If you want to understand the phenomenon of national populism, in the US and around the world, you could do a lot worse than to subscribe to Ryan Girdusky's National Populist Newsletter.

In a piece published today, he explains why, beyond the cat memes and the allegations about eating cats, the situation in Springfield should concern all people of good faith. It's a great and important read.

There's a number of things he points out.

For example, that TPS, the program under which these Haitians are real, was stretched way past its mandate by the Biden-Harris Administration. Originally intended as a short-term measure, TPS has allowed over 860,000 people to reside in the U.S. indefinitely, and the Biden-Harris Administration expanded TPS for Haitians from 59,000 to 200,000.

Girdusky looks at the data on the economic impact of the arrival of the Haitians: From April 2022 to July 2024, Haitian Medicaid applications in Springfield rose from around 300 to over 8,000. He also demonstrates how the surge of migrant workers has led to lower wages in the area. He also finds that rents have increased, partly due to government-funded nonprofit assistance for recent TPS applicants.

But it's not just the economics. Haitian migrants have much higher incarceration rates than white Americans (Springfield was 68% white American before the Haitian influx).

Concludes Girdusky:

Mass immigration, especially through the current TPS system, which allows over 860,000 people to reside in the U.S. indefinitely, comes at severe costs that are not being discussed.

If Trump does win another term, he should allow the TPS status to expire for most of these countries and stop the endless magnet of migrants brought to the U.S.

Amen.

Policy News You Need to Know

#FinReg — New Trump campaign promise: a temporary cap of 10% on credit card interest rates. Obviously this will horrify free-marketers, and we don't really have much to say in favor of it, except for the fact that he claims it will be temporary. As we have previously written, price controls can indeed "work" in the short run. The problem is that prices are the result of market signals. If the cap stays in place for too long, the simple result is that poor people simply won't be able to access credit—which may actually be a good thing! But it surely won't be popular.

#Immigration — For a long time, particularly in the post-9/11 years, we heard that America was uniquely good at assimilating Muslim immigrants, and that by and large Muslim immigrants to the US were exemplary patriots. Unlike those weirdoes in socialist Europe. Well, maybe. But it looks like that may not be the case for long. After Israel's amazing attack on Hizbullah, there are reports of Muslim communities in Dearborn, MI expressing sympathy for Hizbollah. For example, reportedly, a mosque in Dearborn released a flier for a memorial service being held for Fadl Abbas Bazzi, a Hezbollah terrorist. That's…not good. Immigrants aren't just about GDP. They must be a cultural fit with the host country.

#Immigration — The House just passed the Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act (H.R. 7909). The bill would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to make certain aliens inadmissible and deportable if they have been convicted of or committed sex offenses, domestic violence, stalking, child abuse, or violations of protection orders, and mandate deportation and ban re-entry for convictions related to sexual assault, rape, and child abuse. All Republicans voted for. 158 Democrats voted against.

#DEI — Colleges are bracing for lawsuits to enforce the Supreme Court's recent decisions on affirmative action, reports Inside Higher Ed. As we previously reported, as admissions stats from colleges have been trickling out, it's been clear that while some colleges are trying to enforce the ruling, others are clearly defying it, showing essentially no change in their racial mix. As AEI's Frederick Hess was writing earlier this year, those who care about racial equality and non-discrimination in higher education admissions can't just take colleges at their word. "Legislation, litigation, and continued scrutiny," as Hess rightly puts it, will be necessary to reach a better place of race-blind college admissions.

#HigherEd — At Brookings, Phillip Levine asks: "Should college endowments be taxed?" (We know our answer.)

#DEI — You may recall that there was a very famous study that purported to show that black newborns were less likely to pass away if cared for by a black physician after birth. This purportedly showed the evils of systemic racism. The study was even cited by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. It turns out that Manhattan Institute Fellow Robert VerBruggen and Harvard Professor George Borjas have looked at the study's math, and proved that it's not true, because it doesn't control for birth weight. Oops.

#Migrants — Oh look, a news item that combines immigration, DEI, merit, and education! From WGN, a local radio in Chicago: "Chicago Public Schools teachers say they were told by administrators to give migrant students passing grades."

#Politics — If you've got time today, you may want to watch JD Vance's full interview with Tucker Carlson, and not just because of Vance's cool dog Atlas. You can tell that Vance is more comfortable in that setting and he opens up, and discusses serious issues in some depth, such as the possibility of a run on Treasury bonds, push polls and disingenuous online polls, the role of journalists as information brokers (shocking, we know), and more. You may fall out of your chair when he claims illegal immigration, foreign wars, and foreign aids, are bigger burdens on the budget than Social Security and Medicare. Well, it is an election year…

#Politics — A new Axios report confirms that hiding from the press is a deliberate Harris-Walz campaign strategy. Oh boy.

#Politics — Today, the House Oversight Committee is holding a hearing on "the consequences of the Biden-Harris Administration's policy failures." You can watch here. Remind us, are we in an election year?

#SecondAmendment — This is a good clip from John R. Lott Jr of the Crime Prevention Research Center: Hollywood portrays civilian gun owners as fools, more likely to do harm than good, but the statistics show that this is wrong, and that armed civilians save lives all the time.