The One Thing You Should Be Reading This Week, and Every Week

I’d meant to warn you that my vacation plans would preclude a Friday roundup, but I forgot, and anyway, there is so much good stuff coming out from Commonplace every day that warrants highlighting. So this is your reminder to read it every day, and follow @commonplc.

A couple of phenomenal features this week for your attention:

Michael Lind explains Why There Won’t Be a Deportation Apocalypse, with case studies from recent immigration crackdowns:

When strict measures targeting illegal immigrant employment in Florida, including an E-Verify mandate for employers with more than 25 workers, went into effect in the summer of 2023 with the support of Governor Ron DeSantis, the usual alliance of cheap-labor employer lobbyists, ethnic lobbyists, and progressives warned of catastrophic results for Florida’s economy. “DeSantis’s E-Verify Won’t Work, But If It Did It Would Be Terrible For Florida’s Economy,” predicted the libertarian pundit Brad Polumbo.

Instead, Florida boomed in 2023 and 2024, leading the nation in GDP growth with 9.2%. Despite predictions of abandoned construction sites, the number of construction jobs increased, while predicted increases in food prices in Florida never materialized.

And in No Going Back for the GOP, leading Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini argues, “it’s time for Republican consultants to accept that Trump’s working-class realignment is here to stay.” He warns:

The Republican Party has been handed a great gift: a detoxification of the party’s image as a narrow coalition of rich CEOs and aging white voters. But it doesn’t seem clear that the sherpas guiding the party’s candidates beyond Donald Trump know exactly what to do with this gift.

In the week since its launch, Commonplace has also covered TikTok and the First Amendment, Facebook’s fact-checkers, keys to success for DOGE, the future of ESG, the New Right’s competing foreign policy camps, the work-from-home baby boom, and more.

Get used to checking Commonplace regularly, and seeing it everywhere—it is already the best publication for keeping abreast of what conservatives are thinking and arguing about.