JONATHAN TURLEY: The worse it gets, the better it is: American leftism is thriving on its own failures.
From New York to California, the American left is proving that nothing succeeds like failure. From immigration to taxes to health care, politicians are playing to their past fiascos to push an even more radical agenda.
Take immigration. Many, including the Democratic Socialists, have called for open borders or disbanding ICE. After the Biden administration chose to allow millions of undocumented people to enter the country, most Democrats are now calling for “pathways” to make them citizens. After all, they argue, there are too many to deport.
We now know the open border was a choice. The Trump administration immediately stopped crossings using the same laws Biden had refused to enforce. As expected, Democrats are expressing horror at the thought that the government would try to deport the millions that they allowed and even encouraged to enter the country.
The same is true on public health policy. Remember when ObamaCare was going to reduce health care costs and improve health care options? While insisting that they did not want government-run single-payer healthcare, Democrats promised that ObamaCare would lower costs while allowing you to keep your own doctor and health care plan. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama promised his plan would “lower your premiums by up to $2,500 per family per year.”
As Stephen Miller tweeted in June after Nithya Raman bested Spencer Pratt to run again Karen Bass in L.A. and thus perpetuate that city’s continued collapse:
It's not that hard. The left lets institutions and communities break down to a point of total degradation to prove why more government and non profits are the answer. The goal is to purposely not solve problems and make life and safety worse. See the entire defund the police… https://t.co/emoIbBFjVa
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) June 6, 2026
Tweet continues, “See the entire defund the police movement and homelessness nonprofits in California. Gavin Newsom promised to end homelessness and instead it ballooned on purpose. This is why there was such enormous flip out over Trump renovating the reflecting pool or Spencer Pratt’s campaign. Once people realize that things can be improved a lot of nonprofits and public union/money dries up. There is a reason why cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, and now Denver all look the same because they are all run by the same people running the exact same scam. Mostly the concern I see on the political right over AI is cultural because there’s nothing more that the political left and the Democratic Party wants them to get their claws into AI. Because once an AI is programmed to tell people that boys can become girls it’s the death of truth. Data centers being built isn’t the problem, the data in those data centers is.”