IS THE PLUTOCRACY FINALLY FED UP WITH TRUMP?

After the murder of Alex Pretti, many mainstream media outlets disputed the Trump administration's narrative of the incident. This happened much faster than I expected. Then the critiques of the administration became more widespread. It's not surprising that The New York Times published a debunking of the Trump narrative -- but CNBC as well? Yet there it is, under the headline "Videos of Alex Pretti Shooting by Federal Agents in Minneapolis Contradict Trump Official Claims."

A finance-oriented news channel said that administration officials aren't telling the truth, and now the two most right-wing, pro-corporatist editorial boards at major American newspapers have criticized the Trumpers as well. Editorials in The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post take plenty of swipes at Democrats, and even at Pretti himself, but their main thrust is that the administration needs to change course in Minnesota.

Jeff Bezos's Post editorial board writes:

The unjust killing of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old nurse in Minneapolis, marks a turning point in President Donald Trump’s second term. His mass deportation campaign has been a moral and political failure, leaving American citizens feeling outraged and unsafe.

And from the house of Murdoch, the Journal's ed board says:

... [Pretti] had a license to carry a gun, which was legally concealed, not carried in his hand as some claimed. He was carrying his phone. To hear the ardent gun-rights advocates of the Trump Administration claim he had malicious intentions because he carried a concealed weapon is bizarre.

Pretti made a tragic mistake by interfering with ICE agents, but that warranted arrest, not a death sentence. The agents may say they felt threatened, but it’s worth noting the comments over the weekend by police around the country who say that this isn’t how they conduct law enforcement.

Either many ICE agents aren’t properly trained, or they are so on edge as they face opposition in the streets that they are on a hair trigger. Either way, this calls for rethinking how ICE conducts itself, especially in Minneapolis as tensions build.

The members of the Journal ed board make little effort to conceal what they're really worried about:

Whether he likes it or not, most of the burden now lies with Mr. Trump as the President who controls ICE. He would be wise to pause ICE enforcement in the Twin Cities to ease tensions and consider a less provocative strategy. Yes, many on the left would conclude that their civil disobedience has paid off. But Mr. Trump can still pursue enforcement with a smaller force and a strategy aimed at criminals, not at hotel maids and gardeners.

... This is backfiring against Republicans....

[Stephen] Miller’s mass deportation methods are turning immigration, an issue Mr. Trump owned in 2024, into a political liability for Republicans in 2026.

So the issues are two:

1. Leave the hotel maids and gardeners our readers hire at cheap wages alone!
2. Back off or Democrats will win the midterms in a blowout!

I suspect that the one-two punch of Trump's Greenland misadventure and his jackbooted thuggery in Minneapolis have unsettled the billionaire class. On Greenland, they watched as Trump took a wrecking ball to NATO and nearly motivated Europe to unleash a set of trade measures that could have frozen American firms out of the European market. Now plutocrats are reading poll after poll showing that Trump has alienated middle-of-the-road voters on immigration. They probably have nightmare visions of a Mamdani-esque Congress in 2027 (if only), and they want Trump to back down.

Something has made Chuck Schumer and other non-Fetterman Democrats in the Senate feel it's okay to block funding for the Department of Homeland Security, even if it means a partial government shutdown. Something has inspired even some middle-of-the-road Democrats to call for Kristi Noem's impeachment. (The number of Democrats in the House who are sponsoring a Noem impeachment resolution is now 120.) Something has made a few of the usually supine congressional Republicans feel they need to call for an independent investigation of the Pretti shooting.

I think the donor class is worried -- worried that Republicans in competitive districts and states will lose to Democrats, worried that meek centrist Democrats will lose to progressives. I think America's Establishment no longer feels it can insulate itself from Trumpian chaos, and that's the main reason Trump is losing the mainstream press, as well as moderate and semi-moderate officeholders, right now.