On the Horns
Since I'm mostly avoiding Twitter, I've been spared the idiotic "Democrats suck" messaging that I'm sure the left is blaring as Democrats fail to obtain their goals on immigration. The key point here is that the Republicans have the power. The only way to prevent bad things from happening is to vote them out of office and elect Democrats.
The Republicans have majorities in both houses of Congress and they have the White House. This means that they don't have to bring any bill to the floor they don't want to. (This isn't strictly true, but it's close enough for our purposes.)
This in turn means that Democrats can't get the vote they want. They will only get the vote that Republicans offer them. It doesn't matter that the Democrats would win a clean vote on DACA, probably overwhelmingly, because that's not on offer. The Republican leadership gets to decide the terms on which the vote will be held.
Now the Democrats do have one advantage, which is that their position is very popular with the public. If DACA ends permanently, and ICE starts deporting its participants, it will not be great for Republicans.
But the Democrats can't bargain very hard, because they are under intense pressure not to let this happen. So Republicans threaten to deport all the Dreamers, the Dreamers (understandably) flip their shit, and the Democrats cave. It's a sickening dynamic, but not one that the Democrats can do much about. (This all changes if the Democrats take one or both houses of Congress. At that point, they control the agenda and can hold whatever vote they want. That's why Trump was in such a rush to get rid of DACA and force the Democrats to destroy themselves before the 2018 elections.)
I am getting worried that the Republicans saved up their best wedge issues for 2018, after spending 2017 fucking around with unpopular stuff like Obamacare repeal. In other words, they are turning to advantageous ground in time to get everyone pissed at the Democrats ahead of the 2018 elections. If the Republicans are lucky, they will pick up supermajorities in both houses and they will repeal Obamacare and impose immigration reform on their own terms.
This is the light in which you should view far-left Democrat-shaming.
The Republicans have majorities in both houses of Congress and they have the White House. This means that they don't have to bring any bill to the floor they don't want to. (This isn't strictly true, but it's close enough for our purposes.)
This in turn means that Democrats can't get the vote they want. They will only get the vote that Republicans offer them. It doesn't matter that the Democrats would win a clean vote on DACA, probably overwhelmingly, because that's not on offer. The Republican leadership gets to decide the terms on which the vote will be held.
Now the Democrats do have one advantage, which is that their position is very popular with the public. If DACA ends permanently, and ICE starts deporting its participants, it will not be great for Republicans.
But the Democrats can't bargain very hard, because they are under intense pressure not to let this happen. So Republicans threaten to deport all the Dreamers, the Dreamers (understandably) flip their shit, and the Democrats cave. It's a sickening dynamic, but not one that the Democrats can do much about. (This all changes if the Democrats take one or both houses of Congress. At that point, they control the agenda and can hold whatever vote they want. That's why Trump was in such a rush to get rid of DACA and force the Democrats to destroy themselves before the 2018 elections.)
I am getting worried that the Republicans saved up their best wedge issues for 2018, after spending 2017 fucking around with unpopular stuff like Obamacare repeal. In other words, they are turning to advantageous ground in time to get everyone pissed at the Democrats ahead of the 2018 elections. If the Republicans are lucky, they will pick up supermajorities in both houses and they will repeal Obamacare and impose immigration reform on their own terms.
This is the light in which you should view far-left Democrat-shaming.
posted by James | 3:47 PM
2 Comments:
For once I think you are too pessimistic. My sense (from the news this evening) is that the GOP offer on immigration is going to be so nasty that it won't get much support from Dreamer activists themselves (many of whom have other undocumented folks in their families, and also will balk at not being able to sponsor their parents). I think a good strategy for restrictionists would be to pit immigrants in the US vs. immigrants not yet in the US. But I sense that this trade would not excite the racist but non-ideological rank and file, who are really much more concerned about existing immigrants than hypothetical future immigrants.
So I'm guardedly optimistic that internal GOP dynamics will make it impossible for them to give Democrats an offer that makes a cave likely. (This is not really an "optimistic" conclusion in some ways as it implies that many Dreamers will be deported, but I think that on the whole the politics of that are quite bad for the GOP, and not a wedge issue for the Democrats.) Of course the Democrats are usually even more spineless than you think.
I think another aspect which a lot of people overlook, is that Dems, despite having basically zero leverage, got CHIP expanded for a considerable time. That’s healthcare for 9 million children. That’s a huge number of people.
Children are generally denied access to society’s means of information dissemination. The NYT would publish an editorial from a 20 year old dream but it wouldn’t publish one from a 12 year old with bronchitis. Children don’t have the money to buy ads. Children don’t have access to influential professors or writers. But they are human beings despite their oppression. Dems secured healthcare for 9 million of the poorest and most oppressed people in society. That is a huge huge win. Anyone who thinks the recent deficit showdown was anything less than a tremendous victory for democrats is 1) stupid and 2) profoundly ageist to the point where they don’t really view minors as humans.
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