Early voting has started in some states. If it’s yours, get out there and vote! And tell us in the comments if you did!

Trump is panicking. It’s not clear how he understands the situation, but he is pulling out all the stops as we count down (three weeks from Tuesday!) to the election. He actually is sending out ACA and Medicare money to try to buy votes. I figured that was just words, but it’s happening. He is ramping up ICE activity. He is supporting Russia by buying their diesel and apparently supplying parts to repair their Ukrainian-bombed refineries. He hopes this will bring down the price of diesel. He is barnstorming to rouse up the base.

And all this seems to be working in the opposite direction from what he hopes. The trend is all toward Democrats. There are close races, but many of them are being scored by the pollsters as moving left every week. All Trump’s activities, except maybe the buying votes, seem likely to help that trend.

I think that Trump and his people have fundamentally misjudged the situation since the 2024 election and have been unable to figure that out. Early on, we worried that they had a plan for a thousand-year reich. And they did! At least Russell Vought did, and still does. But Trump has always been unable to focus on anything outside himself for more than five minutes, and developing internal police that could enforce Vought’s requirements of pure thought required more than five minutes.

What we have in ICE is bad enough, but it’s not the police force Vought would want. It’s a bunch of poorly disciplined hoodlums who’ve wanted to rough up foreigners. Which is bad, but it has done more to develop opposition to the regime than it has to build the thousand-year reich.

Trump thought that everyone loved him like that woman in the picture, and that was easy and convenient for his lackeys. Didn’t they wave signs “Mass Deportation Now” at the convention? Doesn’t Trump get enthusiastic audiences everywhere he goes? Of course all our policies will bring relief from the woke oppression and cause liberal tears everywhere.

It turns out that the mass deportation and most of Trump’s other policies, along with those that are directly opposed to his campaign promises, like starting a pointless war with Iran and gussying up Washington with his face and name, are not popular. It turns out that they are losing even some of his MAGA base.

And yet he persists.

I’m not minimizing the harm he’s doing. ICE shot a man in New York. It’s likely to get worse until and perhaps after the election. But he is floundering.

Follow the court-watchers for the details of the lawsuits.  Chris Geidner (LawDork, Bluesky), Roger Parloff and Anna Bower (Lawfare, Bluesky), and the Just Security tracker.  There were more decisions against Trump this week, but I’ll leave the details for the comments.

Let’s stay away from hypotheticals, as usual. Post your pets.

118 more weeks to go. What are you doing? What you are doing should be connected to the coming elections. Register. Make a plan to vote. Volunteer to be a poll worker.

Previous weeks: Week 10, Week 20, Week 30, Week 40, Week 50, Week 60, Week 70, Week 80, Week 81, Week 82, Week 83, Week 84, Week 85, Week 86, Week 87, Week 88, Week 89

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