TRUMP’S LAST STAND

Donald J. Trump, the forty - fifth President of the United States, who will go down in history more for his survival instincts than his political philosophy or skills, is on his last. He had successfully survived the jungle of the Manhattan real estate business and Atlanta casino business with the scars of four bankruptcies, and he came out tops in the highly cut throat combativeness of reality television. Riding that success he started a lucrative franchise business where others did the work and took the risks while all the while, according to his son, Trump Inc. was conducting most of its real estate dealings with Russia.Through it all he escaped relatively unscathed in over three and a half thousand litigations that his activities engendered, Then came the Presidency, which was a whole new ballgame, where he soon became mired in crisis after crisis, threatening his very existence.  His response was predictable - go on the offensive. His latest effort is to create a massive diversion claiming that the country’s very identity, security and economy was threatened by illegal immigration.

THE CRISES IN DONALD’S NEW COMPANY

In his new vocation he was the most powerful man in the world and he attacked the task at hand with the same gusto, self confidence, dishonesty and loads of b - ess as he done all his life. The latest gig had too many moving parts for him to assume his usual micromanaging dictatorial style of governance where he made all the decisions. So after about five hundred days in office he faced an existential crisis. His past was under a microscope and every action or statement of his being analyzed so his wiggle room was non existent as his moral turpitude, lying and duplicity was being exposed, 24/7. Contemporaneously he was being investigated by the full might of the FBI and faced extraneous litigation which with his public profile he could not easily sleeze out of. He thus needed to call upon all those skills, and more, that had allowed him to survive these past seventy years, to triumph in the mess he was now in.

You see Donald J. Trump was not able to fully manage his new enterprise. He was now head of an organization with close on four hundred million shareholders whose bye laws dictated how governorship should be effected. To his intense irritation certain sections of the company he headed were not under his control. Even appointees that worked for him could defy his will. Some were even investigating him. Further to his chagrin he could even be thrown out by a section of the company that he was ostensibly the leader of. The time had come for him to take control of his destiny. He was sick and tired of stultifying advice from his legislators whom he was supposedly dependent on to getting anything done. The legislators had done nothing for him. They would not give him money for his wall making him look stupid. They squabbled among themselves and most recently had failed to deliver and support him on the issue that he had elected to make his last stand - immigration. 

“LET DONALD BE DONALD”

He would have to take matters into his own hands. Other heads, like Putin, Kim Jung Un and Xi Jinping never faced these problems. Why should he?

It was with all this in mind he embarked on the solution of “zero tolerance” on the scourge of illegal immigration. While the problem had de - escalated in the past twenty years he never was troubled by facts as he had alternate ones.  Between 1980 to the year 2000 the Government was apprehending between a million to a million and a half “Illegals” a year. This number had declined to thirty - five thousand under President Obama and the figure now stood at approximately twenty - five thousand. Contrary to his mantra the majority of those approaching the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave were refugees. And they were not being despatched by the Mexican Government, “… who were not sending their best but druggists, rapists, murderers and gang members”, rather they were refugees from Central America.  In fact there has been a net decrease in Mexica's immigration to the US

So what started on the escalator of Trump Tower and to his mind got him the top job would once again put him back in total control and make all those attempts to dislodge him, politically unsustainable.

THE FINAL SOLUTION - “Zero Tolerance” and more “Zero Tolerance”.

Like all populist demagogues you need to persuade the discontented how bad they really have it and that the simplistic solution to their problems is to get rid of some vermin race or nation who are causing their woes so as to restore their national identity.  The Donald has played this card from the word go since elected and has come unstuck both with the Muslim travel ban and his ongoing vendetta against the Mexicans. If interim elections are the yardstick by which to measure success the program is not working. There have been close on fifty reversals, State and National, since Trump was ensconced in his new vocation. However, the Don is blaming everyone else for this trend. Only under his sole leadership will this succeed. The fact that to date this initiative has been a disaster is irrelevant it is just the reason to double down. There would now be the zero tolerance immigration policy.

The kick off of the new initiative was by dynamo Jeff Sessions who announced that the policy would inter alia separate children from parents as well as obliterate asylum as grounds for entry into the USA. Within two short months with close on two and a half thousand children in detention, amidst universal condemnation, Sessions claimed that the separation of families was never the Administration’s intention. But even with the outcry reaching unprecedented dimensions Trump hung onto his claim that the policy that Sessions had introduced could only be reversed by Congress and not him. He finally caved throwing his Homeland Secretary under the bus, who had stoutly defended, just the day before, his position that Congress alone could change the policy. It was pressure from all directions, but mainly the woesses in his own party that forced this capitulation. For example the Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell informed him that every Senate Republican was against child separation. 

Worse was to follow, the GOP legislators having taken him seriously that this needed a Congressional fix, proceeded to do just that. The problem was that this split the Republican Congress wide open. So Speaker Ryan allowed two bills to hit the floor, a Trumpian effort and a more moderate contribution. Trump was at six’s and seven’s as to what to do about this legislation. Finally, he claimed that he backed both bills. After the Trumpian effort bit the dust the POTUS told the Congressional Republicans to stop wasting their time as whatever they did it couldn’t pass the Senate anyway. He also rejected a plan from Senator Cruz of the Senate that had bipartisan potential. 

The CEO of America didn’t realize that there are a thick wad of Republican Congressmen that needed to distance themselves from him to stand any hope of retaining their seats. But as far as Trump is concerned Republicans who are not for him are against him. So he was onto the next phase of the operation.

THE PARTY OF TRUMP - MY LEADER RIGHT OR WRONG

The POTUS made it quite clear it was his way or the highway. His m. o. is to double down. He would win this thing on his own. He forecast a red wave - the Party of Trump would vanquish all. He had to keep going as all the while the pressure on Manafort and Cohen to turn on him was piling up. He went into serious campaign mode -  Nuremberg style rallies in Minnesota and South Carolina where he barely mentioned his Executive Order and off to Vegas to try and keep the seat Republican, Jay H. Ell means Trumpian. The message was ratcheted up and now the top priority was to rid the country of the scourge of all the illegals. He had a press conference with a half a dozen families who had suffered losses as a result of the undocumented. (Mainly fatalities caused by drunken driving). The fact that the undocumented had lower incidences of legal infractions including homicides, by far was, as always, irrelevant. 

The rhetoric was notched up even higher and higher. He screamed that the solution did not require judges to adjudicate the legitimacy of amnesty. Rather they needed to do away with due process altogether. This was an issue of national pride - “You are not a country if you have no borders”. He screeched to the faithful, “The Democrats want open borders. Our system is a mockery to good immigration policy and law and order. We cannot allow these people to invade our country. We must immediately without Judges or Courts bring them back from where they came”. The fact that all this is against the Constitution was irrelevant, Trump was now America.

Trump is likely to lump this issue with his other moves against immigration. even the granting of work visas to those desperately needed, for example, in Silicon Valley. 

Whatever the merits of this approach for the moment Trump has well over eighty percent approval rate amongst Republicans. He has demonstrated that he is a “strong leader” and the base are not fuzzed that his is leadership all over the show. Trump is not lacking in self confidence and is riding on the fact that the polls have been wrong before and that they are wrong again. He rationalizes: What weakness there is isn’t coming from him but rather from the spineless GOP: If he can motivate his base as he did in 2016 then the Republicans will be triumphant and then the fact that Republicanism was now Trumpism would be etched in stone. 

HOW CAN TRUMP GET IT RIGHT? ANSWER: THE DEMOCRATS HAVE NO IMMIGRATION POLICY

The key question is with what Trump is facing how can he pull off this Hail Mary? Besides the polls, the bye election results, the defection of the Republican Congressmen, who know their districts better than him, and to whom this upping the ante makes their positions even weaker, the crisis, that forced him to backtrack on the children separation policy, is alive and kicking. The fact is that the saga with detention centers are all over the country and with no plan to unify the families means that this damning negative publicity will drag on forever. There will be court challenges, parents who cannot find their offspring, leaked videos, children in handcuffs and leg irons, cages without windows to mention but a few of the potential landmines. So the Democrats can feed of the disastrous ill thought out move of Trump’s. As matters stand this disgraceful tragedy is playing badly everywhere, including the swing districts.

However, Trump bolstered by his base still has a solid immigration policy and the Democrats have none. Whatever division there is in the GOP Trump has grabbed the reins and his policy is the policy. It is significant to note that both Clintons and Obama stuck to the law and had centrist immigrant positions. Obama was even known as Deporter In Chief. The Democratic Party’s split on immigration has not been resolved and who knows how this might play out in the months to come. Without a unified coherent immigration policy the smear that they will not stop the gangs from entering into the country and want an open border policy may stick .The Dems need to move to sort this out. 

As Trump has pointed out the Democrats want to fight this election on immigration but so does he. The difference is that the Democrats don’t really want to fight it out on legislation but rather on the issue of the inhumanity of separating families at the border. Trump believes he has settled that already and it is no longer an issue. Time will tell.

AT THE END OF THE DAY

Trump has taken a gamble that could well markedly worsen his and the Republican’s position - but that is the story of his life. He has always lived on the edge and as always he is the only one that matters. 

One fact that you can take to the bank is if the GOP hangs on to its majorities Trump will claim victory. If they don’t he will blame the “ GOP establishment” and the fact that the elections were rigged. 

None of this justifies stooping to the same lack of civility as exhibited by Trump. No one can outpig The Donald - here he is king.  So let his hangers on eat in peace.