Play-It-Safe Democrats Were Wrong Again

Sign up for the Surge, the newsletter that covers most important political nonsense of the week, delivered to your inbox every Saturday. Hello once again from the Surge, Slate's roundup of the most relevant characters of the week in the delightful novel called United States Politics in 2025. I'm Ben Mathis-Lilley, filling in for Jim Newell, who is currently protesting the administration's refusal to exempt bananas from import tariffs, even though they can't be grown at scale domestically, by standing outside the Department of Commerce dressed as a sad banana. This week we had the usual mess of absurd economic chaos and disconcerting announcements from people who are shutting down entire government departments on the basis of things they saw on Facebook. But first, the preliminary public opinion verdict on whether Donald Trump should have unlimited Judge Dredd powers is in … and it's not good news for Mr. Dredd's many fans in the White House.