Trump makes his case
Time has passed to make the obvious compromise
As a recipe for success in presidential politics and governance it is axiomatic: Speak to the whole, the entire, country. He who speaks only to his base as president will fail.
Mostly, this is what President Donald Trump has done in the first two years of his presidency. He has been speaking to his base and solidifying it.
That left a lot of people alienated and confused.
But on Tuesday night of this week the president spoke, as the president, from the Oval Office, to the whole country.
The subject was illegal immigration and the things the president wants to do to stop it. His long promised border wall is one of them.
Mr. Trump’s insistence on that wall was a large part of his campaign for president. It is a part of his compact with the American people.
He will not back away from it, nor should he. And there is a good reason, other than the promise he made: It is a reasonable tool for controlling our borders. It is only one tool and arguably not the most important one. But it is a valid and useful tool.
As one tool, the price of $5.7 billion is a modest one for the wall — far more modest than previous requests.
A sovereign nation must have control of its borders. Otherwise, it is no longer sovereign and no longer a nation.
This is why, for 30 years, while the immigration crisis has festered, and fixes were promised and tried, Democratic senators and presidents supported a wall.
But if the wall is not the most important answer to illegal immigration, what is? Enforcement, for one thing. But, also, legal immigration. The grand compromise to be had here has been obvious, possibly inevitable, for a long time: Clamp down on illegal immigration and increase legal and targeted immigration.
There is a Part 2: Give the president his wall at last and give “the Dreamers” — those brought to this country illegally through no fault of their own — a path to citizenship.
America must be what it has always been: a land that welcomes immigrants. Both our economy and our moral identity have been built on immigration.
It must also be a melting pot, in which those who come here come here to live by our laws and our values.
Most legal immigrants are not only law-abiding citizens, they are law-loving citizens. They know the Constitution better than most native born Americans and it means more to them.
There is another axiom that governs not only presidential but all politics: He who finds the way to compromise wins — not only the electoral but the legislative race.
It was Mr. Trump who talked of compromise (and compassion) in his address. It was the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate who, in their joint address, said, “nyet.”
Whether the president can push through a deal here — whether anyone could — is yet to be seen. But the deal to be had is clear to most unaligned and commonsense Americans. And it is what we want.
Some commentators said the president “won the night” with his address Tuesday. He should win the argument. Compromise is the sine qua non of progress in American politics and government.