Trump Wants GOP To Make His Immigration Policies The Center Of The 2018 Campaign
Donald Trump wants Republicans to make his immigration policies the centerpiece of the midterm campaign. What could possibly go wrong?
When 2018 began, Republicans were convinced that they had latched on to an issue that would help them to buck history in the upcoming midterm elections and either actually gain seats in the House and/or Senate or at least stave off their losses sufficiently to maintain control of one, or hopefully both, bodies in the fall elections. That issue, of course, was the Tax Cuts And Jobs Act that had been passed the previous month and which they were convinced would lead to economic and jobs growth that would cause voters to lean in the GOP’s direction when they head to the voting booth in November. As time has gone on, though, this strategy has proven to be less than met the eye at the time. For one thing, polling continues to show that the tax cut remains, at best, controversial among the public as a whole in no small part because it has not been apparent that the economy would boom in the way Republicans promised in the wake of the tax cuts. Second, economic statistics so far this year have failed to show the kind of economic growth that the GOP was hoping for heading into the fall. To be sure, the economy continues to move forward, but it’s continuing to grow at roughly the same pace we saw in the later years of the Obama Administration. Additionally, while the jobs growth numbers have been mostly positive wage growth has been sluggish notwithstanding the fact that unemployment is arguably reaching a rate where employers should be under pressure to raise wages in order to keep employees from wandering to better opportunities. Finally, Trump himself seems uneager to focus on tax cuts as a 2018 election issue. Instead, he’s been focusing on issues that seem designed to appeal to the base such as the N.F.L. National Anthem protests and, according to a report in The New York Times, immigration:
WASHINGTON — As Republicans try to keep their midterm election strategy focused on the economy, tax cuts and falling unemployment, President Trump sent his clearest signal yet on Monday that he intends to make divisive, racially charged issues like immigration central going into the campaign season.
Facing bipartisan criticism over his administration’s family separation practice on the border, Mr. Trump renewed the sort of bald and demagogic attacks on undocumented immigrants that worked well for him politically in his 2016 presidential campaign. He inveighed against “the death and destruction that’s been caused by people coming into this country” and vowed that “the United States will not be a migrant camp and it will not be a refugee holding facility.”
Republicans typically handle immigration gingerly in an election year, as they try to appeal to Hispanic voters, independents and moderates across divergent districts. But with more Americans still opposing the tax measure than supporting it, Mr. Trump’s allies believe that trying to link Democrats to crimes committed by undocumented immigrants and gangs like MS-13 will do more to galvanize Republican voters and get them to the polls in November than emphasizing economic issues.
“People don’t turn out to say thank you,” said Corey Lewandowski, one of the president’s top political advisers. “If you want to get people motivated, you’ve got to give them a reason to vote. Saying ‘build the wall and stop illegals from coming in and killing American citizens’ gives them an important issue.”
This fear-oriented approach reflects the degree that Mr. Trump has put his anti-immigration imprint on the Republican Party. The same raw appeals Mr. Trump made in 2016 about immigrants illegally crossing the border have not abated among most of his Republican supporters.
And his supporters say the party has little choice in an election where Democrats are eager to register their opposition to a president they despise — and that the only way to succeed in a campaign driven by turning out the party base is to focus on what grass-roots conservatives care most about.“It’s an issue folks are emotionally attached to,” said Andy Surabian, a Republican strategist and former Trump aide. “I know that upsets some people in the donor class, but it’s the reality of where the party is.”
Mr. Trump’s anti-immigrant remarks are aimed at the conservative base of the party that elevated his candidacy and is dominant in red states and House districts, especially those with largely white populations. The Republican grass-roots were already hawkish on immigration, while the president’s takeover of the party has further diminished its pragmatist wing. And while hard-line Republicans are a minority of the country’s voters, the G.O.P. cannot retain its grip on Congress without this bedrock of its base going to the polls.
On some level, I suppose, it’s not surprising that Trump would fall back on immigration as the issue to rally Republicans around this year. More than anything else, it was the issue that defined his campaign for the Presidency starting from the day that he entered the race when he referred to Mexican immigrants as mostly consisting of rapists and other violent criminals and called for a border wall to the day that he first announced what became his Muslim Travel Ban. It arguably won him the Republican nomination and, along with his rhetoric on trade and other issues, became the defining issue of his General Election campaign against Hillary Clinton. Having seen it’s apparent success in 2016, Trump no doubt believes that he can succeed again this year and manage to buck history and turn what could be a bad year for the Republican Party into something more akin to the 2002 midterms when Republicans actually gained seats in Congress in the wake of the September 11th attacks.
Notwithstanding this, though, there are several reasons to doubt that it will sustain the same momentum it did in 2016, and a good reason for that can be seen in the current crisis on the border being created by the Administration’s policy regarding separating parents and children. As I noted earlier today, polling is already indicating that the vast majority of Americans oppose the policy even though Republicans tend to support it, and Republicans are starting to worry that this policy, as well as the Administration’s position on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, could end up hurting them in the fall:
Just five months before the midterm elections, Republicans are scrambling to distance themselves from the Trump administration’s widely panned “zero tolerance” immigration policy that has resulted in the separation of children from their families at the southern border.
As images of children being held in cages at detention centers near the border flash across television screens, Republicans are being pressured to take a stand on Trump’s controversial policy, as the President and the administration continue to place blame on Congress for inaction on immigration legislation.
One of the strongest statements criticizing the administration came late Monday from Rep. Steve Stivers, who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOP’s campaign arm. In a sign of just how damaging Republicans believe this issue can be in the fall, Stivers said he was writing a letter “to understand the current policies and to ask the Administration to stop needlessly separating children from their parents.”
“If the policy is not changed, I will support other means to stop unnecessary separation of children from their parents,” he added.
The statement is a clear signal to vulnerable Republicans worried about keeping their seats in November that they can break with Trump on this issue.
One senior Republican operative, who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity to speak candidly about a hot-button topic, said the story was “hitting home.”
“Worst of all, it’s not just affecting border districts but suburban women as well,” the operative added.
The Trump administration is facing wave of criticism from popular GOP figures over its separation of families. Former first lady Laura Bush wrote that the family separation policy is “cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart.” Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, the nation’s most popular governor, revoked his offer to send National Guard help to the southern border because “the federal government’s current actions are resulting in the inhumane treatment of children.”
Trump’s former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci called it “an atrocious policy” on CNN Monday. “It’s inhumane. It’s offensive to the average American,” he said.
Additionally, The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board is issuing similar warnings:
Are Republicans trying to lose their majorities in Congress this November? We assume not, but you can’t tell from the party’s internal feuding over immigration that is fast becoming an election-year nightmare over separating immigrant children from their parents. This is what happens when restrictionists have a veto over GOP policy.
Democrats fanned out across the U.S. this weekend to highlight the turmoil caused by the Trump Administration’s new “zero-tolerance” policy of detaining all adult aliens crossing the border illegally. That means separating parents from children who arrive together because courts have said migrant children can’t be jailed.
(…)
The immediate solution should be for the Administration to end “zero-tolerance” until it can be implemented without dividing families. Congress can also act to allow migrants to be detained with children in facilities appropriate for families. Until that is possible, better to release those who have no criminal past rather than continue forced separation.
This episode underscores the larger GOP dysfunction as it debates how to deal with the former immigrant children known as Dreamers. The threat of Dreamer deportation isn’t imminent while the courts consider Barack Obama’s legalization order and Donald Trump’s revocation of that order. But it is sure to return with urgency next year.
A bipartisan majority in Congress wants to solve the problem of these young adults brought to the U.S. illegally as minors. But a minority of House Republicans continues to block a compromise that would solve the Dreamer problem and give Mr. Trump more money for border security.
(…)
This is self-destructive politics. This year is the GOP’s best opportunity for immigration reform in a decade. If Republicans lose their House majority, they will have less leverage when the Supreme Court rules on legalization for Dreamers. If the Obama program is upheld, Mr. Trump won’t have obtained money for his border wall or anything else.
As for November, House control will be won or lost in swing districts where legalizing the Dreamers is popular and separating families isn’t. Members like California’s Steve Knight and Florida’s Carlos Curbelo need to show voters that they’re working toward a solution for Dreamers.
Even better would be for Congress to pass the leadership’s compromise that legalizes Dreamers, ends the family separation fiasco, and gives Mr. Trump some of his priorities. Republicans would solve a problem while depriving Democrats of a potent issue.
But that will only happen if Mr. Trump sells it. On immigration he’s been a study in confusion, one day preaching compassion for Dreamers while deploring “amnesty” the next. The smart play is for Republicans to show they can solve at least some immigration problems.
If Mr. Trump wants to lose the House and risk impeachment, he’ll take Mr. Bannon’s bad advice and keep giving Democrats a daily picture of children stripped from their parents.
Given all of this and the polling that I mentioned earlier, the rational thing for Republicans and the Administration at this point would be to stop the bleeding by ending the family separation policy immediately and at least trying to find a solution to the DACA issue that could pass both chambers of Congress. The odds of this actually happening, though, seem to be somewhere between slim and none. While several Republicans on Capitol Hill, including Ted Cruz, are introducing legislation to deal with the family separation issue, the Presidents apparent insistence that any immigration bill sent to him include coverage for border wall funding as well as an end to so-called “chain migration” and the visa lottery makes the odds of anything making it through Congress seem slim at best. This evening, President Trump is headed to Capitol Hill to meet with Congressional Republicans to discuss the immigration issue. Whether or not that meeting is successful in coming up with a proposal should become apparent rather quickly, but the odds aren’t looking very good. Meanwhile, the reports about children being taken from their parents continue to mount and get worse by the day. If the White House hopes to use this issue in the fall, it’s going to have to do something about this soon, otherwise, things could turn very sour very quickly. Instead of dealing with these issues, though, Trump seems determined to make things more difficult for his party.
Hmm. So you’re telling me the guy who got elected President when you and literally everyone else on Earth though he didn’t have a chance in hell has come up with a strategy for political success in 2018…and you’re confidently dismissing it as a sure loser? Thanks for confirming with me that Donald Trump is always wrong, no matter how many times he may be right. I was starting to waver there for a minute.
Mike
I wouldn’t put much stock in this. At the moment Trump may be scrambling to fix the current child-snatching mess.
Session’s odd attempt to frame this biblically may reflect an internal awareness that just maybe some of their evangelical base might refuse to board this train. Was the Pope consulted? Probably not, but will be soon and it will not be pretty.
Indeed Cruz, et al bailed out very quickly. The incoherence of claiming it to be good policy while at the same time blaming Democrats for making them do appears mad scrambling, an indication of awareness of a mistake. Mad scrambling is as close as it gets to acknowledging mistakes, really.
Anywho, it may be unwise to view any comment from Trump at the moment as the announcement of long term policy.
FTFY Doug. You’ll get my bill in the mail.
@MBunge: You mean drawing to an inside straight while playing roulette was a strategy? Huh. The things I learn here.
Trump’s identity politics may have worked in 2016, but it is unlikely to work in 2018 since the electorate is completely different. Midterm electorates tend to be older, whiter, but they are more educated. College educated whites despise Trump and they vote in numbers and many of them live those 23 controlled district that Hillary won in 2016.
There is also the fact that we have seen Trump wannabes type candidates getting destroyed in the special elections.
You can continue to pretend that Trump is some type of genius and the elites just don’t get it. But you just aren’t paying attention to the current political environment in 2018. Trump is unpopular and has done nothing since being elected to expanded beyond his 46% voting share (in fact, he is basically down to his base support). This is a recipe for disaster in the midterms since the party is tied to the political wellbeing of the President.
@MBunge:
We know Russia is already helping…you don’t mind the US being attacked…we know that.
Do you think the Director of the FBI will put his thumb on the scale again?
I’m afraid that I have to disagree with this. A good 20% of the country would shoot those kids in the face and post a selfie on Facebook. Another 15% would tut tut and before giving something close to full-throated approval. And let’s not forget the last part who would feel a bit queasy before remembering something about Hillary’s email server, or the fact that Obama confiscated all those guns. No, a cooly rational approach remembers on which side the bread is buttered. All three of those groups are sewn up. The counter revolution has plenty of head room. One more judge on the Supreme Court and the pace can and will quicken.
Trump would like to believe, and probably has convinced himself, that his base constitutes 75-80% of the electorate.
This is when Hitler comparisons come in handy.
If you can put Hitler’s massive evil aside, big effing if, you can see him for what he was: an amateur who thought he knew better than everyone else, easily swayed by trusted advisers, mistrustful of experts, disdainful of norms. Sound familiar?
His early victories were against ill-prepared armies, and one huge betrayal of Stalin. Once he went up against enemies better prepared, he could hardly move an inch in any direction, and eventually Germany was drawn and quartered (quite literally).
In the interim he rejected tactical means he disliked, changed tactics which were working but didn’t satisfy him, put too much stock on other amateurs, etc. Sound familiar? Not to mention his misguided racism did more to help the allies, by driving the cream of Europe’s scientific community to England and America, than his putative allies in the Axis ever could do to help him (Hell, Mussolini alone did more to beat Germany than anyone else in the early years).
The analogy isn’t perfect, no analogy is, but we can see some similarities.
Good the only way to purge the disease.
Yup.
His narcissism will be his political undoing in the long run. He governs like he won a landslide like Nixon did in 72 or Reagan did in 84. Three states gave him the election and the average total margin was about the same as the average attendance of a game for the Dallas Cowboys.
A competent politician in this situation would have pushed for popular legislation to build up a larger coalition. Nope, Trump decides to push for a muslim ban and strip away healthcare from millions. Things that are so unpopular even red state Democrats bailed on him.
But according to Mbunge this is a political genius.
On twitter they’re saying a poll shows 47% of trumpers “strongly support” separating the kids from their parents, only 8% disapprove.
@Yank:
When Trump said he’d won by the largest electoral college vote in history, he was corrected. He changed that boast to, “Well, I won by the largest electoral vote of any Republican.” When he was again corrected, his response was, “Someone told me that.”
This is his default position when he’s caught out in a lie. Either someone (never named) “told him” something, or the lie is something “many people are saying.”
@Yank:
But he won by the biggest margin ever. he said so. Are you implying he might be mistaken?
Actually, that was the first thing I thought when he won the Electoral College. He’s in a very similar situation to that of Bill Clinton, right down to being despised by the other side. Worse, really, since he didn’t even get the most votes. Inevitably, I thought, he’ll have to reach out even a little, and explain to his base that he has to give in a bit in order to get everything else he wants.
The irony is that if he had done so, rather than trying to bash the opposition and annoy and anger the other side every single minute of every day, he’d be quite popular by now due to the strong economy.
It is as I’ve said many times before: the incompetence of The Grand Cheeto of the Tiny Hands and Ugly Combover serves as the only check on him. Fortunately he’s so incompetent as to beggar belief.
The other thing is that he is his own worst enemy. So the rest of us, and there are a lot of us, are number two. We therefore have to try harder.
Given the triple-degree weather that Texas is predicted to soon have, we had better hope that whoever is in charge of those tents makes sure those kids are kept ALIVE.
How many kids have to die before people like Mbunge admit that Trump is a total incompetent?
@MBunge: “Hmm. So you’re telling me the guy who got elected President when you and literally everyone else on Earth though he didn’t have a chance in hell has come up with a strategy for political success in 2018…”
Hmmm. So you’re telling me the guy who knocked over Poland in days and took over France in minutes when you and literally everyone else on Earth thought he didn’t have a chance in hell has come up with a strategy for military success in Russia… and you’re confidently dismissing it as a sure loser?
@Kathy: Beat me to it!
So I’ll add a PS for Bungles — one reason Trump won is because a lot of people who didn’t like him didn’t bother to vote since Hillary was a sure win. You want to put money on anyone who doesn’t like Trump not voting now?
The thing about Clinton is that he had the capacity to learn from his mistakes. Clinton overreached badly in his first couple of years and the Democrats paid for it in the midterms. But he learned from it and adjusted accordingly. You won’t get that kind of self refection from Trump because his a narcissistic moron, who can’t admit when he is wrong. He will just double down and make things worse for himself.
@grumpy realist: “How many kids have to die before people like Mbunge admit that Trump is a total incompetent?”
Dead kids won’t do it. But if Trump’s poll numbers start plummeting, if he gets shellacked in the midterms, and certainly if he loses in 2020 (or is impeached before then), Bungles will be posting messages insisting he never voted for Trump and in fact was against him the whole time.
When has he been right!?
Meanwhile, Republicans should go all in on this…let them make the kapo-like Stephen Miller the face of the GOP…I’m sure that’ll do wonders for their electoral chances…
Hmmm. When I saw the headline of this post the first thought that came to my mind:
“Please proceed Governor”
@wr:
I’m re-reading “The Internationalists,” and am currently on the chapters dealing with the rise of Nazi Germany, so the idea was in my mind since the drive to work.
I think that was a part of it, but also that she wasn’t that popular with the Democrats. Like many Bernie voters voted for Stein, not because they rather Trump won, but because they thought Clinton would win anyway
@CSK:
That’s close to how it went down, but not exactly. In late 2016 a written statement by the Trump Transition team contained the following statement: “The election ended a long time ago in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history.” This claim was so utterly absurd that by February he’d abandoned it for a relatively more modest claim: he said he’d scored the largest electoral victory since Reagan. It was that claim that was challenged by a reporter at a press conference. It was pointed out that Obama and Clinton had won more EVs. Trump then insisted he meant largest victory in that period by a Republican; then the reporter pointed out that George H.W. Bush won more EVs in 1988, and that’s when Trump said somebody told him this information (as if that’s an excuse for stating something that could be checked in under a minute with Google).
A perfect encapsulation of how this administration continuously lies and is trying to delude everyone when it comes to this issue…
By all means, please do so.
That’s hilarious!
@Kylopod:
I see I conflated the story; thanks for the supplements. It’s a bit like the afternoon during which Trump changed his position on abortion three times: First, he said the woman having the abortion should be punished. Then he said the provider should be punished. Then he concluded that the laws should be left the way they are.
What fascinates me is how the Trumpkins so easily accept Trump’s inconsistency concerning their allegedly deepest held convictions. Is this what they mean about taking him seriously, but not literally? Well, obviously you can’t take the man literally, since he has no convictions and whatever passes for his views changes from hour to hour. But I would ask them, given that Trump has no core, and lies as reflexively as he breathes, why they trust him to keep his word. And what is that word? It changes from moment to moment.
This makes me very nervous.
It’s not as if Trump downplayed his open racism during the Presidential election.
I’d like to think that our (collective) better angels will prevail and we will put this horrendous ideology back to the fringes where it belongs.
But if this election is again about xenophobia towards immigrants and the Republicans win again …
As unthinkable as it would have been to imagine just a few years ago, I’d have to seriously consider whether this is the kind of country I want my little half Hispanic daughters to grow up in … if it’s not already too late to even find alternative places to go by that point.
I made a post on twitter about a month ago: “This will either end up being a very dark chapter in our history, or the last chapter in the history of America as we’ve known it.”
Sadly, I’m not totally confident in the “dark chapter” outcome … and that is terrifying.
@Todd:
Truthfully, you won’t really grasp just how toxic society in the US has become until you’ve removed yourself from it and have the luxury of perspective viewed from without.
We didn’t – until we did. That realization prompted us to begin liquidating the remaining ties – mostly property – that still linked us to the US. We won’t be returning. The odd thing is that pre-exit me would have thought I’d feel nostalgia and a sense of loss at making such a decision.
What I actually feel about it instead is neither of the above. Not even remotely. I wish the US the best, to be certain, but I suspect that things will get a great deal worse there before they get any better.
If indeed they ever do.
I really hope Trump pursues this focus for the midterms. One invaluable thing Trump has given the country is his rejection of the dog whistles that have been the stock and trade of the Republicans since Reagan. It could be clarifying.
I’ve heard a lot of “Is this who we are as a country?” over the last few days as the real world ramifications of the child separation policy has come into public view. Despite his obfuscations, Trump has predominantly let his racist freak flag fly and there’s been no meaningful pushback from GOP officials. If this holds to November, the choice facing voters couldn’t be clearer. Should Trump and his party retain power in the end with such stark options, the question of who we are will be answered unequivocally.
I wish I was more confident of the outcome, but the clarity would be welcomed regardless.
@HarvardLaw92: Oh, I’ve lived all over the world … was a military brat, then active duty myself. Right off the top of my head, I can think of a number of places I’d happily live if they’d have me. Logistically, it might not be such an easy lift, so for this (among many other) reasons I’d prefer to be dead wrong about these fears … which part of me still wants to believe are at least slightly irrational.
@Todd:
Part of my experience obviously stems from my family history. I grew up quite resolutely aware of humanity’s capacity for evil. Jews are, and always have been, the canaries in the coal mine of civilization. Perhaps that makes me a tad more sensitive to the risk of and predisposed to assume the existence of danger than others, but in retrospect leaving was the right decision for a variety of reasons. In every measurable way, our quality of life has improved.
I may not be the most objective advisor, given my family history, but if that history taught me anything, it’s that Noah built the Ark before the storm. If you can in any way realistically make it work, I’d give it serious thought. I wish your family the best regardless.
@CSK:
The analogy that occurs to me is the Emperor’s New Clothes. Unfortunately, that analogy was a cliche long before Trump came along, but I feel it actually fits him better than it does past leaders. The crux of the tale is that everyone knows they can’t actually see the emperor’s clothes–yet through massive self-deception manage to convince themselves the clothes are indeed real.
Trump’s profound unfitness for the office is so glaringly obvious that I get the sense even most of his supporters are, at some level, aware of it. But they manage to turn themselves inside out coming up with rationalizations so they can maintain he’s somehow doing a great job. That’s why their arguments are so tortured and so frequently fall back on whataboutism.
MBunge and J@nos here, for instance, have often made muted references to Trump being ignorant and a loose cannon, but then they go on to try to minimize the importance of these factors and to shift the focus to how freaked out his opposition is by him (as if reacting emotionally to a walking catastrophe discredits our point of view).
Years from now, after the Trump era passes into the history books, I think almost everyone will look back on it and think “What in holy hell happened?”–and no one will have a good explanation.
@HarvardLaw92: Thank you.
I’m sorry that we’ve gotten to the point in this country where any of us feel the inclination to leave. But I’m glad it sounds like it’s working out well for you, even if the worst doesn’t happen here in the end.
It’s revelatory when trash like Jeff Sessions display their ignorance about Nazi Germany. But it’s not only Sessions–one of the conservative who comments here occasionally linked to an essay by another conservative moron which describes the Holocaust as a ‘conflict’ between Nazis and Jewish people. And this conservative moron–Scott Alexander aka slatestarcodex–is someone who is always lauded as being reasonable. Imagine how demented you have to be to think of the Holocaust as a conflict.
@MBunge: Of course it is. He’s guaranteed not to be running against the most unpopular democratic candidate ever…who he couldn’t even win a popular vote against.
Frankly, any man with a sense of snap back humor can easily defeat Trump. Obama the Black man made him look like such a small-memberd fool that we considered him as a joke Presidential candidate. Unfortunately for the country, the 2016 field for both Dems and Repubs were typical stick up the ass politicians that were grade-school student council types. Trump will assuredly not find himself so lucky in 2020
@Todd: I would hope that our better angels would prevail, but I’ve become convinced that we don’t have any angels at all, better or otherwise.
It’s getting to the point that I can hardly read this stuff anymore because of how ludicrous the situation has become. Where are the next Huey, Angela, and Eldridge?
@Jim Brown 32:
I read that and thought of Michael Avenatti. Not that I think he would be a good president (I don’t), but he’d turn Trump upside-down and mop the floor with his comb-over.
So, it turns out that Trump went to the Hill and …
Complained about the optics. He didn’t evince any concern that, you know, kids are being separated from their parents and kept in cages. He whined that it looks bad.
Of course it looks bad. Any breathing creature with an IQ above that of an amoeba could have pointed out that it was never going to look anything but bad.
Oh, and he also apparently whined that congressional Republicans aren’t supportive enough of him (as he’s busily stabbing them in the back) …
Amoral AND stupid in one spray tanned package. How much worse can you get?
Yeah, if you go and watch some videos of Obama in 2016 campaigning for Hillary. He really made Trump look like a complete joke. This is one reason why I think Biden could absolute annihilate Trump in 2020 even with all of his flaws.
It may seem like a silly thing, but having the ability to just roast your opponent and turn them into punchline is a remarkable skill to have as a politician. Just look what Joe did to Rudy in 2007 ( and he has never really recovered from that!).
I think everyone is losing sight of all the Americans who are going to have better lives because we’ve ripped baby’s from immigrant mothers arms.
Bunge gets it.
Speaking of amoral and stupid…this filth is the perfect representation of this depraved administration…
What’s the over and under on how many kids are orphaned because the Dennison Administration can’t keep track of them all?
Hundreds?
@Yank:
Eventually.
But that’s because, unlike the Cheeto, Bill Clinton was not convinced he was the smartest genius that ever lived or ever will live.
@HarvardLaw92: Vicious?
@Daryl and his brother Darryl: And will it be offset by the kids that die from lack of care?
I’m in a London hotel ready to end our three week trip (my wife’s #1 bucket list trip, two week Mediterranean cruise with a week extra in Barcelona and Athens) and realizing that the way this whole issue has unfolded in as depressing as hell. I truly believe Trump and his people would go the Nazi route, and a significant number of people in this country would follow them. And this is in relatively good economic times (I say relatively because things are great for the 10 percenters and the best you can say about rest is that the jobs are there but they sure haven’t benefitted much from 20 years of tax cuts and the bill will come due soon).
I think Todd’s comment is dead right, I pray that this will just be a dark chapter in American history. But there is something sick in the American psyche that Trump has been able to convince a significant portion of the population to follow him blindly. He is pure evil in a way that I have never seen in a national politician in this country.
@Lava land: ripping children from their parents arms is “making America great” again?
Well, I guess we know the integrity of YOUR character….
I see that you’re as full of $hit as your dear leader…he won because he got help from the Russians and from James Comey…
@grumpy realist: “How many kids have to die before people like Mbunge admit that Trump is a total incompetent?”
I would say ‘all of them’, but Mbunge would regard that as competence, since that’s what he wants.
I must confess I don’t want to see Trump impeached. I want the Dems to win enough seats in the House this fall to hogtie anything he sends to Congress. Watching Trump get red-faced on a daily basis when his base can’t do anything to help him would be priceless entertainment. Then I want to see him and Pence sent home in 2020, prior to facing federal charges.
@CSK: “What fascinates me is how the Trumpkins so easily accept Trump’s inconsistency concerning their allegedly deepest held convictions. Is this what they mean about taking him seriously, but not literally? ”
It’s important to remember that liars are liars are liars….
And that they’ll always double down on their lies.
@grumpy realist: I doubt LL has even a soul, much less any character.
A friend of mine on the Book of Faces this morning:
Well this is interesting:
Good for them.
@Barry:
Sure, I know that–that liars are liars. But it still doesn’t explain why the Trumpkins can continue to adore Trump when he lies to them, repeatedly and shamelessly. Is it that they don’t remember what he says from one minute to the next? Or does the fact that he drives non-Trumpkins into fits supersede every other consideration? “As long as Trump keeps annoying people I hate and resent, I don’t care if he destroys the country.”
@teve tory:
The one thing I have learned in my 60 years is that someday, somehow, someway, A-holes like Lewandowski always get theirs.
@OzarkHillbilly: Someone pointed out on twitter that lewandowski is, after all, a guy who was a campaign manager for a candidate who mocked a disabled reporter on national TV. Scumbags of a feather.
@HarvardLaw92: “I grew up quite resolutely aware of humanity’s capacity for evil. Jews are, and always have been, the canaries in the coal mine of civilization.”
Jews and gypsies. And Italy’s new government has just announced a program to deport all Roma from the country. We are replaying the 1930s, only this time our country will be on the side of the Fascists building concentration camps.
@teve tory:
And he also manhandled a young woman reporter and had a screaming fight with his then-inamorata Hope Hicks on a sidewalk in midtown Manhattan. I sometimes wonder what his wife and three kids stashed in New Hampshire think of all this.
I wouldn’t count on it.
This morning two of my Facebook friends, who are conservative women who don’t know each other, posted their exasperation at their lefty friends over how they’re acting. (Reacting?) These women are not hardcore racists. They’re not “deplorable.” They’re not even all that supportive of this policy. They are, however, very sick of the same old BS from the left.
Democrats in Congress going “Not one Republican supports our bill” when the only reason the Dem bill even exists is so they can say that. Rachel Maddow crying on TV, as if mountains can be moved with enough public shame and some effort-free performative morality.
You think that’s going to work on people like this?
Enough. It really really sucks, but the truth of the matter is that if you care about these people, like really care about them as human beings and not pawns in some political game, then swallow your pride, accept reality, and make a deal .
@James Pearce:
No. In fact, Hell No.
This time the Fucking Moron in Chief has gone beyond the pale. What the Democrats should do is stand up to him, and tell him: Mr. Trump, in this country we do not negotiate with terrorists.
Has anyone asked Sarah Palin how she feels about Lewandowski deriding the plight of a Down Syndrome child?
@James Pearce:
Ah the voice of moral collapse in the face of tyranny. The Good German.
@Kathy:
Then endure the family separations.
Trump’s banking on the separations being unendurable and the left eventually folding. You’re telling me you’ll never fold? Fine. Endure then.
@James Pearce:
So…. because they’re “sick of the left” they’d rather side with the group promoting a policy they “don’t support” and you don’t consider that deplorable? Honest to god, it’s like y’all don’t have dictionaries in whatever reality you live in.
I get y’all don’t want the negative social stigma attached to the terms. Nobody likes have a negative term leveled at them. But words have meaning, James and if you fit the definition, then the term can be applied to you. If your concern is more “OMG the lefties are being PC / uppity again” instead of the inherent cruelty of unnecessarily separating toddlers from parents, then you deserve strong condemnation AKA you’re deplorable.
A huge segment of Trump supporters want to do the act and but not get called the name. They don’t want the social judgement that comes with doing terrible things because they think themselves “good people”. Like “good people” can’t do bad things, can’t go to church then turn around and sin egregiously. Being a good person is basic requirements for humanity and you don’t get a cookie for meeting the bare minimum qualifications for decency. If you’re more concerned with how protesters are pissing you off then what injustice they’re protesting, yeah you’re acting deplorable.
@KM:
Pearce won’t take any stand on any issue unless it affords him an opportunity to suggest Democratic surrender. See, he knows all kinds of good Trumpies, family member Trumpies, some of whom may even read this blog, so Pearce stays in his safe lane, condemning lefties for believing in things, demanding we all be more like him: empty.
@James Pearce:
So give in to the guy who will then do it again because he now knows it works? What’s gonna stop him from trying something like this again to get his way? Are you the parent who constantly buys their kid a candy bar when they throw fit in line to make it stop?
Fun fact: paying the ransom doesn’t always get you the hostage back safe and sound. In fact, there’s zero reason to do it once you get the money. There’s a reason why you’re not supposed to negotiate with terrorists and kidnappers – you tend to lose your money AND your loved one. Trump is NOTORIOUS for not honoring deals so WTF would anyone with a brain expect him to actually honor any deals the Dems offer?
@James Pearce:
Thank you, Neville Chamberlain, for that piece of stupidity.
@Michael Reynolds:
Remember that time when a “Good German” put together that list of slaves he wanted to work at his factory and he saved their lives?
I’m calling for some moral clarity, not some toothless pose that you struggle to maintain even now.
@Michael Reynolds:
I usually avoid commenting on other posters, but I need to make an exception here. Pearce strikes me as either a fifth columnist, or a Pyrrhic ally.
The former is someone from the enemy side who pretends to be on your side. The latter is on your side, but causes you tremendous losses for every minor gain he may contribute to. You end up, not unlike King Pyrrhus of the Pyrrhic victory, thinking “Another steadfast ally like that and we’ll be utterly ruined!”
I may be wrong. But I thought it was worth sharing my impression.
‘Moral clarity’ in the form of Democratic collapse in the face of a tyrant. Surrender. Compliance with the occupier. Vichy. Like I said: Good German. If only the Jews had tried harder to get along. . . but hey, what are you gonna do, amiright? You’d be a fool not to turn the Frank family over to the Gestapo, after all it is the law, and all you’re doing is making the Nazis mad.
@Kathy:
I don’t know if he’s either thing intentionally, but he is unmistakably functioning in those capacities. Pearce is classic Vichy.
@KM:
I’ve noticed that. Among Trump supporters and apologists, but also among many others.
It’s like all these years of civil rights activism have made the wrong impression on them. They’ve internalized the notion that being known as or called a bigot is bad, but they don’t regard bigotry per se as bad. Therefore they engage in discrimination, but they dress it up and try to pass it as something else. And they resent nothing more than being called on their bigotry.
@MBunge:
You’re exactly right.
We already know that there are 62 million Americans who voted for a known grifter, and we know that Republicans have substantially rigged the electoral map to win despite being a minority party. So yes, absolutely, Trump and Republicans could very well maintain their congressional majorities in the 2018 elections.
@KM:
My concern, KM, is that the left has become too enamored with their anti-Trump posture that they are willing to see children ripped from their mothers arms rather than compromise with the president.
@Michael Reynolds :
It’s the “Nice Guy Syndrome” applied to politics and to be fair, it’s not just him. A core belief of NGS is “believing that showing basic human decency and manners makes them especially “nice” or worthy”. In other words, what you or I would consider a basic requirement for being a baseline moral person is something extraordinarily laudable to them. Furthermore, by not acknowledging how passively “nice” they are, you’re committing an unpardonable sin and slur against their character.
So the hypothetical ladies in Pierce’s post are complaining how tired they are of “the left” not noticing how unracist they are for not supporting this policy on FB and their “antics” are “BS” because isn’t it enough to just say they don’t support it? Why are they out there protesting and making such a big deal out of this? God, just say you don’t agree with putting babies in cages and stop being drama queens about it! Don’t they understand how it makes them look bad?
There’s quite a lot of this going on lately. They don’t want to be seen as “bad” by being called racist, sexist, etc because they’re “good people”. “Nice guys” who kinda agree with Trump – but not on the horrible stuff, just you know, the principle or whatever. They’re moral souls, really, even when you can hear the flush as their morals they claim to stand for are swirling down the toilet in real time. It’s your fault for accusing them of being bad – can’t you see they’re just normal basic nice guys?
@James Pearce: Shorter Keen Political Strategist Pearce: “Always negotiate with terrorists. That’s how you win!”
@Michael Reynolds:
No one is a fifth columnist by accident.
A Pyrrhic ally, though, can be accidental. For example, and I’m not saying that’s the case with Pearce, when one is frightened of the other side but no of one’s side. There are other ways. When one likes the other side more than one’s side (then why remain on that side? but it happens); or when one dislikes one’s side slightly less than the other side. Or when one thinks that appeasement is the only policy that can work. Or simply a willingness to give in more in negotiations than one will get in return (like trump likes to do with dictators).
@Michael Reynolds: Okay, so they’re forbidding Jews from owning businesses. That’s bad, but either we can object to it or we can go along and hope to influence some policy in the future.
Oh, now they’re confiscating all property from Jews. Really hate that, but if I spend all my energy objecting then they’ll never listen to me in the future. Also, my neighbors who aren’t anti-Semitic at all, told me they’re getting really tired of listening to people like me complaining all the time about the poor treatment of the Jews. They said we’re forcing them to become hardcore Nazis because we’re so obnoxious.
Hey, now they’re putting Jews into death camps. I want to object, but really I’d better save my powder for later. What if they start putting other people into camps? If I’ve already used up my moral capital complaining about the treatment of Jews, who’s going to listen to me?
@Michael Reynolds:
Has this kind of thing ever worked?
@KM:
Aka “I was never a Nazi myself. I never liked them. I just wanted a better job”.
Lie down with dogs; wake up with fleas. Passive tolerance of evil is no less deserving of a noose.
@James Pearce:
No, which begs the question of why you never miss an opportunity to suggest it as a preferred course of action.
@James Pearce:
“If we give Hitler the Sudetenland, he’ll be content. He won’t go any further”.
Honestly, Neville, you’re reaching the point where you should just STFU before you bury yourself.
@James Pearce”
Compromise what exactly? Trump’s made it clear he wants his damn impractical hideously expensive Wall and he’s willing to go to previously taboo lengths to get it. He has idée fixe in the worst way and will simply change focus rather then abate. He doesn’t want compromise, he wants concession – even that would be tolerable so long as it didn’t keep happening. His is a zero sum mentality as we’ve seen time and time again. He’ll be doing something just as cruel the next time he wants something because he knows it works. So we get him to stop separating out kids but he moves on another issue – what exactly have we gained?
Moral clarity is understanding that the dude willing to steal children to get his way isn’t going to act any more moral even if you concede and all you’ve done is lose part of yourself while he walks away intact. That’s how abusers grind you to dust – they chip away at you piece by piece that you allow to just stay afloat. Concede and it will stop… for now – the cycle begins anew after a period of reconciliation once the victim gives in and accepts it. Moral clarity is understanding that a deal with the devil isn’t the solution no matter what it gets you because in the end, the devil wins and your gain was temporary at best.
It’s not liberals’ fault Trump’s doing this on purpose and pretending they don’t care because they’re not caving is victim-blaming at it’s finest. It’s your fault this is happening to the kids because you won’t give me what I want, you monster!
He’s a troll. 90% of his comments can be categorized as either A) Democrats are wrong or B) Black people are wrong.
@James Pearce: I hesitate to wade into the discussion about another one of Pearce’s posts offering only criticisms of the Left while refusing to offer any suggestions but here goes: Let’s play “compromise” with the Orange Mangolini (Thanks, Kathy!). I’ll offer 50% of the children who are with their parents seeking asylum to be forcibly separated and put into cages. No? Okay, I’ll go 66%. How about if I throw in a ban of all brown people trying to enter the U.S. No? Okay, I’ll go all non-white people. Whaddya say?
Pearce, you are a fraud. Once you give in to a bully, you have no power. You have unconditionally surrendered.
This isn’t about being anti-Trump, you dope. This is about putting an end to these hostage tactics the right have been utilizing since 2009. Enough is a enough. We are sick and tired of these people playing political games with people’s lives. Whether it is healthcare, the budget, and now immigration, Republicans have a bad habit of doing shit like this.
The only way to be a stop to this is to say no and hold your ground. If that means “good” conservatives blame the left, so be it. They always blame us for their sides bad decisions anyway.
@James Pearce:
Since you brought up Schindler, this part you neglected to mention seemed particularly apropos.
Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it. No sir. Line drawn. If you want to be an appeaser, knock yourself out.
Just know that, around here at least, you’re going to get the stuffing knocked out of you over it.
@James Pearce:
Ah, Schindler. Interesting choice – a man who was totally in it for the profit until it started affecting him directly in ways he couldn’t ignore or dismiss anymore. He had to see and experience it to really get that being a “good guy” wasn’t freaking enough. He spent the rest of his life regretting that if he’d tried harder or gave a damn sooner more people would have lived. Older Oskar probably would have punched Younger Oskar in the head for acting like you advocate. By the time he’d put together his list, there was a need for the list and that was his grief till the day he died.
“Doesn’t matter what the press says. Doesn’t matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn’t matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world — “No, YOU move.” ”
Cap got it right. It’s so telling that Marvel’s HydraCap came out in this Administration, that the premier image of what America stands for gets turned into a Nazi wannabe (even if it’s a sh^tty story). Find your line and stand by it, otherwise your beliefs are nothing but noise in the wind.
@HarvardLaw92:
No, I mean this whole “You’re a nazi!” thing.
I’m taking this issue seriously, acting as if it has real world consequences, proposing a solution that could help those who are being hurt, and you’re all just playing shame games, as usual.
Cut it out. Trump is ripping apart families because he knows none of you will do a damn thing about it but get mad on the internet.
I can tell the difference between genocide and a draconian immigration policy you don’t want to fix.
And I didn’t even go to Harvard.
Remember that time when Churchill and Roosevelt negotiated with Hitler and everything worked out fine? No? Me neither…
@An Interested Party:
Remember that time when everyone was using Hitler metaphors when “meaner than Obama” would be sufficient?
@James Pearce:
The Nazis didn’t begin with genocide–they spent years with the Nuremberg Laws, and even an early proposal for the “Final Solution” involved mass deportation. It was a process.
@James Pearce:
Honestly, I think I’m through entertaining this contrarian thing of yours. There are two courses of action here – fight back against evil or try to compromise with evil.
You’ve clearly chosen to compromise with evil, and that makes you the same as a Trumpkin.
Continue trying to peddle that appeasement bullshit as you like, Herr Funktionshäftling.
Or should I say Herr Oberst …
Just don’t be mad when you rhetorically get your teeth kicked in over it.
What a fraud.
He doesn’t need an EO to stop this.
@Yank:
True, but without the EO, he doesn’t get the photo op.
@James Pearce:
It appears Trump is caving. Given his mental condition nothing is certain, but that’s the reporting.
In which case you’re not just a collaborator but a poor political analyst.
@rachel: Keep reminding yourself that these children are criminals, plain and simple, and you’ll be able to justify it just like Bunge and Warren/Jenos/Jay Tee/Voldemort.
@James Pearce:
Oh James. The man who consistently gets more upset at liberals crying over children being put into jails than the conservatives who actually put them in jail.
Here’s James Pearce in a sentence, for any and all issues:
“The liberal reaction to this is wrong.”
That goes for Racism, Free Speech, Trade, Immigration, War, Peace, anything. The liberals are doing it wrong. The right way is never discussed, but liberals are wrong because they just…are.
Into the Trumpkin cell with you, along with Jenos and Mbunge. You’ve made your bed.
Separating children from their parents is pretty Nazi-like and if the jackboot fits…
@CSK: It’s simply that there are people who are willing to live in a refrigerator box by the creekside cooking a fish on a curtain rod as long as the [person of color] 100 yards downstream doesn’t have a box, a curtain rod, or a fish. I see this same thing go on in the little town that Barb from the Boonies and I live in. The downtown area has large tracts of unoccupied property that are owned by about 3 total people. Most stay vacant because when someone makes an offer to rent, the owner say “yeah, but that guy is a friend of so and so, and I’d rather see the place crumble into ruin than let one of his friends make money.”
Republicans. As tevy tory always notes–stupid people with shirtty values.
@James Pearce: Motherforking shirtballs! THERE’S NO DEAL! Figure it out! No matter how energetically you shovel, you’re not going to find a pony in that stall!
@Michael Reynolds:
He isn’t really caving. His fallback position is detaining asylum seekers indefinitely with their children. His fallback position is still illegal and antithetical to everything this country is supposed to stand for. I see Miller behind this. Do something so outrageously soul rippingly horrible that when you do something that is simply illegal and outrageously horrible it looks like compromise. It is still horrible, but far too many will believe his BS that the democrats are responsible for tearing children away from their families and that Cheeto Jesus fixed it with his executive order. I am in mourning for the country I thought I knew.
I will fight it. I will call my congresspeople (who are already on the right side of this). We have already called or emailed the companies supporting this. We will be pestering all of our friends and relatives in red states to call their congresspeople. We will donate what we can afford (not much). Still, I fear there are too many Pearces nominally on our side that think this ‘compromise’ is good and far too many that support the odious policy that it was a ‘compromise’ from.
@Kathy:
Ooh, ooh, I vote this! Definitely this!
The alternative isn’t Pyrhhic ally, by the way. It is whatever you call the guy who sees a woman with a black eye and yells at her because she keeps making her husband mad.
@MarkedMan:
I don’t know what you’d call such a person, except a**hole.