Donald Trump is desperate to get funding for his wall because he knows that without it he will not be re-elected in 2020. Trump is so sensitive about criticism on the subject of the wall that he quit following Ann Coulter on Twitter because she dared say in a radio interview that without the promised wall, Trump’s presidency will in the end be nothing but a joke. Putting aside all of her unhinged and racist views, this is one thing that Ann Coulter has got absolutely right: no wall, no re-election. And being re-elected is the one thing Trump wants above all else in the world. For one, it will help him beat the statute of limitations on some of his crimes.
Witness Trump’s cocky assuredness that he would own the shutdown because he would have done it for border security. Trump knew that the dog whistle his base would hear was that a shutdown was needed because only a wall would stop any present and future caravans of refugees. But because Trump has subsequently understood that government shutdowns are unpopular with the public, witness also Trump’s subsequent claim that he was not to blame for the shutdown. Democrats must call his bluff and repurpose the phrase border security to mean additional resources given to the border patrol, but make it clear that taxpayers are not paying $5 billion for a wall. On a parallel track, Democrats must also find a way to redefine Trump’s wall as the antithesis of border security.
Campaign promises
Trump promised in his campaign that he would get Mexico to pay for the wall, but Mexican politicians disabused Trump of the notion that Mexico would pay for any wall between the two countries. In desperation, Trump has turned to the American taxpayer to pay for his re-election bid. This, with a national debt of $180K per US taxpayer. But leave it to Sarah Sanders to argue unconvincingly that Mexico would still be paying for the wall, because…logic!
Trump shut down the government this morning because Congress did not go along and fund $5 billion to start building his wall. Unfortunately it is more than just a manhood thing for Trump, it his his ticket for re-election in 2020. The wall is Trump’s insurance that he will get re-elected. It would be his one singular achievement after four years of mismanagement, ineptitude, and corruption. Without the wall there is no Trump re-election in 2020. For this reason, the Democrats must act decisively and insist, as they have so far, that they will fund border security but no border wall.
Fighting Trump back
What Democrats need to do is to fight back against the Republican lie that the Democratic party is in favor of open borders. They should make the case that if that were the case, if Democrats were in favor of open borders, then why would Barack Obama have deported more people than any other President? Republicans win the argument so long as they get to claim that a border wall is the only alternative against open borders. That is, they get to win the argument by not only creating a false equivalency, but by misrepresenting the position of the Democratic party. It stands to reason that most people, even if they are not xenophobes, will balk at the idea of open borders. So Chuck Schumer is right in insisting that Democrats should be in favor of border security. It is the only way of keeping Republicans from mischaracterizing Democrats as being in favor of a border free-for-all.
What the Democratic party needs to do is to elaborate on what border security means. Principally arguing against the technical merits of a physical wall is a lost cause. If Republicans are allowed to shape the narrative, the argument, as it will be joined when Congress resumes before the start of the new year, will be that Republicans want to retain American integrity, while Democrats want to turn illegal immigrants into Democratic voters. Democrats must not allow Trump, McConnell or other Republicans to shape the narrative. The narrative must be that Mexico was supposed to pay for the wall. Absent that, the US cannot afford what some calculate to be a $120 billion wall in the end.
Democrats have to hit back, firstly they need to fight against the demonization of refugees, and secondly they need to address the false claim that Democrats favor open borders. In fact, greater immigration into the United States used to be a Republican talking point. Ronald Reagan used to be in favor of it, and even against building fences between the United States and Mexico. Democrats must use this against Trump.
This is the messaging that Democrats have to sell. That Trump is out of touch with the American public and that he only caters to his base. It may be painfully obvious that this is true, but the Democrats need to clearly message that Trump is out of step with the American public. The American public largely favors immigration. Democrats must make clear distinctions between illegal immigration, refugees, and legal immigration. Democrats must clearly explain that the United States has obligations under international treaties to accept refugees and that legal immigration is a boon to the American economy. These distinctions may not fit on the back of a bumper sticker, so Democrats need to distill the message to be not about the merits of immigration, but about Trump breaking his promise that he–the great dealmaker–did not get Mexico to pay for his wall.
Technically, illegal immigration also helps the economy (e.g., illegal immigrants pay taxes, but collect no benefits), but the time for logical argumentation is too far behind us when Republican commentators feel free to say that immigration makes the United States a dirtier place. And it is certainly not at a time to argue dispassionately when Trump has conflated drug cartels, MS13 and immigration. Eventually, there will be a time and place when immigration as a whole can be reasonably discussed. But that time and place is not here and now. Not while Trump and his nationalist views threaten to undermine American democratic processes.
Nancy Pelosi’s and Chuck Schumer’s unscripted take down of Trump must be replayed over and over so that even Trump voters can hear him say that he would not blame Democrats for the shutdown. This must then be contrasted with his subsequent lie that the shutdown was the Democrat’s fault.
Trump has called on the Senate to use the nuclear option. This would be yet another in the number of ways in which Trump has undermined democracy in this country; add it to his undermining of the rule of law and his encouragement of white nationalists. Trump cannot be allowed to prevail on the funding for the border wall. Refusing Trump his $5 billion wall is a necessary step to ensure that he is not re-elected in 2020. Trump must be denied his wall.