Matthew Johnson

Trump Angered by Fresh Slide in Polls as Even Fox Admits He’s Tanking As Trump rambles bizarrely about “fake” surveys amid some really bad polling news, a political scientist explains how his flouting of the Constitution is directly linked to his cratering public suppor...

Trump cratering in new polls:

CNN
Approval: 36-63
Among working class: 41-58
Independents: 26-73 (!!)

WAPO
Approval: 39-60
On immigration: 40-58
Tariffs: 34-64

On the pod, @juliaazari.bsky.social and I dig into how his abuses of power are backfiring badly for him:
newrepublic.com/article/2069...

Pronouns are so fun.

I: nominative pronoun, first-person, singular

Think: (verb)

That: relative pronoun

You: nominative pronoun, second-person, singular

Should: (verb)

Go: (Verb)

Fuck: (verb)

Yourself: reflexive pronoun

love when democrats talk about kitchen table issues as if trans people and immigrants don’t have kitchen tables 🙃

Whenever I see a politician like Gavin Newsom complain about "pronouns," I want to give a grammar lesson in reflexive pronouns:

Go fuck yourself.

This is your regular reminder that whenever you watch a medical drama and a chaplain character just, like, never appears, that's weird.

Chaplains are a constant presence in hospitals. They're considered part of the care team, and it's super odd that (most) medical shows pretend that isn't the case.

Give Katherine LaNasa the Emmy now for tonight’s episode alone. #thepitt

Why Gavin Newsom is not half as smart as he thinks he is.

With New Momentum, Republican States Push Broader Limits for Trans Americans

This is why "Let's give in on some of the trans stuff because it'd be a popular compromise and you have to meet people where they are" is not only immoral but politically stupid.

Republicans were never going to stop there. They stop when you stop them.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/18/u...

This is why I’ll be voting for her.

A person with disabilities, a gay AF painter, and ancient Mesopotamians.

Rubio should be quiet about history and try to learn some.

Wait hold up...
Did Bad Bunny just give his Grammy to Liam Conejo Ramos the poor kid who was kidnapped by ICE? If so amazing

The sign beforehand said "Conejo" on it too

1. It was not an accident.
2. It was not a staffer.
3. While the president may have dementia his racism is not due to dementia.
4. He isn’t sorry. He means every racist thought he shares.
5. His base agrees with him.
6. He will do it again.
7. No one in power will hold him accountable.

Amazing photos here

I am deep in the progressive religious movement (UU clergy) and I am _begging_ the rest of the media/public to read Jack Jenkins and report on the wide, deep, fierce religious movement for liberation, justice, and the common good. The religion = right wing has been false forever and even more now.

New Quinnipiac poll:

63% of voters disapprove of ICE

60% want ICE out of Minneapolis

58% want Kristi Noem removed from office

[Standard caveat that people are bad at predicting what will persuade them.] It's funny that a "fight harder against Trump" message polls the best, and James Carville's anti-defund-the-police message is next to last.

Resistance Moms and the never-Trump Republicans have been right about everything.

'Reminds me of Anne Frank': Jewish seniors are offering to hide their Haitian caregivers as Trump's TPS end looms - Jewish Telegraphic Agency The end of Temporary Protected Status has Holocaust survivors offering to hide Haitian staffers, according to the CEO of a senior-living center in Florida.

For those objecting to comparisons between Germany then & the U.S. now:

“About 500 seniors live at Sinai Residences in Boca Raton, Florida, including many Holocaust survivors. Recently, some of them asked if they could hide the building’s Haitian staff in their apartments.”

30 point swing you say?

Confidence in Trump Dips, and Fewer Now Say They Support His Policies and Plans Only 27% of Americans say they support all or most of Trump's policies – down since last year, with the change coming entirely among Republicans.

Pew has Trump's approval at 37%. And:

"Only about a quarter of Americans today (27%) say they support all or most of Trump’s policies and plans, down from 35% when he returned to office last year. That change has come entirely among Republicans."

www.pewresearch.org/politics/202...

Clergy being arrested and surrounded by police.

It appears several clergy were just arrested as they staged an anti-ICE protest in the Russell Rotunda in the U.S. Senate office building.

A number of faith leaders, who were in town urging Senators to vote against additional ICE funding, were led away by police: www.facebook.com/FIAnational/...

One strategic reason to impeach Noem ASAP is that it increases the likelihood she'll turn on Miller, especially if she thinks the admin is hanging her out to dry.

Reform?!?! Wtf.

Abolish.

Trump-administration officials and MAGA influencers have repeatedly called these activists “violent” and said they are involved in “riots.” But the resistance in Minnesota is largely characterized by a conscious, strategic absence of physical confrontation. Activists have made the decision to emphasize protection, aid, and observation. When matters escalate, it is usually the choice of the federal agents. Of the three homicides in Minneapolis this year, two were committed by federal agents. “There’s been an incredible, incredible response from the community. I’ve seen our neighbors go straight from allies to family—more than family—checking in on each other, offering food and rides for kids and all kinds of support, alerting each other if there’s ICE or any kind of danger,” Malika Dahir, a local activist of Somali descent, told me. If the Minnesota resistance has an overarching ideology, you could call it “neighborism”—a commitment to protecting the people around you, no matter who they are or where they came from. The contrast with the philosophy guiding the Trump administration couldn’t be more extreme. Vice President Vance has said that “it is totally reasonable and acceptable for American citizens to look at their next-door neighbors and say, ‘I want to live next to people who I have something in common with. I don’t want to live next to four families of strangers.’” Minnesotans are insisting that their neighbors are their neighbors whether they were born in Minneapolis or Mogadishu. That is, arguably, a deeply Christian philosophy, one apparently loathed by some of the most powerful Christians in America.

One thing I found deeply moving about resistance in the Twin Cities was the universalism of loving your neighbor, the philosophy driving the opposition to the ICE/BP invasion. I couldn't help but notice the contrast with the blood and soil-ism of Miller and Vance. www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Moms and church folks and queer young adult D and D players. That’s who is organizing this, and we know how to get supplies.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

— W.H. Auden, Sept. 1, 1939

I was going to call and yell and plead and keep calling. Now I can say “good and hold the line.” Not a penny until they leave MN, restrict actions to judicial warrants, unmask, and bovino is fired. For starters. @durbin.senate.gov

As tens of thousands across America protest the violence that ICE sows with impunity, federal agents shot and killed another person in Minneapolis today.

ICE terrorizes our cities. ICE puts us all in danger. Abolish ICE.

Just once I'd like to see Schumer or Jeffries angry. Authentically angry. No elegance or solutions are necessary, but purely reactive or instinctive. Some indication that they feel -- that they are capable of feeling -- what we are feeling.