Here’s why our politics are screwed up in one headline.

Here’s the story, no paywall.

At most, 45 percent of Republicans said they knew about legal issues: specifically, the documents case and his being found liable for assaulting the writer E. Jean Carroll. Only a quarter knew about the value-inflation suit, and only 4 in 10 knew about the criminal charges in Manhattan related to the hush money payments to adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.

How could they not know? The answer must be that they’re not consuming real news from anywhere. And if they don’t know even this how could they possibly understand anything else that’s going on? No wonder they make such stupid choices in the voting booth.

I guess if they ever do hear about this stuff it’s going to be a real shock to them. The penalty in the value-inflation suit should happen next week. Maybe they’ll hear about that. Trump seems to want to use his legal problems as a campaign platform to persuade voters that the Biden Administration has “weaponized” the government againsst him, so they’ll hear about it eventually. Maybe.

But if you go to the poll results, you see it isn’t just Republicans. There’s a remarkable lack of awareness across the political spectrum. Only 35 percent of all voters age 18-29 knew that Trump had been found liable for sexually assaulting and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll. This poll was being taken during the second trial. How could they not know? 

The Democrats need to be getting this information in front of the voters, somehow.

In other Trump news, recent campaign finance filings revealed that Trump’s weird “union” rally in Detroit during the auto workers’ strike was entirely paid for by the Trump campaign. It was intended to give the impression that he was addressing a real auto workers’ rally, I guess. It didn’t work.

As near as I understand them, yesterday’s airstrikes against Iran-backed militants in the Middle East was a sane response to the deaths of three U.S. service members. Lindsey Graham would have started World War III. Trump would have blamed the soldiers for not getting out of the way of drone strikes.

As mentioned yesterday, Trump’s PACs spent about $50 million in legal fees in 2023. Today David Kurtz at TPM asks what Trump might be getting for his money.

Trump using campaign funds to defend himself is one thing, but it’s the use of those dollars to provide criminal defenses to co-defendants, witnesses, and other associates that pushes the political envelope in ways we’ve never really seen before. He’s buying loyalty. He’s paying for adherence to the defense strategy his lawyers are mapping out for him. He’s circling the wagons to protect himself at the expense of others and of the public good. And he’s doing it at the same time he’s running for president again.

Do read the whole thing. Kurtz says that legal feels are eating about a quarter of Trump’s campaign donations. It’s likely that percentage will get higher in 2024.

Regarding the border “crisis”:  I found this chart on the Cato Institute web page, of all places.

My goodness! As soon as Trump became POTUS the number of “illegals” who successfully crossed into the U.S. went up and up and up! And here he is going around bragging that while he was POTUS we had the most secure border in history! Clearly it was more secure during the Obama Administration.

Here’s the link to the Cato page. It argues that Trump’s policies made the problem worse.

The Trump border policy had a single??minded focus: keep out asylum seekers. Yet the ability to apply for asylum meant that fewer people tried to sneak in. One border crosser in 2018 told the Wall Street Journal that he had turned himself into the first Border Patrol agent he saw and was seeking “the immigration office.” Rather than direct these crossers to legal crossing points, the Trump administration blocked applicants from applying at ports of entry.

After first separating families and then attempting ban asylum, Trump started returning asylum seekers to Mexico to await hearings in homeless camps on the other side of the border line. This led to a wave of crimes against immigrants. Some were kidnapped, other raped, and some murdered. When the pandemic hit, the government suspended all hearings for those already returned to Mexico and began expelling all others with no hearing all.

It was inevitable that as the opportunity to obtain asylum disappeared or the costs to do so increased (such as through family separation). A greater percentage of people would attempt to sneak around ports of entry.

I’m not hearing this discussed anywhere. It needs to be.

Speaking of other things that need more attention — if you didn’t catch Chris Hayes last night, here is his opening segment. Worth watching.

Finally, the Quinnipiac University poll sees better election odds for Joe Biden.

As signs point to the 2024 presidential election being a repeat of the 2020 race between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, Biden holds a lead over Trump 50 – 44 percent among registered voters in a hypothetical general election matchup, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University national poll of registered voters released today.

In Quinnipiac University’s December 20, 2023 poll, the same hypothetical 2024 general election matchup was ‘too close to call’ as President Biden received 47 percent support and former President Trump received 46 percent support.

The biggest change was among women voters moving to Biden. Fallout from the E. Jean Carroll trial?