We are now in week three of the partial government “shutdown” over the refusal of Democrats to fund any of Trump’s wall. They see this as another “Read My Lips” situation which, if they can make Trump back down, it will kill his re-election campaign just as it did to Bush in 1992.
But Trump’s base takes the wall itself seriously, and, like George H.W. Bush’s 1988 campaign pledge on taxes, the wall has become the president’s “read my lips” albatross. His supporters may not abandon him over it, but Trump’s re-election hinges entirely on their enthusiasm. Yes, they will vote for him, but will they engage in the get-out-the-vote activities that drive to the polls enough additional voters to put Trump over the top?
How is that going ? Even Texas Monthly, no friend of Republicans agrees.
Jet skis dropping off pregnant women. Chinese border crossers in fancy workout attire. A park full of could-be spies. These sights of the Rio Grande are almost hallucinatory, but they don’t seem to alarm Spratte. They seem to fatigue him. Not long ago, he says, agents’ mouths would drop open when they’d hear about a group of fifty immigrants getting caught. Now, he says, “if you tell me, I’ve got a group of fifty, I need help, I would laugh at you. If you said, I’ve got a group of three hundred, now that would be cool, because that would be a new record. And the records are only going to keep increasing.” (According to Spratte, agents in the Valley have had a single pickup of around 280 immigrants.)
Trump visited the wall yesterday and CNN’s Jim Acosta gave Trump a hand at making his case.
I know this might be hard for you to comprehend Jimbo, but the reason why all of Twitter has been mocking you today is because you were at a part of the border WITH A WALL. So yes, of course it was working. Replicate that across the border & we’ll all be safer. #RealNews #ByeBye
It did not look too good for Acosta to brag about how safe it was near a wall. OR fence, if you prefer.
The Democrat strategy was also questioned by their own side.
But that doesn’t mean the Democrats won’t blow it.
The surest way for them to do so would be to keep on their present path of emphasizing that the government must be reopened because of how the shutdown is hurting federal workers.
Government employees are not the most sympathetic figures in the present controversy. The “shutdown” has inconvenienced few citizens as the Obama tactic of trying to inflict as much pain as possible is not in use this time.
Then, of course, anything that detracts from the narrative is excluded. KUSI anchors revealed on air that CNN requested, then declined, to use their border reporter after finding out his coverage of a broadly successful San Diego border barrier didn’t match their preferred narrative.
Whoops !
The final act is yet to open but probably is related to this. The Ninth Circuit once again ruled that the injunction against deporting DACA recipients should stand. This happened before and the Supreme Court had only 8 members at the time, who tied 4 to 4. Now there are 9 Supreme Court justices.
In an opinion issued today, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit upheld a federal district court’s order requiring the government to keep the DACA program in place. Although the 9th Circuit’s ruling went against the government, the decision likely helped the government’s cause at the Supreme Court, because the justices rarely grant petitions for review before the courts of appeals have ruled; the justices prefer to have the benefit of those courts’ opinions, even if they often do not follow them.
The challengers’ response to the government’s petition is currently due on December 5. Assuming that the court does not extend that deadline, the justices could announce as soon as mid-January whether they will take up the dispute.
The last time this happened, the Democrats were negotiating with Trump. AS soon as the ruling was upheld, they stopped. Why legislate if the Courts will do it for you ? Remember, Obama himself said his DACA ruling was unconstitutional.