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I wouldn’t be so quick to assume Democrats got taken by working with Senate Republicans to put together this bipartisan border deal. There are a number of provisions in this deal which many Democrats won’t like at all just on the merits. That is an important question. But here I’m talking about the politics. It’s House Republicans who are in an awkward position now.
House Republicans are now clearly refusing to support provisions they’ve been demanding for years. Now they claim that they are refusing to support or even allow a vote on the deal because it doesn’t go far enough. But it’s a bit late for that since they were already pretty open about simply refusing to vote for anything until Trump becomes President again.
They certainly aren’t the only political party to opt for politics in an election year over the policies they purportedly want. But if they’re going to do that, it’s elementary that the other party will and should hit them over the head with it. Trump told them to kill the bill and the House leadership is doing everything it can to accomplish that. Trump owns them. They follow his commands.
If they can stick by their effort, they can kill the bill. But that at a minimum gives Democrats an affirmative answer every time House Republicans plan one of their safaris down to the Rio Grande River. The same goes for every time Fox News spies a new “caravan” heading toward the southern border. One of the biggest dangers in politics comes when one side simply doesn’t have something clear to say. This has actually been one of Donald Trump’s great strengths. What on earth do you say when your party leader is caught red handed accepting campaign help from Russia? How about launching a coup? Or, let’s say, storing highly classified national security documents in the bathroom? Well, of course the answer is that it’s a conspiracy against Donald Trump. It’s the Deep State! It’s Fake News!
You may think these arguments are silly. They are silly. But if you can get everyone on your side to say it in unison and at least pretend to believe it it goes a very long way to limiting the damage. There are important reasons why this has always been easier for the GOP and especially the MAGA GOP to pull off. In brief, it’s a much more ideologically and demographically coherent party. It’s not a coalition party in which its very hard to get every faction in line saying the same thing. But it’s the same basic principle.
To a great degree, Democrats simply haven’t had anything to say (in this sense) on immigration or border issues. And this is not just something to say. It puts pressure on Republicans to explain why they refuse to vote for things they’ve been demanding. It makes them look hypocritical and silly.
But can House Republicans actually kill it?
Probably.
But maybe not necessarily?
Over the last 48 hours every House Republican has been putting out statements that the bill is absolutely, positively dead on arrival. DEAD, they tell you! They’re protesting a bit too much. They really, really want this bill to die in the Senate. If it doesn’t get a vote in the Senate, there’s not a lot of pressure. Schedule a vote on what? House Republicans can reasonably ask. It hasn’t even passed the Senate. If and when it does pass the Senate it gets harder to refuse it a vote.
You and I both know that “NO!” is the Republican superpower. You have something so popular, so un-no-able and yet they say “NO!” and it works. But here the protestations give away the game. Can they prevent it from getting a vote in the House even if it passes the Senate? Probably? If I were betting I would say they can and will. But their actions tell us that they know refusing the bill a vote in the House after it’s passed on a bipartisan basis in the Senate will do them a lot of harm on their signature issue during an election year.
Democrats should force them to accept that damage. It won’t do itself. They have to force it. And the key is getting it passed in the Senate.