It wasn’t long ago that Democrats embraced an unequivocally pro-immigrant stance. The party once defined its immigration platform in opposition to the policies of former President Donald Trump’s first term: separating families detained at the border, a travel ban on Muslim-majority countries, and efforts to gut the asylum system among them. In 2020, President Joe Biden ran on a message of undoing the cruelties of his predecessor, and in his first week in office, he signed a flurry of executive actions doing just that. Much has changed in the four years since. In the final weeks of the 2024 campaign, the rhetoric coming from Kamala Harris and most Democrats is decidedly different. There’s a greater focus on border security and less emphasis on immigrants’ rights and contributions to the country.  This pivot didn’t come from nowhere. Border crossings reached record highs at the end of 2023, fueling a Republican narrative of chaos that Americans appear to have embraced. Though crossings have come down significantly throughout 2024, more Americans still want to see immigration levels decrease than at any point since the early 2000s, just after the 9/11 terror attacks. Polls show most voters support stricter border security measures; a growing share wants mass deportations. This is the political reality Democrats have had to confront ahead of the presidential election: Broadly, Americans hold anti-immigration views. It doesn’t really matter that Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, was known as a champion for immigrant rights in the Senate and during her 2020 presidential bid. In a race against Trump, who has upped the ante on his dehumanizing rhetoric about immigrants in the final stretch of the campaign, she can’t afford to look weak on the border if she wants to win. That’s especially true given immigration is an issue that has only become more salient among the independent voters she’s courting in key states. “Before you can fix a policy, first you must get elected,” said Chuck Rocha, a Democratic strategist and former senior adviser on Sen. Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign who designed Sanders’s Latino vote outreach strategy. “[Republicans] have bullied Democrats for years on this issue, and I think it smart for the Harris campaign to not back down and take them on.” Assuming Harris wins, what’s next for Democrats and liberals on immigration? The progressive left that was once so vocally pro-immigration has largely supported Harris despite her sprint to the center. That’s because progressives know full well that a Trump administration would be worse. But if Trump and his xenophobic agenda are defeated, that could make room for a leftist offensive on immigration. What would that look like, and will we see it during a Harris administration? Democrats’ 2020 platform didn’t even mention border security. Instead, it focused on expanding legal immigration pathways and rolling back the US’s immigration detention regime. Four years after former President Barack Obama was dubbed the “deporter in chief,” it seemed as though Trump had pushed Democrats to embrace a newfound moral case for increasing immigration. But amid a challenging new reality on the border and resulting political pressure, Biden advanced immigration policies that his Republican predecessor devised himself or would have at least approved of: Harris played a role in executing this strategy, and immigration was part of her portfolio as vice president from the early months of Biden’s presidency. She was tasked with addressing the root causes of migration in a diplomatic role that primarily involved directing private-sector investment to Central America.  During a visit to Guatemala in June 2021, she delivered a controversial message to migrants: “Don’t come” to the US. When border crossings later spiked, she came under fire from Republicans as Biden’s failed “border czar,” a frame that the Biden administration sought to rebut.  In February, Biden tried to make concrete progress on immigration by endorsing a bipartisan bill that included border security measures that Democrats wouldn’t have dreamed of supporting a few years prior, including a new authority to quickly expel migrants arriving on the southern border at times of high demand. In exchange, Democrats would have gotten something they wanted: closing gaps in the legal immigration system that have left everyone from the children of high-skilled foreign workers to Afghan refugees in limbo.  At first, Republicans coalesced around the bill and it seemed as though it would pass — that is, until Trump began to lobby against it, reportedly stating he wanted to keep the border a live issue in the presidential election.  To be sure, Biden’s approach hasn’t been entirely focused on border security. It’s worth noting that Biden has also advanced one of the biggest efforts in over a decade to legalize undocumented immigrants. Under the new program, which is now on hold due to a legal challenge, approximately 500,000 spouses of US citizens and 50,000 of their stepchildren could be eligible to apply for permanent residence and get a green card without having to leave the US. But such moves are the exception. The Biden era has generally seen Democrats move closer to Trump on immigration rather than further away. As the Democratic nominee, Harris has had to navigate that new normal. Democrats outlined their immigration platform before Biden decided not to seek reelection, but Harris still needs to detail how she would approach the issue.  She has indicated in public appearances that her strategy will be two-pronged, focused on securing the border and developing earned pathways to citizenship, including for Dreamers in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which provides legal protections to migrants who came to the US without authorization as children.  She has repeatedly argued that Trump is simultaneously not tough enough and not compassionate enough on immigration, whereas she seems intent on presenting herself as striking that balance.  That’s been clear in her rhetoric, but what exactly that balance looks like in practice promises to be the subject of an intra-movement struggle, one that pits pro-immigrant activists against the party’s relative border hawks. Harris’s rhetoric during the campaign has suggested a tougher-on-immigration approach.  For instance, when speaking at her only debate with Trump about the border bill that Democrats tried to pass in February, she cast the failed bill — and Trump’s advocacy against it — as evidence that the former president isn’t serious about finding a way to improve the situation at the US-Mexico border: “He preferred to run on a problem instead of fixing a problem,” Harris said. During a Univision town hall earlier this month, Harris again criticized Trump for tanking the bill. However, this time, it was in response to a question from a voter whose mother died before she could become a US citizen. Harris argued that the bill could have created “a comprehensive earned pathway to citizenship for hard-working people” like the voter’s mother.  That’s not an entirely accurate portrayal of the bill. It would have expanded existing pathways to citizenship with the addition of 250,000 family- and employment-based visas and opened up a path to permanent status for Afghans who came to the US after American forces withdrew from Afghanistan, but it was hardly comprehensive in its approach.  Still, the interaction showed Harris trying to soften her tone, if not the border policies she supports. “Depending on what venue she’s talking in, she frames the immigration issue a bit differently,” said Douglas Rivlin, a spokesperson for the immigrant advocacy group America’s Voice. “On Univision, her humanity came through in a way.” Some progressives, however, see reason to believe that Harris would be more pro-immigrant as a president than she has been as a campaigner. Rocha noted that the Harris campaign has hired immigrant activists, including Alida Garcia, who led immigration advocacy at the immigration and criminal justice reform advocacy group FWD.us, and Julie Chávez Rodriguez, the granddaughter of Latino civil rights activist and labor leader César Chávez. And that could suggest that her campaign is thinking about how to advance a pro-immigrant agenda within the current political environment. Progressives also seem to believe that while they may not endorse all of Harris’s immigration policies, they can still find ways to work together, as they used to when she was a senator.  Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, recounted that Harris co-sponsored the first bill she ever introduced, a response to Trump’s travel ban. It sought to ensure that people had access to legal counsel in detention when they first arrived in the US. “She cares about the dignity and humanity of people who come to this country,” Jayapal told Vox. “While I have disagreed with some of the immigration positions she has taken, I know that she will be a partner with us on this issue, rather than use immigrants as a political football the way Republicans and Donald Trump have.” Jayapal’s comments are a reminder of why the pro-immigrant left has given Harris scope to operate against Trump, whose rhetoric about immigrants, from his debunked comments about Haitians eating pets to his claims that immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of America, has recently reached a new low. But the question is whether — and for how long — progressives’ goodwill toward Harris will last if Trump is defeated. Concretely, immigration battles under a Harris administration would likely play out on some of the same issues where the left criticized Biden, including his restrictions on asylum seekers at the border and the February border bill that Harris has held up as a model for Democrats going forward. Activists still want many of the same reforms Harris supported in 2020, such as swapping out deterrence-based policies for policies expanding safe pathways to come to the US and improving access to asylum. However, the impulses that drive support for Trump’s immigration policies aren’t likely to just fade away, even if the man himself recedes from public life. So, a President Harris would likely still face demand from the American public to prioritize border security. That may not leave much room for her to adopt the mantle of the left’s priorities on immigration.  Advocates seem to acknowledge that reality as well as the practical challenges of passing immigration reform in a divided Congress or issuing executive actions on immigration that could be challenged in court. “The American people are pretty clear about what they want to have happen on immigration. They want the balanced approach that Harris and the Democrats are for,” Rivlin said.  Advocates are holding out hope that Harris can use her bully pulpit to change the tone of the conversation about immigration in America, as she started to do at the Univision town hall. In Rivlin’s view, “That’s one of the most important things that needs to happen on immigration.”

During an event for Tesla’s new self-driving Cybercab—due out 2027—Musk revealed an expansive vision for cities transformed by a robotaxi revolution. Experts say the plan has some hitches.

I could wear the Nothing Ear (Open) buds all day for podcasts and taking calls, but for enjoying music, I'd pick something else.

The latest Boom speaker stays mainly the same, with one key upgrade.

Welcome to Edition 7.16 of the Rocket Report! Even several days later, it remains difficult to process the significance of what SpaceX achieved in South Texas last Sunday. The moment of seeing a rocket fall out of the sky and be captured by two arms felt historic to me, as historic as the company's first drone ship landing in April 2016. What a time to be alive. As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar. Surprise! Rocket Lab adds a last-minute mission. After signing a launch contract less than two months ago, Rocket Lab says it will launch a customer as early as Saturday from New Zealand on board its Electron launch vehicle. Rocket Lab added that the customer for the expedited mission, to be named "Changes In Latitudes, Changes In Attitudes," is confidential. This is an impressive turnaround in launch times and will allow Rocket Lab to burnish its credentials for the US Space Force, which has prioritized "responsive" launch in recent years. Read full article

Back in 2020, Sarah Cooper’s “How to Medical” lip-sync of Donald Trump’s proposed Covid-19 cures went viral on social media. TikTok’s latest trend gives that schtick a new spin.

Here is a short and incomplete list of things that former President Donald Trump has done this week: Throughout these events, Trump has come off as (alternately) a buffoon and a would-be dictator. One minute, you’re laughing at his campy dance moves and Hindenburg car rants, the next you’re worrying that he really might try to send troops after American citizens. Yet the two Trumps, the clown and the menace, are intimately tied together: The absurdity helps normalize his dangerousness. For his biggest supporters, the schtick helps generate a sense of joy in transgression. For non-MAGA Republicans, it helps them feel comfortable ignoring what makes Trump extraordinary in favor of traditional grubby partisanship. For many of Trump’s opponents, it makes him seem like something we don’t have to worry about all the time — even when we really do. His absurdity works to make a horrifying reality our reality, something assimilable into the mental frames that we use to get through the day. I don’t think Trump does this by design. He’s not an evil genius, planning out moves 10 steps in advance. This is just who he is as a person; what you see on stage is what you get. But that persona arose from a gut-level understanding of human behavior, one that has allowed Trump to build extraordinary political and business careers on a foundation of lying to everyone around him and pushing the boundaries of “normal” to the breaking point. Without his buffoonery, none of this works — you get unpopular figures like Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. JD Vance, who have all of Trump’s cruelty but none of his charm. Put differently: the dancing is a kind of alchemy that takes his terrifying ideas, like deploying the military against “the enemy within,” and turns them into just another day in American politics. In late 2016, the Atlantic published a campaign trail dispatch by Salena Zito, a conservative reporter, exploring Trump’s appeal to his voters. The piece was forgettable save one line, a description of Trump’s relationship to his fans that has been quoted endlessly for the past eight years: “The press takes him literally, but not seriously; his supporters take him seriously, but not literally.” In context, Zito was talking about Trump lying about unemployment among young Black men. At the time, he claimed that the unemployment rate was about three times what it actually was — a figure he arrived at in part by counting full-time students as “unemployed.” Zito acknowledged that this is false in a literal sense, but believes the press is wrong to dismiss him over it. She believed Trump’s fans understand the inflated numbers to be emblematic of some larger truth, caring less about facticity than the general picture he paints of a broken America. In the years since, “seriously not literally” has become a punchline among political journalists. Time after time, Trump and his fans have proven that they take his outlandish pronouncements literally. When he said the 2020 election was stolen and demanded Vice President Mike Pence unlawfully attempt to overturn it, he meant it — and his most hardcore supporters staged a riot to try to turn his vision into reality. If there’s a group of Trump supporters whom Zito’s phrase actually describes, it’s not the superfans, but the squishes. Republicans who blanched at January 6, but loved the tax cuts and court appointments that preceded it, are among the most likely to dismiss the idea that Trump should be taken at his word. For these Republicans, his authoritarianism pronouncements are just part of the Trump show — a kind of brand-burnishing performance on par with silly pronouncements like “hydrogen is the new car.” With his most extraordinary ideas safely slotted into the clown box, they can return to treating him seriously as a “normal” Republican candidate for president: assessing his policies against Harris’s and naturally finding hers wanting. The bitter dilemma of choosing between a Democrat and democracy can be wished away. As infuriating as this attitude is, it does have a little bit of grounding in truth. The truth is that all of us, to one degree or another, take Trump “seriously but not literally.” We do it because actually confronting what a second Trump presidency would mean is tough even for his most ardent critics to wrap their heads around. At various points during the campaign, Trump and his team have suggested putting millions of detained immigrants in camps, replacing the civil service with Trump cronies, deploying the military to repress dissenters, setting up special prosecutors to investigate Democrats, imposing 1,000 percent across-the-board tariffs, putting the Federal Reserve under political control, withdrawing from NATO, and unconstitutionally running for a third term in office. If we took all of that literally, really integrated the reality of what these steps would mean into our daily behavior, it would be hard to live life normally. The specter of out-and-out authoritarianism, a crashing economy, and an international system shorn of the alliances that keep the global peace sounds apocalyptic. Actually trying to envision the enormity of this world is psychologically taxing; trying to live as if this were indeed an imminent possibility invariably leads to a life monomaniacally devoted to trying to stop it. For most people, that’s neither desirable nor possible. And Trump’s fog of distortion creates a mental space where one can reasonably tell oneself it’s not necessary. He lies and exaggerates so much that it’s hard to tell which of his policy ideas demand being taken literally. You can make educated guesses — it’s achingly clear he’ll try to fight the 2024 election result if he loses — but that’s really the best any of us can do. Trump demands to be taken literally, but taking everything he does seriously is both psychologically difficult and analytically mistaken. So it makes sense that we all do at least a little bit of “seriously, but not literally”: it helps manage the fear and uncertainty inherent to a second Trump presidency. The buffoonery helps with that.  Laughing at Trump makes it easier to see him as something other than the boogeyman. I mean, look at him! He’s swaying on stage to “Ave Maria,” babbling about Pavarotti, making Kristi Noem sweat. Who couldn’t appreciate that?  We laugh not only because he’s funny (which he objectively is), but because then we don’t have to confront the reality of what he truly represents — at least, for a minute. The problem, though, is that Trump is a fundamentally serious thing. He’s not just doing a traveling stand-up show; he’s running for president of the United States. He wants to be in charge of the most powerful nation in human history, for his fingers to be on a nuclear button that could annihilate the planet.  It would be bad enough if someone who wanted this kind of power were just a clown. That he’s a clown with a proven track record of doing insanely dangerous things makes the laughter feel a bit hollow. Former President Barack Obama — who I’m convinced understands Trump better than almost anyone — recently gave a speech that distilled the problem down to its core. After describing some of Trump’s recent lies about hurricanes, Obama asked, “When did that become okay?” He expands: If your coworkers acted like that, they wouldn’t be your coworkers very long. If you’re in business and somebody you’re doing business with just outright lies and manipulates you, you stop doing business with them. Even if you had a family member who acted like that, you might still love them, but you’d tell them you got a problem and you wouldn’t put them in charge of anything. And yet, when Donald Trump lies, cheats, or shows utter disregard for our Constitution, when he calls POWs “losers” or fellow citizens “vermin,” people make excuses for it.  And that’s just it. This shouldn’t be okay, but enough people have accepted it that it is by default okay. The buffoonery helps us cope with the normalizing of the abnormal, the fact that the old rules for politics that kept things safe are being blown up at a faster and faster rate. When the prospect of a second Trump presidency feels too real, there’s always the comfort of laughing at him.