Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: The reality of the Trump campaign, exposed

Fox News:

Fox News Poll: Three-point shift in Biden-Trump matchup since May

32% give the economy positive marks, a record-high during Biden’s presidency

President Biden is the frontrunner in a hypothetical matchup against former President Trump for the first time since October, as positive views of the economy inch up — hitting their highest level thus far in the Biden presidency, according to a new Fox News national survey.  

Since May, there was a 3-point change in the presidential race. Trump was ahead by 1 point last month, while Biden is up by 2 points today: 50%-48%. That’s well within the margin of error.

Steve Kettmann/Washington Monthly:

“The Opportunity for Democrats to Break Away from the Ethnic Identity Headlock”

Mike Madrid, whose new book chronicles how Latinos are transforming democracy, discusses Trump’s strength with them, how Hispanic communities vary from North Carolina to Arizona, and how Biden’s border security moves can actually woo this misunderstood minority.

There’s been no change in the number of Republicans who are literally getting off the couch on a Tuesday night and driving down to the high school gymnasium to vote for a candidate who dropped out two months ago. That’s a very, very intense sign of opposition. Even though there seems to be some polling tightening, it’s still not nearly enough to fix the problem.

Trump and Biden have very different problems. Trump has an Election Day problem that is not showing up in the polling. Biden has a polling problem that is not showing up on Election Day. If you have to choose between either, you’d rather be Biden. There’s no question that it remains a very significant problem for Trump that not enough Republicans are coming back to support the nominee. Can it be fixed? Sure. But to be in the middle of June with 20 percent of your base saying they’re not with you is a five-alarm problem.

Greg Sargent/The New Republic:

Fox News’s Ugly Eruption Over Biden Immigration Move Has a Hidden Tell

Biden’s new executive action is actually about people who live and have roots here. Right-wingers know they can’t win if the debate is about these folks—so they scream, “Border!”

But that aside, there’s a key tell buried in all this reaction: It seizes on this new Biden executive action to refocus the argument on the state of the border, which is not seriously relevant to the policy, as it grants relief to longtime immigrant residents. This shows that Fox and MAGA cannot allow the immigration debate to focus on that population, because it is largely viewed sympathetically by the voting public.

Eric Garcia/The Independent:

Jasmine Crockett wants to prove that Democrats aren’t weak: ‘Everyone’s so freakin’ polite’

The freshman Democrat from Texas tells Eric Garcia about how her ‘bleach blonde bad-built butch body’ remarks came about and why the Oversight Committee wasn’t her first choice

Last month, during a markup of a resolution to hold Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia mocked Crockett’s “fake eyelashes.” In response, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York asked for Greene’s words to be stricken from the record, considering they violate a rule about making personal attacks in the House. Crockett then asked Republican Chairman James Comer, in a moment that subsequently went viral, “If someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody’s bleach-blonde, bad-built butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?”

The moment made the rounds online before the hearing had even ended. In fact, it was Crockett’s pastor who told her — mid-hearing — that she was going viral. 

John Harwood/zeteo:

Read the Warnings Trump's Own Officials Have Given About Electing Him to a Second Term

No one sees the danger Trump poses more vividly than aides and advisers who worked with him.

What I failed to recognize, even after Trump won the nomination, was the extent of the danger he posed to the country. That required watching him wield power as president – from the Muslim ban he pursued by executive order during his first week to the deadly insurrection he incited during his last month before reluctantly leaving the White House in defeat.

No one saw the danger more vividly than aides and advisers who worked with Trump on the most sensitive issues a president faces. Last year, NBC News reached out to 44 of the dozens of people who were part of Trump’s Cabinet at some point during his first term. Only four at the time had said they would vote for him again.

So, as the first debate of the 2024 Trump-Biden general election approaches, it’s worth remembering the damning assessments many of them and others have offered.

David Rothkopf/”Need to Know” on Substack:

Modern American Capitalism is Destroying Democracy

Part II of "The End of the Age of Stupidity"

It is not that capitalism is, as its critics have suggested, inherently evil. However, neither is it, as American political and business leaders have asserted since time immemorial inherently good. It must be regulated. When it is not and it is allowed to morph from being an engine of economic growth to an engine of economic inequity, it undermines not only the principles of democracy but as we have seen, it underwrites the perversion of our institutions from serving us all to serving a wealthy few.

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis summed it up perhaps better than anyone else when he said, “We can have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of the few but we can’t have both.”

For Americans today, this can be easily illustrated. The Citizens United Supreme Court decision enshrined as US law the “principle” that spending money on campaigns is a form of protected free expression and therefore could not be regulated. By asserting that “money is speech” it by extension enshrined as the law of the land in the U.S. that those with more money have “more speech,” greater influence, more political power.

Cliff Schecter covers one of my least favorite senators: