Here’s what it’s all about, no matter how much bs get tossed out claiming otherwise. Pay no attention to the bs……When Johnson tells reporters “of course Trump is not calling the shots”, he’s lying. We must know by now that Trump will always put himself first, and his country wherever it’s convenient to him. And we should understand that the Republican Party is not willing to put their country first. They are only interested in saving their own arses, and saving their own party. Well, can’t really blame them entirely, they are only human. But, stuck between a rock and a hard place, because they must maintain Trump’s base, they nonetheless have concluded that means adopting their un-American position. Trump wants our “existential crisis at the border” delayed for at least a year, until he’s in the Oval Office again, and, of course, we know he wants Putin to win in Ukraine, which Johnson and company apparently have decided is OK after all….
“The draft agreement offers little to nothing on major Democratic priorities: no pathway to citizenship for long-term undocumented immigrants, only the slightest increase in legal immigration. The Democrats traded away most of their own policy wish list. In return, they want an end to the mood of crisis at the border, plus emergency defense aid for Ukraine and Israel”
So if no deal results, what truths will we learn from this?
The first is that Republicans don’t really care all that much about the situation at the border. A real “existential threat” cannot wait for some later date. People who perceive an existential threat don’t delay. In fact, a good many Republican legislators are very happy to allow a continuing flow of laborers across the border.
A second truth regard what Republican priorities really are. When Mike Johnson was elevated to the House speakership, he
claimed that he genuinely wanted to help Ukraine but that aid had to wait until Congress passed new laws to harden the U.S. southern border. He
wrote to President Joe Biden as recently as December 5 that further aid to Ukraine was “dependent upon enactment of transformative change to our nation’s border security laws.” When Senate negotiators produced exactly what Johnson said he wanted—a transformative bill that Congress could enact—he responded by reversing his demands. Johnson no longer wants any law at all. But one thing is constant: no aid to Ukraine—which suggests that “no aid to Ukraine,” not “defend the border,” is the true priority here.
A third truth is suggested by the angry reaction of House Republicans to the work of Senate Republicans: The very act of negotiation is mistrusted. Along with their speaker, House Republicans radically altered their position from “there must be a new law” to “there must be no new law,” and from “the president must sign our bill exactly as we wrote it” to “the president must act unilaterally by executive authority only.” How does anyone negotiate with a House majority that can so abruptly and totally pivot? The true goal revealed is failure and chaos.
And this points to a fourth truth, maybe the most important one of all. Donald Trump has sold his supporters the dangerous fantasy that democratic politics can be replaced by one man’s will. No need for distasteful compromises. No need to reckon with the concerns and interests of people who disagree with House Republicans. Just somehow return Trump to the presidency: He’ll bark; the system will obey.
Of course, such fantasies have no basis in reality. As the Cato Institute
reported last November:
The Biden Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has removed a higher percentage of arrested border crossers in its first two years than the Trump DHS did over its last two years. Moreover, migrants were more likely to be released after a border arrest under President Trump than under President Biden. In absolute terms, the Biden DHS is removing 3.5 times as many people per month as the Trump DHS did.
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