Trump's coup against law is not popular

Trump and his merry band of dictator's dupes think the American people share his hatred of migrants. We don't.

G. Elliott Morris is a data nerd. After a stint writing for The Economist, he ran the 538 poll aggregating site for ABC News -- until ABC bent the knee to Trump after the 2024 election. These days, like so many others, he writes a substack, Strength in Numbers, where he does what he has long done: try to understand opinion data.

And he is convinced that Trump and the mainstream media are misinterpreting what we the people feel about immigration.

Trump is popular on "handling immigration," but not specifics

 ... there is a dramatic amount of nuance being washed over with the binary yes-no framing and use of such broad topics.  ...

You might take away from this, for instance, that Americans approve of Trump's actions to deport Abrego Garcia and refuse to bring him home. That would be wrong though, as the same Reuters/Ipsos poll even goes on to show.

The vast majority — 82% — of Americans believe Trump should obey court orders even if he disagrees with them, and 56% think he should stop "deporting people" ...

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The only policy Americans really favor is deporting unlawful immigrants who have been accused of violent crimes.

If people opposed to Trump's policies speak out, including especially Democratic Party leaders, Morris believes they'll be expressing the public's opinion.

... Trump's critics have an easy opportunity to fight the president in the court of public opinion. Americans do not approve of abducting fathers who have been in America for decades and sending them to torture camps in the jungle; And, contra Trump's wishes, they also oppose the extrajudicial transfer of U.S. citizens convicted of crimes to foreign jails.

And while I generally try not to engage in partisan cheerleading here, the reality is that Republicans are united in support of Trump, and since we have a two-party system, Democrats are the only options for recourse on civil rights and the rule of law. This issue really isn’t about Trump or immigration at all anymore, it’s about the Constitution itself.

The Trump administration so far has gotten away with denying Abrego Garcia and other legal residents of the U.S. their constitutional rights of habeas corpus. Now, the Executive is asserting that it can violate court orders with impunity and that it wants to do the same for trouble-making U.S. citizens. If you stand for the constitution, the rule of law, majoritarianism, and just generally treating citizens with dignity, there is really only one option for you, even if you try to approach politics from an unbiased perspective, as we do here at Strength In Numbers.

So not only does the party currently have public opinion on its side, I think Democrats also have an obligation to speak out on moral and constitutional grounds. And, given the data, they have a clear opportunity to take bold action.

... Fighting is what democracy is for, after all. And if nobody is willing to fight for the Constitution, we don’t have a democracy anymore anyway.

 As an early and famous Patriot once wrote: "These are times that try [our] souls ... Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."