on deep background

✪ Labels were the rage this week as partisans dueled over failed border and immigration legislation. President Joe Biden tried to blame former President Donald Trump and “MAGA Republicans” for the failure. That prompted the National Republican Congressional Committee to swat back at “extreme Democrats” who foiled passage. The best was from Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), who blamed “The Firm™.” He posted, “The Law Firm of [Sen. Chuck] Schumer & [Sen. Mitch] McConnell ('The Firm™') has had a long, successful run at the game it plays — writing bills in secret, then ramming them through quickly, under artificial time constraints contrived by The Firm™. This time it didn’t work. I hope it never works again.”

… ✪ John McLaughlin, the pollster for former President Donald Trump’s campaign, said that 2024 is fast becoming the election of the “angry voter.” Like in 2016, he said that “Trump is an advocate for the angry.” We asked him how big that voting bloc was. The answer was shocking. McLaughlin said that angry voters are 45% of all battleground voters and they vote for Trump over President Joe Biden 60%-31%.

… ✪ Americans just can’t get enough guns. The FBI reported that for the 54th month in a row, Americans bought over 1 million firearms in January. “This is happening this year against a backdrop of the Biden administration weaponizing nearly every lever of government to suppress Second Amendment rights by law-abiding citizens. These figures show that Americans reject these infringements and instead choose their rights,” said Mark Oliva of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the industry’s trade group. ★