Emboldened by a partial court victory over his use of troops amid immigration protests in Los Angeles, President Trump is now threatening to expand deployment to other cities. This is unnerving, given that his manufacturing of fake rationales for “emergency” decisions like these is getting worse. Yet it comes as striking new polling shows that Trump’s use of troops in California is deeply underwater with voters. Importantly, he’s faring even worse on this with independents. In short, Trump recognizes zero constraints at this point, either from the law or, critically, from public opinion. We talked to Brian Beutler, author of the excellent Off Message Substack. He explains why Trump is losing the voters on two issues that pundits foolishly predicted he’d win on—the domestic deployment of troops and immigration—and how Democrats should respond by fighting a better information war than they currently seem capable of waging. 

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