' Russell Contreras contributed reporting.

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?️ Independents' 5 tribes

Graphic: CNN Readers often ask me to write more about independents, and some chafe at polls that show just the R-D split. Voilà: A new CNN poll finds 5 tribes of independents: Upbeat Outsiders. Disappointed Middle. Democratic Lookalikes. The Republican Lookalikes. Checked Out. ? CNN polling director Jennifer Agiesta, who led the project, tells me the five subgroups "illuminate why getting disengaged voters to the polls is increasingly more important than persuasion for political campaigns." Explore CNN's interactive story.

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'The picture is grim': Conservative outlet flags 'warning signs' that GOP is losing ground

The GOP was riding high, but is now being anchored down by a "political dud," according to a conservative outlet.

https://www.newsbreak.com/news/4260549524010-the-picture-is-grim-conservative-outlet-flags-warning-signs-that-gop-is-losing-ground?

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America's great political implosion

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Stock: Getty Images

American politics, reordered and reimagined by a decade of President Trump's rise, fall and resurrection, is imploding in substantial ways, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen write in a "Behind the Curtain" column. MAGA is splintering between Trump enthusiasts and true "America First" believers. Socialism is rising in popularity and clout. Democratic leaders are flailing. Israel is bleeding support in both parties. Pro-Palestinian politicians are winning elections. AI is dividing both sides of the aisle, with pro-worker coalitions forming among Republicans and Democrats. And Trump's unpopularity seems set and locked around 60%. Why it matters: Everything is up for grabs — and wildly uncertain. House and Senate control are coin tosses in November's midterms, the 2028 presidential races are wide open, and both parties are equally despised by the electorate. 🔎 Zoom in: The populist forces Trump awakened are devouring the establishment, inflamed by a cross-partisan blend of endless war, soaring prices and elite impunity, as Axios' Zachary Basu narrates. On the right, a historic schism over the meaning of "America First" has left Trump's broad 2024 coalition in tatters. Tucker Carlson and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene — voices once synonymous with MAGA — both renounced the GOP this week, casting Trump's war with Iran as a betrayal of his own movement. The rupture is spreading through the outsider media universe that helped return Trump to power, with populist podcasters such as Theo Von, Tim Dillon and Candace Owens turning fiercely critical of the administration. On the left, establishment Democrats fear a socialist "Tea Party" has arrived — toppling incumbents, humiliating party leaders and turning safe blue seats into laboratories for a more confrontational politics. Three democratic socialists backed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, suddenly a progressive kingmaker, appear headed for Congress after a shakeup in Tuesday's primaries. A Gallup poll last year found Democrats favor socialism over capitalism by 66% to 42% — the widest gap on record — with the divide sharpest among voters under 30, the engine of Mamdani's coalition. 🔭 Zoom out: A generational collapse in support for Israel is remaking both parties — while surging antisemitism clouds the increasingly toxic debate. The numbers are brutal: Pew Research found 60% of Americans now view Israel unfavorably, including 80% of Democrats and 57% of Republicans under 50. For Democrats, Israel's actions in Gaza bundle together everything young left-wing voters hate about the old party: war, money in politics, gerontocracy and deference to a foreign policy consensus they see as morally bankrupt. For Republicans, the fight over Israel is a fight over the future — pitting an aging, pro-Israel establishment against a base that views foreign intervention as the original sin "America First" was meant to cure. Between the lines: AI is emerging as the next great populist accelerant, fusing fears over lost jobs, soaring power bills and the unchecked power of billionaires. The backlash is scrambling party lines: Progressive labor activists, MAGA antitrust hawks and young voters increasingly see AI as a machine for enriching tech titans while making ordinary work more disposable. Harvard's youth poll found 59% of Americans 18 to 29 see AI as a threat to their job prospects, including 66% of young Democrats and 59% of young Republicans. 👀 What to watch: Trump is deeply unpopular. But the tectonic shifts transforming the two parties — and the country — make 2026 and 2028 impossible to forecast. Control of the House is a toss-up: GOP redistricting established a narrow moat around Republicans' majority, but Democrats lead the generic ballot by 6 percentage points. The Senate map is as favorable as it gets for Republicans, but top election prognosticator Larry Sabato this month moved three races toward Democrats. A 50-50 split is a distinct possibility. The 2028 field, meanwhile, is wide open. The New York Times presidential primary tracker has four potential candidates — Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Pete Buttigieg and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — clustered within 8 points of each other. Vice President Vance leads Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the GOP side. But Vance serves at the pleasure of a president who likes to keep people guessing.