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| Two year old at border |
Trump makes a messaging error.
Trump called removing children a negotiating tool with Congress. Jeff Sessions called it a message to parents coming here seeking asylum.
It looks like extortion because it is extortion.
Trump has been crafty in his messaging, and he has beaten Democrats and the media and his Republican opposition. It made him president. Trump presents himself as the strong and dominant hero, voicing policies of ethnic nationalism.
He miscalculated when he picked on young children. Even people who generally like Trump's dominance and cruelty are uncomfortable.
Trump proved to be on safe ground attacking adult upstarts and rivals. His base loves it. He dislikes what they dislike: Hillary Clinton, black millionaire athletes, Hollywood celebrities, media celebrities, universities and their micro-aggression sensitivities, anti-gun hectoring by snotty nose kids, and opposition politicians. These are the culture war mighty, and Trump brings them low, with humiliating nicknames or withering criticism.
But crying children are backfiring on Trump. Trump is stuck with having positioned this as a negotiation tactic with Congress and a message to parents seeking asylum. Look how your children suffer. It looks like extortion. In a world with TV, it is a step too far. We see the children. What King Leopold could do in the Congo, Donald Trump cannot do at the US border. What a mob enforcer can threaten, the Justice Department cannot.
Trump is trying to blame this on Democrats and this, too, is coming across wrong in his messaging. He keeps citing Democrats, Democrats, Democrats. The deflection seems desperate. It is a familiar story in salesmanship; the customer isn't buying, so the salesman raises his voice and repeats the pitch harder. Both salesman and customer sense what is happening. Desperation. No sale.
Not even Fox News can sustain the Trump message. Fox New has anchors on the air who are allowing it to be said by themselves and guests that the policy is, in fact, Trump's policy and not the Democrats'. Fox guest and anchors acknowledge that the children are blameless and the policy is cruel. They show faces of concern for the children and misgiving that Trump is pushing this policy.
They run the story of this clearly being Trump policy, yet keeping up the chyron script withTrump's assertion that it is the Democrats' doing. The two together have an un-mistakable message: Trump is lying, trying to deflect blame regarding something shameful.
Trump's own DOJ admits this is an area where Trump has discretion. Democrats are on message: blame Trump. The media has its story straight: blame Trump.
It is hard to see a good ending for Trump on this one. Republicans have the votes to govern. The best result for Trump would be to change the policy and hope to be credited as a hero for ending a cruel policy, but even in that case, the stink will likely linger.
If Trump "wins" and a wall gets built or Trump gets some other part of what he wants, the victory will have been tainted with memory of extortion.
Trump would have had to make little children cry to get what he wanted.
1 comment:
Another thing it exposes is the sheer magnitude of the numbers seeking asylum.
The essential problem is that the Trump administration has decided that the no-tolerance policy is necessary because without deterrants the numbers will grow. A couple of thousand now, tens of thousands later. The fact that it doesn't work will hit home eventually but in the meantime the opposition has a potent weapon to use to further the racist argument. You suggest it's a loser issue, but will polling and media pressure force a reversal? In the last two weeks Presidential approval has only dropped a point.
The solution is a long term strategy to develop Central and South America, and though it will be costly it's the right thing to do. Imagine if Canada was governed like Nicaragua. Could we tolerate tens of thousands of Canadians crossing in Washington, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, etc.? It's only Canada's relative prosperity and stable government that keeps them at home.
Progressives would do well to include foreign economic development in their proposals as a clear and wise alternative to the xenophobia of the Trumpists. And how about a program to employ immigrants on infrastructure projects (not walls, though)?
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