Trump’s war on immigration obviously isn’t going to get us any kind of utopian future (much as I’d like to ride the Bass Pro Shop spacecraft). But it’s important to recognize that these memes speak to a bone-deep hatred people have for the realistic, reasonable, moderate center that Washington is so enamored with. The insanity is the point.
But for anyone not looking forward to this Bass Pro Shop, anti-immigration future, 2026 has already produced another vision rebelling against the moderate middle.
Today, Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as the Mayor of New York City. As he took office he laid his hand on a Quran — something I never thought I’d see. Bringing together an inclusive coalition around a vision of a “rent freeze” widely mocked as unworkable and unrealistic by the punditocracy, Mamdani is a symbol of the people’s yearning for the impossible.