There’s a longstanding tradition in America that politicians refrain from making news on Easter Sunday, but President Donald Trump doesn’t care much about longstanding traditions. He “tweeted” an all-caps but otherwise fairly traditional happy Easter greeting to the country, but while his many evangelical Christian supporters were celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus, Trump was “tweeting” disparaging remarks about Democrats and threatening to deport all the so-called “dreamers” and tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement.
By now it’s well known that Trump does not like being upstaged, and has a tendency to fire subordinates who wind up on magazine covers, which does not bode well for current Time Magazine cover boy Attorney General Jeff Sessions, but trying to steal the spotlight from The Savior on Easter Sunday strikes us as especially Trumpian. The blasphemy aside, it seems another case of Trump wading into a fight chin first.
Those so-called “dreamers” are so called because of the acronym of the failed legislation that President Barack Obama pretty much enacted by executive fiat with his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which deferred any deportation actions for any illegal immigrants who had arrived here through no fault of their own as children, and it’s one of those very thorny and hot-button issues best left to the Monday after Easter Sunday. Trump got a head start on the conversation by “tweeting” about the “ridiculous liberal (Democrat) laws” impeding border enforcement, and ominously warning the situation was “getting worse. ‘Caravans’ coming. Republicans must go to Nuclear Option to pass tough laws NOW. NO MORE DACA DEAL!”
The bad timing aside, Trump is making some losing arguments. Despite a recent uptick in his approval ratings Trump still polls worse than those telegenic “dreamers,” many of whom are undeniably sympathetic and stellar semi-citizens, and tear-jerking footage of their forcible removal from the only land they’ve ever known will be hard to “tweet” away. Trump is convinced he can successfully convince enough voters it was the Democrats’ fault, as it wouldn’t have happened if they’d only given him enough money to build a wall along the entire Mexican border, which he’d repeatedly promised Mexico would pay for, but it’s going to be a hard sell in Latino-heavy districts and elsewhere.
Those darned Democrats do indeed have some damned dumb ideas about border enforcement, but it’s hard to explain that in “tweet”-sized characters, no matter how many capitalizations and exclamation marks you use. It’s an argument best made calmly, without racial animus, and in parseable sentences, but that’s another thing Trump doesn’t do. The report of “caravans” of illegal immigrants heading to our southern border apparently came shortly after the Fox News network reported, and although it might prove true we’d prefer the president was checking with his own intelligence agencies.
That disquieting Easter “tweet” about the Nuclear Option is another idea that might not work out for Trump. The Senate’s longstanding tradition of requiring a 60-vote supermajority for certain legislation has historically come in quite handy for both parties over the years they’ve been in the minority, and given the Republicans’ already razor-thin 51-to-49 advantage it’s well within the realm of possibility they’ll once again be needing that filibuster power within a year.
Holy Week is now officially over, and we’re back in the secular world, where Trump hogs the spotlight. We don’t envy him the role.
— Bud Norman
The Central Standard Times 