Trump's Border Flip-Flop

Trump's about-face on separating children from parents caught illegally entering the United States is proof that he knew he was backing a loser. It might have been good for his base -- there is a seething mass of opinion that wants to kill, crush, destroy -- but as senior Capitol Hill scribe Carl Hulse relates below in "G.O.P. Lawmakers Hope Trump’s Border Action Heads Off Political Threat" the battleground this November will be in districts held by the GOP but won by Hillary:

But the president’s quick reversal after multiple definitive declarations that his hands were tied — combined with the palpable Republican relief at the policy change — made it very clear that the party knew it was on the wrong side of the debate. Now the question is whether the president’s action will be enough to quiet the public clamor over the decision to tear children from their families.

[snip]

The politics were clearly bad for Republicans, particularly those most at risk in November. Mr. Trump’s tough talk on immigration might rally his most devoted followers and be a good platform for 2020, but this is 2018.

The Republicans most in danger of losing in November are in swing and suburban districts — many carried by Hillary Clinton in 2016 — and those photographs from the border were not playing well. Republicans were already struggling with female voters, and the separation policy was definitely not going to build support with that core voting group.

The DNC, in all its ineptitude, is repeating its 2006 blue dog strategy to take back the House -- white, centrist, pro-gun, anti-single-payer. Bob Moser sketches the contours in "Will Democrats Fumble the 2018 Midterm Elections?":

Democrats have everything going for them in 2018. Here is a party that gets to run against an historically unpopular and palpably dangerous Republican president – Donald F-ing Trump, everybody! – with an equally historic explosion of progressive energy and organizing behind it. At the very least, the Democrats should be able to secure a House majority in November that would give the party a small purchase on power – and a serious way to throw tacks in Trump's road to tyranny. On an average mid-term year since the Civil War, the party out of power has won 32 new seats—and the Democrats, with every conceivable political wind at their back, need only 24. Still, no matter what new daily atrocities belch up from the White House, the party's chances grow more remote all the time – since almost every day also seems to bring a fresh new insult to grassroots Democrats and left-leaning independents.

It started with electing Perez, the choice of the Clintonites, as party chair in the wake of 2016. The former labor secretary began with talk of unity, then immediately axed senior party officials who'd backed Sanders in what progressives called a "purge." Then the DCCC began "shaping" its field of candidates for 2018, following a centrist "Blue Dog" model that Rahm Emanuel, then DNC chair, used to great controversy in 2006—the midterm election that sent a bunch of gun-toting, budget-slashing, Jesus-talking conservative Democrats to Washington. Twelve years later, and a political world removed, the party's idea of a "winning" candidate would be the same: Someone who's well-off enough to "self-fund" in the millions, or well-connected enough to raise big money from others, and who's also willing to follow the Washington consultants' advice about strategy and "messaging."

But a story in Vox -- Dylan Scott, "Charts: Trump is the target of historic voter backlash ahead of the 2018 midterms" -- casts doubt on the Dems ability to repeat a 2006 blue dog wave in 2018. Why? Because in 2006 W. didn't have his base firmly beneath him as Trump does now:

The most recent midterm election to be defined to this degree by opposition to the president, according to Pew, is 2006. That year, during the height of the backlash to the Iraq War and after a failed GOP run at privatizing Social Security, 65 percent of Democratic voters said their vote would be against George W. Bush. The result was that Democrats won 31 seats in the House and retook control of the chamber.

If there is any hope for Republicans, it’s that their voters are still mostly united behind Trump, even as the president galvanizes his opposition. A majority of Republicans say they will be voting for Trump in 2018, a much higher share than said they were voting for Bush in 2006 and even outpacing the share of Democrats who said they would be voting for Obama in 2010 and 2014.

And while Democrats are celebrating Trump's flip-flop, Caitlin Johnstone reminds us, "Democrats Finally Deviate From 'Let’s Start World War 3' Midterm Platform," that the policy of  separation was bipartisan:

Last night Rachel Maddow finally took a break from her relentless warmongering toward Russia, Syria and North Korea to have a pretend cry about the plight of immigrant children on her hit MSNBC show. It was arguably the climax of a loud nationwide outcry against a federal policy of separating parents from their children when they are arrested for illegally crossing the border from Mexico into the United States, and the following day President Trump signed an executive order suspending that policy while congress comes up with some less draconian legislation.

And of course the entire thing was phony from top to bottom. The policy Trump’s political opponents have been blaming on the current administration was actually bipartisan and several administrations in the making, and as with many US policies simply grew progressively more depraved with each new president. The executive order leaves the debate over many, many immigration issues still unresolved, including the fact that it just means families will now be imprisoned together under Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ new “zero tolerance policy”, and the fact that thousands of families will still remain separated. And of course the entire furor only became a mainstream issue because midterm elections are coming up and the “Russia, Russia, Russia” platform of the last year and a half hasn’t exactly energized the Democratic party’s base. And of course that soulless bitch Maddow, who will cheerfully help inflame tensions between nuclear powers in order to give her ratings a bump, was 100 percent acting throughout the entire scene.

But you know what? I’ll take it.

Billionaire centrist Mike Bloomberg plans to plunk down $80 million towards blue dog victory. But he will demand a litmus test on gun control, I would imagine, and most blue dogs, like Conor Lamb, are blue dogs because they are pro-life and pro-gun.

And let's not forget Democrats scandalously backtracked on threats to halt the government early in the year in support of the Dreamers. So immigration isn't necessarily a golden ticket.