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How to square this with something like @gattsuru’s recent post (and follow-up)? He starts from the assumption that Republicans are, in fact, no longer interested in compromise, attributing it to decades of policy ratchets and plausibly-deniable enforcement. And he provides receipts. If he’s correct, then Congressional stonewalling is a rational response to the failure of previous compromises.
Second, some discussion about whether Trump credibly advanced a different issue: the deep state. That was how I learned about the attempt to create a Schedule F of policy-driven government employees. It was a battle entirely waged within the executive branch. Trump promulgated an XO; Biden rolled it back. Various agencies fumbled to add more regulations which would slow or stop a future return. Never was Congress consulted, of course.
It seems obvious that Congress, by refusing to act, hands more power to the Executive and Judicial branches. But it also seems obvious that Executive power is too fragile to survive an opposing presidency. And there’s a long list of reasons why the Judiciary is not a satisfactory policymaker.
I suspect that relying on Trump’s branding is a strategic blunder. No, it’s relying on one man in general. The Democrats leaned on Obama after 2008, and supposedly it completely eroded their back bench. Now we’re watching the GOP double down on an uncomfortably similar mistake.
I agree, they're obviously not interested in compromise, and in some cases it's for good reasons. That said, even if this bill just added the text about amending asylum rules to the official US laws, this bill would have been worth it. Dealing with asylum stuff is something Trump struggled against for his entire presidency, and he kept failing due to the courts ruling that EO's couldn't override rules of Congress. Had this bill passed, then at least any EO's Trump would enact in his next potential administration would carry much more weight.
When you add in the rest of the bill and compare it to the paltry concessions given to Democrats, the choice to pass it should have been obvious even if the Democrats tried to stonewall it in some (or many) ways.
Couldn't agree more. Candidates should be avatars of the people to enact desired policies. Trump was plausibly this sort of person in 2016 which is why I voted for him then, but he's since proven that he's really not up to the task. The Republican base should have dumped him for Desantis or some other candidate in the 2020 primary. Sure, all candidates have problems, but if they didn't do what was wanted then they should have been dumped too, and the base should have kept dumping candidates until somebody actually enacted policies. Instead, the Republican party has effectively turned into a cult of personality since many Republicans' only barometer of candidate quality is "how much he makes leftists seethe".
Trump won in 2016 because he was a threatening outsider, and that is what the people wanted in an avatar. Desantis can't be that, because he isn't that. No more than Jeff Sessions could have been it, or McCain earlier. The credibility as an outsider is the key
Well, only because he whipped the rest of the centrist (uniparty) Republicans so thoroughly in the primaries. It was his ability to say the unsayable to other Republicans that attracted his wild popularity. Then he conquered the party as the avatar of the people's will, and now the unsayable is the unpleasant threat to our democracy, but being repeated day after day.
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His analysis also ignores the arguments here placed on why Sotomayor shouldn’t retire. I think the consensus came to be if you have a star justice you shouldn’t force them out because you want to strategically gain seats but you want to move the Overton window by having a top tier justice on the bench (more like Ginsberg or Scalia).
The bill was basically a tactical retreat in a losing war. Sure the bill did some good things but it’s on the lose the war trajectory. The GOP needs to change the Overton window. One persons vibes is another persons attempt to change the Overton window.
The correct play was to put the election on immigration as a major issue and try to get support to change the entire system. Perhaps this is a long shot but if you’ve already lost your best play is to buy a lottery ticket.
The bill is like buying an annuity with high inflation. It’s going 0 in time. A riskier investment that can survive inflation is the only viable option.
Surely you mean a tactical victory in a losing war?
How would not passing the bill come closer to that goal?
I can already see it now:
Trump: Biden has been terrible for the border!
Biden: What do you mean, I tried to fix the border but you wouldn't let me!
The result: Nobody's mind is changed. Then maybe Trump wins, he tries more executive orders, but they keep getting mutilated by the courts as they did in his first term.
For winning the election.
You pass the bill. Biden then implements tighter policy for 6 months thru the election claiming victory. Then he uses all the loopholes later to go back to open borders. It’s far better to expose the immigration issue and pass a clean bill after the election.
Also - I opposed the bill before Trump opened his mouth. You are not being honest when you say Trump tanked the bill. The opposition was organic when many of us read the bill and saw how awful it was. Perhaps our system was awful before hand, but this bill doesn’t fix the main issues as many here have pointed out to you.
I meant what I said when I said tactical retreat. This is no victory in this bill. It’s admitting defeat and falling back with little value.
I get it you don’t like Trump. I’ve never voted for Trump. I don’t like his personality. But when I looked at history the dudes always right. He’s earned the goodwill of the American people because he has good judgement. So sure many Americans don’t have time to read the bill and will make decisions on vibes. All of us do this everyday and trust people who have proven trustful because we can’t be knowledgeable in everything. Trump has earned that trusts.
You also when you say Trump did nothing ignore the fact that in 2016 he had no experience and no institutional support. People like me loathed his personality. Now I am on his side. And we have Project 2024 to build out institutional capabilities. The Heritage Foundation is backing him in 2024. Ken Griffin is like begging him for the Treasury Secretary job. He’s got A team support this time.
If you're going to accuse me of lying, please don't strawman me. I never claimed there was no opposition to the bill before Trump came out against it. But whatever prospects the bill had, died when he did.
This is just the double-or-nothing idea I mentioned in my post. Throwing away the biggest win on immigration in a generation, and instead banking on winning the Presidency AND the Senate AND the House AND hoping Trump actually cares about the issue enough to pass actual legislation instead of just trying EOs. Surely the last time he had a trifecta and passed no major legislation on immigration was just a fluke, right? Surely he won't be distracted by settling scores and getting revenge on his perceived enemies, right? And even if all that happens, hoping that Trump is tactful enough to actually do a (supposedly) extreme immigration bill without the Democrats freaking out and repealing it the minute they come into power.
And as everyone else has replied to you it’s really not a double or nothing strategy. The bill doesn’t do anything to prevent the current asylum situation especially if you do not control the Presidency.
It’s a bet to win strategy versus a nothing accomplished.
Maybe you are correct it’s the biggest win on immigration we’ve had. But it doesn’t solve the issue. The failings of the bill just expose how bad are immigration system currently is. The bill solves 5% of the issue and only if you control the Presidency.
I’m starting to think you might just lack political instincts. This is a lot like Russias military doctrine which often involves escalate to deescalate.
I do think the right has a chance to win on the issue. I expect a landslide for Trump in 2024 if the Dems can’t figure out how to cheat.
I just saw this on Twitter, the guy whose literal a lifelong Dem and has been funding anything to prevent Trump from winning is now talking about voting for Trump.
https://twitter.com/cliffordasness/status/1788378439428227209?s=46&t=aQ6ajj220jubjU7-o3SuWQ
Also I would not call it strawmanning you when you explicitly blame Trump for torpedoing the bill. In my opinion the bill was dead before Trump came in. He just read the room that people were pi$$ed off when they read the bill leadership came up with and felt betrayed.
Well there's nothing for me to really argue against here, just "I'm right and you're wrong", an ad-hominem, then "landslide for Trump in 2024!"
I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.
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That was exactly correct. It wasn’t that Trump marshaled the troops. He just skated to where the puck was going.
Also the bill was awful. It wasn’t just the 5,000 number but really cementing control of immigration in the hands of Art 1 judges that would be heavily predisposed to allowing asylum claims.
Short term pause for long term defeat. It isn’t surprising that democrats are leaning into “Trump prevented the border from being fixed” given that it is clear that (1) Dems made the border much worse and are being harmed electorally, and (2) Dems have a strategy of importing voters. This deflecting helps to try to soften the first prong without harming the second.
The den media space then puts out a bunch of “explainers” going into how “the bill was great” ignoring what we’ve seen for decades and then people start in good faith disseminating those explainers.
I sort of hate just stating narrative that it was already dying versus Trump torpedoing it. I remember hating it when there were just rumors of what was in the bill but maybe the actual torpedoing took Trump and the establishment GOP was game. Who got where first I do not know.
The political situation sort of feels to me like the GOP had the high ground in war separating Biden (winning elections) from his food supply, but Biden was raping and pillaging a significant region (facilitating mass immigration today). If we give up the high ground we can protect our villages but it allows Biden access to his farms to resupply his armies (winning elections).
Feels like a retreat to me.
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Calling Cliff Asness a "lifelong Democrat" is disingenuous at the very least. I used to keep CNBC on as background noise when I was in law school and his name rings a bell as the guy who was complaining that one or another of Obama's bailouts was too friendly to workers and not friendly enough to hedge fund billionaires such as himself. Some further internet research shows he was a Rubio supporter in 2016 and a Haley supporter more recently. I don't know what the details of his voter registration are, but he definitely comes across more as one of those never Trump conservatives who Republicans spent the last 8 years assuring us were electorally irrelevant.
You are probably correct. He has funded a lot of the Trump opposition.
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