Gary Sargent posts on The Plum Line about how Democrats should negotiate the shutdown with President Trump, and one of his points is inadequately developed:
[Customs and Border Protection commissioner Kevin] McAleenan also said something else on ABC that hints at how Democrats should proceed. He repeatedly stressed that increased economic development aid to the Northern Triangle countries, something the State Department is advocating, would help mitigate the migrant crisis, since many asylum seekers are motivated by desperate poverty at home.
This puts him at odds with Trump’s threats to cut off aid to those countries — and more deeply, is premised on a completely different narrative of the crisis than the falsehood-riddled cartoon version that Trump has adopted as part of his wall push. Getting officials on the record in more detail on these deeper differences would also be useful.
I’ve posted about the short-sightedness of putting up a wall vs investigating why people are abandoning their countries in droves[1], and it’s good to see that some government agencies have looked into this angle, even if it’s only to send aid.
But it seems to me that Sargent misses a bet here, because he doesn’t suggest that Democrats should incorporate these findings directly into negotiations. That is, I think the next proposal from the Democrats should simply be this:
You get no money for your wall. However, we’ll add $10 billion in aid to the countries from which the immigrants are coming.
And their messaging should emphasize how this will theoretically slow the flow of emigrants.
This will put Trump in a bind, because it’s an eminently sensible, if possibly fruitless, idea that’ll appeal to the left and independents, but the lack of money for the wall will appall President Trump’s handlers at Fox News, as well as his base. If Trump has any ambition for the next two years, not to mention for re-election, he has to appeal to voters beyond his base.
But if he does, his base will hate him.
1 I cannot think of how to search for those posts at the moment, unfortunately. Bad blogger! The primary point of those posts is that the economic / political activities of the United States, such as subsidizing the export of foodstuffs to those countries, may be ultimately responsible for the movement of these people towards our borders.
