MAGA Is Furious at the Fed for the Strangest Reason

MAGA Republicans seem weirdly upset that inflation is going down.

The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday that it will cut interest rates by half a percentage point, a move that signals inflation has decreased significantly. The announcement comes after Donald Trump and J.D. Vance spent months attacking the Biden administration for high levels of inflation, even as it fell to the lowest rate in years.

At a Vance rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, the Ohio senator’s audience didn’t seem too happy about the change.

Vance was asked for his reaction to the Fed cutting rates, which would “alleviate inflation for a lot of people.” Before he could answer, his crowd started to boo.

This response was particularly odd considering the fact that cutting interest rates has the potential to actually be good news for everyone.

Lowering the prices of consumer goods, such as groceries, is an issue affixed at the center of the presidential race, despite the fact that it’s not necessarily within the president’s control.

There are a few reasons for what’s happening here. The first is that the crowd just plainly didn’t understand what cutting interest rates would mean. The second is the same reason that Vance responded with, saying that “a half a point is nothing compared to what American families have been dealing with for the last three years.” So, in that way, the first option and the second option are pretty much the same thing.

And then there is the third option, which was illustrated by Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville.

“The Fed’s drastic rate cut is so shamelessly political,” Tuberville wrote in a post on X. “Our nation’s central bank has no business moving rates this close to an election and is clearly trying to tip the balance in favor of Kamala Harris.”

So, good news isn’t really good news unless Trump is the one behind it. That’s what you get for trying to govern, I guess.

Donald Trump took his promise of the largest mass deportations in U.S. history to horrific new heights over the weekend, when he promised to begin a policy called “remigration.”

In one of the former president’s several outlandish missives, Trump ranted about his anti-immigrant immigration policy. Among promises to “stop all migrant flights” and “suspend refugee resettlement,” he vowed Saturday to “return Kamala’s illegal migrants to their home countries (also known as remigration).”

Stephen Miller, the ghoul behind some of Trump’s harshest immigration policies, reshared the post. “THE TRUMP PLAN TO END THE INVASION OF SMALL TOWN AMERICA: REMIGRATION!”

Whenever Miller, with his affinity for white nationalism, backs up an immigration policy, one can usually assume it’s for the purpose of making America a white nation—and lo and behold, that’s exactly what “remigration” means.

The Associated Press described “remigration” in 2019 as “the chilling notion of returning immigrants to their native lands in what amounts to a soft-style ethnic cleansing.” Essentially, remigration would mean forcing non-ethnically European immigrants and their families to leave the U.S., even if they are citizens. The horrific policy proposal is a direct response to the racist “great replacement” theory, which has been pushed by many right-wing U.S. politicians, including J.D. Vance.

While “remigration” is not a commonly used word in U.S. politics, it is slightly more in evidence in European politics, where far-right politicians have pushed to maintain a homogeneous cultural and ethnic society.

For example, Herbert Kickl, the leader of the Austrian far-right party, advocated in June for a “remigration commissioner.” In August, Kickl urged “remigration” while introducing the party’s manifesto advocating for “homogeneity” in Austria, rather than diversity. He also has previously said that remigration could be used to revoke the citizenship of non-whites who “refuse to integrate.”

Martin Sellner, the activist head of the so-called Identitarian Movement, which extols the superiority of European ethnic groups, posted about Trump’s use of the word on X. “#Remigration has had a massive conceptual career,” Sellner wrote in German. “Born in France, popularized in German-speaking countries and now the term of the hour from Sweden to the USA!”

So did Trump know he was using the obscure language of the far right? It seems likely.

“He knows what he is doing,” Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor who studies fascism and authoritarianism, told Mother Jones. “He chooses his words carefully.”

This story has been updated.

An Ohio sheriff who threatened local supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris is doubling down on his dangerous rhetoric, insisting that people need to “accept responsibility” for their political leanings.

Portage County Sheriff Bruce Zuchowski took to Facebook on Tuesday to elaborate on his controversial remarks that spurred the sudden, protesting resignation of a county commissioner from the local Republican committee.

“As the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of Portage County, I have sworn to protect ALL citizens of my County. Recently, I placed a post on my personal facebook page that may have been a little misinterpreted??” Zuchowski wrote on his official page.

“I … as the elected sheriff, do have a First Amendment right as do all citizens. If the citizens of Portage County want to elect an individual who has supported open borders (which I’ve personally visited Twice!) and neglected to enforce the laws of our Country … then that is their prerogative,” Zuchowski continued. “With elections, there are consequences. That being said … I believe that those who vote for individuals with liberal policies have to accept responsibility for their actions! I am a Law Man … Not a Politician!”

The warning came days after Zuchowski willingly threw himself into electoral politics in their yards in a Facebook post that referred to the vice president as a “Flip-Flopping, Laughing Hyena.” He suggested Friday that his constituents send him the personal addresses of locals with Harris’s campaign signs in their yards.

“I say … write down all the addresses of the people who had her signs in their yards!” Zuchowski wrote on Friday. “Sooo … when the Illegal human ‘Locust’ (which she supports!) Need places to live … We’ll already have the addresses of their New families … who supported their arrival!”

The post was seemingly made in reference to a virulent conspiracy theory spread by top Republicans, including Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, about Haitian immigrants eating other residents’ pets in Springfield, Ohio—roughly 200 miles away from Zuchowski’s district.

Since Vance and Trump began elevating the myth last week, Springfield has received at least 33 bomb threats, forcing it to evacuate and temporarily shutter several of its schools, colleges, festivals, and a significant portion of its government facilities, including City Hall, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, the Ohio License Bureau, the Springfield Academy of Excellence, and Fulton Elementary School.

Multiple city officials, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, and even Vance himself have stated in no uncertain terms that the conspiracy is false.

The Trump campaign would rather sow more chaos in Springfield, Ohio, over the Haitian immigrant conspiracy than make it right.

The MAGA leadership is reportedly “not displeased” that its virulently racist pet-eating conspiracy has drawn widespread condemnation, according to The Bulwark. Instead, the campaign would seemingly rather keep the topic in the news, believing Trump could win big on immigration in November as opposed to thornier issues that Republicans have routinely lost over in recent elections, such as abortion.

“We talk about abortion, we lose. We talk about immigration, we win,” one Trump adviser told The Bulwark.

Multiple city officials and Ohio Governor Mike DeWine have categorically denied the conspiracy, and local authorities have said there were no reports or evidence of pets being stolen or eaten. On Sunday, Republican vice presidential pick J.D. Vance effectively admitted himself that the anti-immigration conspiracy was bogus.

“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” he told CNN.

But having no evidence and, frankly, not believing the lie themselves doesn’t seem to matter to the Trump-Vance ticket.

“We’ll take the hit to prove the bigger point,” the adviser told The Bulwark.

Springfield, the epicenter of the conspiracy, is practically on its own with regard to the fallout of becoming a national punch line. Since Vance and Trump began elevating the myth last week, Springfield has received at least 33 bomb threats, forcing it to evacuate and temporarily shutter several of its schools, colleges, festivals, and a significant portion of its government facilities, including City Hall, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, the Ohio License Bureau, the Springfield Academy of Excellence, and Fulton Elementary School.

Trump, meanwhile, will likely not be paying a visit to the location of his pet conspiracy, according to a source familiar with his travel who spoke with Columbia Journalism Review.

At a Tuesday night campaign rally in Michigan, Donald Trump briefly strayed from a point about international affairs to make an absurd remark about climate change.

Claiming that nuclear proliferation is the true “global warming” (even as the former president has faced criticism for accelerating the nuclear arms race), Trump said, “When I hear these people talking about global warming, that’s the global warming you have to worry about, not that the ocean’s going to rise in 400 years an eighth of an inch.”

Trump then went on to speak rosily about rising sea levels: “You’ll have more seafront property, right, if that happens. I said, is that good or bad? I said, isn’t that a good thing? If I have a little property on the ocean, I have a little bit more property—I have a little bit more ocean.”

According to a CNN fact-check of similar claims Trump has made in the past, his estimate is a severe lowball: “Sea level rise is already more than an eighth of an inch annually—and it is accelerating.” But perhaps more baffling is the idea that climate change will create more opportunities for real estate.

Shared on social media by the Kamala Harris campaign and other accounts, Trump’s comments immediately generated ridicule.

Users on X, for example, have pointed out that the Michiganders Trump was addressing would probably not “have more seafront property,” barring an impossible catastrophe in which oceans rose hundreds of feet. (In reality, climate change reportedly threatens the region in other ways, including rising lake levels.)

Reporter Tom McKay posted, “Won’t there actually be less ‘seafront’ property because the land area necessarily contracts when sea levels rise.” Jim Swift of The Bulwark shared a meme noting that rising sea levels could threaten Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

Others criticized Trump’s comments for trivializing the grave threat climate change poses to human life. The youth climate group Climate Defiance, for example, cited the World Economic Forum’s estimate that 410 million people “could be displaced or harmed by sea level rise this century.”