DACA, Democrats, And The 2018 Election

You’ve really got to hand it to Republicans. They are masters at playing the culture war, identifying issues that not only rile up their base but also manage to divide the Democratic party. Of course, abortion has been the overriding culture war issue for Republicans ever since Roe v. Wade became the law of the land in 1973. The theme of “law and order” has been a similar Republican staple since that time as well. In 2006, Republicans used the issue of same sex marriage to drive their voters to the polls and put pressure on red-state Democrats.

Republicans also excel at taking what is at most a trivial or insignificant incident in the larger scheme things and turning it into something that threatens to shake the foundations of our country or even civilization. In the 1980s, they took Andres Serrano’s installation of “Piss Christ” and turned it into an assault on government funding for the arts. In the 1990s, they took a failed Arkansas land deal and turned it into an impeachment process and a multi-decade attack on the Clintons. In 2014, Republicans took Benghazi!! and the Ebola crisis and turned them into an illustration of Democrats weakness on defense.

As it was to some degree in 2014 and more so in 2016, immigration, and especially the treatment of DACA recipients, will be the wedge issue for Republicans in 2018. And because of that, I have absolutely no faith that Congress will pass a bill to protect Dreamers before the March 5th deadline. Not only Trump, but a significant number of Republicans, especially in the House, are determined to use these children as a proxy for illegal immigration in general in the 2018 election. Along with a decent economy, they believe that it is their path to minimizing the losses in the upcoming election.

And, once again, you can see the Democratic party being riven by a Republican-driven issue. Today’s NY Times front page story is about the Democrats in the House fracturing over the DACA issue. Even on TPM, the headline reads “DACA May Die In Three Weeks And Democrats Have No Leverage Left”, giving an impression that the only party with any agency in this fight is Democrats. But let’s be clear, it is Donald Trump and Republicans who have put the DACA recipients at risk. It is Trump who has stripped away their protections. It is Trump who lied to Pelosi and Schumer about protecting them in exchange for a budget and debt ceiling extension. It is Trump who lied to Graham and Durbin about their deal to protect Dreamers. And it is the Republicans who created the false choice between a government shutdown and protecting DACA.

Now, I happen to believe that it was a tactical political error for Pelosi not to demand her caucus vote against this budget deal. As opposed to the previous shutdown in the Senate, it would be hard for Republicans or the media to portray this as the fault of the Democrats when nearly 30% of House Republicans also voted against the deal. And even if the shutdown had lasted for just a few days, it would have not only been a strong signal to Democratic base voters but it also would have put enormous pressure on Paul Ryan. And I think you can be sure that Republicans would have done the same if the shoe was on the other foot. Additionally, while voters hate shutdowns in general, they are almost always forgotten by the time the election actually rolls around, while the Democrats’ cave on the issue won’t.

Democrats also seem to believe that the Trump and Republicans would not dare to start deporting DACA recipients after the deadline. The optics of having children who came here through no fault of their own, have never had a brush with the law, and have willingly given the government information on themselves and their family actually being deported will be so bad that Trump and the GOP won’t go there.

I happen to think that calculation is probably correct, although you never know with Trump, but not for the reasons of optics. Rather, Trump and the Republicans are keeping this issue alive as a driver for the 2018 election. By not passing anything that the Senate might come up with in the House, DACA recipients will become unprotected. Either Trump will say that they are not “a priority” for deportation or, more likely, offer another extension into this summer, when the issue can again be played to drive the Republican base and divide the Democratic one, either by letting the extension expire or beginning to deport the Dreamers and their families or both.

But even if Congress does pass some protection for Dreamers and Trump actually signs it, immigration will still be the primary driver for the Republican campaign in 2018. That will mean that Trump will pick on another group of relatively defenseless minorities or immigrants as a play to his base. Trump is deporting criminal undocumented immigrants at about the same rate as Obama. But he is vastly increasing the number of non-violent, non-criminal ones.

Make no mistake, the Republicans are going to be running the most explicitly racist campaign that we have seen since probably the 1960s. Yes, Trump ran an openly racist campaign in 2016 but this time the bulk of the Republican party will be also running openly xenophobic campaigns, rather than passively supporting Trump with phony silence or “concern” as in 2016.

This is illustrated clearly by some of the candidates that are running in Republican primaries or have even sown up a place on the GOP ballot this fall. In Illinois, an avowed neo-Nazi will be running as the Republican for Congress. Paul Nehlen, whose twitter account was just shut down for his continual anti-Semitic rants, is challenging Paul Ryan. Sean Donahue, another white supremacist, is trying to replace another white nationalist Republican member of Congress in Pennsylvania. Corey Stewart is following up his near defeat of Ed Gillespie in the Virginia GOP primary with a run for the Senate in that state. Lastly, we can’t forget Joe Arpaio, who is running for Senate in Arizona. And that doesn’t even count the other white nationalists already in Congress like Steve King, Trump’s new water-carrier Matt Gaetz, and long-time fascist lover Dana Rohrabacher.

Let’s be clear. Obama protected the Dreamers. Trump took those protections away. There is probably a majority in both houses of Congress to do something to protect DACA. They are being stymied by the Republican leadership and a majority of Republicans in the House. And I don’t think anyone doubts that DACA would be protected if Democrats controlled Congress. If there is anything that the 2016 election has shown is that Democrats lose when they lose focus on the real danger posed by Republicans. We can argue and complain about Democratic tactics, but the best way to protect Dreamers is for Democrats to win the House in 2018.