Bill Kristol: Throw the Bums Out

The New York Times/Siena polls released over the weekend show Donald Trump's favorability cratering in states he won by double digits in 2024 — Alaska (minus 15), Iowa (minus 18), Kansas (minus 15), Ohio (minus 21), and Texas (minus 18) — and Democratic Senate candidates leading or tied in four of those five states. As Bill Kristol put it, "That gives you a sense of why it's a wave."

The Springfield Contrast

Andrew Egger's reporting from Ohio over the weekend captured the jarring juxtaposition: a funeral for Pierre Damas Bell, the Haitian child killed in Springfield, followed hours later by a Trump rally in a Dayton suburb where none of the other Republican speakers — Vivek Ramaswamy, John Husted, or others — mentioned Springfield at all. Trump, however, leaned in, leading "Deport" chants and reciting the "snake" poem about immigrants. Kristol noted that the rally's grotesqueness was "brought home" by Egger's reporting, and that Trump's approach — blaming a scapegoat rather than offering solutions — is classic demagoguery. The episode also highlighted that mass layoffs at a Springfield plant occurred during Trump's economic stewardship, undercutting his "golden age" rhetoric.

The Meme Coin Bribery