Look at what speaking up can cost someone.

Wu Kai was an influencer who exposed an alleged scam boss in Cambodia two years ago. Someone overseas then put a one-million-yuan bounty on him, paying people to abduct him.

In November 2024, several men pretending to be police officers kidnapped Wu Kai. They beat and tortured him, then left him unconscious on a remote mountainside, where he died.

They Smeared Him After His Death

According to a friend quoted in the report, after Wu Kai was killed, someone transferred 11,000 yuan to his Alipay account, then circulated the payment screenshot to spread the lie that he had been arrested for extortion.

So they didn’t just kill him. They used a money transfer to smear his name and cover up his death.

According to the report, the main attacker has been sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve. Thirteen others involved have also received prison sentences. The man Wu Kai had been exposing has also been arrested.

But the person who put up the bounty is still out there.

The Price of Speaking Up

Now think about Epstein. His network reached into politics, finance, and entertainment, right into the ruling class.

And people keep asking: “Why don’t more victims speak up? Why don’t more whistleblowers come forward and name names?”

People can want to do the right thing and still be terrified. Speaking up means putting your life on the line. And sometimes your family’s lives, too.

If a scam organization can pay people to abduct and kill someone who exposes them, imagine confronting people with money, political connections, and access to powerful institutions.

They can threaten your livelihood, drag your name through the mud, and make your family pay the price.

So why are people demanding courage from victims instead of demanding accountability from those with power?

Who Protects the Powerful?

Yes, investigate everyone who committed these heinous crimes with Epstein. Prosecute them. Punish them.

But look at the system that gave him access, credibility, and protection. The Epstein class has power inside that system. Therefore, accountability has to reach beyond individual criminals to the institutions that enabled them.

Demanding courage from victims is easy. Making powerful people afraid of the consequences is the real test.

Stay grumpy. Stay angry. Stay defiant.

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People go to rehab because they want their lives back. Federal prosecutors say a California treatment network supplied some of those people with drugs so the business could keep collecting insurance money.

Nathan Young, 39, and his father, David Young, 71, face federal charges over a network of purported addiction treatment facilities. Between 2020 and 2026, prosecutors allege, the network submitted more than $1.6 billion in fraudulent claims and received over $210 million. The accusations include providing illegal drugs to maintain addiction, fabricating treatment, and recycling patients through facilities. The case has not yet gone to trial.

That is a hell of a recovery plan.

Keep the beds full

According to the Justice Department, recruiters known as “body brokers” targeted people experiencing homelessness, poverty, and addiction. Free flights, hous…

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My position on AI is simple: I support its development. If technology can increase productivity and free people from repetitive, exhausting, or dangerous work, that should be a good thing.

If people could spend less time doing mechanical tasks and more time creating, doing research, making art, being with their families, or simply enjoying life, I would welcome that. Surely human life should involve more than going to work, paying bills, and doing it all again tomorrow.

But getting from today to that future raises a question: if AI replaces your job before society has made arrangements for you to live without it, how do you survive?

On October 23, China released a national policy document addressing AI development and employment. It calls for reducing the impact of job displacement, assessing employment risks, and preparing response plans. The government is putting technological development and workers’ livelihoods into the same policy discussion.

For readers who want the full details, I’…

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A scam factory needs an address. It needs computers, an internet connection and somebody who can keep the operation running. And once money starts coming in, there are ways to collect a share without ever sending a fraudulent message.

In Cambodia, Al Jazeera investigated alleged scam kingpin Deng Pibing and his Long Bay tourism project.

Cambodian authorities responded in October 2026 that they had discovered suspected scam buildings there in February. They said the groups had fled, suspects had been detained and the site sealed. They also said Deng was under investigation and had left Cambodia in late May. Those dates matter: a documentary broadcast in October does not establish that every scene was filmed that month.

But the case opens a question worth following beyond one development: who supplied the premises, who controlled access, and who earned money while the operation lasted?

In the first article, I followed people whose savings were stolen and people imprisoned behind the keyboar…

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Four days after his father died, CY lost $500,000.

The person encouraging him to invest called herself Jessica. She had contacted him on WhatsApp, and he initially thought she was a former colleague. She messaged him daily for a month. When she learned his father was dying, she offered a cryptocurrency opportunity that could help cover funeral costs.

CY had a background in finance and accounting. He tested the platform with smaller amounts. It looked convincing.

After that first enormous loss, Jessica encouraged him to put in more to recover it. He took out a $200,000 loan and borrowed another $100,000 from his brother-in-law. By the end, he had lost $1.2 million, including 30 years of savings and his daughter’s education fund. ABC7 reported his story in 2022, identifying him by his initials.

I want you to remember the funeral costs. These people foun…

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I’ve spent roughly 14 years working in Vancouver real estate, including working with developers and for a development company. So when people talk about the housing crisis, I have a few things to say.

First, I agree with something that might surprise some people: government regulations are a major part of the problem.

But I also think blaming everything on government red tape while pretending developers and investors have nothing to do with rising prices is ridiculous.

I’ve seen how this industry works. The problem is more complicated than either side wants to admit.

And if we’re serious about making housing affordable for working people, we need to look at the entire picture.

I appreciate everyone who reads and supports my work. This is a one-person operation, and if you’d like to support it a little further, please consider subscribing or becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you.

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Yes, Government Red Tape Is a Real Problem

Let’s start with zoning laws and development permits.

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Foreign billionaires should not control the channels through which a country argues, organizes and chooses its government.

They sell you freedom of speech. What you get is permission to speak inside a system they own.

You can write the post. They decide how it travels. They set the moderation rules, design the recommendations and control the machinery connecting you to an audience. Then they present themselves as champions of your freedom.

Brazil’s election shows why that sales pitch deserves a much harder look.

I appreciate all your support. This is a one-man operation, and if you’d like to support my work a little further, please consider subscribing or becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you.

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Freedom, with the distribution controlled

Lula is fighting for reelection against Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, Jair Bolsonaro’s son. Flávio finished the first round ahead, roughly 47% to 45%. A Datafolha poll published October 15 put their runoff support at 51% to 49% of valid votes, within the two-point margin of error. The runoff is October 25.

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Trump’s new White House press secretary lived and worked in Beijing for about two years. You might expect her observations about China to include something about manufacturing, infrastructure, or how the country actually operates.

Instead, Katie Zacharia recalled questioning China’s rise because “they don’t even have proper toilets.”

That is an extraordinary amount of confidence to place in a bathroom review.

Apparently, the exam disappeared too

In the same interview, Zacharia explained her legal background by saying, “There’s no Chinese bar.”

China has a national legal qualification examination. Chinese nationality is a requirement to take it. Her own eligibility and the existence of the examination are two entirely different questions. Someone who worked at a Chinese law firm should be able to explain that distinction.

She subsequently confirmed that she failed the California bar exam and never retook it. Trump had introduced her as an attorney when announcing her appointment. She defended calling herself a lawyer by pointing to her law degree, international transaction experience, and advice she said she received from legal professionals.

Failing an exam happens. Following that up with a confident declaration that another country has no equivalent examination is what makes this such excellent comedy.

Apply the integration standard

I also want to apply that familiar demand about immigrants integrating into their host society.

Fine. Apply it to Americans abroad too.

If you move to China, work there, and benefit from the opportunities available there, how much responsibility do you have to understand the place before dismissing it?

Two years abroad gives you experience. What you learn depends on your curiosity, your willingness to listen, and whether you treat unfamiliar things as something to understand or something beneath you.

Katie, was the problem really China’s future? Or did you encounter a squat toilet and decide the entire country had reached its developmental limit?

She passed the audition

Zacharia offered another revealing detail: she described her television appearances as an audition for Trump. She tracked his priorities and went on television to discuss them, hoping he would notice and recruit her.

That tells me more about this appointment than the failed exam does.

The person behind the White House podium has to explain an administration’s decisions under scrutiny. Yet the audition she described was about catching one man’s attention by delivering the messages he wanted amplified.

You know what? I’m just gonna say it. America needs more people like Katie. Live in China for two years, come back talking about toilets, fail the bar exam, and land behind the White House podium.

That’s how you make America great again. Just get more people like Katie into the White House.

Keep going, Donald. The rest of the world is watching. Some of us are even taking notes.

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But when it’s time to pay your claim? Suddenly, they treat you worse than a fucking animal. You’re just a number on a spreadsheet.

That’s what went through my head watching this woman describe losing coverage for medication she says is helping her. She’s already dealing with an illness. Now she has to worry about how she’ll afford treatment, too.

And there’s a much bigger problem behind that fear.

KFF’s analysis of federal data found that Medicare Advantage insurers fully or partially denied 4.1 million requests for prior authorization in 2024. That means patients’ providers were asking insurers to approve care before it could be covered. Only 11.5% of those denials were appealed. Among the denials that were appealed, 80.7% were fully or partially overturned.

Think about what that process demands. You’re sick. You’re exhausted. You may be missing work. Now you and your doctor have to fight through another round of paperwork to get care approved. Even when you win, you’ve spent time and energy getting past a refusal.

Your illness doesn’t pause while somebody processes the appeal. Your rent doesn’t pause either.

In 2023, ProPublica documented UnitedHealthcare trying to deny coverage for Christopher McNaughton’s effective ulcerative colitis treatment. His bills approached $2 million annually.

Your treatment is something you need to keep functioning. On an insurer’s books, it is also an expense. That is a hell of a conflict to build into healthcare.

The company controls the coverage decision. You carry the consequences. A denial can leave you choosing between fighting, paying money you don’t have, or going without. To me, being left without access to treatment you need can feel like being handed a death sentence.

The rich have options. They can pay out of pocket, hire help, and keep fighting. Ordinary people have groceries, mortgages, children, and jobs they can’t afford to lose. How are you supposed to feel safe when keeping your treatment depends on winning another argument over coverage?

You bought insurance because you couldn’t afford to face an illness alone. Now you’re still paying, still sick, and still begging for coverage.

I’m sorry to say, that is cruel. Making a sick person fight for care while they’re already struggling to function feels almost evil.

This is what extreme capitalism looks like when you’re the one who needs the medicine.

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Recently, I’ve seen Chinese and Brazilian users discussing Brazil’s election on Twitter, or X. Some of the exchanges turned into arguments, and I think the disagreement is worth looking at.

Some Brazilian leftists are friendly toward China. They appreciate its socialist orientation and opposition to American dominance. They seemed to expect Chinese users to agree with their other positions too.

Then they started discussing drugs, crime, and LGBTQ issues.

Suddenly, the comrades had a problem.

Chinese commenters expressed support for harsh drug enforcement and socially conservative views. Some Brazilian leftists pushed back. Meanwhile, some right-wing commenters found positions they liked. One repost even joked about starting to feel like a communist.

I found that funny. But it also exposed an assumption: if China is socialist, Chinese people must accept the entire political package somebody associates with the left.

Who decided that?

China did not sign your ideological contract

I see China as a socialist country, or at least a country moving toward socialism. Its socialist orientation emphasizes public ownership, state-led development, and reducing poverty. Its constitution recognizes both the state sector and private businesses.

China also pursues technological development while retaining many conservative cultural attitudes.

You can call that “economically left, culturally conservative.” It helps explain the mismatch. But building advanced technology does not automatically make a country socialist. The question remains who owns, who controls, and who benefits.

Economic positions and cultural positions do not always arrive in one package.

Supporting public ownership does not require tolerating drug traffickers. Wanting safe streets does not automatically make you right-wing. A society organized around ordinary people still has to protect them.

China’s hostility toward narcotics also has a history. Opium is bound up with imperial coercion and national humiliation. China’s narcotics-control white paper invokes that experience. I see it as one reason drug control carries meanings of sovereignty and collective protection.

You cannot understand that history by handing Chinese people a Western political checklist.

Workers have to live with the consequences

I recognize this argument from my own audience.

I talk about socialism, imperialism, and workers getting screwed, and many people agree. Then I support harsh punishment for drug traffickers, including the death penalty in serious cases, and punishment for serious criminals.

Suddenly, some of those same people disagree.

I believe punishing those criminals is part of protecting workers and ordinary people. Get them caught and convicted. Make the organizers and financiers face consequences too.

Why the hell would protecting working people stop at their front door?

A woman finishing a late shift needs to get home safely. A parent needs their child protected from people profiting from addiction. A family living near violent gangs needs protection they can actually count on.

They still have to live there tomorrow.

People with money have more options. They can move away or pay for security. Workers with rent due cannot simply buy an exit.

Housing, healthcare, wages, and safety are all part of material reality. Poverty needs action. Addiction needs treatment. Understanding how someone entered criminal activity does not erase the people they hurt.

Enforcement has to work. The U.S. National Institute of Justice’s research summary finds that the likelihood of being caught generally deters crime more effectively than increasing punishment. I want consequences backed by competent investigations and fair trials, reaching the powerful people behind the business.

The revolution cannot stop at your wardrobe

This is where I think some liberal leftists get badly confused.

They spend so much time discussing universal values and woke culture that class exploitation gets pushed aside. Supporting LGBTQ rights is fine. Those rights do not settle who owns the company, who controls your working day, or whether you can afford a doctor.

Women’s wages, unpaid care work, and discrimination against gay workers are material issues. Those workers need actual power and protection.

I expected at least some of the anti-imperialist, working-class politics associated with Che Guevara and the Cuban revolution: confronting foreign domination and challenging ownership.

But when your socialism amounts to fashionable labels while corporate power goes untouched, you become a recycling depot for the U.S. Democratic Party’s secondhand political garbage.

You wear “communist” like a designer jacket. Edgy. Fashionable. Looks great on your profile. Meanwhile, the shareholders still own the company, the boss still controls your work, and your revolutionary vocabulary has cost them nothing.

What power have workers gained? What ownership have you challenged?

That is my test. Class exploitation. Ownership. Ordinary people’s material lives.

Brazil has its own labor and anti-dictatorship traditions. I am criticizing the shallow politics in this argument, not pretending a few accounts represent its entire left.

And I have no interest in making Chinese commenters Brazil’s political schoolmasters. China’s experience gives other countries things to study, adapt, challenge, or reject. Brazil needs its own road.

China does not owe anyone obedience to a foreign cultural checklist.

Who owns? Who benefits? Who pays? Keep those questions at the center. Your landlord collects the rent regardless of which cultural argument you win.

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So, there was another mass shooting in the United States. 9 people are dead in Pennsylvania. A 45-year-old government employee killed eight people, including a pregnant woman and two young children. Most of the victims were his own family members.

And just days earlier in Georgia,2people were killed and 35 others injured when gunfire erupted at a homecoming block party.

You know, I’m getting tired of this kind of stuff. I’m getting tired of making videos like this.

In 2024 alone, more than 44,000 Americans died from gun-related injuries, including suicides. That’s about 122 people every single day.

We can talk about gun control. We can talk about culture. We can talk about the firearms industrial complex. We can always talk about this kind of stuff, but nothing, nothing is going to change.

Unfortunately, if you don’t address the root causes, which I believe are the capitalist system and the culture surrounding guns, nothing is going to change until those things change.

This is gonna happen again and again and again.

You know what the depressing part is? I already know that I’m probably gonna make another video like this soon.

You know what we call this kind of post in China? We call it a “period post.” It’s internet slang. It’s something that happens every month. You cannot stop it. It just keeps coming back like clockwork.

That’s what it is.

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Jeff Bezos says politicians blaming greedy landlords for expensive housing probably don’t have a solution. He also has a message for people criticizing billionaires: “Success is not villainy.”
Billionaire Jeff Bezos: 'Success is not villainy' – GeekWire

Fine. I’d like to know who’s paying for that success.

If your rent goes up, you start doing the ugly little calculations. Cheaper groceries? Another shift? Less money for your kids? Somewhere, an investor might look at that same rent payment and see an improving return.

You see money disappearing from your paycheck. They see income from an asset. That’s the class relationship I want to talk about.

In his recent Fox interview, Bezos acknowledged that housing is expensive. He blamed policies that subsidize demand while restricting construction. Build more homes, his argument goes, instead of pointing fingers at landlords.

Building more homes can help bring rents down. When you have more places to choose from, landlords have to work harder to get your money.

But I don’t see how that gives corporate landlords a pass. You can have a housing shortage and companies making competition worse at the same time.

Take RealPage. The Justice Department alleged that its rental software used landlords’ private, competitively sensitive information to recommend rents, with features that limited price cuts and aligned competitors’ pricing. In November 2025, DOJ proposed a settlement requiring changes to those practices.

Think about what that allegation means. Landlords who should be competing for you share information through the same software provider. You might shop around expecting competing offers while their pricing tools help them move together.

More apartments would be useful. So would stopping conduct that undermines competition. We can discuss both without getting confused.

Now, about this word “success.”

I’m talking about corporate landlords and investors who treat rental housing as a portfolio. Their managers answer to people expecting returns. You need somewhere to sleep, raise your children, and get ready for work.

Those interests can overlap. A company can build more homes, maintain them properly, and earn money doing it. But when increasing returns means charging you more, who gets to set the terms?

You can move, apparently. Find another deposit. Pay the movers. Change your commute. Maybe change your children’s school. All very simple when somebody else has to do it.

An investor’s financial success tells me they made money. It doesn’t tell me how, or what it cost the people paying them.

That’s why Bezos’s own interests belong in this conversation. His personal investment company, Bezos Expeditions, participated in funding Arrived, a platform that lets investors buy shares in rental homes. Arrived named it among investors in its 2022 funding announcement.

So a man who has invested in turning rental housing into an investment product is explaining why blaming landlords misses the point. I think his position deserves scrutiny.

My reading is that he’s defending the owners’ place in the system. Government policy can be criticized. The market can be improved. But question the owners’ power, and suddenly the conversation turns to whether you’re unfairly attacking successful people.

Capitalism gave him enormous wealth and influence. He has every reason to defend the arrangements that made that possible. Why should you accept those arrangements as the limits of your political imagination?

He even compared finger-pointing politicians to people in his companies who blame others instead of solving problems. Those people, he said, wouldn’t last long.

Well, you don’t work for him.

You don’t need a complete national housing plan before you’re allowed to question rent hikes or corporate power. A company can make employees work toward the owner’s goals. Politics includes deciding whose goals deserve priority.

Your right to demand accountability doesn’t need to pass a billionaire’s performance review.

And if we’re discussing supply, let’s discuss all of it.

Private developers can build housing. Public institutions and cooperatives can too. Then we get to ask who owns the homes, how rents are set, and what the income is supposed to support.

Vienna has roughly 220,000 municipal apartments and 200,000 subsidized homes. Housing organized around affordability already exists at a substantial scale.

It still needs land, financing, construction, and maintenance. But those costs can be paid under rules that prioritize stable housing instead of ever-higher investor returns.

For me, that’s where socialist politics gets concrete. Who controls the land and the buildings? Can people have secure homes without satisfying somebody else’s investment targets?

If you can’t afford the rent investors want, you still need somewhere to live tonight.

Bezos can defend his class. We can insist on secure, affordable housing. His interests don’t automatically become ours. I judge housing policy by whether you can afford a home and have enough money left to live.

If your investment succeeds because somebody else’s family has to cut back on food, rest, and time together, spare me the lecture about respecting success.

Show me who paid for it.

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You register to vote. You want cheaper healthcare, affordable housing, or a government that gives a damn about your paycheck.

Then you find out ICE has collected tens of millions of voter records.

Why the hell does an agency that detains and deports people need that much information about voters?

That question deserves an answer. “Election integrity” is a slogan. It does not explain why an immigration agency is collecting huge voter datasets, investigating registration groups, and discussing undercover operations against them.

I appreciate everyone who reads and supports my work. This is a one-person operation, so please consider subscribing to my Substack. And if you’re feeling a little generous, becoming a paid subscriber would go a long way in helping me keep this going. Thank you so much.

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Millions of records. What exactly are they looking for?

Internal documents obtained by Democracy Forward through an information-disclosure lawsuit describe the operation.

ICE’s investigative branch received approximately 50.6 million voter records from the Justice Department. Another 48.4 million came from outside sources associated with Heather Honey, an administration official who promoted false claims about the 2020 election. The datasets may overlap.

Those numbers tell you how much information the agency collected. They tell you nothing about how many people broke the law.

ICE also reviewed at least 82 Pennsylvania nonprofits and examined dozens of organizations in New Jersey. One New Jersey review found no derogatory information on the groups examined.

Investigators discussed sending undercover agents into organizations suspected of facilitating unlawful registration. The records describe plans; they do not establish that those deployments happened.

Look at the reach: enormous voter datasets, community organizations, and proposed secret investigations. The administration owes the public evidence that justifies that reach.

Peter Thiel’s company enters the picture

Palantir, co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel, built a tool called ELITE for ICE. It helps agents identify and locate people targeted for immigration enforcement on a map.

A July internal report said voter information from six states was awaiting entry into ELITE by Palantir. The import remains unconfirmed, and a source familiar with the matter told Democracy Docket that the information was not integrated.

The plan itself is outrageous. Why consider putting voter information into software built to locate immigration enforcement targets?

Registering to vote should not turn a citizen’s information into raw material for an expanding immigration investigation.

And Thiel deserves a place in this story. In 2009, he wrote: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”

A billionaire openly questions democracy. The company he co-founded builds tools for a government collecting millions of voter records.

Apparently, his discomfort with democracy poses no difficulty when the government needs software.

The responsibility belongs to both sides of that relationship: officials who decide how to use state power, and the private company supplying the tools. The public deserves to know who handles the data and who answers when something goes wrong.

Elections start before the ballot box

People hear “election interference” and picture somebody changing votes.

Political participation also depends on whether people can register, organize, and get help without fear.

That is why investigations into voter-registration groups matter. These organizations help people navigate forms and deadlines. For somebody working long shifts, raising children, or struggling with paperwork, that help can make participation possible.

A government investigation can mean legal bills, staff time, and worried volunteers. If organizations must spend scarce resources defending themselves, they have less available for the people they serve.

When volunteers wonder whether helping somebody register will attract federal scrutiny, the government has introduced fear into ordinary civic work.

An investigation can apply pressure long before a courtroom reaches a verdict.

And that pressure lands differently across class lines. A billionaire has lawyers on call. A small nonprofit has a budget to stretch. A worker has a shift to get back to.

Rights become harder to exercise when using them costs money and time ordinary people cannot spare.

The slow roll into authoritarianism

This is how a government can move toward authoritarianism while elections remain on the calendar.

It expands the information it collects. It broadens the organizations it investigates. It considers more intrusive tactics. Each expansion arrives with a reassuring label: security, integrity, protection.

Meanwhile, the people in power gain more ability to scrutinize the people participating in politics.

The Trump administration has a direct political stake in these elections. Its use of enforcement power around political participation deserves particularly tough scrutiny.

“Protecting elections” cannot be a blank check for the incumbent government to widen its reach.

And the administration’s incompetence offers no comfort. A ridiculous politician still commands agencies with investigators, databases, and the power to turn a person’s life upside down.

You can laugh at the performance and still recognize the danger.

Make them answer

Why were these records collected? Who can use them? What information gets added? How are mistakes corrected? What happens to an organization’s information when investigators find nothing?

Trump’s administration should answer those questions. Palantir should explain its role.

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Trump promised to make life cheaper. Now just 27% of Latino registered voters approve of his performance, while 69% disapprove, according to a new NBC News/Telemundo poll.

Honestly, I’m surprised 27% still approve. But the more interesting question is what happened to the confidence that helped put him back in the White House.

People are checking their bills. They are watching what happens to their families. A president can repeat that everything is wonderful as often as he wants. The supermarket doesn’t accept his speeches as payment.

The survey interviewed 800 registered Latino voters from September 21-28, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. Its findings tell a clear story: economic disappointment and immigration enforcement are wearing down Trump’s support.

I appreciate everyone who reads and supports my work. This is a one-person operation, so please consider subscribing to my Substack. And if you’re feeling a little generous, becoming a paid subscriber would go a long way in helping me keep this going. Thank you so much.

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He campaigned on the bills. Now he owns the promise.

The promise was explicit. Chapter 1 of the Republicans’ 2024 platform pledged to defeat inflation and quickly bring down all prices. It also blamed immigration for driving up housing, education, and healthcare costs.

That connected 2 campaign messages: your life is too expensive, and getting rid of immigrants will help fix it. Trump offered people a culprit and presented himself as the solution.

Now 78% of Latino voters disapprove of his handling of the cost of living. 63% say their family’s income is falling behind living costs. 65% believe his policies have hurt economic conditions.

The income problem was already there in 2024. Trump campaigned on fixing it. People who changed their votes because they were struggling now have every reason to ask where the improvement went.

Luisa Santiago, a 59-year-old Florida retiree, spent her life voting for Democrats before backing Trump in 2024. She even convinced friends to join her.

Now she calls that decision a mistake. She told NBC she feels more embarrassed than her friends because she was the one who persuaded them. She also described the deportation policies as brutal and cold.

Imagine selling your friends on a cheaper life, then having to explain the bills and the raids. Trump gets to move on to another speech. She still has to face her friends.

The red scare meets the grocery receipt

Another Florida voter, Maria, is in her 20s. She told NBC she voted for Trump largely because her family had instilled a fear of socialism and Democrats. Now she is disappointed with the economy and deportations affecting friends and relatives.

That is the contradiction worth examining. Fear of socialism helped influence her vote. The government she voted for then had to deliver something she could live on.

An anti-socialist slogan cannot lower rent. It cannot stretch a pension or make a paycheck cover another week of groceries. Calling the opposition dangerous gives voters no protection from the actual decisions of the people in office.

This is how class interests get buried under political labels. A working person needs affordable housing, healthcare, decent wages, and security. Teach them to fear a word strongly enough, and they can end up judging politicians by that word instead of those needs.

Then the bills arrive. The politician who promised relief has to answer for them.

They wanted safety. They got another reason to worry.

About 2 in 3 Latino voters say Trump’s immigration enforcement has gone too far. Yet 83% support deporting undocumented immigrants who committed serious crimes. Only 37% support deporting every undocumented immigrant.

Those answers are perfectly understandable. Supporting the removal of dangerous criminals does not mean consenting to fear spreading through your family and neighborhood.

31% say they or someone close to them started carrying identification because of concerns about ICE. 27% know someone detained or deported by ICE in the past 2 years.

Citizenship does not make those concerns imaginary. ProPublica documented more than 170 Americans held against their will by immigration agents in 2025.

There is a material cost to fear, too. Leaving home means worrying about a relative, carrying documents, or wondering what happens if an agent stops you. Security should include being able to get through an ordinary day without that burden.

Trump sold immigration enforcement as protection. Many of these voters now experience it as another threat hanging over their lives, alongside the bills he promised to fix.

Their votes belong to them

Latino voters now prefer Democratic control of Congress by 59% to 35%. But the Democrats’ image has not improved since 2024. The opening comes from disappointment with Trump, rather than a sudden flood of confidence in his opponents.

For Democrats, that is an opportunity they still have to earn. For Trump, it is a reckoning with the promise that helped elect him.

People can be persuaded by fear, identity, and slogans. They can also withdraw their support when their lives fail to improve. No party owns their votes.

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