Polls show that Americans are remarkably consistent about what they care about most.

According to Paradigm’s macro authority Jim Rickards, the top concern is overwhelmingly economic — jobs, prices and what those two forces mean for everyday life.

Rising unemployment and rising costs are now bundled into a single word: affordability. As Jim notes, that word will dominate the run-up to the 2026 midterm elections.

What surprises many observers is what doesn’t rank highly. Despite headlines about the war in Ukraine, instability in the Middle East or geopolitical flashpoints elsewhere, foreign policy barely registers for most voters.

“Americans are far more concerned with the price of gasoline and groceries,” Jim says. It’s not apathy; it’s practicality.

Just behind the issue of affordability, however, sit two issues that Americans see as deeply intertwined: crime and immigration.

Your Rundown for Friday, December 19, 2025...

When Standards Collapse

Jim is careful to make an important distinction here. The concern is not immigration itself, but illegal immigration.

The United States has long welcomed legal immigrants. What’s changed, Jim argues, is not America’s openness, but its standards.

Under Biden-era policies, millions crossed the border illegally with little to no screening. Jim points out the irony: at the same time Americans were threatened with job losses over pandemic mandates, unvetted migrants entered freely, with no comparable scrutiny.

Beyond security risks, Jim points to the economic consequences. In sanctuary states, for instance, illegal immigrants quickly qualify for Medicaid, public education, food assistance, housing subsidies and other programs — costs that now run into the hundreds of billions of dollars.

There’s also a labor-market effect. Access to drivers’ licenses opens the door to low-paying jobs, suppressing wages. As Jim puts it: “The low pay ensures that [working Americans] further up the pay scale can’t get a raise” — one reason large corporations quietly favor open borders.

Yet Jim emphasizes that cost is not the most serious problem. Drawing on historian Victor Davis Hanson, Jim points out the real danger: “In the past, immigration was predicated on assimilation.”

Immigrants were expected to learn English, work, contribute and participate in civic life. For generations, that process produced business leaders, public servants and Americans with deep roots.

Today, Jim warns, the opposite trend is taking hold. Instead of assimilation, the country is fracturing into cultural enclaves and tribal identities. Shared norms weaken. Social trust erodes. Friction rises.

Jim briefly turns to history — not as an academic detour, but as a cautionary parallel. Ancient Rome, he notes, didn’t fall overnight.

One critical turning point came when Roman citizenship shifted from a hard-earned status with defined obligations to something granted simply by inhabiting Roman territory.

When borders ceased to matter and assimilation ceased to exist, Roman identity dissolved. Tribalism replaced cohesion. Violence followed.

The lesson, Jim suggests, when citizenship loses meaning and obligations disappear, societies don’t strengthen. They fracture.

And that brings the issue back to the present moment.

Crime, immigration, wages, social cohesion — these aren’t abstract debates. As Jim sees it, the political stakes are enormous, not just for midterm elections, but for the long-term stability of the nation itself.

In Jim’s words, the warning is clear: “The end of Roman citizenship as a privilege meant the end of Roman culture and eventually the end of Rome itself.

“Let’s hope America is not the new Rome,” he concludes, “doomed to fail because of open borders.”

Market Rundown for Friday, December 19, 2025

S&P 500 futures are slightly to 6,830.

Oil’s up 0.85% to $56.60 for a barrel of WTI.

Gold’s hanging out at $4,365.90 per ounce.

And, at the time of writing, Bitcoin’s up 3.60%, just under $88K.