Trump's Narcissistic Desire to Use the Border Wall to Cement his Legacy Has Created a Cruel and Unnecessary Government Crisis

Two and a half weeks into the partial government has given Americans yet another opportunity to assess the leadership skills, or lack thereof, of its current President, Donald Trump.  While I am not a psychologist and don’t claim to be making a clinical diagnosis, Trump’s refusal to sign a budget that doesn’t appropriate $5.7 billion for a wall on the US-Mexico border only further shows his dangerously narcissistic tendencies.

 

Like many narcissists, Trump is manipulative.  He has shown his character for taking advantage of people’s weaknesses for his own benefit.  For example, all during the presidential campaign Trump insisted that not only would he build a wall, but that Mexico would pay for it.  Having Mexico pay for the wall was never even a remote possibility.  But the claim won him cheers ad accolades from his supporters.  Now that it is clear that Mexico will not be paying for the wall, Trump is manipulating the ignorance of trade agreements and how tariffs work among his supporters to make the claim that Mexico really will be paying for the wall.

 

Trump argues that by scrapping NAFTA and concluding the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), Mexico will be paying for the wall through tariffs paid to the United States.  Let’s breakdown the inaccuracies of this claim.  USMCA did not really scrap NAFTA.  Rather, it built upon NAFTA structures to adjust some of the agreed upon tariff rates.  In fact, trade agreements are not really a vehicle for a country to raise revenue.  Government typical enter into trade agreements to try to open more markets for its exporters by having their counterparts lower their tariffs.  The United States attempted to open more markets for US agricultural goods, for example, by getting Canada and Mexico to lower their tariff rates.

 

At any rate, governments do not pay tariffs.  Importers do.  Importers need to make a profit, so they typically pass the tariffs of to the consumer in the form of higher prices.  Even where US tariffs increase, Mexico will not be footing the bill.  US consumers will.

 

Moreover, USMCA is not yet part of US law.  To become US law, Congress will have to act.  Either 2/3 of the Senate must ratify it as a treaty, or both Houses of Congress must approve implementing legislation, just as they did for NAFTA.  Until Congress acts, the USMCA has no effect on US law.

 

However, many Americans lack the very specific knowledge of how trade agreements and tariffs work.  Trump is manipulating that ignorance to make it appear as though he is living up to his campaign promise.

 

Trump is attempting to  manipulate the racially-based fears of his supporters to support his refusal to sign legislation to fund the Government unless he gets his wall.  In defending his desire for a wall, Trump cherry-picks cases where heinous crimes were committed by undocumented aliens.  In doing so, Trump creates the impression that all undocumented aliens are violent criminals.  This is consistent with his claims during the campaign that Mexicans are rapists and murders.  He and his supporters ignore statistics showing aliens, including undocumented aliens, commit fewer crimes than native born US citizens.

 

Trump has demonstrated a complete lack of empathy for those adversely affected by the shutdown.  Indeed, through some of his public statements, Trump appears to be saying that those suffering because of the shutdown are getting what they deserve because of their lack of support for him.  He has tried to change lexicon of the debate, calling the shutdown a “strike” in closed door sessions with congressional leaders, as if to shift the blame on the governmental employees.  He has noted that most of the workers furloughed or working without pay are Democrats, as if to say that they deserve what they get for supporting the opposition party.  He has shown little concern for the 800,000 who may be going without a paycheck.  Moreover, he has given no attention to the government contractors, who will not only be going without a paycheck, but who, unlike government employees, will not receive back pay.

 

This is another example of Trump’s manipulation of the ignorance of his supporters.  Many of his supporters, who do not understand how government works, have been quick to argue that since only non-essential employees are being furloughed, it shows the government is too big and ought to be cut.

 

The fact is, Trump is using an immoral tactic essentially to extort something he wants, but for which there is little support, for the sake of creating his legacy.  A government shutdown is immoral because it adversely affects people who have no role to play in the debate over the border wall.  Government employees risk falling behind in mortgage payments, utility bills and other bills because of a lack of a paycheck.  Some employees risk losing health insurance for dependents.

 

Yet, it is being viewed as simply just another tactic to get something out of Congress despite fierce resistance.  The last government shutdown, for example, was forced upon the United States by the Tea Party, who demanded the showdown over funding the Affordable Care Act.  Because the Tea Party saw that as a successful demonstration of its power, it has become just another arrow in the Republicans’ quiver.

 

It is particularly egregious where polls have shown that a majority of Americans oppose the border wall.  In fact, Trump clearly made tough immigration enforcement a hallmark of his message in the mid-term elections, which resulted in the Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives.  Yet, while Republicans like to point out that elections have consequences, they refuse to accept the consequences of losing the House, which include a lack of political support for the wall.

 

Trump has ignored all of this, just so he can push for the wall to have tangible proof of his legacy in American history.  The shutdown is a very selfish use of an immoral tactic for something that does not have strong public support.

 

Indeed, Trump’s mistake is that he has failed to learn from history.  There is strong and vocal support for the wall among hard core Trump supporters.  Trump has chosen to play to his base by projecting an image of being tough on immigration enforcement.  But, Trump engaged in the same tactic leading up to the mid-terms.  He used news coverage of a large group of Central Americans traveling together through Mexico in an attempt to apply for asylum in the United States to incite fear among his supporters of the caravan.  He labeled Democrats as soft on immigration enforcement and supporters of open borders.  In the end, his party lost the majority in the House, giving Democrats a power base upon which to oppose the President.  There is no reason to believe that playing to his base will be any more successful here.

 

As usual, Trump has made this dispute about him.  While he attempts to avoid responsibility now, claiming Democrats won’t give him what he wants, he can’t escape that the government shut-down has real world adverse consequences on people who have nothing to do with immigration policy.  Because Trump is such a wild card, there is no way of telling whether he will back down and attempt to paint it as a victory, or let the shut-down drag on and continue to cause widespread pain.  One can only hope that Trump can overcome his stubborn streak, agree to legislation to re-open the government, and continue to negotiate immigration reform without holding the welfare of government employees hostage.

 

By:  William J. Kovatch, Jr.

Imigration Reform Is Dead? How Did That Happen?

In less than a week, Republican House leadership went from revealing their principles for immigration reform to acknowledging that there was very little chance of passing reform this year.  Indeed, a few days after the proposal was revealed at a GOP legislative retreat, reform proponent Paul Ryan stated that the passage of reform was "clearly in doubt."  This was followed by House Speaker John Boehner declaring that passage of reform legislation would be "difficult" days later.

So what happened?  How did the fortunes of immigration reform legislation change so rapidly in sch a short period of time?

The Process Took Too Long

Strike while the iron is hot.  That's the conventional wisdom.  Use the momentum and advantage while you have it.

After the 2012 presidential election, the passage of immigration reform looked all but certain.  Even conservative talk show hosts, like Sean Hannity, stated that they had rethought immigration reform and supported a pathway to citizenship.

But, immigration reform was not the top priority either for the Administration or Congress.  Rather, the nation first had to face the crisis created by the so-called "fiscal cliff."

Once the crisis was settled, it became a race between a bipartisan committee from the House, which had been working on immigration reform behind the scenes since 2009, and the Senate "Gang of Eight."  According to The Hill, President Obama and Senator Chuck Schumer were not happy with concessions that House Democrats had made, and intervened with House Democrat Luis Gutierrez to slow the progress of the House bill in order to allow the Gang of Eight's bill to pass the Senate first, and thus shape the immigration debate.Once the Senate bill passed, momentum for the House bill died over the summer.

The Hill continues, reporting that two Texas Republicans, John Carter and Sam Johnson, were ready to introduce a bill in the House.  However, they received no commitment from Speaker Boehner.  Washington was then bogged down in the autumn, first by the situation in Syria, and then with the Government shut-down orchestrated by GOP tea party members.

By time Congress passed a new budget, opponents of immigration reform began to strengthen.  Tea party supporters were boosted within GOP ranks by their ability to shut down the Government.  By mid-November, Boehner was saying that there were not enough legislative days left in 2013 to address immigration reform.  Boehner ruled out going into a Conference Committee where the Senate bill would set the agenda.  Indeed, there was a fear among House Republicans that even if the House passed smaller bills on immigration reform that the Senate would use that as an opportunity to inject principles from the Senate bill into the resulting legislation.

When it appeared that the wheels were coming off of the Obamacare band wagon, House Republicans saw no reason to push for immigration reform in 2013.  Indeed, the momentum had shifted in Washington, placing Democrats on the defensive.

Republicans Don't Trust Obama

One theme that emerged from the demise of immigration reform last week was that House Republicans just don't trust President Obama.  The main issue is that of border security.  GOP leader had tried to sell reform to rank and file party members by promising that any pathway to legal status for undocumented aliens already present in the country would be tied to greater border security.  When conservative House Republicans voiced resistance to the leadership's principles, it prompted Boehner to say, "Listen, there’s widespread doubt about whether this administration can be trusted to enforce our laws."

If the President was trying to earn such trust, he had done himself no favors in the State of the Union Address.  There, he was seen as throwing the down the gauntlet, threatening unilateral executive action if Congress would not bend to his will in passing certain legislation in the remainder of the President's term.  Indeed, the President's reputation for acting unilaterally, and in the eyes of any conservatives unconstitutionally, on immigration issues is well-earned.  When Congress did not pass the DREAM Act, for example, the President responded by implementing his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program unilaterally.  House Republicans fear that even if reform legislation included border security requirements, this President will simply refuse to enforce them.

Republicans Are Now Focused on the Mid-Term Elections

As I wrote last week, the Republicans are now very optimistic of winning control of both houses of Congress in the mid-term elections.  Democratic control of the Senate is in jeopardy, in part due to the continued unpopularity of Obamacare.  In the House, many GOP members are from "safe" districts, where the real electoral threat comes not from a Democratic challenger in the general election, but from a more conservative challenger in the primary election.

Many conservatives see supporting any immigration reform that includes any type of "amnesty" as political suicide.  Not only will it alienate more conservative voters, but it would only eventually add to the number of voters who support Democrats, as the undocumented aliens are overwhelmingly Latino.  Should the undocumented eventually become citizens, then the number of Latino voters will rise.  Given the huge majorities which Latinos gave the President in 2012, conservatives believe that adding so many Latino voters to the rolls will relegate the Republicans to a permanent minority party.

Democrats Couldn't Care Less if Immigration Reform Actually Passes

Meanwhile, Democrats are in no hurry to have immigration reform actually become law.  The reason is that it continues to give Democrats a political issue to bash Republicans over the head with in national elections.  Democrats can easily be seen as supporting immigration reform by pushing for legislation.  But, if the Republicans continue to oppose reform, Democrats can point the finger at the GOP and continue to use the issue to garner Latino and Asian support.

So Long as Republicans Have Legislative Power, Immigration Reform Remains in Doubt

The last time that immigration reform came close to passage, it was in 2006, when Republican George Bush was president, and the Republicans controlled both houses of Congress.  The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 included a guest worker program and a pathway to citizenship.  If Republicans really intended to pass reform, they had the political power to do so.  However, reform died in December of 2006, in the lame duck session, as many Republicans who has previously supported reform turned on the bill, in the wake of the Republicans 2006 electoral defeat.

Similar to the current political climate, conservatives who opposed reform gained momentum and worked to block passage.

Will Some Kind of Immigration Reform Pass this Year?

 There are certainly some optimists left in Washington on immigration reform.  Chuck Schumer has proposed, for example, enacting the legislation now, but delaying implementation until 2017.  The conventional wisdom, however, is that the prospects of passage is less than 50-50.  Considering that the 2016 presidential elections are on the horizon, if reform does not pass this year, it may be doubtful that it will pass until a new person is sworn in as Commander-in-Chief.  At this point, neither party appears eager to push for a quick resolution.

William J. Kovatch, Jr.
for an appointment, call (703) 837-8832
wkovatch@kovatchlegalservices.com