Trump his own worst enemy
Donald Trump staked his presidential candidacy on building a wall along the Mexican border and won. He promised repeatedly throughout the campaign that Mexico would pay for the wall, a promise he cannot enforce. So now he wants American taxpayers to foot the bill, and this week he threatened to shut down the entire government if Congress doesn’t include wall funding in a debt ceiling bill that must be signed into law by Sept. 30, when the government’s authorization to spend money runs out. The president issued his warning at a rally in Phoenix this week before a crowd that cheered wildly.
Building the wall isn’t about controlling illegal immigration; there are more effective and cheaper means to do so. And illegal immigration is at historically low rates now anyway. In 2016, the number of people caught was about 409,000 (in the same range as the early 1970s). And the figures have dropped even more in the first six months of 2017 — a fact Trump has repeatedly taken credit for, claiming, misleadingly, a 76 percent decline since he was elected.
Trump uses immigrants as a convenient scapegoat whenever the need arises, as it did this week after widespread condemnation of his divisive and contradictory statements in the wake of the death of a woman in Charlottesville, Virginia, after a neo-Nazi drove his car into a group of people protesting a white supremacist march. It is no accident that Trump headed to Phoenix, ground zero in recent immigration battles, when the heat rose.
Trump’s threats and bullying — especially of members of Congress in his own party — are getting old. At some point, he must accomplish something concrete for the American people. And by “concrete,” I don’t mean an ugly, unnecessary barrier between the United States and our third-largest trading partner.
Congress returns after the long August recess Sept. 5. The debt ceiling and government funding bills are just the most pressing on the legislative agenda. The president has spent much of the week insulting the very people he needs to move forward, blaming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan by name for failing to get anything done. But Trump has been the most feckless president in recent memory. Barack Obama assumed office with a thin résumé and few accomplishments to his credit, but he managed to get important legislation passed to keep the country from slipping further into economic disaster amid a difficult and lengthy recession. Bill Clinton flailed in his first couple of years, which resulted in his party’s losing the House of Representatives in the midterm election for the first time in 42 years. And Jimmy Carter surrounded himself with loyal but inexperienced White House staff members, who alienated many of their needed allies on the Hill, and was largely regarded as a failed president. But Donald Trump is even more hapless.
Trump needs to stop talking about building walls and focus on building the relationships he needs within his own party. The country doesn’t need a government shutdown. It needs a president interested in more than his own ego.
The president needs to stop talking about building walls and start building relationships he needs within his own party.