This article was co-published with EdSurge, a nonprofit newsroom that covers education through original journalism and research. Sign up for their newsletters. A little girl stared at a list of test questions in her science class, unable to answer the majority. Resigned, she wrote at the top, “I failed badly”—although she misspelled it, instead writing, “I felled bedly.”  […]
You can see how Democrats got the wrong idea. When President Trump was sworn into his second term one year ago, it was not unreasonable for the opposition to feel somewhat cowed. Though his victory was narrow, Trump won the popular vote and made significant enough inroads into traditional Democratic constituencies—young people, people of color, working-class people—that his grandiose claims of a political realignment were arguably credible. That wasn’t an excuse to roll over—standing up to the regime was essential. But there was an argument for Democrats to be careful about picking their spots. A year later, things look very different. Trump’s approval ratings are dismal on everything from the economy to immigration; more than half of Americans say his policies have made life less affordable for them; and his support among young and nonwhite voters has cratered. His 2024 victory was not a story of realignment, but a more banal case of economic concerns bringing down an unpopular incumbent—a story that now applies with full force to Trump’s own presidency.A normal opposition would be chugging coffee and suiting up for battle right now. “We’ve got them on the ropes, let’s go on the offense” is the appropriate response to our current political dynamics.Instead, inexplicably, the leaders of the Democratic Party are still refusing to give up the fearful crouch they adopted immediately after the 2024 election. The most egregious recent example is their failure to organize serious opposition to funding for the Department of Homeland Security. The split screen we’ve been seeing on this in recent days is outrageous. ICE officers are kidnapping half-naked grandpas in the freezing cold; they’re denying legal counsel to detainees; they’re entering homes without warrants; they’re using chemical weapons against high school students; they’re sending babies to the hospital; they’re detaining 5-year-old children. They are violently occupying American cities, acting like the gestapo that Trump seems to want them to be.And at the same time, as we speed toward one of congressional Democrats’ last remaining points of leverage against this regime—the January 30 deadline to pass an appropriations bill to keep the government open—we’re reading headlines like “Congress clinches $1.2T funding deal for DHS, Pentagon, domestic agencies” and “Democrats support bill that would give ICE $10 billion” and “Jeffries won’t whip vote against ICE funding.” We’re even seeing Democratic leaders propose more funding for ICE training and body cameras, just weeks after Jonathan Ross, a longtime ICE firearms instructor, literally filmed himself shooting Renee Good in the face.This is untenable. No rational, functioning opposition party would step in to fund the primary enforcement mechanism of the authoritarian takeover they ostensibly oppose. Failing to whip the Democratic caucus to oppose this legislation, as Hakeem Jeffries has already done in the House and Chuck “Folds Every Time” Schumer has shown every indication of doing in the Senate (where Republicans will need Democratic support to reach the 60 votes necessary to pass their gestapo funding bill) would be both a moral catastrophe and political malpractice.Americans are seeing what ICE is doing, and they don’t like it. Polling shows that a majority of Americans view ICE unfavorably and support restrictions on the agency. And for nearly half of the country, these concerns are not theoretical, they’re personal: 46 percent of Americans report being somewhat or very concerned that ICE could mistreat someone they know. This is the kind of playing field in which a fight—which will drive further attention toward ICE’s abuses—is politically advantageous. (To be clear, this is a fight worth picking on principle, even if it’s not a political slam dunk—but the fact is, it’s both!)The same can be said on the topic of climate change and energy. Trump’s positions here are not just deranged—just this week he spent an inordinate amount of time in his Davos speech ranting that wind turbines are “losers” that only “stupid people buy”—they’re also deeply unpopular. Supermajorities of Americans want to see more wind and solar power, and say that expanding these renewable energy sources is a more important priority than expanding fossil fuels. Yet Trump has threatened or canceled 321 major clean energy projects over the last year, keeping enough electricity to power 13.6 million homes off the grid. This will drive up utility costs, and make our grid less resilient to blackouts like those that countless Americans are likely to experience during the upcoming, climate change–driven winter storm. And yet leaders within the Democratic establishment not only refuse to go on the offensive on these issues, but are actually advocating for Democrats to abandon climate action.Instead of listening to these people, Dems might try looking to almost everyone else to learn how to rise to the occasion. Despite everything Trump has done to stop the clean energy transition, renewables have continued to grow, thanks in large part to the actions of regular people who are getting solar panels, installing heat pumps, and taking action however they can. The fight against ICE has been even more instructive: In the weeks since ICE began its assault on Minneapolis, we’ve seen thousands of people organizing—sometimes through established activist channels, but as often as not through churches, neighborhood group chats, and school Facebook groups—to stand up to Trump’s attacks on their neighbors. They’re following ICE officers across the city, honking horns, blowing whistles, recording abductions, and nonviolently disrupting these hateful operations however they can. Other community members are mobilizing to deliver groceries and offer rides to migrants who are afraid to leave their homes.It’s among the most beautiful examples of real-life antifascism I have ever seen. And it’s why, as deeply horrifying as these last few weeks have been—and as soul-crushing as it’s felt to watch Democrats once again utterly fail to meet the most basic minimum standards for an opposition party—I am actually, right now, feeling more optimistic about the survival of American democracy than I have in a long time.Over the last year we’ve seen the Democratic establishment, alongside practically every other elite institution in American society, bend the knee to Trump. But regular people all across the country—the people with the most to lose, who are the least insulated against the consequences of their resistance—have consistently refused to give in.This is where our salvation lies: in our relationships in our communities, our love for our neighbors, and our hatred of bullies. There’s a suffocating amount of malice and evil out there right now. But there’s also a tremendous amount of good old-fashioned American moxie, compassion, and stubbornness. As fragile and corrupt as our elite institutions have revealed themselves to be, the people in this country are demonstrating real resilience against Trump’s authoritarianism. This should inform our strategies of resistance moving forward. And perhaps even more importantly, it should provide us with a durable source of hope as we look down the barrel of three increasingly dark and dangerous years. If all we had to rely on in our fight against fascism was the Democratic Party, we’d be toast. But that’s not all we have. We have each other—and that’s turning out to be a more powerful bulwark than I ever expected.
Every House Democrat and two Republicans voted in favor of the measure. Every other Republican voted against it.
More regulatory reform is needed to speed up the progress and reduce costs of applying AI to biosciences.
Trump’s ironic move is an example of the type of hostile diplomacy that Carney criticized in his speech.
In an administration that sometimes seems to lack a well-defined institutional role for JD Vance, he appears to be taking on a new function: putting a softer, more reasonable face on Stephen Miller’s authoritarian police state.The vice president journeyed to Minneapolis on Thursday, where he urged officials to “tone down the temperature” amid the searing civil conflict unleashed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s crackdown. That’s driving much coverage, with some accounts claiming he’s softened the administration’s posture.Newsflash: Vance softened matters in no appreciable way that has actual real-world significance. If anything, in concrete policy terms, Vance revealed that the administration’s positions on key matters related to the Minneapolis standoff are more reprehensible than it first appeared.Vance’s big moment concerned a 5-year-old child detained by ICE in a case that instantly went viral. The child, Liam Kanejo Ramos, was wearing a Spiderman backpack when he and his father were picked up under disputed circumstances: The Department of Homeland Security says his father fled. Locals say others in their home begged to take the child, but he and his father have been shipped to detention in Texas.In Minneapolis, Vance sought to appear empathetic toward the child. He declared that he too has a 5-year-old, and said he’d been moved by the story. However, he said he’d done “follow-up research” and discovered that the father was an “illegal alien.”“Are they not supposed to arrest an illegal alien in the United States of America?” asked Vance, speaking of ICE. He then scoffed: “If the argument is that you can’t arrest people who have violated our laws because they have children, then every single parent is going to be completely given immunity.” Watch:Q: A local school district is alleging ICE agents detained a 5 year old after preschool. Are you proud of how your administration is conducting this immigration crackdown?JD VANCE: Well, I'm proud of the fact we're standing behind law enforcement. The 5 year old was not… pic.twitter.com/VGmFlYpqCY— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 22, 2026Gosh, how reasonable! Yet it turns out that the child and his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, have active asylum claims, according to their lawyer. As many have noted, this complicates Vance’s “illegal alien” assertion, as they appeared to be availing themselves of lawful processes.But an even more grotesque Trump-Vance stance here is going unnoticed. Vance simply doesn’t think it’s a misnomer to call the father an “illegal alien,” despite his asylum claim. That’s because Vance plainly doesn’t believe those awaiting asylum adjudication are here legitimately at all. He and Trump have adopted the position that legal loopholes allow them to deport asylum-seekers before their claims are heard.This has gotten scandalously little attention, but ICE has been seeking to deport thousands of people awaiting asylum hearings in the United States to third countries that will take them. This entails asking immigration judges to void asylum applications without ever passing substantive judgment on their merits. When Vance calls this father an “illegal alien,” it appears to reflect the broader position that people awaiting asylum adjudication should be removed before their case receives a verdict.Vance wants to appear morally grounded in discussing this 5-year-old child. But the administration’s position—that asylum-seekers’ presence here is essentially illegitimate and that their claims can be summarily voided—should offend anyone’s sense of fairness. Even Vance’s sense of fairness, if he has any left after outsourcing it to the most amoral, corrupt, venal public figure in modern memory.For one thing, many of these people might legitimately merit asylum here, but we’ll never know either way due to redirection of their claims. For another, many came here legally before claiming asylum: Though precise numbers are unavailable, that class surely includes large numbers who came through the Joe Biden–era CBP One app, since terminated by Trump, which allowed migrants to legally enter and make appointments to apply for asylum or seek other legal protections.Guess what? That includes this 5-year-old kid and his pop. Their lawyer told reporters that they came via the CBP One app.“This family entered legally and followed the process the government asked them to,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, told me. “They were here lawfully until the administration stripped away their status. Hundreds of thousands who entered with official permission are being smeared as illegal aliens and threatened with deportation.”Here’s the thing: Even if Vance disagrees with the existence of such programs—which is wrongheaded but at least a coherent position—surely he should agree that it’s unfair for people who availed themselves of lawful channels when they existed to suddenly get detained and deported to a third country.But Vance’s position is that even if they’re doing things by the book, they’re nonetheless here illegitimately. Period. We’ve seen this in other contexts: In 2024, he claimed that those “dog-eating” Haitians were also here illegally. Most were here lawfully under a form of humanitarian protection. What Vance really meant was that this program was illegitimate too because he said so.Let’s give Vance some credit: In Minneapolis, he admitted that many protesters are peaceful. He defended the right to protest. And he acknowledged that ICE officers make “mistakes.” But then Vance immediately undercut all this by blaming those mistakes on the “duress” that ICE officers face due to “a few very far-left agitators.” The misdirection of blame for ICE misconduct is not trivial. As Don Moynihan writes in a good piece:Experts on the formation of internal security services in authoritarian regimes point to a sense of impunity as a warning sign. Regime officials abuse their power when they know they will be protected, even praised, for doing so.Vance has contributed mightily to ICE’s unmistakable sense of its own impunity. He claimed officers “have absolute immunity,” though he softened that claim. He said Renee Good “rammed” her killer with her car and that her death was of “her own making,” which is a vile lie. Now he’s blaming ICE violence on the left.Vance has dressed up Miller’s authoritarianism in reasonable appeals on other occasions. After Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s removal to a Salvadoran gulag—which Miller was heavily invested in—Vance struck a superficially reasonable posture while offering endless falsehoods and misdirection about it.It’s beyond obvious that the primary cause of the chaos greeting ICE is ICE itself. Indeed, as Moynihan further documents, Trump’s top paramilitary officials are clearly going out of their way to provoke violent conflict and reprisals, which has Miller’s fingerprints all over it.Vance probably doesn’t share Miller’s undisguised lust for maximal social conflict. But Vance gets zero credit for conciliation until he stops justifying ICE aggression by blaming its victims—and states categorically that excessive force has indeed been widely happening, that it’s unacceptable, that the administration is committed to stopping it, and that it will face real accountability. Until then, he’s largely putting a softer face on Miller’s police state. And no one should let him get away with it.
ICE agents in Maine arrested a Black law enforcement officer, even after he repeatedly told them he was a legal immigrant.Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce confirmed to reporters Thursday that a viral cell phone video of a man being detained by ICE agents in a Portland neighborhood Wednesday was a corrections officer recruit from the county. In the video, the man can be heard shouting “What’s wrong? I’m just coming from work. What’s wrong, guys? I don’t understand this. I don’t have any violations.”An eyewitness who recorded video of the arrest, Ben Bozeman, told the Portland Press Herald that while taking a walk nearby Wednesday night, he saw five cars swarm the man and that ICE agents threatened him with a Taser before detaining him. Bozeman that the agents left the recruit’s car still running on the side of the road, with his corrections uniform sitting in plain sight in the back seat.“It’s very dark, just jarring and threatening,” Bozeman told the newspaper, saying that witnessing ICE’s violence had shaken him.“They all took off, leaving his car with the windows down, the lights on, unsecured and unoccupied,” Joyce said in a press conference. “They left it right on the side of the street. Folks, that’s bush-league policing.”The sheriff excoriated the agents for their conduct, saying the arrest had changed his mind about the federal government’s immigration actions.“We’re being told one story, which is totally different than what’s occurring or what occurred [Wednesday] night,” Joyce said, noting that the recruit had passed the county’s application process to qualify as a corrections employee, and was cleared to work in the United States until April 2029.“In fact, he was squeaky clean. Squeaky clean,” Joyce said. “I guess if you’re not the card-carrying, you know, U.S. citizen, then you must be illegal, because that’s what they told me is he’s illegal, and he’s definitely not a criminal. So what part of him is illegal? I don’t know.”Law enforcement officers across the country have been caught up in ICE’s violence, including in Minneapolis, where local police have complained that officers of color have been questioned and detained on multiple occasions. ICE’s leadership has proclaimed that nearly everyone is considered fair game in their mass deportation agenda, as it becomes increasingly clear that the Trump administration is deploying a racist goon squad.