Americans want something done at the southern border. Democrats, to the outrage of their hard-left wing, are serious about doing something meaningful as are some Senate Republicans. But the Trumpy Party as a whole would rather exploit the issue than deal with it. Will voters notice?
This week we got a clear picture — as if it hadn’t been clear enough — about how the two parties view the issue that might decide the outcome of the next election. Democrats and responsible Senate Republicans worked for months on a deal that would tighten asylum rules and limit border crossings. The Republicans got much of what they said they wanted.
Then Trump attacked the deal because (he said this in so many words) he wasn’t going to give away the issue that was killing Joe Biden. Speaker Mike Johnson quickly fell into line whether he wanted to or not because he didn’t have the political capital or the vote margin to do anything else.
So what was his substitute for actual policy? Impeach Alejandro Mayorkas, the Homeland Security Secretary. This was such a stupid idea that even three House Republicans — including Wisconsin’s own Mike Gallagher — wouldn’t go along with it. Johnson was embarrassed because he couldn’t count votes, though he should have been embarrassed for pushing ahead with something this inane. Anyway, a few days later the Republicans got one of their votes back — Steve Scalise who had been away the first time — and they impeached Mayorkas by one vote.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board got it right this morning:
Mr. Mayorkas is the first cabinet secretary to be impeached since 1876, but nobody expects he’ll be convicted and removed by Chuck Schumer’s Senate. Meantime, Republicans have torpedoed the border bill negotiated by GOP Sen. James Lankford, though it would tighten the legal standard for migrants claiming asylum in the U.S., while allowing an emergency border shutdown to stop the current crisis...
Voters know Mr. Mayorkas’s impeachment won’t do a lick of good at the border. Watching the GOP House, they see nothing but grandstanding, internal fighting, and an inability to put together a majority for anything but gestures. Mr. Suozzi (the Democrat who took back George Santos’ House seat on Tuesday) exploited that record to further erode the tenuous GOP majority.
Now the circus moves on to the Senate where it will quickly be shut down by all the Democrats and some substantial number of sane Republicans. It’s clear to everybody that Trump and his followers want nothing to do with actually solving this problem — or any problem. They think the public will be fooled by the senseless impeachment of a man who only carries out the policies of his boss. And a boss, by the way, who would have signed the border deal that the Senate had worked out.
The question is, will voters care? Are they paying attention to all this foolishness? I’m betting they are. The border is such a fraught issue, second only to abortion, that I think a lot of voters are following this and they do recognize that Biden and moderate Democrats are taking their concerns seriously while MAGA Republicans just want to grandstand.
I’m hopeful, though far from certain, that all of this will cost Trump and his party votes and that an issue that has plagued Democrats may work to their advantage by November.
Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos 
You know something weird is going on when the WSJ editorial board says this! Btw Dave, closer to home, curious your take on the impending Madison budget debacle. What would you do? (aside from hopefully not creating a mess in the first place)
LikeLike
I’m working on a piece about that for March. It’s complicated.
LikeLike
In 1984 the Wall Street Journal editorial board proposed a five-word constitutional amendment: “There shall be open borders.”
This crisis is not the product of rules that are too liberal. Quite the opposite. It’s no different than the hordes of people coming through Ellis Island at the turn of the 20th century. The difference is that we let those people come in, get jobs and contribute to the U.S. economy. “Crisis” solved.
I get that politically it makes sense to say dumb, economically illiterate things. I support pols doing that if it means we avoid another Trump term. But in the long-term it would be great if people like you took some time to examine the issue instead of simply accepting the illogical premise that America can’t handle all these immigrants. Population growth is good, actually.
LikeLike
I agree in part, but it’s horrible politics right now. I just want to beat Trump. We can figure out better policies when he’s gone and the Dems have a majority. The “in part” part is that there’s a huge difference between the situation of people coming on boats in an orderly way through gates of entry and people showing up in the thousands every day at a land border, some of whom cross it illegally. I also don’t think the vast majority of those 19th and early 20th century immigrants were claiming asylum. Unless you were smuggled in somehow, I don’t think many of those immigrants were in the country illegally. They followed the rules. So, I think your comparison to Ellis Island isn’t apt.
LikeLike