Voters of conscience are unhappy with the severely restrictive immigration bill being negotiated in the Senate. That's understandable, given that its substance, as reported so far, is, perhaps, excessively restrictive. But voters of conscience would be far unhappier if the fragile legislation's failure opened the door to a Trump second term.
Its demise could — reelect Trump, that is. His servile stooges in Congress are praying for the bill's death. In fact God's vicar, Mike Johnson, who serves part-time as House speaker, believes his insider supplications have been so well received upstairs, he has already deemed the bill "dead on arrival." (He hasn't seen it, hasn't read it, but lordy lord he's "heard" about it.)
The election of 2024 is about one and only one thing. What it's not about is immigration, taxes, the economy, social "morality," foreign affairs or any other category of common concern. Sanity's sole electoral objective is to keep Donald Trump the hell out of the White House. If accomplished, voters of conscience can rest relatively easy. America's doom will have been averted.
Of course to accomplish that sublime outcome, certain steps must be taken — some more longish and arduous than others — in the aforementioned categories. Supreme among them is immigration reform, for its absence is the one hindrance that could trip up President Biden. Once the ex-presidential blunderer concludes his Nikki "Birdbrain" routine and Joe becomes his singular target, overlaid on the latter's visage will be Border Crisis — in caps, in bold, in the demagogue's every diatribe, every hour of every miserable day. Though deceitful, depraved and vulgar in Trump's hands, it's also smart politics.
Biden will be his opponent's nominee of "open borders," of fentanyl flooding the U.S. of A. and killing our children, of terrorists and murderers and rapists slithering their way to Maine, Minnesota and Montana. A current Trump campaign ad is rabidly barking that Biden's immigration laxity poses "the possibility of a Hamas attack" on America. Notwithstanding congressional passage of a restrictive immigration bill, Biden will be presented as all that: pro-open borders, pro-fentenyl, pro-terrorist. Yet passage of the bill would render Trump's extravagant falsehoods a crock of crap to all but his hardest-core fans.
For that reason the ex-president is working rather effectively (necessity being the mother of invention) at sabotaging the immigration bill. It's his worst enemy, in that it would denude the demagogue of his vilest appeal to non-fanatical voters. Senate Republicans who favor the bill, reports The Times, are "livid at the notion that Mr. Trump could potentially tank their painstakingly negotiated deal."
Some of these senators may surprise. South Dakota's Mike Rounds concedes that "the politics would suggest that you allow [Biden] to boil in his own oil on this particular subject matter." Nevertheless, he says the Senate must pass the bill for the country's sake "even if doing so would give Mr. Biden a political win" (that wording, The Times'). And Thom Tillis of North Carolina says opposing the deal as "too weak" means "either you aren’t paying attention or you aren’t telling the truth."
To wade into one of those perilous "everyone knows" lines, on immigration it's soberingly true that (to modify the line just a bit) virtually everyone knows that Donald Trump gives not one damn about the border per se. As with all issues, he cares only about the politics of it, and how the politics might benefit or hurt him. If they benefit him while hurting this country — perhaps other countries too — he'll grab the benefit and give this country the finger.
Sen. Mitt Romney: "The fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn't want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is is really appalling." Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy also vividly sees this amoral abomination of a man: "That is the cold, hard reality of Donald Trump, who just sees the border as a political issue, not as a policy problem to solve." And for now, the border issue is the very last problem he wants solved.
Same with military aid for Ukraine. It's being blocked by Republicans for the incoherent, unrelated reason that an immigration deal must first come through. Should that occur, Trump would get whacked twice over. He's been sabotaging Ukrainian aid too, ever since Vlad rang him up and again promised a Moscow Trump Tower and free room, board and showers for life at the Kremlin Inn. (If Donald does get thrice-whacked, the third a felony conviction, no problem, for no doubt his pilot has already sketched out a to-Moscow flight plan.)
The Washington Post observes that "the border deal faces long odds in Congress." Its length is uncertain, however, and its failure is by no means predestined. Other reports are more encouraging, especially those that highlight just how "livid" some Republican senators are at Trump's meddling.
They're also worried that their state-wide and thus more moderate electorates will be equally livid if the Senate spurns an in-hand, severely restrictive immigration deal in favor of a "maybe" deal that's more severely restrictive — and would have no chance of passing either a Democratic Senate or Democratic filibuster. As for the House, there are ways to push legislation through, even if God's vicar is agin' it.
Meanwhile, Biden faces his own party problems. The Guardian is spot on when it writes that congressional progressives are "already in uproar over his unwavering support for Israel in its war in Gaza," and if he adopts (as he must) "a hardline immigration policy, then that faction will probably be even more angered." Calling Nancy Pelosi and Obi-Wan Kenobi: You're our only hope. For now our hope lies in The Guardian's adverb, "probably." Which isn't "decidedly."
On a much broader scale, although hope is not a strategy, it's what I shall cling to when it comes to those millions of unhappy voters of conscience. They've reason to be so. But they've also reason to see past the downsides of a harsh immigration bill. My hope is that they do look farther and see its one promising, magnificent upside: a giant leap for humankind — no Trump second term.
Comments