Transcript: Trump Is Weak and Failing, and Media Is Finally Saying So
Marcotte: No, I think that’s exactly right. A couple years ago, I did some reporting in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, about a school board race there in 2023, I do believe. And what had happened was that Moms for Liberty had taken over their school board, and this group of parents had gotten together and formed their own organizing committee and were recruiting candidates to run from the left for that school board. And they swept in 2023. And then in this last election, that same county, that same school board that I reported on—the last remaining Republicans on the board lost in November. So this school district in Bucks County went from being all Republicans on the school board to, in the space of two years, all Democrats on the school board. All. And a lot of what was driving it when I was on the ground was a genuine belief that these people are bananas, these right-wing culture warriors are fringe characters that live in a fantasy land, and that what they consider wokeness is what normal people just consider the real world.
Sargent: There in Bucks County, a sheriff lost his election in just in these recent contests against a challenger who deliberately and explicitly
tried to make the race into a referendum on ICE and the ICE raids. And it was a solid victory for the challenger on this issue. That is something that you would think should shock the hell out of lot of pundits. Because one of the things we have constantly heard is that Trump has this kind of deep grasp on what the public really wants on immigration in particular. But what we’re actually seeing is that candidates can
make their races about ICE and raise the salience of immigration and win. What do make of that?
Marcotte: I am not surprised in the slightest. So I live in Philadelphia—that’s why it was easy for me to get to Bucks. And while Pennsylvania has not been in the news a lot for the ICE situation, it’s been really bad. I can tell you that. And I think that people across the state are outraged about it, because there has been a lot of immigration from Latin America to Pennsylvania, and they do all sorts of jobs like work in the food industry. They work in agriculture; there’s an Amazon packaging plant in Reading, Pennsylvania, that has a lot of immigrants working there. And these people are perceived widely as hardworking, honest neighbors, and nobody likes seeing your neighbors treated this way. It’s very distressing. And when I’m in Philly, every time anyone sees it—like, all anyone talks about are the ICE raids. Everyone’s terrified, everyone’s scared. It’s basically the gossip on the streets: how many ICE raids people have witnessed recently.
