TRUMP’S VOTERS ARE ABOUT TO BE HARD HIT
ACA premiums are set to rise by 18% on average, one analysis shows. Trump’s own voters, people living in red states, will be hardest hit as of November 1st when the ACA rate hikes go into effect. The rich will continue to get the tax cut Trump gave them in his first term at the expense of average Americans including his own MAGA base voters. In a new poll Republicans could lose the majority in the House over this as reported in WP Intelligence. But the Democrats who are running for the House need to be laser focused on the needs of all of their constituents even if those constituents live in the deepest ruby red parts of their district. They must create trust in persuadable voters by detailing how they will help them.
On the shutdown, the topline dispute remains: Democrats are demanding that Congress pair the reopening of the government with an extension of Affordable Care Act subsidies that expire at the end of the year. Republicans, meanwhile, are steadfast that the government must reopen before they have discussions about the policy. But it’s a stance that could ultimately cost Republicans the House, according to a newly released survey by McLaughlin & Associates, a conservative polling firm that has worked for President Donald Trump.
Many of Trump’s voters are also on SNAP food stamps. The federal government shutdown means the USDA will not send states the money for November SNAP benefits. If the shutdown isn’t over soon many people who voted for Trump will be struggling to put food on the table.
Federal employees who are not able to work because of Trump’s shutdown are struggling to make ends meet. PBS reports: The government shutdown reached day 24 on Friday, marking another milestone for federal workers as they missed a paycheck. That is putting the squeeze on family finances, and many federal workers are now turning to local food banks to help put food on the table.
THE LAW ACCORDING TO TRUMP
The law suddenly applies only to Trump’s enemies now that the DOJ is filled with Trump loyalists. Trump uses the law to wreck the lives of anyone who opposes him or criticizes him. If you are Trump’s buddy you get a pass. George Santos gets a get out of jail free card. But James Comey, Letitia James, John Bolton, Fani Willis and others on Trump’s enemies list get investigated and indicted even though some of the indictments are based on such bad evidence that career prosecutors refuse to present the cases to a grand jury based on the DOJ guideline that you should not indict if there is insufficient evidence to convict beyond a reasonable doubt.
The New York Times reports that President Trump is demanding that the Justice Department pay him $230 million in compensation for the federal investigations into him during the Biden administration (the Mar-a-Lago stolen documents case and Jack Smith’s indictment for his criminal activities related to January 6th). Any settlement would likely need to be approved by senior department officials who were the very same lawyers who defended him or were part of his defense team when the cases were brought. This is a way for Trump to try to rewrite reality as he so often tries to do and wipe his former violations of law away- clear his name and punish anyone who dared to charge him for his criminal wrongdoings. These matters were indicted by grand juries that were presented with factual evidence that surpassed the standard of probable cause needed for a grand jury to indict- enough evidence to convict beyond a reasonable doubt- the standard for DOJ prosecutions in a normal administration.
ICE RAIDS NOT POPULAR
Recent polling from June 2025 by the Pew Research Center found that 54% of U.S. adults disapprove of increasing workplace raids, while 45% approve. Trump is a white supremacist and so are the MAGA Republicans. Trump is trying to expel as many Hispanic people as possible and in the process, introduce the military and his ICE goon squad to the streets of America’s blue cities with the goal of normalizing that and using ICE to suppress the vote in 2026. He massively expanded ICE. They disperse into blue cities and create mayhem stopping, detaining and sometimes kidnapping Hispanic looking people without due process, including citizens– or making them prove they are citizens over and over again in multiple stops by ICE agents.
The loss of immigrant labor is upending the labor market and hurting industries from hospitality to construction to health care to farmers that rely on immigrant labor. Wall Street Journal reports: Interest in American M.B.A. programs is shrinking as schools in Asia boom, according to a new survey. Many international students are opting for schools closer to home amid worries about tighter U.S. visa restrictions and job security.
PEOPLE CAN’T GET JOBS
Trump wants to impose HIS version of reality on the country. As part of that effort he hides Dept of Labor data about the job market that used to be published and which makes it hard to tell what is happening with the job market. Despite that, we know the job market is isn’t good with jobseekers report they can’t land jobs.
WASHINGTON (AP) reports — Americans are growing increasingly concerned about their ability to find a good job under President Donald Trump, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll finds, in what is a potential warning sign for Republicans as a promised economic boom has given way to hiring freezes and elevated inflation.
High prices for groceries, housing and health care persist as a fear for many households, while rising electricity bills and the cost of gas at the pump are also sources of anxiety, according to the survey.
Some 47% of U.S. adults are “not very” or “not at all confident” they could find a good job if they wanted to, an increase from 37% when the question was last asked in October 2023.
Electricity bills are a “major” source of stress for 36% of U.S. adults at a time when the expected build-out of data centers for artificial intelligence could further tax the power grid. Just more than one-half said the cost of groceries are a “major” source of financial stress, about 4 in 10 said the cost of housing and health care were a serious strain and about one-third said they were feeling high stress about gasoline prices.
TRUMP TURNS THE WHITE HOUSE INTO A TRUMP BRANDED GILDED AGE PROPERTY
Trump is adding a gigantic ballroom that will dwarf the White House. Does he consult Congress and get approval? Of course not. He demolished the East wing of the White House to put in a huge ballroom that will alter the look of that historic building.
This is a $200 million, 90,000-square-foot ballroom. He has long sought such a space, creating versions of it for himself in his homes and his hotels, and, appalled by White House state dinners held in luxurious tents on the South Lawn, he even offered to build one for President Barack Obama. Initial renderings bear all the hallmarks of Trump’s opulent, Louis XIV-inspired aesthetic, which has always borrowed heavily from the baroque: very dramatic, very embellished, with lots of gold and gilded elements. Trump has called it “a great legacy project.” [Washington Post]
The most recent estimate for the cost of the new White House ballroom is $300 million, an increase from earlier estimates of $200 million or $250 million.
What used to be The People’s House is now Trump’s house. Will he put a big, gleaming TRUMP sign on the front of the White House? I wouldn’t be surprised. The money for the project comes from the same rich dudes who paid to play to get him elected and were in the front row at his inauguration.
More than three dozen corporate executives and wealthy businesspeople attended the dinner, where Mr. Trump expressed gratitude for their opening their checkbooks for his long-desired state ballroom. Representatives from companies including Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft and Lockheed Martin were in attendance. So were wealthy supporters of Mr. Trump, like Harold G. Hamm, the billionaire oil and gas executive who bankrolled Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign and stands to benefit from his energy policies. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, who run the crypto exchange Gemini and have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to a pro-Trump PAC called MAGA Inc., were also there.[NYT]
One thing you can be sure of, they gave Trump money for this huge ballroom because they know they will get something in return. This is about pay to play.
TRUMP ATTACKS THE LEGAL SYSTEM SOME MORE
Trump is purposely doing a lot of things that are probably illegal but until someone stops him he will get away with it. For example, he has blown up 8 alleged drug running boats on the waters off of Venezuela and Columbia claiming it is ok because our country is engaged in a war against drug cartels but not offering any evidence that the people being killed were in fact running drugs (to the contrary- reports are that many of these men who were murdered were fishermen not members of drug gangs). He insists on sending the military into blue cities using the pretext of protecting government buildings from violent antifa, a nonexistent group that bears no resemblance to the peaceful protesters wearing big frog, chicken and dinosaur costumes and dancing in the streets of our cities on No Kings day that brought out 7 million Americans at 2700 protests.
Trump uses pretexts to push his authoritarian coup ever deeper into the country: the government has the right to protect federal buildings from protesters, his attorneys say, therefore he should be able to move troops into cities that have been protesting ICE because protesters might deface federal buildings even if they have not done so yet. When lower courts say no to him, he runs to the Supreme Court to demand they give him an emergency decision on the shadow docket to let him have his way.
As Harry Litman writes in his Talking Feds substack post of October 21, the Supreme Court is on the precipice when it comes to their role as co-conspirators in the creation of what is quickly becoming a fascist dictatorship in America: The justices have before them an emergency application—yes, another huge question to be decided on the shadow docket—in Trump v. Illinois. The case asks whether the president can invoke “emergency powers” to deploy troops on American soil whenever he declares that local law enforcement can’t handle a situation or that a “rebellion” exists. If the Court accepts that claim, it will have opened the door to a presidency unbound by fact, law, or judicial review—one able to fabricate crises and use them to consolidate power. https://mail.google.com/mail/u/1/#inbox/FMfcgzQcqQzPtpsHDXchmKrsvPkTbMQX
Trump is rushing to install himself as the all powerful dictator of the most powerful country on earth, a man who terrifies and rules the entire world. He is getting a lot of help from his allies in Congress and the Supreme Court. That does not mean he will be dictator-in-chief forever. No one lives forever. But his fascist regime could continue on unless Americans rise up to counter it. The longer a dictatorship is in power, the deeper the rot and corruption, the more the legal system becomes the sword of the autocrat. The last best hope for our democracy is an overperformance for the Democrats in all upcoming elections despite what will doubtless be a huge voter suppression and intimidation effort by Trump and the MAGA Republicans.
WHAT DO THE NO KINGS RALLIES INDICATE?
56% of Americans disapprove of Trump.
The Economist reports: 282 days into Trump’s term his net approval rating keeps sinking. As of October 28th he is -18%, down 1.3 points since last week. 39% approve, 57% disapprove, 5% not sure.
Americans who reject Trump and the MAGA movement were out in large numbers at the No Kings protest- over 7 million at over 2700 rallies. As Trump’s chaos, ICE attacks in blue cities, and his gilded age policies negatively affect more Americans, more people will reject Trump and the MAGAs and look for a better response to the failure of our democracy.
The answer to the fascist MAGA cultural movement we are currently in will be a counter movement that rejects what Trump and the MAGAs are doing and has a vision for the reimagining of a stronger version of democracy and civic life. New leaders will rise up to articulate that vision. It is currently hard to tell how powerful that countermovement will be. But Trump is super charging the backlash by being cruel and implementing policies that hurt working Americans, including ranchers and farmers and others who make up his base. Although Trump is only starting to see his approvals fall, the Republican Congress has a horrible 15% approval rating.
THE FUTURE IS UP TO AMERICANS
I believe we are seeing a cultural tide forming as a backlash to Trump and the MAGA movement. It is hard to tell what form it will take or how strong it will be.
This movement could bring our country closer to what Bernie Sanders and Zorhan Momdani stands for: a true progressive populist movement that focuses on affordability, inclusion and support for all Americans. It might be a movement towards Democratic socialism like Denmark’s where the provision of a social safety net has created a more sustainable liberal democracy where people are actually happy with their government. It might include a return to true Christian values– the real ones, the inclusive ideals that Jesus believed in, not the ones the corrupt televangelists peddled. Or it might be more of a simple course correction to a centrist fact-based ideology. Whoever rises up as a leader out of the boiling political cauldron we have today will influence that outcome.
If Democrats have a strong performance in upcoming elections that will be evidence of a rising counter-cultural movement.
If there is a strong rising pro-democracy anti-MAGA tide, Trump and his gang will only get more vile and engage in more cheating to stay in power no matter what. Trump and his Department of Injustice are already setting up their cheat-to- stay in power forever strategy by putting election denialists in charge of elections in battleground states (whoever is in charge of counting the votes has a huge advantage in determining outcome if the plan is to cheat to win), positioning the military to police polling places to scare away Democratic voters, continuing to raise doubts about whether our elections are free and fair to create more cynicism in the voting public and discourage people from bothering to vote.
Whether our democracy falls to an authoritarian takeover that deepens and lasts for a very long time or Americans rise up to reinvent democracy and civil society in a counter movement to Trump and Trumpism will, I think, be the central tension of the coming decade.
The most important early indicators will be
1) Who wins the governors races in Virginia and New Jersey, on November 4th and by how much.
2) Whether the Pennsylvania Supreme Court retention races are won by the Democrats.
3) The ability of the Democrats to predict and counter the dirty tricks the Republicans will engage in in these elections to cheat to win.
